CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1692.J3 
 
 Janice Meredith 
 
 a story of the American 
 
 3 1924 021 991 553 
 
 RESERVE FALL 1975 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 924021 991 553 
 
yanice Meredith 
 
 A STORY OF THE AMER- 
 ICAN REVOLUTION 
 
 By 
 PAUL LEICESTER FORD 
 
 Author of " The Honorable Peter Stirling," " The 
 Story of an Untold Love," " The Many-Sided 
 Franklin," " The True George Washington," etc. 
 
 -"^^ '^ 
 
 NEW YORK'- DOBD.^MEAB 
 AND COMPJNT • MDcCCxcix^' 
 
 a^ 
 
Copyright, i8gg 
 By Paul Leicester Ford 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
TO 
 
 GEORGE W. FANDERBILT 
 
 My dear George, 
 
 Into the warp and woof of every hook an author weaves 
 much that even the subtlest readers cannot suspect, far less 
 discern. To them it is but a cross and pile of threads inter- 
 laced to form a pattern which may please or displease their 
 taste. But to the writer every filament has its own asso- 
 ciation : How each bit of silk or wool, flax or tow, was 
 laboriously gathered, or was blown to him ; when each was 
 spun by the wheel of his fancy into yarns ; the colour and tint 
 his imagination gave to each skein ; and where each was 
 finally woven into the fabric by the shuttle of his pen. No 
 thread ever quite detaches itself from its growth and spin- 
 ning, dyeing and weaving, and each draws him back to hours 
 and places seemingly unrelated to the work. 
 
 And so, as I have read the proofs of this hook I have 
 found more than once that the pages have faded out of sight 
 and in their stead I have seen Mount Pisgah and the French 
 Broad River., or the ramp and terrace of Biltmore House, 
 just as I saw them when writing the words which served 
 to recall them to me. With the visions, too, has come a 
 recurrence to our long talks, our work among the books, our 
 games of chess, our cups of tea, our walks, our rides, and our 
 drives. It is therefore a pleasure to me that the book so 
 naturally gravitates to you, and that I may make it a re- 
 membrance of those past weeks of companionship, and an 
 tarnest of the present affection of 
 
 PAUL LEICESTER FORD. 
 
Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. A Heroine of Many Possibilities .... i 
 
 II. The Prince from over the Seas .... 8 
 
 III. Miss Meredith Discovers a Villain ... 15 
 
 IV. An Apple of Discord 22 
 
 V. The Value of Hair 30 
 
 VI. Men are Deceivers ever 35 
 
 VII. Spider and Fly • . 43 
 
 VIII. Several Burning Questions 49 
 
 IX. Paradise and Elsewhere SJ 
 
 X. A Colonial Christmas 6i 
 
 XI. " 'T is an III Wind that blows Nobody 
 
 Good" 68 
 
 Xll. A Babe in the Wood 7; 
 
 XIII. The World in Miniature 82 
 
 XIV. A Question concerning Thalia 89 
 
 XV. Questions of Delicacy 96 
 
 XVI. A Variety of Contracts 103 
 
 XVII. In the Name of Liberty no 
 
 XVIII. Figureheads and Leaders 118 
 
 XIX. Spies and Counter-Spies 125 
 
 XX. The Logic of Honoured Parents and Duti- 
 ful Children 133 
 
 XXI. A Sudden Scarcity of Beaux 141 
 
 XXII. The Olive Branch 146 
 
 XXIII. Headquarters in 1776 iJ4 
 
viii Contents 
 
 Chapter Pa™ 
 
 XXIV. The Value of a Friend 163 
 
 XXV. Freedom in Retrograde , 170 
 
 XXVI. Necessity knows no Laws 178 
 
 XXVII. A Check to the Enemy 186 
 
 XXVIII. The Ebb-Tide 196 
 
 XXIX. On Continental Service 206 
 
 XXX. Some Doings by Stealth 215 
 
 XXXI. An Exchange of Prisoners 223 
 
 XXXII. Under Durance 231 
 
 XXXIII. Another Christmas Party 239 
 
 XXXIV. Holiday Week at Trenton 247 
 
 XXXV. The " Stole Away " 256 
 
 XXXVI. Betwixt Millstones 265 
 
 XXXVII. Blues and Reds 272 
 
 XXXVIII. Black and White 282 
 
 XXXIX. Short Commons 293 
 
 XL. The Battle for Food and Forage . . 304 
 
 XLI. Winter Quarters '313 
 
 XLII. Barter and Sale 326 
 
 XLIII. A Choice of Evils 334 
 
 XLIV. A Cartel of Exchange 341 
 
 XLV. In the Jaws of the Lion 349 
 
 XLVI. The Farewell to Howe 358 
 
 XLVII. The Evacuation 367 
 
 XLVIII. A Time of Terror 375 
 
 XLIX. Plato vs. Cupid 384 
 
 L. Roses and Honeysuckle 394 
 
 LI. A Farewell and a Welcome 402 
 
 LI I. Scant Welcome for Man and Beast . .411 
 
 LIII. Under Shadow of the Gallows . . . 419 
 
 LIV. A Gain and a Loss 426 
 
 LV. Prisoners of War 433 
 
 LVI. A Life of Captivity 441 
 
 LVII. A Paper Money and Militia War . . 449 
 
Contents ix 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 LVIII. From Blue Ridge to Tide Water .... 455 
 
 LIX. Traitors in the Rear 465 
 
 LX. The Spinning of the Web 473 
 
 LXI. In the Toils 483 
 
 LXII. Within the Lines 495 
 
 LXIII. On Brunswick Green 507 
 
 LXIV. A Settling of Old Scores 519 
 
 LXV. Peace in Sight 526 
 
JANICE MEREDITH 
 
 A Story of the Revolution 
 I 
 
 A HEROINE OF MANY POSSIBILITIES 
 
 " yMLONZO now once more found himself upon an element 
 
 J-M that had twice proved destructive to his happiness, but 
 
 .X J- Neptune was propitious, and with gentle breezes wafted 
 
 him toward his haven of bliss, toward Amaryllis. 
 
 Alas, when but one day from happiness, a Moorish zebec — " 
 
 " Janice ! " called a voice. 
 
 The effect on the reader and her listener, both of whom 
 were sitting on the floor, was instantaneous. Each started and 
 sat rigidly intent for a moment ; then, as the sound of approach- 
 ing footsteps became audible, one girl hastily slipped a litde 
 volume under the counterpane of the bed, while the other 
 sprang to her feet, and in a hurried, flustered way pretended 
 to be getting something out of a tall wardrobe. 
 
 Before the one who hid the book had time to rise, a woman 
 of fifty entered the room, and after a glance, cried : — 
 
 " Janice Meredith ! How often have I told thee that it is 
 ungenteel for a female to repose on the floor ? " 
 
 "Very often, mommy," said Janice, rising meekly, meantime 
 casting a quick glance at the bed, to see how far its smoothness 
 had been disturbed. 
 
 " And still thee continues such unbecoming and vastly indeli- 
 cate behaviour." 
 
 " Oh, mommy, but it is so nice ! " cried the girl. " Did n't 
 you like to sit on the floor when you were fifteen? " 
 
2 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Janice, thou 't more careless every day in bed-making," 
 ejaculated Mrs. Meredith, making a sudden dive toward the 
 bed, as if she desired to escape the question. She smoothed 
 the gay patchwork quilt, seemed to feel something underneath, 
 and the next moment pulled out the hidden volume, which was 
 bound, as the bookseller's advertisements phrased it, in " half 
 calf, neat, marbled sides." One stern glance she gave the two 
 red-faced culprits, and, opening the book, read out in a voice 
 that was in itself an impeachment, " The Adventures of Alonzo 
 and Amaryllis ! " 
 
 There was an instant's silence, full of omen to the culprits, 
 and then Mrs. Meredith's wrath found vent. 
 
 " Janice Meredith ! " she cried. " On a Sabbath morning, 
 when thee shouldst be setting thy thoughts in a fit order for 
 church ! And thou, Tabitha Drinker ! " 
 
 " It 's all my fault, Mrs. Meredith," hurriedly asserted Tabitha. 
 " I brought the book with me from Trenton, and 't was I sug- 
 gested that we go on reading this morning." 
 
 "Six hours of spinet practice thou shalt have to-morrow, 
 miss," announced Mrs. Meredith to her daughter, "and this 
 afternoon thou shalt say over the whole catechism. As for 
 thee, Tabitha, I shall feel it my duty to write thy father of his 
 daughter's conduct. Now hurry and make ready for church." 
 And Mrs. Meredith started to leave the room. 
 
 " Oh, mommy," cried Janice, springing forward and laying a 
 •detaining hand on her mother's arm in an imploring manner, 
 " punish me as much as you please, — I know 't was very, 
 very wicked, — but don't take the book away ! He and 
 Amaryllis were just — " 
 
 " Not another sight shalt thou have of it, miss. My daughter 
 reading novels, indeed ! " and Mrs. Meredith departed, holding 
 the evil book gingerly between her fingers, much as one miglit 
 carry something that was liable to soil one's hands. 
 
 The two girls looked at each other, Tabitha with a woebe- 
 gone expression, and Janice with an odd one, which might 
 mean many things. The flushed cheeks were perhaps due to 
 guilt, but the tightly clinched little fists were certainly due to 
 Anger, and, noting these two only, one would have safely 
 •affirmed that Janice Meredith, meekly as she had taken her 
 
A Heroine of Many Possibilities 3 
 
 mother's scolding, had a quick and hot temper. But the eyes 
 were fairly starry with some emotion, certainly not anger, and 
 though the lips were pressed tightly together, the feeling that 
 had set them so rigidly was but a passing one, for suddenly the 
 corners twitched, the straight lines bent into curves, and fling- 
 ing herself upon the tall four-poster bedstead, Miss Meredith 
 laughed as only fifteen can laugh. 
 
 " Oh, Tibbie, Tibbie," she presently managed to articulate, 
 " if you look like that I shall die," and as the god of Momus 
 once more seized her, she dragged the quilt into a rumpled 
 pile, and buried her face in it, as if indeed attempting to sufib- 
 cate herself. 
 
 "But, Janice, to think that we shall never know how it 
 ended ! I could n't sleep last night for hours, because I was 
 so afraid that Amaryllis would n't have the opportunity to vin- 
 dicate herself to — and 't would have been finished in another 
 day." 
 
 "And a proper punishment for naughty Tibbie Drinker it 
 is," declared Miss Meredith, sitting up and assuming a judi- 
 cially severe manner. " What do you mean, miss, by tempting 
 good little Janice Meredith into reading a wicked romance on 
 Sunday ? " 
 
 " ' Good little Janice ! ' " cried Tibbie, contemptuously. " I 
 could slap thee for that." But instead she threw her arms 
 about Janice's neck and kissed her with such rapture and energy 
 as to overbalance the judge from an upright position, and the 
 two rolled over upon the bed laughing with anything but dis- 
 cretion, considering the nearness of their mentor* As a result 
 a voice from a distance called sharply : — ., 
 
 "Janice!" 
 
 " O gemini ! " cried the owner of that name, springing off 
 the bed and beginning to unfasten her gown, — an example 
 promptly . followed by her room-mate. 
 
 "Art thou dressing, child?" called the voice, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Yes, mommy," answered Janice. Then she turned to her 
 friend and asked, "Shall I wear my light chintz and kenton 
 kerchief, or my purple and white striped Persian ? " 
 
 " Sufficiently smart for a country lass, Jan," cried her friend. 
 
4 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Don't call me country bred, Tibbie Drinker, just because 
 you are a modish city girl." 
 
 " And why not thy blue shalloon ? " 
 
 " 'T is vastly unbecoming." 
 
 "Janice Meredith ! Can't thee let the men alone ? " 
 
 " I will when they will," airily laughed the girl. 
 
 " Do unto others — " quoted Tabitha. 
 
 " Then I will when thee sets me an example," retorted Janice, 
 making a deep curtsey, the absence of drapery and bodice 
 reveahng the straightness and suppleness of the slender rounded 
 figure, which still had as much of the child as of the woman in 
 its lines. 
 
 " Little thought they get from me," cried Tabitha, with a 
 toss of her head. 
 
 " ' Tell me where is fancy bred, 
 In the heart or in the head ? ' " 
 
 hummed Janice. " Of course, one does n't think about men, 
 Mistress Tabitha. One feels." Which remark showed percep- 
 tion of a feminine truth far in advance of Miss Meredith's years. 
 
 " Unfeeling Janice ! " 
 
 " 'T is a good thing for the oafs and ploughboys of Bruns- 
 wick. For there are none better." 
 
 " Philemon Hennion? " 
 
 " ' Your servant, marms,' " mimicked Janice, catching up a 
 hair brush and taking it from her head as if it were a hat, while 
 making a bow with her feet widely spread. " ' Having nothing 
 better ter do, I 've made bold ter come over ter drink a dish of 
 tea with you.' " The girl put the brush under her arm, still 
 further spread her feet, put her hands behind some pretended 
 coat-tails, let the brush slip from under her arms, so that it fell 
 to the floor with a racket, stooped with an affectation of clum- 
 siness which seemed impossible to the lithe figure, while 
 mumbling something inarticulate in an apparent paroxysm of 
 embarrassment, — which quickly became a genuine inability to 
 speak from laughter. 
 
 " Janice, thee should turn actress." 
 
 " Oh, Tibbie, lace my bodice quickly, or I shall burst of 
 laughing," breathlessly begged the girl. 
 
A Heroine of Many Possibilities 5 
 
 "Janice," said her mother, entering, "how often must I tell 
 thee that giggling is missish? Stop, this moment." 
 
 "Yes, mommy," gasped Janice. Then she added, after a 
 shriek and a wriggle, " Don't, Tabitha ! " 
 
 " What ails thee now, child? Art going to have an attack of 
 the megrims ? " 
 
 " When Tibbie laces me up she always tickles me, because 
 she knows I 'm dreadfully ticklish." 
 
 "I can't ever make the edges ot the bodice meet, so I 
 tickle to make her squirm," explained Miss Drinker. 
 
 "Go on with thy own dressing, Tabitha," ordered Mrs. 
 Meredith, taking the strings from her hand. " Now breathe 
 out, Janice." 
 
 Miss Meredith drew a long breath, and then expelled it, 
 instant advantage being taken by her mother to strain the 
 strings. " Again," she said, holding all that had been gained, 
 and the operation was repeated, this time the edges of the 
 frock meeting across the back. 
 
 " It hurts," complained the owner of the waist, panting, while 
 the upper part of her bust rose and fell rapidly in an attempt 
 to make up for the crushing of the lower lungs. 
 
 " I lose all patience with thee, Janice," cried her mother. 
 " Here when thou hast been given by Providence a waist that 
 would be the envy of any York woman, that thou shouldst 
 object to clothes made to set it off to a proper advan- 
 tage." 
 
 "It hurts all the same," reiterated Janice; "and last year I 
 could beat Jacky Whitehead, but now when I try to run in my 
 new frocks I come nigh to dying of breathlessness." 
 
 " I should hope so ! " exclaimed her mother. " A female 
 of fifteen run with a boy, indeed ! The very idea is indelicate. 
 Now, as soon as thou hast put on thy slippers and goloe-shoes, 
 go to thy father, who has been told of thy misbehaviour, and 
 who will reprove thee for it." And with this last damper on 
 the "lightness of youpg people," as Mrs. Meredith phrased it, 
 she once more left the room. It is a regrettable fact that 
 Miss Janice, who had looked the picture of submission as her 
 mother spoke, made a mouth, which was far from respectful, 
 at the departing figure. 
 
6 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Oh, Janice," said Tabitha, " will he be very severe? " 
 
 " Severe? " laughed Janice. " If dear dadda is really angry, 
 I '11 let tears come into my eyes, and then he '11 say he 's sorry 
 he hurt my feelings, and kiss me ; but if he 's only doing it to 
 please mommy, I '11 let my eyes shine, and then he '11 laugh 
 and tell me to kiss him. Oh, Tibbie, what a nice time we could 
 have if women were only as easy to manage as men ! " With 
 this parting regret. Miss Meredith sallied forth to receive the 
 expected reproof. 
 
 The lecture or kiss received, — and a sight of Miss Mere- 
 dith would have led the casual observer to opine that the latter 
 was the form of punishment adopted, — the two girls mounted 
 into the big, lumbering coach along with their elders, and were 
 jolted and shaken over the four miles of ill-made road that 
 separated Greenwood, the " seat," as the " New York Gazette " 
 termed it, of the Honourable Lambert Meredith, from the vil- 
 lage of Brunswick, New Jersey. Either this shaking, or some- 
 thing else, put the two maidens in a mood quite unbefitting the 
 day, for in the moment they tarried outside the church while the 
 coach was being placed in the shed, Miss Drinker's face was 
 frowning, and once again Miss Meredith's nails were dug deep 
 into the little palms of her hands. 
 
 " Yes," Janice whispered. " She put it in the fire, Dadda 
 saw her.'' 
 
 " And we '11 never know if Amaryllis explained that she had 
 ever loved him," groaned Tabitha. 
 
 " If ever I get the chance ! " remarked Janice, suggest^ely. 
 
 "Oh, Jan!" cried Tabitha, ecstatically. "Wouldn't it be 
 delightsome to be loved by a peasant, and to find he was a 
 prince and that he had disguised himself to test thy love ? " 
 
 " 'T would be better fun to know he was a prince and tor- 
 ture him by pretending you did n't care for him," replied 
 Janice. " Men are so teasable." 
 
 " There 's Philemon Hennion doffing his hat to us, Jan." 
 
 " The great big gawk ! " exclaimed Janice. " Does he want 
 another dish of tea? " A question which set both girls laughing. 
 
 " Janice ! Tabitha ! " rebuked Mrs. Meredith. " Don't be 
 flippant on the Sabbath." 
 
 The two faces assumed deraureness, and, filing into the Pres- 
 
A Heroine of Many Possibilities 7 
 
 byterian meeting-house, their owners apparently gave strict heed 
 to a sermon of the Rev. Alexander McClave, which was later 
 issued from the press of Isaac Collins, at Burlington, under the 
 title of: — 
 
 " The Doleful State of the Damned, Especially such as go to 
 Hell from under the Gospel." 
 
11 
 
 THE PRINCE FROM OVER THE SEAS 
 
 ACROSS the water sounded the bells of Christ Church 
 as the anchor of the brig " Boscawen," ninety days 
 out from Cork Harbour, fell with a splash into the 
 Delaware River in the fifteenth year of the reign of 
 George III., and of grace, 1 774. To those on board, the chimes 
 brought the first intimation that it was Sunday, for three months 
 at, sea with nothing to mark one day from another deranges the 
 calendar of all but the most heedful. Among the uncouth and 
 ill-garbed crowd that pressed against the waist-boards of the 
 brig, looking with curious eyes toward Philadelphia, several, as 
 the sound of the bells was heard, might have been observed 
 to cross themselves, while one or two of the women began to 
 tell their beads, praying perhaps that the breadth of the just- 
 crossed Atlantic lay between them and the privation and want 
 which had forced emigration upon them, but more likely 
 giving thanks that the dangers and suffering of the voyage 
 were over. » 
 
 Scarcely had the anchor splashed, and before the circling 
 ripples it started had spread a hundred feet, when a small boat 
 pat off from one of the wharfs lining the water front of the 
 city, with the newly arrived ship as an evident destination ; and 
 the brig had barely swung to the current when the hoarse voice 
 of the mate was heard ordering the ladder over the side. The 
 preparation to receive the boat drew the attention of the crowd, 
 and they stared at its occupants with an intentness which im- 
 plied some deeper interest than mere curiosity ; low words were 
 exchanged, and some of the poor frightened creatures seemed 
 to take on a greater cringe. 
 
 Seated in the sternsheets of the approaching boat was a 
 
The Prince from over the Seas 9 
 
 plainly dressed man, whose appearance so bespoke the mercan- 
 tile class that it hardly needed the doffing of the captain's cap 
 and his obsequious " your servant, Mr. Cauldwell, and good 
 health to you/' as the man clambered on board, to announce 
 the owner of the ship. To the ethigrants this sudden deference 
 was a revelation concerning the cruel and oath-using tyrant at 
 whose mercy they had been during the weary weeks at sea. 
 
 "A long voyage ye've made of it, Captain Caine," said the 
 merchant. 
 
 " Ay, sir," answered the captain. "Another ten days would 
 have put us short of water, and — " 
 
 " But not of rum ? Eh ? " interrupted Cauldwell. 
 
 "As for that," replied the captain, " there 's a bottle or two 
 that 's rolled itself till 't is cruelty not to drink it, and if you '11 test 
 a noggin in the cabin while taking a look at the manifests — " 
 
 " Well answered," cried the merchant, adding, " I see ye set 
 deep." 
 
 "Ay," said the captain as they went toward the companion- 
 way ; " too deep for speed or safety, but the factors care little 
 for sailors' lives." 
 
 " And a deep ship makes a deep purse." 
 
 "Or a deep grave." 
 
 " Wouldst die ashore, man ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! " ejaculated the mariner, in a frightened voice. 
 " I 've had my share of ill-luck without lying in the cold 
 ground. The very thought goes through me like a dash of 
 spray in a winter v'y'ge." He stamped with his foot and 
 roared out, " Forrard there : Two glasses and a dipper from 
 the rundlet," at the same time opening a locker and taking 
 therefrom a squat bottle. " 'T is enough to make a man bowse 
 himself kissing black Betty to think of being under ground." 
 He held the black bottle firmly, as if it were in fact a sailor's 
 life preserver from such a fate, and hastened, so soon as the 
 cabin-boy appeared with the glasses and dipper, to mix two 
 glasses of rum and water. Setting these on the table, he took 
 from the locker a bundle of papers, and handed it to the 
 merchant. 
 
 Twenty minutes were spent on the clearances and manifests, 
 and then Mr. Cauldwell opened yet another paper. 
 
lo Janice Meredith 
 
 " Sixty-two in all," he said, with a certain satisfaction in his 
 voice. 
 
 " Sixty-three," corrected the captain. 
 
 " Not by the list," denied the merchant. 
 
 " Sixty-two from Cork Harbour, but we took one aboard ship 
 at Bristol," explained the captain. 
 
 " Ye must pack them close between decks." 
 
 " Ay. The shoats in the long boat had more room. Mr. 
 Bull-dog would none of it, but slept on deck the whole v'y'ge." 
 
 "Mr. Bull-dog?" queried Cauldwell. 
 
 " The one your factor shipped at Bristol," explained Caine, 
 and running over the bundle, he spread before the merchant the 
 following paper : — 
 
 This Indenture, Made the Tenth Day of March in the 
 fifteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the 
 third King of Great Britain, etc. And in the Year of our Lord 
 One Thousand Seven Hundred and seventy four. Between 
 Charles Fownes of Bath in the County of Somerset Labourer of 
 the one Part, and Frederick Caine of Bristol Mariner of the 
 other part Witnesseth That the said Charles Fownes for the 
 Consideration hereinafter mentioned, hath, and by these Presents 
 doth Covenant, Grant and Agree to, and with the said Frederick 
 Caine, his Executors, Administrators and Assigns, That the said 
 Charles Fownes shall and will, as a Faithful Covenant Servant 
 well and truly serve said Frederick Caine his Executors, 
 Administrators or Assigns, in the Plantations of Pennsylvania 
 and New Jersey beyond the Seas, for the space of five years next 
 ensuing the Arrival in the said Plantation, in the Employment 
 of a servant. And the said Charles Fownes doth hereby 
 Covenant and declare himself, now to be of the age of Twenty- 
 one Years and no Covenant or Contract Servant to any Person 
 or Persons. And the said Frederick Caine for himself his 
 Executors, and Assigns, in Consideration thereof do hereby Cov- 
 enant, Promise and Agree to and with the said Charles Fownes 
 his Executors and Administrators, that he the said Frederick 
 Caine his Executors, Administrators or Assigns, shall and will 
 at his or their own proper Cost and Charges, with what Con- 
 venient Speed they may, carry and co?ivey or cause to be carried 
 
The Prince from over the Seas 1 1 
 
 and conveyed over unto the said Plantations, the said Charles 
 Fownes and also during the said Term, shall and will at the 
 like Cost and Charges, provide and allow the said Charles 
 Fownes all necessary Cloaths, Meat, Drink, Washing, and 
 Lodging, and Fitti?ig and Convenient for him as Covenant 
 Servants in such Cases are usually provided for and allowed. 
 And for the true Performance of the Premises, the said Parties 
 to these Presents, bind themselves their Executors and Adminis- 
 trators, the either to the other, in the Penal Sum of Thirty 
 Pounds Sterling, by these Presents. In Witness whereof they 
 have hereunto interchangeably set their Hands and Seals, the 
 Day and Year above written. 
 
 The mark of 
 Charles X Fownes [Seal]. 
 
 Sealed and delivered in 
 the presence of 
 
 J. Pattison, C. Capon. 
 
 These are to certify that the above-named Charles Fownes 
 came before me ■ Thomas Pattison Deputy to the Patentee at 
 Bristol the Day and Year above written, and declared himself 
 to be no Covenant nor Contracted Servant to any Person or 
 Persons, to be of the Age of Twenty-one Years, not kidnapped not 
 enticed, but desirous to serve the above-named or his assigns five 
 Years, according to the Tenor of his Indenture above written. 
 All of which is Registered in the office for that Purpose appointed 
 by the Letters Patents. In witness whereof I have affixed the 
 common Seal of the said office. 
 
 Thomas Pattison, D. P. 
 
 " And why Mr. Bull-dog ? " asked Cauldwell, after a glance 
 at the paper. 
 
 " By the airs he takes. Odd's life ! if we 'd had the Duke of 
 Cumberland aboard, he 'd not have carried himself the stifTer. 
 From the day we shipped him, not so much as a word has he 
 passed with one of us, save to threat Mr. Higgins' life, when he 
 knocked him down with a belaying pin for his da — for his 
 impertinence. And he nothing but an indentured servant not 
 able to write his name and like as not with a sheriff at his 
 
1 2 Janice Meredith 
 
 heels." The captain's sudden volubility could mean either dis- 
 like or mere curiosity. 
 
 " Dost think he 's of the wrong colour? " asked the merchant, 
 looking with more interest at the covenant. 
 
 " 'T is the dev — 't is beyond me to say what he is. A good 
 man at the ropes, but a da — a Dutchman for company. 
 'T wixt he and the bog-trotters we shipped at Cork Harbour 
 'twas the dev — 'twas the scuttiest lot I ever took aboard ship." 
 The rum was getting into the captain's tongue, and making his 
 usual vocabulary difficult to keep under. 
 
 " Have ye no artisans among the Irish? " 
 
 " Not so much as one who knows the differ between his two 
 hands." 
 
 " 'T is too bad of Gorman not to pick better," growled the 
 merchant. " There 's a great demand for Western settlers, and 
 Mr. Lambert Meredith writes me to pick him up a good man at 
 horses and gardening, without stinting the price. 'T would be 
 something to me to oblige him." 
 
 " 'Tis a parcel of raw teagues except for the Bristol man." 
 
 " And ye think he 's of the light-fingered gentry? " 
 
 " As for that," said the captain, " I know nothing about him. 
 But he came to your factor and wanted to take the first ship 
 that cleared, and seemed in such a mortal pother that Mr. 
 Horsley suspicioned something, and gave me a slant to look 
 out for him. And all the time we lay off Bristol, my fine fellow 
 kept himself well out of sight." 
 
 " Come," said the merchant, rising, " we '11 have a look at him. 
 Mr. Meredith is not a man to be disappointed if it can be 
 avoided." 
 
 Once on deck the captain led the way to the forepart of the 
 ship, where, standing by himself, and, like the other emigrants, 
 looking over the rail, but, unlike them, looking not at the city, 
 but at the water, stood a fellow of a little over medium height, 
 with broad shoulders and a well-shaped back, despite the ill 
 form his ragged coat tried to give it. At a slap on the shoulder 
 he turned about, showing to the merchant a ruddy, sea-tanned 
 skin, light brown hair, gray eyes, and a chin and mouth hidden 
 by a two months' beard, still too bristly to give him other than 
 an unkempt, boorish look. 
 
The Prince from over the Seas i 3 
 
 " Here 's the rogue," announced the captain, with a sugges- 
 tion of challenge in the speech, as if he would like to have the 
 epithet resented. But the man only regarded the officer with 
 steady, inexpressive eyes. 
 
 " Now, my good fellow," asked the merchant, " to what kind 
 of work have ye been bred ? " 
 
 The steady gray eyes were turned deliberately from the cap- 
 tain until the questioner was within their vision. Then, after a 
 moment's scrutiny of his face, they were slowly dropped so as 
 to take in the merchant from head to foot. Finally they came 
 back to the face again, and once more studied it with intent- 
 ness, though apparently without the slightest interest. 
 
 " Come," said the merchant a little heatedly, and flushing at 
 the man's coolness. " Answer me. Are ye used to horses and 
 gardening ? " 
 
 As if he had not heard the question, the man turned, and 
 resumed his staring at the water. 
 
 " None of your damned impertinence ! " roared the captain, 
 catching up the free part of a halyard coiled on the deck, " or 
 I '11 give you a taste of the rope's end." 
 
 The young fellow faced about in sudden passion, which 
 strangely altered him. " Strike me at your peril ! " he chal- 
 lenged, his arm drawn back, and fist clinched for a blow. 
 
 " None but a jail-bird would be so afraid of telling about 
 himself," cried the captain, though ceasing to threaten. " The 
 best thing you can do will be to turn the cursed son of a sea 
 cook over to the authorities, Mr. Cauldwell." 
 
 " Look ye, my man," warned the merchant, " ye only bring 
 suspicion on yourself by such conduct, and ye know best how 
 far ye want to have your past searched into — " 
 
 The man interrupted the merchant. 
 
 " Ar bain't much usen to gardening, but ar knows — " he 
 hesitated for a moment and then went on, " but ar bai willin' 
 to work." 
 
 " Ay," bawled the captain. " Fear of the courts has made 
 him find his tongue." 
 
 "Well," remarked the merchant, "'tis not for my interest 
 to look too closely at a man I have for sale." Then, as he 
 walked away with the captain, he continued : " Many a convict 
 
14 Janice Meredith 
 
 or fugitive has come to the straightabout out here, but hang me 
 if I like his looks or his manner. However, Mr. Meredith 
 knows the pot-luck of redemptioners as well as I, and he can 
 say nay if he chooses." He stopped and eyed the group of 
 emigrants sourly, saying, " I '11 let Gorman hear what I think 
 of his shipment. He knows I don't want mere bog cattle." 
 
 " 'T is a poor consignment that can't be bettered in the ad- 
 vertisement," comforted the captain, and apparently he spoke 
 truly, for in the " Pennsylvania Gazette " of September 7th ap- 
 peared the following : — 
 
 " yust arrived on board the brig ' £osca7Cien' Alexander 
 Caine, Master from Ireland, a number of likely, healthy, men 
 and women Servants; among whom are Taylors, Barbers, 
 Joiners, Weavers, Shoemakers, Sewers, Labourers, etc., etc., 
 whose indentures are to be disposed of by Cauldwell df Wilson, 
 or the master on board the Vessel off Market Street Wharff— 
 Said Cauldwell &' Wilson will give the highest prices for good 
 Fot- Ashes and Bees- Wax" 
 
Ill 
 
 MISS MEREDITH DISCOVERS A VILLAIN 
 
 BREAKFAST at Greenwood was a pleasant meal at a 
 pleasant hour. For some time previous to it, the family 
 were up and doing, Mr. Meredith riding over his farm 
 directing his labourers, Mrs. Meredith giving a like 
 supervision to her housekeeping, and Janice, attired in a wash 
 dress well covered by a vast apron, with the aid of her guest, 
 making the beds, tidying the parlour, and not unlikely mixing 
 cake or some dessert in the kitchen. Before the meal, Mr. Mer- 
 edith replaced his rough riding coat by one of broadcloth, with 
 lace ruffles, while the working gowns of the ladies were discarded 
 for others of silk, made, in the parlance of the time, " sack " 
 fashion, or without waist, and termed " an elegant n^gligie," — 
 this word being applied to any frock without lacing strings. 
 
 Thus clothed, they gathered at seven o'clock in the pleasant, 
 low-ceiled dining-room whose French windows, facing westward, 
 gave glimpses of the Raritan, over fields of stubble and corn- 
 stacks, broken by patches of timber and orchard. On the 
 table stood a tea service of silver, slender in outline, and curi- 
 ously light in weight, though generous in capacity. Otherwise, 
 a silver tankard for beer, standing at Mr. Meredith's place 
 beside a stone jug filled with home brew, balanced by another 
 jug filled witli buttermilk, was all that tended to decoration, the 
 knives and forks being of steel, and the china simplicity itself. 
 For the edibles, a couple of smoked herring, a comb of honey, 
 and a bunch of water-cress, re-enforced after the family had 
 taken their seats by a form of smoking cornbread, was the 
 isimple fare set forth. But the early rising, and two hours of 
 work, brought hunger to the table which required nothing more 
 elaborate as a fillip to tempt the appetite. 
 
 While the family still lingered over the meal one warm 
 
1 6 Janice Meredith 
 
 September morning, as if loth to make further exertion in the 
 growing heat, the sound of a knocker was heard, and a moment 
 later the coloured maid returned and announced : — 
 
 " Marse Hennion want see Marse Meredith." 
 
 " Bring him in here. Peg," said Mr. Meredith. " Like as not 
 fhe lad 's not breakfasted." 
 
 Janice hunched her shoulders and remarked, " Never fear 
 that Master Hennion is not hungry. He is like the roaring 
 lion, who 'walketh about seeking whom he may devour.' " 
 
 "Black shame on thee, Janice Meredith, for applying the. 
 Holy Word to carnal things," cried her mother. 
 
 " Then let me read novels," muttered Miss Meredith, but so 
 indistinctly as not to be understood. 
 
 " Be still, child ! " commanded her mother. 
 
 " And listen to Philemon glub-glub-bing over his victuals ? " 
 
 " Philemon is no pig," declared Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " No," assented Janice. " He 's too old for that," — a re- 
 mark which set Mr. Meredith off into an uproarious haw-haw. 
 
 "Lambert," protested his wife, "I lose patience with thee 
 for encouraging this stiff-necked and wayward girl, when she 
 should be thankful that Providence has made one man who 
 wants so saucy a Miss Prat-a-pace for a wife." 
 
 Miss Meredith, evidently encouraged by her father's humour, 
 made a mouth, and droned in a sing-song voice : " ' What doth 
 every sin deserve? Every sin deserveth God's wrath and 
 curse, both in this life and that which is to come.' " Such a 
 desecration of the Westminster Assembly of Divines' " Shorter 
 Catechism " would doubtless have produced further and severer 
 reproof from Mrs. Meredith, but the censure was prevented by 
 the clump of heavy boots, followed by the entrance of an over- 
 tall, loosely-built fellow of about eighteen years, whose clothes 
 rather hung about than fitted him. 
 
 " Your servant, marms," was his greeting, as he struggled to 
 make a bow. " Your servari*, squire. Mr. Hitchins, down ter 
 Trenton, where I went yester&'en with a bale of shearings, asked 
 me ter come araound your way with a letter an' a bond-servant 
 that come ter him on a hay-sloop from Philadelphia. So — " 
 
 " Having nothing better to do, you came ? " interrupted 
 Janice, with a gravely courteous manner. 
 
Miss Meredith Discovers a Villain 17 
 
 " That 's it, Miss Janice ; I 'm obleeged ter you for sayin' it 
 better nor I could," said the young fellow, gratefully, while 
 manifestly straining to get a letter from his pocket. 
 
 " Hast breakfasted, Phil? " asked the squire. 
 
 Producing the letter with terrible effort, and handing it to 
 Mr. Meredith, Hennion began, " As for that — " 
 
 Here Janice interrupted by saying, "You breakfasted in 
 Trenton — what a pity!" 
 
 "Janice!" snapped her mother, warningly. "Cease thy 
 clack and set a chair for Philemon this instant." 
 
 That individual tried to help the girl, but he was not quick 
 enough, except to get awkwardly in the way, and bring his 
 shins in sharp contact with the edge of the chair. Uttering an 
 exclamation of pain, he dropped his hat, — a proceeding which 
 set the two girls off into ill-suppressed giggles. But finally, 
 relieved of his tormenting head-gear, he was safely seated, and 
 Janice set the dishes in front of him, from all of which he 
 helped himself liberally. Meanwhile, the squire broke the 
 «eal of the letter and began to read it. 
 
 "Wilt have tea or home brew?" asked Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Beer for me, marra, thank you. An' I think it only kindly 
 ter say I've hearn talk concernin' your tea drinkin'." 
 
 "Let 'em talk," muttered the squire, angrily, looking up 
 from the letter. " 'T is nothing to me." 
 
 " But Joe Bagby says there 's a scheme ter git the committee 
 of Brunswick township ter take it up." 
 
 " Not they," fumed Mr. Meredith. " 'T is one thing to write 
 anonymous letters, but quite another matter to stand up and be 
 counted. As for that scamp Joe — " 
 
 " Anonymous letters ? " questioned Philemon. 
 
 " Ay," sputtered the squire, taking from his pocket a paper 
 which he at once crushed into a ball, and then as promptly 
 smoothed out again as a preliminary to handing it to the youth. 
 With difficulty, for the writing was bad, and the paper old and 
 dirty, Philemon read out the following : — 
 
 Mister Muridith, — 
 
 Noin" that agenst the centyments of younited Amurika you 
 still kontinyou to youse tea, thairfor, this is to worn you that 
 
1 8 Janice Meredith 
 
 we konsider you as an enemy of our kuntry, and if the same 
 praktises are kontinyoud, you will shortly receeve a visit from 
 the kommitty of Tar and Fethers, 
 
 Brunswick Township. 
 
 " The villains ! " cried Janice, flusliing. " Who can have 
 dared to send it?" 
 
 " One of my tenants, like as not," snapped the squire. 
 
 " They 'd never dare," asserted Janice. 
 
 "Dare! " cried the squire. "What daring does it take to 
 write unsigned threats and nail 'em at night on a door ? They 
 get more lawless every day, with their committees and town 
 meetings and mobs. 'Tis next to impossible to make 'em pay 
 their rents now, and to hear 'em talk ye 'd conclude that they 
 owned their farms and could not be turned off. A pretty state 
 of things when a man with twenty thousand acres under lease- 
 holds has to beg for his rentals, and then does n't get 'em." 
 
 " You 'd find it easier ter git your rents, squire, if you only 
 sided more with folks, an' wa'n't so stiff," suggested the youth. 
 " A little yieldin' now an' then — " 
 
 "Never 1 " roared Mr. Meredith. "I '11 have no Committee 
 of Correspondence, nor Sons of Liberty, nor Town Meeting 
 telling me what I may do or not do at Greenwood, any more 
 than I let the ragtag and bobtail tell me what I was to buy in 
 '69. Till I say nay, tea is drunk at Greenwood," and the 
 squire's fist came down on the table with a bang. 
 
 "Folks say that Congress will shut up the ports," said tfce 
 young man. 
 
 " Ay. And Briti^ frigates will open 'em. The people are 
 mad, sir, Bedlam mad, with the idea of liberty, as they call it. 
 Liberty, indeed ! when they try to say what a man shall do in 
 his own house ; what he shall eat ; what he shall wear. And 
 this Congress ! We, A and B, elect C to say what the rest of 
 the alphabet shall do, under penalty of tar and feathers, burned 
 ricks, or — don't talk to me, sir, of a Congress. 'T is but an 
 attempt of the mobility to override the nobility of this land, sir." 
 Once again the plates rattled on the table from the squire's fistj 
 and it became evident that if Miss Meredith had a temper it 
 came by inheritance. 
 
Miss Meredith Discovers a Villain 19 
 
 " Now, Lambert," interposed his wife, " stop banging the 
 table and getting hot about nothing. Remember how thee hadst 
 the colonies' ruined in Stamp Act times, and again during the 
 Association, and it all went over, just as this will. Pour thy 
 father another tankard of small beer, Janice." 
 
 Clearly, what the Committee of Correspondence, and even 
 the approaching Congress could not do, Mrs. Meredith could, 
 for the squire settled back quietly into his chair, took a long 
 swallow of beer, and resumed his letter. 
 
 "What does Mr. Cauldwell say, dadda?" inquired the 
 daughter. 
 
 " Hmm," said Mr. Meredith. " That he sends me the likeli- 
 est one from his last shipment. What sort of fellow is he, 
 Phil?" 
 
 Hennion paused to swallow an over-large mouthful, which 
 almost produced a choking fit, before he could reply. "He 
 han't a civil word about him, squire — a regular sullen dog." 
 
 " Cauldwell writes guardedly, saying it was the best he could 
 do. Where d' ye leave him, lad? " 
 
 " Outside, in my waggon." 
 
 " Peg, bid him to come in. We '11 have a look at — " Mr. 
 Meredith consulted the covenant enclosed and read, " Charles 
 Fownes, heigh?" 
 
 A moment later, preceded by the maid, Fownes entered. 
 He took a quick, almost furtive, survey of the room, then 
 glanced in succession at each of those seated about the table, 
 till his eyes rested on Janice. There they fixed themselves in 
 a bold, unconcealed scrutiny, to the no small embarrassment of 
 the maiden, though the man himself stood in an easy, uncon- 
 strained attitude, quite unheeding the five pairs of eyes staring 
 at him, or, if conscious, entirely unembarrassed by them. 
 
 " Well, Charles, Mr. Cauldwell writes me that ye don't know 
 much about horses or gardening, but he thinks ye have parts 
 and can pick it up quickly." 
 
 Still keeping his eyes on Miss Meredith, Fownes nodded his 
 head, with a short, quick jerk, far from respectful. 
 
 "But he also says ye are a surly, hot-tempered fellow, who 
 may need a touch of a whip now and again." 
 
 Without turning his head, a second time the man gave a jerk 
 
20 Janice Meredith 
 
 of it, conveying an idea of assent, but it was the assent of con- 
 tempt far more than of accord. 
 
 " Come, come," ordered the squire, testily. " >Let 's have a 
 sound of your tongue. Is Mr. Cauldwell right?" 
 
 Still looking at Miss Mereditk, the man shrugged his shoul- 
 ders, and replied, " Bain't vor the loikes of ar to zay Mister 
 Cauldwell bai a liar." Yet the voice and manfier left little doubt 
 in the hearers as to the speaker's private opinion, and Janice 
 laughed, partly at the implication, but more in nervousness. 
 
 " What kind of work are ye used to ? " asked Mr. Meredith. 
 
 The man hesitated for a moment and then muttered crossly, 
 "Ar indentured vor to work, not to bai questioned." 
 
 "Then work ye shall have," cried the squire, hotly. "Peg, 
 show him the stable, and tell Tom — " 
 
 " One moment, Lambert," interjected his wife, and then she 
 asked, " Hast thou had breakfast, Charles? " 
 
 Fownes shook his head sullenly. 
 
 " Take him to the kitchen and give him some at once, Peg," 
 ordered Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 For the first time the fellow looked away from Janice, fixing 
 his eyes on Mrs. Meredith. Then he bowed easily and grace- 
 fully, saying, " Thank you." Apparently unconscious that for 
 a moment he had left the Somerset burr off his tongue and 
 the rustic pretence from his manner, he followed Peg to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 If he were unconscious of the slip, it was more than were his 
 auditors, and for a moment they all exchanged glances in silent 
 bewilderment. 
 
 " Humph ! " finally growled the squire. " I lilie the look of 
 him still less." 
 
 " He holds himself like a gentleman," asserted Tabitha. 
 
 " This fellow will need close watching," predicted Mr. Mere- 
 dith. " He 's no yokel. He moves like a gentleman or a 
 house-servant. Yet he had to make his mark on the covenant." 
 
 "I think, dadda," said Miss Meredith, in her most calmly 
 judicial manner, " that the new man is a born villain, and has 
 committed some terrible crime. He has a horrid, wicked 
 face, and he stares just as — as — so that one wants to 
 shiver." 
 
Miss Meredith Discovers a Villain 21 
 
 Mrs. Meredith rose. " Janice," she chided, " thou 't too 
 young to make thy opinions of the slightest value. Go to thy 
 spinet, child, and don't let me hear any more such foolish 
 babble. Charles has a good face, and will make a good 
 servant." 
 
 " I don't care what mommy thinks," Miss Meredith confided 
 to Tabitha in the parlour, as the one took her seat at an em- 
 broidery frame and the other at the spinet. " I know he 's a 
 bad man, and will end by killing one of us and stealing the 
 silver and a horse, just as Mr. Vreeland's bond-servant did. He 
 makes me think of the villain in ' The Tragic History of Sir 
 VVatkins Stokes and Lady Betty Artless.' " 
 
IV 
 AN APPLE OF DISCORD 
 
 IN the week following his advent the new servant was the 
 cause of considerable discussion, and, regrettably, of not 
 a little controversy, among the members of the household 
 of Greenwood. The squire maintained that " the fellow is 
 a b&d-tempered, lazy, deceitful rogue, in need of much watch- 
 ing." Mrs. Meredith, on the contrary, invariably praised the 
 man, and promptly suppressed her husband whenever he began 
 to rail against him. To Janice, with the violent prejudices of 
 youth still unmodified by experience and reason, Charles was al- 
 most a special deputy of the individual she heard so unmercifully 
 thrashed to tatters each Sunday by the Rev. Mr. McClave. 
 And again, to the contrary, Tabitha insisted with growing fer- 
 vour that the servant was a gentleman, possessed of all the 
 qualities that word implied, plus the most desirable attribute of 
 all others to eighteenth-century maidens, a romantic possibility. 
 As a matter of fact, these diverse ^nd contradictory views 
 had a crossing-point, and accepting this as their mean, Charles 
 proved himself to be a knowing man with horses, an entirely 
 ignorant and by no means eager labourer in the little farm work 
 there was to do, a silent though easily angered being with every 
 one save Mrs. Meredith, and so clearly above his station that 
 he was viewed with disfavour, tinctured by not a little fear, by 
 house-servants, by field hands, and even by Mr. Meredith's 
 overseer. 
 
 For the most part, Fownes spoke in the West of England 
 dialect ; but whenever he became interested, this instantly slipped 
 from him, as did his still more ineffective attempt to move and 
 act the rustic. Indeed, the ease of his movements and the 
 straightness of his carriage, with a certain indefinable precision 
 of manner, led to a common agreement among his fallow- 
 
An Apple of Discord 23 
 
 labourers that he had earlier in life accepted the king's shilling. 
 Granting him to be but one and twenty years of age, as his 
 covenant stated, and as in fact he looked, his service must have 
 been shorter than the act of Parliament allowed, and this seem- 
 ing bar to their hypothesis caused many winks and shrugs over 
 the tankards of ale consumed of an evening at the King George 
 tavern in the village of Brunswick. Furthermore, for some 
 months the deserter columns of such stray numbers of the 
 "London Gazette " as occasionally drifted to the ordinary were 
 eagerly scanned by the loungers, on the possibility that they 
 might contain some advertisement of a fellow standing five feet 
 ten, with broad shoulders, light brown hair, straight nose, and 
 gray eyes, whose whereabout was of interest to His Majesty's 
 War Office, Whitehall. Neither from this source, however, 
 nor from any other, did they gain the slightest clue to the 
 past history of the bond-servant, spy upon the fellow who 
 would. 
 
 Nor was talk of the man limited to farm hands and tavern 
 idlers, for dearth of new topics in the little community made 
 hira a subject of converse to the two girls during the hours of 
 spinet practice, embroidery, and sewing, which were their daily 
 occupations between breakfast and dinner, and, eiven extended 
 into the afternoon, if the stint was not completed. Yet all 
 their discussion brought them no nearer to agreement, Janice 
 maintaining that Fownes was a villain in posse, if not in esse, 
 while Tabitha contended that Charles had been disappointed 
 in a love which he still, none the less, cherished, and which to 
 her mind accounted in every particular for his conduct. As 
 such a theory allowed considerable scope to the imagination, 
 she promptly created several romances about him, in all of 
 which he was of noble birth, with such other desirable factors 
 as made him a true hero ; and having thus endowed him with 
 a halo of romance, she could not find words strong enough to 
 express her thorough-going contempt for the woman whose 
 disregard and cruelty had driven him across the seas. 
 
 "Thee knows, Janice," she argued, when the latter expressed 
 scepticism, "that the Earl of Anglesey was kidnapped, and 
 sold in Maryland, so it 's perfectly possible for a nobleman to 
 be a bond- servant." 
 
24 Janice Meredith 
 
 " That 's the one case," answered Janice, sagely. 
 
 "But things like it are very common in novels,", insisted 
 Tabitha. " And what is more likely for a man disappointed in 
 love than, in desperation, to indenture himself? " 
 
 " I can easily credit a female of taste — yes, any female — 
 refusing the ill-mannered, bold-staring rogue," said Janice, giving 
 the coarse osnaburg shirt she was working upon a fretted jerk ; 
 " but to suppose him to be capable of a grand, devoted passion 
 is as bad as expecting — expecting faithfulness in a dog like 
 Clarion." 
 
 " Clarion ? " questioned Tabitha, 
 
 " Yes. Have n't you seen how — how — that he — the man, 
 has taken possession of him ? Thomas says the two sneak oft 
 together every chance they get, and sometimes are n't back 
 till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. 
 Like as not, 't is for pilfering they are bound." Miss Meredith 
 began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting 
 her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed 
 with a more vicious vigour. 
 
 "That must be the way he got those rabbits for thy mother." 
 
 " I should know he had been a poacher," asserted Janice, 
 as she contemptuously held up and surveyed at arms-length 
 the completed shirt. Then she laid it aside' with another, and 
 sighed a weary, " Heigh-ho, those are done. Here I have to 
 work my fingers to the bone making shirts for him, just because 
 mommy says he has n't enough clothes," — a sentence which 
 perhaps partly accounted for the maiden's somewhat jaundiced 
 view of Charles. 
 
 "Are those for him?" cried Tabitha. "Why didst thou 
 not tell me? I would have helped thee with them." 
 
 " You 'd have been welcome to the whole job. As it is, I 've 
 done them so carelessly that I know mommy will scold me. 
 Bvt I was n't going to work myself to death for him ! " 
 
 " I should have loved — I like shirt-making," fibbed Tabitha. 
 
 " And I hate it ! Forty-two have I made this year, and 
 mommy has six more cut out." 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and then Tabitha said, " Janice." 
 For some reason the name seemed to embarrass her, for the 
 moment it was spoken she coloured. 
 
An Apple of Discord 25 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Dost thee not think— perhaps — if we steal out and take 
 the shirts to the stable, thy mother will never — ?" 
 
 "Tibbie Drinker ! Go out of the house in a sack? I 'd as 
 soon go out in my night-rail." 
 
 "Thee breakfasts in a n^gligde, even when Philemon is here," 
 retorted Miss Drinker. "Wouldst as lief breakfast in thv 
 shift?" ^ 
 
 " No," said Miss Janice, with a wicked sparkle in her eyes, 
 "because if I did Philemon would come oftener than ever." 
 
 " Fie upon thee, Janice Meredith ! " cried her friend, " for a 
 froward, indelicate female." 
 
 "And why more indelicate than the men who'd come?" 
 demanded Janice. 
 
 " ' Immodest words admit of no defence, 
 For want of modesty is want of sense,' " 
 
 quoted Miss Drinker. 
 
 " Rubbish ! " scoffed Janice, but whether she was referring 
 to the stanza of the reigning poet of the eighteenth century, or 
 simply to Miss Tabitha's application of it, cannot be definitely 
 known. " You know as well as I, Tibbie, that I 'd rather have 
 Philemon, or any other man, see me in my shroud than in my 
 rail. Come, we 'II change our frocks ind take a walk." 
 
 A half hour later, newly clothed in light dimity gowns, cut 
 short for walking, and which, in combination with slippers, then 
 the invariable footgear of ladies of quality, served to display the 
 " neatly turned ankles " that the beaux of the period so greatly 
 admired, the girls sallied forth. First a visit was paid to the 
 stable, to smuggle the shirts from the criticism of Mrs. Mere- 
 dith, as well as to entice Clarion's companionship for the walk. 
 But Thomas, with a grumble, told them that Fownes had stolen 
 away from the job that had been set for him after dinner, and 
 that the hound had gone with him. 
 
 Their rambling walk brought the girls presently to the river, 
 but just as they were about to force their way through the fringe 
 of willows and underbrush which hid the water from view, a 
 sudden loud splashing, telling of some one in swimming, 
 gave them pause. Yelps of excitement from Clarion a moment 
 
26 Janice Meredith 
 
 later served to tell the two who it probably was, and the proba- 
 bility was instantly confirmed by the voice of Charles, saying : 
 
 " 'Tis sport, old man, is 't not? To get the dirt and trans- 
 piration off one ! 'S death ! What a climate ! 'Twixt the 
 sun and osnaburg and fustian my skin feels as if I 'd been triced 
 up and had a round hundred." 
 
 Exchanging glances, the girls stole softly away from the bank, 
 neither venturing to speak till out of hearing. As they retired 
 they came upon a heap of coarse garments, and Tabitha, catch- 
 ing the arm of her friend, exclaimed : — 
 
 " Oh, Jan, look I " 
 
 What liad caught her eye was the end of a light gold chain 
 that appeared among the clothes, and both girls halted and 
 gazed at it as if it possessed some quality of fascination. Then 
 Tabitha tip-toed forward, with but too obvious a purpose. 
 
 "Tibbie !" rebuked Janice, "you shouldn't ! " 
 
 " Oh, but Jan ! " protested Eve, junior. " 'T is such a 
 chance ! " 
 
 " Not for me," asserted Miss Meredith, proudly virtuous, as 
 she walked on. 
 
 If Miss Drinker Bad searched for a twelve-month she could 
 scarce have found a more provoking remark than her spontane- 
 ous exclamation, " Oh ! how beautiful she is ! " 
 
 Janice halted, though she had the moral stamina not to 
 turn. 
 
 " What ? The chain ? " she asked. 
 
 " No 1 The miniature," responded her interlocutor, in a 
 tone expressing the most unbounded admiration and delight. 
 " Such an elegant creature, Jan, and such — " 
 
 Her speech ended there, as a crashing in the bushes alarmed 
 her, and she darted past Janice, who, infected by the guilt of 
 her companion, likewise broke into a run, which neither ceased 
 till they had covered a goodly distance. Then Tabitha, for 
 want of breath, came to a stop, and allowed her friend to over- 
 take her. 
 
 She held up the chain and miniature in her hand. " What 
 shall I do? " she panted. 
 
 " Tibbie, how could you ? " ejaculated her horrified friend. 
 
 " His coming frighted me so that — oh, I did n't drop it ! " 
 
An Apple of Discord 27 
 
 " You must take it back ! " 
 
 " I 'd never dare ! " 
 
 " Elack shame on — I" 
 
 "A nice creature, thou, Jan ! " interrupted Miss Drinker, 
 with a sudden carrying of the war into the enemy's camp. 
 "To tell me to go back when he 's sure to be dressing ! No 
 wonder thee makes indelicate speeches." 
 
 Miss Meredith, without deigning to reply to this shameful 
 implication, walked away toward the house. 
 
 That Tibbie intended to shirk the consequences of her mis- 
 demeanour was only too clearly proved to Janice, when later 
 she went to her room to prink for supper, for lying on her 
 dressing stand was the miniature. Shocked as Miss Meredith 
 was at the sight, she lifted and examined the trinket. 
 
 Bred in colonial simpUcity, it seemed to the maid that she 
 had never seen anything quite so exquisite. A gold case, 
 richly set with brilliants, encompassed the portrait of a girl of 
 very positive beauty. After a rapt dwelling on the portrait for 
 some minutes, further examination revealed the letters W. H. 
 J. B. interlaced on the back. 
 
 Taking the miniature when her toilet had been perfected, 
 Janice descended to the parlour. As she entered, Tabitha, 
 already there, jumped up from a chair, in which, a moment 
 previous she had been carrying on a brown study that appar- 
 ently was not enjoyable, and tripped nonchalantly across the 
 room to the spinet. Seating herself, she struck the keys, and 
 broke out into a song entitled, " Taste Life's Glad Moments as 
 They Glide." 
 
 Not in the least deflected from her intention. Miss Meredith 
 marched up to the culprit, the bondsman's property in her 
 hand, and demanded, " Dost intend to turn thief? " 
 
 " Prithee, who 's curious now ? " evaded Tibbie. " I knew 
 thee'd look at it, for all thy airs." 
 
 "Very well, miss," threatened Janice, with much dignity. 
 "Then I shall take it to him, and narrate to him all the 
 circumstances." 
 
 "Tattle-tale, tattle-tale 1 " retorted Tabitha, scornfully. 
 With even greater scorn her friend turned her back, and 
 leaving the house, walked toward the stable. This took her 
 
28 Janice Meredith 
 
 through the old-fashioned, hedge-begirt kitchen garden, in 
 which flowers were grown as if they were vegetables, and 
 vegetables were grown as if they were flowers. The moment 
 Janice had passed within the tall row of box, her expression of 
 mingled haughtiness and determination ended ; she came to a 
 sudden halt, said " Oh I " and then pretended to be greatly 
 interested in a butterfly. The bravest army can be stampeded 
 by a surprise, and after having screwed up her spirit to the 
 point of facing Fownes in his fortress, the stable, Miss Mere- 
 dith's courage deserted her on almost stumbling over him a 
 hundred yards nearer than she expected. So taken aback was 
 she that all the glib explanation she had planned was forgotten, 
 and she held out the miniature to him without a single word. 
 
 Charles had been walking to the house, and only paused 
 at meeting Miss Meredith. He glanced at the outstretched 
 hand, and then let his eyes come back to the girl's face, with- 
 out making the slightest motion to take his property. 
 
 Tongue-tied and doubly embarrassed by his calm scrutiny, 
 the young lady stood with flushed cheeks, and with long 
 black lashes dropped to hide a pair of very shamed eyes, 
 the personification, in appearance, of guilt. 
 
 Whether the girl would have found her tongue, or would 
 have ended the incident as she was longing to do by taking to her 
 heels, it is impossible to say. Ere she had time to do either, 
 the angry voice of the squire broke in upon them. 
 
 " Ho, there ye are ! Twice have I looked for ye this after- 
 noon, and I warn ye I'm not the man to take such conduct 
 from any one, least of all from one of my own servants," he 
 said as he came toward the pair, the emphasis of his walking 
 stick and his heels both telling the story of his anger. " What 
 mean ye, fellow," he continued, "by neglecting the work I 
 set ye?" 
 
 Absolutely unmoved by the reproof, Charles stood as heed- 
 less of it as he had been of the outstretched hand of the 
 daughter, a hand which had promptly disappeared in the folds 
 of Miss Meredith's skirt at the first sound of her father's voice. 
 
 " A taste of my walking stick ye should have if ye had your 
 deserts ! " went on the squire, now face to face with the 
 servant. 
 
An Apple of Discord , 29 
 
 Without taking his eyes from the girl, Charles laughed. 
 " Is it fear of me," he challenged, " or fear of the law that pre- 
 vents you ? " 
 
 " What know ye of the law, sirrah ? " demanded Mr. Meredith. 
 
 "Nothing, when I was fool enough to indenture myself," 
 snapped the servant ; " but Bagby tells me that 't is forbidden, 
 under penalty of fine, for a master to strike a servant." 
 
 "Joe Bagby!" roared the squire, more angry than ever. 
 " And how come ye to have anything to do with that scampy 
 lawyer ! Hast been up to some mischief already ? " 
 
 Again the man laughed. "That is for His Majesty's 
 Justices of the Peace to discover. Till they do, I shall main- 
 tain that I consulted him concerning the laws governing bond- 
 servants." 
 
 " A pretty state the country 's come to ! " raged the squire. 
 " No wonder there is no governing the land, when even servants 
 think to have the law against their masters. But, harkee, my 
 fine fellow. If I may not punish ye myself, the Justices may 
 order ye whipped, and unless ye change your manners I will 
 have ye up before their next sitting. Meantime, saddle 
 Joggles as soon as supper is done, and take this paper over 
 to Brunswick, and post it on the proclamation board of the 
 Town Hall. And no tarrying, and consulting of tricky lawyers, 
 understand. If ye are not back by nine, ye shall hear from me." 
 
 Striking a sunflower with his cane as a slight vent to his 
 anger, the master strode away to the house. 
 
 His back turned, Janice once again held out the miniature. 
 " Won't you please take it ? " she begged. 
 
 "Art tired of it already? " jeered the man. 
 
 " I did not take it, Charles," she stammered, " but I knew 
 of its taking and so brought it back to you." 
 
 The man shrugged his shoulders. " 'T is not mine, nor 
 is it aught to me," he said, and passing the girl, walked to the 
 house. 
 
THE VALUE OF HAIR 
 
 AT the evening meal the farm hands and negro house- 
 servants remarked in Fownes not merely his cus- 
 tomary unsocial silence, but an abstraction more 
 obvious than usual. A gird or two from the rougher 
 of his fellow-labourers was wholly unnoted by him, and though 
 he ate heartily, it was with such entire unconsciousness of what 
 he was eating as to make the cook, Sukey, who was inclined to 
 favour him, question if after all he deserved special consideration 
 at her hands. 
 
 The meal despatched, Charles took his way to the stable, 
 but some motive caused hira to stop at the horse trough, lean 
 over it, and examine the reflection of his face. Evidently what 
 he saw was not gratifying, for he vainly tried to smooth down 
 his short hair, and then passed his hand over the scrub of his 
 beard. " 'T is said clothes make the gentleman," he muttered, 
 " but methinks 't is really the barber. How many of the belles 
 of the Pump Room and the Crescent would take me for other 
 than a clodhopper? 'T was not Charles Lor — Charles what ? 
 — to whom they curtesied and ogled and smirked, 't was to 
 a becoming wig and a smooth chin." Snapping his fingers 
 contemptuously, he went in and began to saddle the horse. 
 
 A half-hour later, the man rode up the village street of 
 Brunswick. Hitching Joggles to a post in front of the King 
 George tavern, he walked to the board on the side of the Town 
 Hall and Court House. Here, over a three months' old pro- 
 clamation, he posted the anonymous note recently received by 
 the squire, which had been wafered to a sheet of pro patria 
 paper, and below which the squire had written : — 
 
 This is to give notice that I despise too much the cowardly 
 villain who wrote and nailed this on my door to pay any 
 
The Value of Hair 31 
 
 attention to him. A Reward of two pounds will be given 
 for any information leading to the discovery of said cowardly 
 villain. Lambert Meredith. 
 
 For a moment the servant stood with a slight smile on his 
 face at the contradiction ; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, 
 he entered the public room of the tavern.. Within the air was 
 so thick with pipes in full blast, and the light of the two dips 
 was so feeble, that he halted in order to distinguish the dozen 
 figures of the occupants, all of whom gave him instant attention. 
 
 " Ar want landlord," he said, after a pause. 
 
 " Here I be," responded a man sitting at a small table in the 
 comer, with two half-emptied glasses and a bowl of arrack 
 punch before him. Opposite to mine host was a thick -set man 
 of about forty, attired in a brown suit and heavy top-boots, both 
 of which bore the signs of recent travel. 
 
 The servant skirted the group at the large table in the centre 
 of the room, and taking from his pocket a guinea, laid it on the 
 table. " Canst 'e give change for thiccy ? " he asked. 
 
 " I vum ! " cried the landlord, as he picked up the coin and 
 rang it on the table. " 'T ain't often we git sight o' goold here. 
 How much do yer want fer it? " 
 
 " Why, twenty-one shillings," replied the servant, with some 
 surprise in his voice. 
 
 " I '11 givit you dirty-two," spoke up a Jewish-looking man at 
 the big table, hurriedly pulling out his pouch and counting 
 down a batch of very soiled money from it, which he held out 
 to the servant just as the landlord, too, tendered him some 
 equally ragged bills. 
 
 "Trust Opper to give a shilling less than its worth," jeered 
 one of the drinkers. 
 
 "Bai thiccy money, Bagby?" questioned Charles, looking 
 suspiciously at both tenders. 
 
 " Not much," answered Bagby from the group about the 
 large table, not one of whom had missed a word of the forego- 
 ing conversation. " 'T is shaved beef," — a joke which called 
 forth not a little laughter from his companions. 
 
 " Will it buy a razor?" asked Fownes, quickly, turning to the 
 lawyer with a smile. 
 
32 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Keep it a week and 't will shave you itself," retorted the 
 joker, and this allusion to the steady depreciation of the colony 
 paper money called forth another laugh. 
 
 " Then 't is not blunt ? " responded Charles, but no one save 
 the traveller at the small table caught the play on words, the 
 Cockney cant term for money being unfamiliar to American 
 ears. He smiled, and then studied the bond-servant with more 
 interest than he had hitherto shown. 
 
 Meanwhile, at the first mention of razor, the Jew had left the 
 room, and he now returned, carrying a great pack, which he 
 placed upon the table, 
 
 " Sir," he said, in an accent which proved his appearance did 
 not belie his race, while beginning to unstrap the bundle, "I 
 haf von be-utiful razor, uf der besd — " but here his speech 
 was interrupted by a roar of laughter. 
 
 " You 've a sharper to deal with now," laughed the joker, 
 and another called, " Now ye '11 need no razor ter be shaved." 
 
 " Chentlemen, chentlemen," protested the peddler, " haf n't 
 I always dealt fair mit you ? " He fumbled in his half-opened 
 pack, and shoving three razors out of sight, he produced a 
 fourth, which he held out to the servant. " Dot iss only dree 
 shillings, und it iss der besd of steel." 
 
 " You can trust Opper to know pretty much everything 'bout 
 steals," sneered Bagby, who was clearly the local wit. " It 's 
 been his business for twenty years." 
 
 " I want a sharp razor, not a razor sharp," said Charles, good- 
 naturedly, while taking the instrument and trying its edge with 
 his finger. 
 
 " What business hez a bond-servant tew spend money fer a 
 razor?" demanded the tavern-keeper, for nothing then so 
 marked the distinction between the well-bred and the unbred 
 as the smooth faces of the one and the hairy faces of the 
 other. 
 
 " Hasn't he a throat to cut?" demanded one of the group, 
 " an' hasn't a covenant man reason to cut it? " 
 
 " More likes he 's goin' a sparkin'," suggested one of the idlers. 
 "The gal up ter the squire's holds herself pooty high an' 
 mighty, but like as not she 's as plaguey fond of bundling with 
 a good-looking man on the sly as most wenches." 
 
The Value of Hair 3j 
 
 « If she's set on.that, I 'm her man," remarked Bagby. 
 
 "Bundling?" questioned the covenant servant. "What's 
 that?" 
 
 The question only produced a roar of laughter at his igno- 
 rance, during which the traveller turned to the publican and 
 asked : — 
 
 "Who is this hind?" 
 
 " 'T is a new bond-servant o' Squire Meredith's, who I hearn 
 is no smouch on horses. Folks think he 's a bloody-back who 's 
 took French leave." 
 
 " A deserter, heigh ? " said the traveller, once more looking 
 at the man, who was now exchanging with the peddler the 
 three-shilling note for the razor. He waited till the trade had 
 been consummated, and then suddenly said aloud, in a sharp, 
 decisive way, " Attention ! To the left — dress ! " 
 
 Fownes' body suddenly stiffened itself, his hands dropped to 
 his sides, and his head turned quickly to the left. For a sec- 
 ond he held this position, then as suddenly relaxing himself, 
 he turned and eyed the giver of the order. 
 
 "So ho! my man. It seems ye have carried Brown Bess," 
 said the traveller, giving the slang term for the musket. 
 
 Flushed in face, Fownes wheeled on the man hotly, while 
 the whole room waited his reply in silence. " Thou liest ! " he 
 asserted. 
 
 " Thou varlet ! " cried the man so insulted, flushing in turn, 
 as he sprang to his feet and caught yp from the table a heavy 
 riding-whip. 
 
 As he did so, the bond-servant's right hand went to his hip, 
 as if instinctively seeking something there. The traveller's eyes 
 followed the impulsive gesture, even while he, too, made a 
 motion more instinctive than conscious, by stepping backward, 
 as if to avoid something. This motion he checked, and 
 said : — 
 
 "No. Bond-servants don't wear bayonets." 
 
 Again the colour sprang to Fownes' face, and his lips parted 
 as if an angry retort were ready. But instead of uttering it, he 
 turned and started to leave the roora. 
 
 " Ay," cried the traveller, " run, while there 's time^ de- 
 serter." 
 
24 Janice Meredith 
 
 Fownes faced about in the doorway, with'a smile on his face 
 not pleasant to see, it was at once so contemptuous and so 
 lowering. Yet when he spoke there was an amused, almost 
 merry note in his voice, as if he were enjoying something. 
 
 "Ar hain't no more deserter than thou baist spy," he re- 
 torted, as he left the tavern and went to where his horse was 
 tethered. Unfastening him, he stood for a moment stroking 
 the animal's nose. 
 
 "Joggles," he confided, " I fear, despite the praise the fair 
 ones gave of my impersonation of ' The Fashionable Lover,' 
 that I am not so good an actor as either Garrick or Barry. I 
 forget, and I lose my temper. So, a bond-servant should cut 
 his throat," he continued, as )ie swung lightly into the saddle. 
 " I fear 't is the only way I can go undiscovered. Fool that I 
 was to do it in a moment of passion. Five years of slavery I " 
 Then he laughed. " But then I 'd never have seen her ! Egad, 
 if she could be painted as she looked to-day by Reynolds or 
 Gainsborough, 'twould set more than ray blood glowing! 
 There 's a prize, Joggles ! Beauty, wealth, and freedom, all in 
 one. She 'd be worth a tilt, too, if for nothing but the sport of 
 it. We '11 shave, make a dandy of ourselves, old man — " 
 Then the servant paused — " and, like a fool, be recognised by 
 some fellow like Clowes — what does he here? — but for my 
 beard, and that he'd scarce expect to meet Charles — " Fownes 
 checked himself, scowling. "Charles Nothing, a poor son of 
 a gun of a bond-servant. Have done with such idiot scheme^ 
 man," he admonished. "For what did you run, if 'twas not 
 to bury yourself? And now you 'd risk all for a petticoat." 
 Taking from his pocket the razor, he threw it into the bushes 
 that lined the road, saying as he did so, " Good-by, gentility." 
 
VI 
 
 MEN ARE DECEIVERS EVER 
 
 THE departure of the bond-servant, leaving the sting 
 of innuendo behind him, had turned all eyes toward 
 the traveller, and Bagby but voiced the curiosity of 
 the roomful when he inquired, " What did Fownes 
 call you spy for?" 
 
 "Nay, man, he called me not that," denied the stranger, 
 "unless he meant to call himself a deserter as well. Land- 
 lord, a bowl of swizzle for the company ! Gentlemen, I am 
 Lincolnshire born and bred. My name is John Evait, and I 
 am travelling through the country to find a likely settling place 
 for six solid farmers, of whom I am one. Whom did you say 
 was yon rogue's master ? " 
 
 " Squire Meredith," informed mine host, now occupied in 
 combining the rum, spruce beer, and sugar at the large table. 
 
 " And what sort of man is he ? " asked Evatt, bringing his 
 glass from the small table and taking his seat among the rest. 
 
 " He 's as hot-tempered an' high an' mighty as King George 
 hisself," cried one of the drinkers. " But I guess his stinkin' 
 pride will come down a little afore the committee of Brunswick 's 
 through with him." 
 
 " Let thy teeth keep better guard over thy red rag, Zerubba- 
 bel," rebuked Joe Bagby, warningly. "We want no rattlepates 
 to tell us — or others — what 's needed or doing." 
 
 "This Meredith 's a man of property, eh? " asked Evatt. 
 
 " He 's been so since he married Patty Byllynge," replied the 
 publican. " Afore then he war n't nothin' but a poor young 
 lawyer over tew Trenton." 
 
 " And who was Patty Byllynge ? " 
 
 ". You don't know much 'bout West Jersey, or I guess you 'd 
 have heard of her," surmised Bagby. " 'T is n't every girl brings 
 
36 Janice Meredith 
 
 her husband a pot of money and nigh thirty thousand acresof 
 land. Follcs tell that before the squire got her, the men was about 
 her hke — " the speaker used a simile too coarse for repetition. 
 
 " So ho ! " said the traveller. " Byllynge, heigh ? Now I 
 begin to understand. A daughter — or granddaughter — of one 
 of the patentees ? " 
 
 " Just so. In the old man's day they held the lands all along 
 this side of the Raritan, nigh up to Baskinridge, but they sold a 
 lot in the forties." 
 
 "Then perhaps this is the place to bargain about a bit? 
 The land looked rich and warm as I rode along this after- 
 noon." 
 
 " 'T ain't no use tryin' ter buy of the new squire," remarked 
 one man. " He won't do nothin' but lease. He don't want no 
 freemen 'bout here." 
 
 " Yer might buy o' Squire Hennion. He sells now an' agin," 
 suggested the innkeeper." 
 
 " Who 's he ? " demanded Evatt. 
 
 " Another of the monopolisers who got a grant in the early 
 days, before the land was good for anything," explained Bagby. 
 " His property is further down." 
 
 " Ye 'd better bargain quick, if ye want any," spoke up an 
 oldster. " Looks like squar's son was a-coortin' squar's daugh- 
 ter, an' mayhaps her money '11 make old Squar Hennion less 
 put tew it fer cash." 
 
 "So Squire Meredith isn't popular?" 
 
 " He '11 find out suthin' next time he offers fer Assembly," 
 asserted one of the group. 
 
 " He 's a member of Assembly, is he ? " questioned Evatt. 
 " Then he 's all right on — he belongs to the popular party ? " 
 
 " Not he ! " cried several. 
 
 " He was agin the Association, tried tew prevent our sendin' 
 deputies tew Congress, an' boasts that tea's drunk at his table," 
 said the landlord. 
 
 " 'T won't be for long," growled Bagby. 
 
 "Then how comes it that ye elect hinj Assemblyman?" 
 
 " 'T is his tenants do it," spoke up the lawyer. " They don't 
 Have the pluck to vote against him for fear of their leaseholds. 
 And so 't is with the rest. The only way we can get our way is 
 
Men are Deceivers Ever 37 
 
 by conventions and committees. But get it we will, let the 
 gentry try as they please." 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Evatt, " here 's the swizzle. Glasses 
 around, and 1 '11 give ye a toast ye can all drink : May your free- 
 dom never be lessened by either Parliament or Congress ! " 
 
 Two hours of drinking and talking followed, and when the 
 last of the tipplers had staggered through the door, and Evatt, 
 assisted by the publican, had reeled rather than walked upstairs 
 to his room, if he was not fully informed as to the locality of 
 which the tavern was the centre, it was because his brain was 
 too fuddled by the mixed drink, and not because tongues had 
 been guarded. 
 
 Eighteenth-century heads made light of drinking bouts, and 
 Evatt ate a Hearty breakfast the next morning. Thus fortified, 
 he called for his horse, and announced his intention of seeing 
 Squire Meredith " about that damned impertinent varlet." 
 
 Arrived at Greenwood, it was to find that the master of the 
 house was away, having ridden to Bound Brook to see some of 
 his more distant tenants; but in colonial times visitors were 
 such infrequent occurrences that he was made welcome by the 
 hostess, and urged to stay to dinner. " Mr. Meredith will be 
 back ere nightfall," she assured him, "and will deeply regret 
 having missed thee if thou rides away." 
 
 " Madam," responded Evatt, "American hospitality is only 
 exceeded by American beauty." 
 
 It was impossible not to like the stranger, for he was a capi- 
 tal talker, having much of the chat of London, tasty beyond all 
 else to colonial palates, at his tongue's tip. With a succession 
 of descriptions or anecdotes of the frequenters of the Park and 
 Mall, of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, he entertained them at table, 
 the two girls sitting almost open-mouthed in their eagerness 
 and delight. 
 
 The meal concluded, the ladies regretfully withdrew, leaving 
 Evatt to enjoy what he chose of a decanter of the squire's best 
 Madeira, which had been served to him, visitors of education 
 being rare treats indeed. Like all young peoples, Americans 
 ducked very low to transatlantic travellers, and, truly colonial, 
 could not help but think an Englishman of necessity a superior 
 kind of being. 
 
38 Janice Meredith 
 
 The guest filled his glass, unbuttoned the three lower buttons 
 of his waistcoat, and slouched back in his chair. Then he put 
 the wine to his lips, and holding the swallow in his mouth to 
 prolong the enjoyment, a look of extreme contentment came over 
 his visage. And if he had put his thoughts into words, he 
 would have said : — 
 
 " By Heavens ! What wine and what women I The one 
 they smuggle, but where get they the other? In a rough new 
 country who 'd think to encounter greater beauty and delicacy 
 than can be seen skirting the Serpentine ? Such eyes, such a 
 waist, and such a wrist ! And those cheeks — how the colour 
 comes and goes, telling everything that she would hide ! And 
 to think that some bumpkin will enjoy lips fit for a duke. Burn 
 it ! If 't were not for my task, I 'd have a try for Miss Inno- 
 cence and — " The man glanced out of the window and let his 
 eyes wander over the landscape, while he drained his glass — 
 " Thirty thousand acres of land ! " he said aloud, with a smack 
 of pleasure. 
 
 His eyes left off studying the fields to fix themselves on 
 Janice, who passed the window, with the garden as an evident 
 destination, and they followed her until she disappeared within 
 the opening of the hedge. " There 's a foot and ankle," he ex- 
 claimed with an expression on his face akin to that it had worn 
 as he tasted the Madeira. " 'T would fire enough sparks in 
 London to set the Thames all aflame ! " He reached for the 
 Madeira once more, but after removing the stopper, he hesitated 
 a moment, then replacing it, he rose, buttoned his waistcoat, 
 and taking his hat from the hall, he slipped through the window 
 and walked toward the garden. 
 
 Finding that Janice was not within the hedge-row, Evatt 
 passed across the garden quickly and discovered the young 
 lady standing outside the stable, engaged in the extremely 
 undignified occupation of whistling. Her reason for the action 
 was quickly revealed by the appearance of Clarion ; and still 
 unconscious that she was watched, after a word with the dog, 
 they both started toward the river. 
 
 A few hasty strides brought the man up with the maiden, 
 and as she slightly turned to see who had joined her, he said, 
 "May I walk with you, Miss Meredith? I intended a stroll 
 
Men are Deceivers Ever 39 
 
 about the farm, and it will be all the pleasanter for so fair a 
 guide." 
 
 Shyly but eagerly the girl assented, and richly rewarded was 
 she in her own estimate by what the visitor had to tell. More 
 gossip of court, of the lesser world of fashion, and of the 
 theatre, he retailed : how the king walked and looked, of the 
 rivalry between Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Baddeley, of Charles Fox's 
 debts and eloquence, of the vogue of Cecilia Davis, or 
 " L'Inglesina." To Janice, hungry with the true appetite of 
 provincialism, it was all the most delicious of comfits. To 
 talk to a man who could imitate the way the Duke of 
 Gloucester limped at a levee when suffering from the gout, and 
 who was abl? to introduce a story by saying, " As Lady Roch- 
 ford once said to me at one of her routs — " was almost like 
 meeting those distinguished beings themselves. Janice not 
 merely failed to note that the man paid no heed whatever to the 
 land they strolled over, but herself ceased to give time or 
 direction the slightest thought. 
 
 " Oh 1 " she broke out finally, in her delight, " won't Tibbie 
 be sorry when she knows what she 's missed ? And, forsooth, a 
 proper pay out for her wrong-doing it is ! " 
 
 "What mean ye by that? " questioned Evatt. 
 
 " She deserves to have it known, ^ but though she called me 
 tattle-tale, I 'm no such thing," replied Janice, who in truth 
 was still hot with indignation at Miss Drinker, and wellnigh 
 bursting to confide her grievance against her whilom friend 
 to this most delightful of men. "Doubtless, you observed 
 that we are not on terms. That was why I came off without 
 her." 
 
 Evatt, though not till this moment aware of the fact, nodded 
 his head gravely. 
 
 " 'T is all her doings, though she 'd be glad enough to make 
 it up if I would let her. A fine frenzy her ladyship would be 
 in, too, if she dreamt he 'd given me the miniature." 
 
 " A miniature ! " marvelled the visitor, encouragingly. " Of 
 whom ? " 
 
 " 'T is just what — Oh, I think I '11 tell thee the whole tale 
 and get thy advice. I dare not go to mommy, for I know 
 she 'd make me give it up, and dadda being away, and Tibbie 
 
40 Janice Meredith 
 
 in a snip-snap, I have no one to — and perhaps — I 'd never 
 tell thee to shame Tibbie, but because I need advice and — " 
 
 "A man with half an eye would know you were no tale- 
 bearer, Miss Janice," her companion assured her. 
 
 Thus prompted and enticed, the girl poured out the whole 
 story. "I wish I could show you the picture," she ended. 
 "She is the most beautiful creature I ever saw." 
 
 " Hast never looked in a mirror, Miss Janice?" 
 
 " Now thou 't just teasing." 
 
 " I' faith, 't is the last thought in my mind," said Evatt, heartily. 
 
 "You really think me pretty?" questioned the girl, with 
 evident delight if uncertainty. 
 
 Evatt studied the eager, guileless face questioningly turned to 
 him, and had much ado to keep from smiling. 
 
 " 'T is impossible not to think it," he replied. 
 
 "Even after seeing the court beauties?" demanded Janice, 
 half doubtful and half joyous. 
 
 "Not one but would have to give the J>as to ye. Miss Janice," 
 protested Evatt, " could ye but be presented at St. James's." 
 
 " How lovely ! " cried Janice, ecstatically, and then in sud- 
 den abasement asserted, " Oh, I know you are — you are 
 only making fun of me 1 " 
 
 " Now, burn me, if I am ! " insisted the man, with such 
 undoubted admiration in his manner as to confirm his words to 
 the girl. " By Heaven 1 " he marvelled to himself. " Who 'd 
 have believed such innocence possible? 'Tis Mother Eve 
 before the fall ! She knows nothing." A view of woman, 
 likely to get Mr. Evatt into trouble. There is very little 
 information concerning the ante-prandial Eve, but from later 
 examples of her sex, it is safe to affirm that the mother of the 
 race knew several things before partaking of the tree of knowl- 
 edge. Man only is born so stupid as to need education. 
 
 " Why canst thou not let me have sight of this wondrous 
 female?" he went on aloud. "Surely thou art not really 
 fearsome to brave comparison." 
 
 " 'T is not that, indeed," denied Janice, colouring, " but — ■ 
 well — in a moment." The girl turned her back to Mr. Evatt, 
 and in a moment faced him once more, the miniature in her 
 hand. " Is n't she beautiful? " 
 
Men are Deceivers Ever 41 
 
 Evatt looked at the miniature. " That she is," he assented. 
 "And strike me dumb, but she reminds me of some woman 
 I 've once seen in London." 
 
 "Oh, how interesting!" exclaimed the girl. "What was 
 her name?" 
 
 " 'Tis exactly that I am asking myself." 
 
 " He must be well-born," argued Janice, " to have her 
 miniature ; look at the jewels in her hair." 
 
 " Ah, my child, there 's more than the well-born wear — " 
 the man stopped short. " How know ye," he went on, " that 
 the bondsman comes by it rightly? The frame is one of price." 
 
 "I don't," the girl replied, "and the initials on the back 
 are n't his." 
 
 "'W. H. J. B.,'" read Evatt. 
 
 " He may have changed his name," suggested Janice. 
 
 "True," assented the man, with a slight laugh; "that's a 
 mighty clever thought and gives us a clue to his real one." 
 
 " Perhaps you 've heard of a man in London with a name to 
 fit W. H. J. B. ? " said the maid, inquiringly. 
 
 Evatt turned away to conceal an unsuppressable smile, 
 while thinking, "The innocent imagines London but another 
 Brunswick ! " 
 
 " Dost think I should make him take it back ? " asked Janice. 
 
 " Certainly not," replied her adviser, responding to the only 
 too manifest wish of the girl. 
 
 "Then dost think I should speak to mommy or dadda?" 
 
 " 'T is surely needless ! The fellow refuses it, and so 't is 
 yours till he demands it." 
 
 ^' How lovely ! Oh, I 'd like to be home this instant, to see 
 how 't would appear about my neck. Last night I crept out of 
 bed to have a look, but Tibbie tymed over, and I thought me 
 she was waking. I think I '11 go at once and — " 
 
 " And end our walk ? " broke in Evatt, reproachfully. 
 
 "'Tis nearly tea-time," replied Janice, pointing to the sun, 
 " How the afternoon has fiown ! " 
 
 " Thanks to my charming companion," responded the man, 
 bowing low. 
 
 " Now you are teasing again," cried Janice. " I don't like to 
 be made fun — " 
 
42 Janice Meredith 
 
 '"Tis my last thought," cried Evatt, with unquestionable 
 earnestness, and possessing himself of Janice's hand, he stooped 
 and kissed it impetuously and hotly. 
 
 The colour flooded up into the maiden's face and neck at the 
 action, but still more embarrassing to her was the awkward 
 pause which ensued, as they set out on their return. She could 
 think of nothing to say, and the stranger would not help her. 
 " Let her blush and falter and stammer," was his thought. " Every 
 minute of embarrassment is putting me deeper in her thoughts." 
 
VII 
 
 SPIDER AND FLY 
 
 FORTUNATELY for the girl, the distance to the house 
 was not great, and the rapid pace she set in her stress 
 quickly brought them to the doorway, which she 
 entered with a sigh of relief. The guest was at once 
 absorbed by her father, and Janice sought her room. 
 
 As she primped, the miniature lay before her, and occasionally 
 she paused for a moment to look at it. Finally, when properly 
 robed, she picked it up and held it for a moment. " I wonder 
 if she broke his heart ? " she soliloquised. " I don't see how he 
 could help loving her ; I know I should." Janice hesitated for 
 a moment, and then tucked the miniature into her bosom. " If 
 only Tibbie wasn't — if — we could talk about it," she sighed, 
 as she pinned on her little cap of lace above the hair dressed 
 high d la Pompadour. " Why did she have to be — just as so 
 many important things were to happen ! " Miss Meredith 
 looked at her double in the mirror, and sighed again. " Mr. 
 Evatt must have been laughing at me," she said, " for she is so 
 much prettier. But I should like to know why Charles always 
 stares so at me." 
 
 In the meantime, Evatt, without so much as an allusion to the 
 bond-servant, had presented a letter from a New Yorker, intro- 
 ducing him to the squire, and by the confidence thus established 
 he proceeded to question Mr. Meredith long and carefully, not 
 about farming lands and profits, but concerning the feeling of 
 the country toward the questions then at issue between Great 
 Britain and America. He made as they talked an occasional 
 note, and the interview ended only with Peg's announcement of 
 supper. Nor was this allowed to terminate the inquiry, for the 
 squire, as Mrs. Meredith had foreseen, insisted on Evatt's 
 spending the night, and Charles was accordingly ordered to ride 
 
44 Janice Meredith 
 
 over to the inn for the traveller's saddlebags. After the ladies 
 had left the two men at the table, the questioning was resumed 
 over the spirits and pipes, and not till ten o'clock was passed 
 did Evatt finally rise. Clearly he must have pleased the squire 
 as well as he had the dames, for Mr. Meredith, with the 
 hospitality of the time, pressed him heartily to stay for more 
 than the morrow, assuring him of a welcome at Greenwood for 
 as long as he would make it his abiding spot. 
 
 " Nothing, sir, would give me greater pleasure," responded 
 Evatt, warmly, " but in confidence to ye, as a friend of govern- 
 ment, I dare to say that my search for a farm is only the osten- 
 sible reason for my travels. I am executing an important and 
 delicate mission for our government, and having already jour- 
 neyed through the colonies to the northward, I must still travel 
 through those of the south. 'T is therefore quite impossible for 
 me to tarry more than the night. I should, in fact, not have 
 dared to linger thus loilg were it not that your name was on the 
 list given me by Lord Dartmouth of those to be trusted and 
 consulted. And the information ye have furnished me concern- 
 ing this region has proved that his Lordship did not err in his 
 opinion as to your knowledge, disposition, and ability." 
 
 This sent the squire to his pillow with a delightful sense of 
 his own importance, and led him to confide to the nightcap on 
 the pillow beside him that " Mr. Evatt is a man of vast insight 
 and discrimination." Regrettable as it is to record, the visitor, 
 before seeking his own pillow, mixed some ink powder in a mug 
 with a little water and proceeded to add to a letter already 
 begun the following paragraph : — 
 
 "From thence I rode to Brunswick, a small Town on the 
 Ra,ritan. Here I find the same division of Sentiment J have 
 'ilready dwelt upon to your Lordship. The Gentry, consisting 
 hereabouts of but two, are sharply opposed to the small Farmers 
 and Labourers, and cannot even rely upon their own Tenantry 
 for more than a nominal support. Neither of the great Pro- 
 prietors seem to be Men of sound Judgment or natural Popu- 
 larity, and Mr. Lambert Meredith — a name quite unknown 
 to your Lordship, but of some consequence in this Colony 
 through a fortunate Marriage with a descendant of one of the 
 
Spider and Fly 45 
 
 original Patentees — at the last Election barely succeeded in 
 carrying the Poll, and is represented to be a Man of much 
 impracticality, hot-tempered, a stickler over trivial points, at 
 odds with his Neighbours, and not even Master of his own 
 Household. To such Men, my Lord, has fallen the Contest, on 
 behalf of Government, while opposed to them are self-made 
 Leaders, of Eloquence, of Force, and, most of all, of Dishonesty. 
 Issues of Paper Money, escape from all Taxation, free Lands, 
 .suspensions of Debts — such and an hundred other tempting 
 Promises they ply the People with, while the Gentry sit helpless, 
 save those who, seeing how the Tide sets, throw Principles to 
 the Wind, and plunge in with the popular Leaders. Believe 
 me, my Lord, as I have urged already, a radical change of 
 Government, and a plentiful sprinkling of Regiments, wilt 
 alone prevent the Disorders from rising to a height that 
 threatens Anarchy." 
 
 Though the visitor was the last of the household abed, he was 
 early astir the next morning, and while Charles was beginning 
 his labours of the day, by leading each horse to the trough in 
 the barnyard, Evatt joined him. 
 
 " We made a bad start at our first meeting, my man," he 
 said in a friendly manner, " and I have only myself to blame 
 for 't. One should keep his own secrets." 
 
 " 'T is a sorry calling yoilrs would be if many kept to that," 
 replied Fownes, with a suggestion of contempt. 
 
 Evatt bit his lip, and then forced a smile. " The old saying 
 runs that three could keep a secret if two were but dead." 
 
 Charles smiled. " My two will never trouble me," he said 
 meaningly, " so save your time and breath." 
 
 " Hadst best not be so sure," retorted Evatt, in evident irri- 
 tation. " 'Twixt thine army service, the ship that fetched thee 
 on, and that miniature, I have more clues than have served to 
 ferret many a secret." 
 
 " And entirely lack the important one. Till you have that, I 
 don't fear you. What is more, I'll tell you what 'tis." 
 
 "What?" asked the man. 
 
 " A reward," sneered Fownes. 
 
 "I see I've a sly tyke to deal with," said the man. " But 
 
46 Janice Meredith 
 
 if ye choose not — " The speaker checked himself as Janice 
 came through the opening in the hedge, and the two stood 
 silently watching her as she approached. 
 
 "Charles," she said, when within speaking distance, while 
 holding out the miniature, " I 've decided you must take this." 
 
 Charles smiled pleasantly. " Then 't is your duty to make 
 me, Miss Meredith," he replied, folding his arms. 
 
 " Won't you please take it ? " begged Janice, not a little non- 
 plussed by her position, and that Evatt should be a witness of 
 it. " We know it belongs to you, and 't is too valuable for 
 me to — " 
 
 "How know you that?" questioned the man, still smiling 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " Because 't was with your clothes when you went in swim- 
 ming," said Janice, frankly. 
 
 " Miss Meredith," replied Charles, " the word of a poor devil 
 of a bond-servant can have little value, but I swear to you that 
 that never belonged to me, and that I therefore have no right 
 to it. If it gives you any pleasure, keep it." 
 
 " That is as good as saying ye stole it," asserted Evatt. 
 
 Charles smiled contemptuously. " ' All are not thieves 
 whom dogs bark at,' " he retorted. " Nor are all of us sneaks 
 and spies," he added, as, turning, he led away the horse toward 
 the stable. 
 
 " Yon fellow does n't stickle at calling ye names, Miss Mere- 
 dith," said Evatt. 
 
 " He has no right to call me a spy," cried the girl, indignantly. 
 
 " His words deserve no more heed than what he said t'other 
 night at the tavern of ye." 
 
 "What said he at the tavern?" demanded Janice. 
 
 •* 'Tis best left unspoken." 
 
 " I want to know what he said of me," insisted Miss Meredith. 
 
 '"T would only shame ye." 
 
 " He — he told of — he did n't tell them I took the min- 
 iature ? " faltered Janice. 
 
 Again Evatt bit his lip, but this time to keep from smiling. 
 "Worse than that, my child," he replied. 
 
 •'Why should he insult me?" protested Janice, proudly, 
 but still colouring at the possibility. 
 
Spider and Fly 47 
 
 " Ye do right to suppose it unlikely. Yet 't is so, and while 
 I can hardly hope that my word will be taken for it, his lies to 
 us a moment since prove that he is capable of any untruth." 
 
 Evatt spoke with such honesty of manner, and with such an 
 apparent lack of motive for inventing a tale, that Janice became 
 doubtful. " He could n't insult me," she said, " for I — I 
 have n't done anything." 
 
 " 'T is certain that he did. Had I but known ye at the time, 
 Miss Janice, he should have been made to swallow his coarse 
 insult. 'Twas for that I sought him this morning. Had ye 
 not interrupted us, 't would have fared badly for him." 
 
 " You were very kind," said Janice, dolefully, beginning, more 
 from his manner than his w^ords, to believe Evatt. " I did n't 
 know there were such bad men in the world. And for him to 
 say it at the tavern, where 't will be all over the county in no 
 time ! Was it very bad ? " 
 
 " No one would believe a redemptioner," replied Evatt. 
 "Yet had I the right—" 
 
 " Marse Meredith send me to tell youse come to breakfast," 
 interrupted Peg from the gateway in the box. 
 
 "Why 1 " exclaimed the girl. " It can't be seven." 
 
 " The squire ordered it early, that I might be in the saddle 
 betimes," explained Evatt, and then as the girl started toward 
 the house, he checked the movement by taking her hand. 
 " Miss Janice," he said, " in a half-hour I shall rid© away — not 
 because 't is my wish, but because I 'm engaged in an important 
 and perilous mission — a mission — can ye keep a secret — even 
 from — from your father and mother?" 
 
 Janice was too young and inexperienced to know that a 
 secret is of all things the most to be avoided, and though her 
 little hand, in her woman's intuition that all was not right, tried 
 feebly to free itself, she none the less answered eagerly if half- 
 doubtfully, "Yes." 
 
 " I am sent here under an assumed name — by His Majesty. 
 Ye — I was indiscreet enough with ye, to tell — to show that I 
 was other than what I pretend to be, but I felt then and now 
 that I could trust ye. Ye will keep secret all I say? " 
 
 Again Janice, with her eyes on the ground, said, "Yes." 
 
 " I must do the king's work, and when 't is done I return to 
 
48 Janice Meredith 
 
 England and resume my true position, and ye will never again 
 hear of me — unless — " The man paused, with his eyes fixed 
 on the downcast face of the girl. 
 
 "Unless?" asked Janice, when the silence became more 
 embarrassing than to speak. 
 
 " Unless ye — unless ye give me the hope that by first re- 
 turning here — as your father has asked me to do — that I 
 may — may perhaps carry ye away with me. Ah, Miss Janice, 
 'tis an outrage to keep such beauty hidden in the wilds of 
 America, when it might be the glory of the court and the toast 
 of the town." 
 
 Again a silence ensued, fairly agonising to the bewildered 
 and embarrassed girl, which lengthened, it seemed to her, into 
 hours, as she vainly sought for some words that she might 
 speak. 
 
 " Please let go my hand," she begged finally. 
 
 " Not till you give me a yea or nay." 
 
 " But I can't — I don't — " began Janice, and then as foot- 
 steps were heard, she cried, " Oh, let me go ! Here comes 
 Charles." 
 
 " May I come back? " demanded Evatt. 
 
 " Yes,'' assented the girl, desperately. 
 
 " And ye promise to be secret ? " 
 
 " I promise," cried Janice, and to her relief recovered her 
 hand, just as Charles entered the garden. 
 
 Like many another of her sex, however, she found that to 
 gain physical and temporary freedom she had only enslaved 
 herself the more, for after breakfast Evatt availed himself of a 
 moment's interest of Mrs. Meredith's in the ordering down of 
 his saddle-bags, and of the squire's in the horse, to say to Janice, 
 aside : — 
 
 " I gave ye back your hand, Janice, but remember 't is mine," 
 and before the girl could frame a denial, he was beside Mr. 
 Meredith at the stirrup, and, ere many minutes, had ridden 
 away, leaving behind him a very much flattered, puzzled, and 
 miserable demoiselle. 
 
VIII 
 SEVERAL BURNING QUESTIONS 
 
 THE twenty-four hours of Evatt's visit troubled Janice 
 in recollection for many a day, and marked the be- 
 ginning of the most distinct change that had come to 
 her. The experience was in fact that which befalls 
 every one somewhere between the ages of twelve and thirty, 
 by which youth first learns to recognise that life is not mere 
 living, but is rather the working out of a strange problem com- 
 pounded of volition and necessity, accident and fatality. The 
 pledge of secrecy preyed upon her, the stranger's assumption 
 that she had bound herself distressed her, and the thought 
 that she had been the subject of tavern talk made her furious. 
 Yet she had promised concealment, she was powerless to write 
 to Evatt denying his pretension, and she could not counteract 
 a slander the purport of which was unknown to her. Had she 
 and Tibbie but been on terms, she might have gained some 
 relief by confiding her woes to her, but that young lady's visit 
 came to an end so promptly after the departure of Evatt that 
 restoration of good feeling was only obtained in the parting 
 kiss. For the first time in her life, Janice's head would keep 
 on thinking after it was resting on its pillow, and many a time 
 that enviable repository was called upon to dry her tears and 
 cool her burning cheeks. Never, it seemed to her, had maa 
 or woman borne so great a burden of trouble. 
 
 The change in the girl was too great not to be noticed by 
 the household of Greenwood. Mrs. Meredith joyfully con- 
 fided to the Rev. Mr. McClave that she thought an " effectual 
 calling " had come to her daughter, and that Janice was in a 
 most promising condition of unhappiness. Thus encouraged, 
 the divine, who was a widower of forty-two, with five children 
 sadly needing a woman's care, only too gladly made morning 
 
 4 
 
50 Janice Meredith 
 
 calls on the daughter of his wealthiest parishioner, and in place 
 of the discussions with Tibbie over romance in general, and 
 the bond-servant in particular, as they sewed or knitted, Janice 
 was forced to attend to long monologues specially prepared 
 for her benefit, on what to the presbyter were the truly burn- 
 ing questions of justification, adoption, and sanctification. What 
 is more, she not only listened dutifully, but once or twice was 
 even moved to tears, to the enormous encouragement of Mr. 
 McClave. The squire, who highly resented the lost vivacity 
 and the new seriousness, insisted that the " girl sha'n't be made 
 into a long-faced, psalm-singing hypocrite ; " but not daring to 
 oppose what his wife approved, he merely expressed his irrita- 
 tion to Janice herself, teasing and fretting her scarcely less 
 than did Mr. McClave. 
 
 Not the least of her difficulties was her bearing toward the 
 bondsman. Conditions were still so primitive that the rela- 
 tions between master and servant were yet on a basis that 
 made the distinctions between them ones of convenience rather 
 than convention, and thus Janice was forced to mark out a 
 new line of conduct. At first she adopted that of avoidance 
 and proud disregard of him, but his manner toward her con- 
 tinued to convey such deference that the girl found her atti- 
 tude hard to maintain, and presently began to doubt if he 
 could be guilty of the imputation. Nor could she be wholly 
 blind to the fact that the groom had come to take a marked 
 interest in her. She noted that he made occasion for frequent 
 interviews, and that he dropped all pretence of speaking" to 
 her in his affected Somerset dialect. When now she ventured 
 out of doors, she was almost certain to encounter him, and 
 rarely escaped without his speaking to her ; while he often 
 came into the kitchen on frivolous pretexts when she was 
 working there, and seemed in no particular haste to depart. 
 
 Several times he was detected by Mrs. Meredith thus idling 
 within doors, and was sharply reproved for it. Neither to this, 
 nor to the squire's orders that he should put an end to his 
 " night-walking " and to his trips to the village, did he pay 
 the slightest heed. 
 
 Fownes entered the kitchen one morning in November 
 while Janice and Sukey were deep in the making of some 
 
Several Burning Questions 51 
 
 grape jelly, carrying an armful of wood ; for the bond-servant 
 for once had willingly assumed a task that had hitherto been 
 Tom's Putting the logs down in the wood-box, he stood 
 with b^ck to the fire, studying Miss Meredith, as, well covered 
 with a big apron, with rolled up sleeves, flyaway locks, and 
 flushed cheeks, she pounded away in a mortar, reducing loaf 
 sugar to usable shape. 
 
 " Now youse clar right out of yar," said Sukey, who, though 
 the one servant who was fond of Charles, like all good cooks, 
 was subject to much ferment of mind when preserving was to 
 the fore. " We uns doan want no men folks clutterin' de fire." 
 
 " Ah, Sukey," besought Charles, appealingly, " there 's a 
 white frost this morning, and 'tis bitter outside. Let me 
 just warm my fingers ? " 
 
 Sukey promptly relented, but the chill in Fownes' fingers was 
 clearly not unendurable, for in a moment he came to the 
 table, and putting his hand over that of Janice, which held 
 the pestle, he said : — 
 
 " Let me do the crushing. 'Tis too hard work for you." 
 
 " I wish you would," Miss Meredith somewhat breathlessly 
 replied. " My arms are almost ready to drop off." 
 
 "'T would set the quidnuncs discussing to which of the 
 Greek goddesses they belonged," remarked Fownes. Then 
 he was sorry he had said it, for Miss Meredith promptly 
 unrolled her sleeves ; not because in her secret heart she did 
 not like the speech, but because of a consciousness that 
 Charles was noticing what the Greek goddesses generally 
 lack. A low-cut frock was almost the unvarying dress of the 
 ladies, there was nothing wrong in the display of an ankle, 
 and elbow sleeves were very much the vogue, but to bare the 
 arms any higher was an immodesty not permitted to those 
 who were then commonly termed the " bon ton." 
 
 This addition to the working staff promptly produced an 
 order from Sukey for Janice to assume the duty of stirring a 
 pot just placed over the fire, " while I 'se goes down cellar an' 
 clars a shelf for them jellies to set on. Keep a stirrin', 
 honey, so 's it won't burn," was her parting injunction. 
 
 No sooner was the cook out of hearing than Charles spoke : 
 " For two days," he said in a low voice, " I have tried to get 
 
52 Janice Meredith 
 
 word with you. Won't you come to the stable when I am 
 there?" 
 
 "Are you going to crush that sugar? " asked Miss Meredith, 
 
 " Art going to come to the stable ? " calmly questioned 
 Charles. 
 
 " Give me the pestle ! " said Janice, severely. 
 
 " Because if you won't," continued the groom, " I shall 
 have to say what I want now." 
 
 "I prefer not to hear it," Janice announced, moving from 
 the fire. 
 
 " You must keep on stirring, or 't will burn. Miss Janice," 
 the man reminded her, taking a mean advantage of the 
 situation. 
 
 Janice came back and resumed her task, but she said, " I 
 don't choose to listen." 
 
 " 'Tis for thy father's sake I ask it." 
 
 "How?" demanded the girl, looking up with sudden 
 interest. 
 
 " I went to the village t' other night," replied the man, " to 
 drill — " Then he checked himself, in evident disconcertion. 
 
 " Drill ? " asked Janice. " What drill ? " 
 
 " Let us call it quadrille, since that is not the material part," 
 said Charles. " What is to the point is that after — after 
 doing what took me, I stayed to help in Guy Fawkes' fun on 
 the green." 
 
 " Well ? " questioned the girl, encouragingly. 
 
 " The frolickers had some empty tar barrels and an effigy 
 of the Pope, and they gave him and a copy of the Boston 
 Port Bill each a coat of tar and leaves, and then burned 
 them." 
 
 " What fun ! " cried Janice, ceasing to stir in her interest. 
 '• I wish mommy would let me go. She says 't is unbecoming 
 in the gentility, but I don't see why being well born should 
 be a reason for not having as good a time as " 
 
 "As servants? " interrupted Fownes, hotly, as if her words 
 stung him. 
 
 " I 'm afraid, Charles," reproved Janice, assuming again a 
 severe manner, " that you have a very bad temper." 
 
 Perhaps the man might have retorted, but instead he let 
 
Several Burning Questions 53 
 
 the anger die from his face, as he fixed his eyes on the floor. 
 "I have. Miss Janice," he aclcnowledged sadly, after a 
 moment's pause, " and 't is the curse of my life." 
 
 "You should discipline it," advised Miss Meredith, sagely. 
 "When I lose my temper, I always read a chapter in the 
 Bible," she added, with a decidedly " hoher than thou " in 
 her manner. 
 
 " How many times hast thou read the good book through, 
 Miss Janice?" asked Fownes, smiling, and Miss Meredith's 
 virtuous pose became suddenly an uncomfortable one to the 
 young lady. 
 
 "You were to tell me something about Mr. Meredith," 
 she said stiffly. 
 
 " After burning the Pope and the bill, 't was suggested by 
 some to empty the pot of tar on the fire. But objection was 
 made, because — " 
 
 "Because?" questioned Janice. 
 
 "Someone said 'twould be needed shortly to properly 
 season green wood, and therefore must not be wasted." 
 " You don't think they — ?" cried Janice, in alarm. 
 The servant nodded his head. "The feeling against the 
 squire is far deeper than you suspect. 'Twill find vent in 
 some violence, I fear, unless he yield to public sentiment." 
 
 " He '11 never truckle to the country licks and clouted 
 shoons of Brunswick," asserted Janice, proudly. 
 
 " 'T will fare the worse for him. 'T is as sensible to run 
 counter to public opinion as ' tis to cut roads over mountains." 
 " 'T is worse still to be a coward, " cried Janice, contemptu- 
 ously. " I fear, Charles, you are very mean-spirited." 
 
 Fownes shrugged his shoulders. "As a servant should be," 
 he muttered bitterly. 
 
 "Even a servant can do what is right," answered the 
 girl. 
 
 " 'T is not a question of right, 't is one of expediency," re- 
 plied the bondsman. " A year at coutt, Miss Janice, would 
 teach you that in this world 't is of monstrous importance to 
 know when to bow." 
 
 "What do you know of court? " exclaimed Janice. 
 
 "Very little," confessed the man. "But I know it teachei 
 
54 Janice Meredith 
 
 one good lesson in life, — that of submission, — and an impor- 
 tant thing 'tis to learn." 
 
 " I only bow to those whom I know to be my superiors," 
 said Janice, with her head held very erect. 
 
 " 'T is an easy way for you to avoid bowing," asserted the 
 groom, smiling. 
 
 Again Janice sought a change of subject by saying, " Think 
 you that is why we are being spied upon ? " 
 
 "Spied?" questioned the bondsman. 
 
 " Last week dadda thought he saw a face one evening at the 
 parlour window, and two nights ago I looked up suddenly and 
 saw — Well, mommy said 't was only vapours, but I know I 
 saw something." 
 
 The servant turned his face away from Janice, and coughed. 
 Then he replied, " Perhaps 't was some one watching you. 
 Didst make no attempt to find him?" 
 
 " Dadda went to the window both times, but could see 
 ■othing." 
 
 " He probably had time to hide behind the shrubs," sur- 
 mised Charles. " I shall set myself to watching, and I '11 
 warrant to catch the villain at it if he tries it again." From 
 the savageness with which he spoke, one would have inferred 
 that he was bitterly enraged at any one spying through the 
 parlour window on Miss Meredith's evening hours. 
 
 " I wish you would," solicited Janice. " For if it happened 
 again, I don't know what I should do. Mommy insisted it 
 was n't a ghost, and scolded me for screaming ; but all the same, 
 it gave me a dreadful turn. I did n't go to sleep for hours." 
 
 " I am sorry it frightened you," said the servant, and then 
 after a moment's hesitation he continued, " 'T was I, and if I 
 had thought for a moment to scare you — " 
 
 " You ! " cried Janice. " What were you doing there ? " 
 
 The man looked her in the eyes while he replied in a low 
 voice, " Looking at paradise. Miss Janice." 
 
 " Janice Meredith," said her mother's voice, sternly, " thou 
 good-for-nothing ! Thou 'st let the syrup burn, and the smell 
 is all over the house. Charles, what dost thou mean by loaf- 
 ing indoors at this hour of the day? Go about thy work." 
 
 And paradise dissolved into a pot of burnt svruo. 
 
IX 
 
 PARADISE AND ELSEWHERE 
 
 WHILE Charles was within hearing, Mrs. Meredith 
 continued to scold Janice about the burnt syrup, 
 but this subject was ended with his exit. 
 " I 'm ashamed that a daughter of mine should 
 allow a servant to be so familiar," Mrs. Meredith began anew. 
 " 'T is a shame on us all, Janice. Hast thou no idea of what 
 is decent and befitting to a girl of thy station?" 
 
 " He was n't familiar, " cried Janice, angrily and proudly, 
 " and you should know that if he had been I — he was telling 
 me—" 
 
 "Yes," cried her mother, "tell me what he was saying 
 about paradise ? Dost think me a nizey, child, not to know 
 what men mean when they talk about paradise ? " 
 
 Janice's cheeks reddened, and she replied hotly, " If men 
 talked to you about paradise, why should n't they talk to me ? 
 I 'm sure 't is a pleasant change after the parson's everlasting 
 and eternal talk of an everlasting and eternal — " 
 
 "Don't thee dare say it!" interrupted Mrs. Meredith. 
 "Thou fallen, sin-eaten child ! Go to thy room and stay 
 there for the rest of the day. 'T is all of a piece that thou 
 shouldst disgrace us by unseemly conduct with a stable-boy. 
 Fine talk 't will make for the tavern." 
 
 The injustice and yet possible truth in this speech was too 
 much for Janice to hear, and without an attempt at reply, she 
 burst into a storm of tears and fled to her room. 
 
 Deprived of a listener, Mrs. Meredith sought the squire, 
 and very much astonished him by a prediction that, " Thy 
 daughter, Mr. Meredith, is going to bring disgrace on the 
 family." 
 
 "What's to do now?" cried the parent. 
 
56 Janice Meredith 
 
 "A pretty to do, indeed," his wife assured him. "Dost 
 want her running off some fine night with thy groom ? " 
 
 " Tush, Matilda ! " responded Mr. Meredith. " 'T is 
 impossible." 
 
 "Just what my parents said when thou earnest a-courting." 
 
 " I was no redemptioner." 
 
 '"Twas none the less a step-down for me," replied Mrs. 
 Meredith, calmly. " And I had far less levity than — " 
 
 " Nay, Matilda, she often reminds me very — " 
 
 " Lambert, I never was light ! Or at least never after 
 I sat under Dr. Edwards and had a call. The quicker we 
 marry Janice to Mr. McClave, the better 'twill be for 
 her." 
 
 " Now, pox me ! " cried the squire, " if I '11 give my lass to 
 be made the drudge of another woman's children." 
 
 " 'T is the very discipline she needs," retorted the wife. 
 " But for my checking her a moment ago I believe she 'd 
 have spoken disrespectfully of hell ! " 
 
 " Small wonder 1 " muttered her husband. " Is 't not 
 enough to ye Presbyterians to doom one to everlasting 
 torment in the future life without making this life as bad ? " 
 
 "'Tis the way to be saved," replied Mrs. Meredith. "As 
 Mr. McClave said to Janice shortly since, ' Be assured that 
 doing the unpleasant thing is the surest road to salvation, for 
 tho' it should not find grace in the eyes of a righteously angry 
 God, yet having been done from no carnal and sinful craving 
 of the flesh, it cannot increase his anger towards you.' t Ah, 
 Lambert, that man has the true gift.'' 
 
 " Since he' s so damned set on being uncarnal," snapped 
 the squire, " let him go without Janice." 
 
 " And have her running off with an indentured servant, as 
 Anne Loughton did?" 
 
 " She '11 do nothing of the kirid. If ye want a husband for 
 the lass, let her take Phil." 
 
 " A bankrupt." 
 
 " Tush ! There are acres enough to pay the old squire's 
 debts three times over. She 'd bring Phil enough ready 
 money to clear it all, and 'tis rich mellow land that will 
 double in value, give it time." 
 
Paradise and Elsewhere 57 
 
 " I tell thee her head 's full of this bond-servant. The two 
 were in the kitchen just now, talking about paradise, and I 
 know not what other foolishness." 
 
 "That," said Mr. Meredith, with a grin of enjoyment, 
 " sounds like true Presbyterian doctrine. The Westminster 
 Assembly seem to have left paradise out of the creation." 
 
 "Such flippancy is shameful in one of thy years, Mr, 
 Meredith," said his wife, sternly, "and canst have but one 
 ending." 
 
 " That is all any of us can have, Patty," replied the squire, 
 genially. 
 
 Mrs. Meredith went to the door, but before leaving the 
 room, she said, still with a stern, set face, though with a break 
 in her voice, " Is 't not enough that my four babies are endur- 
 ing everlasting torment, but my husband and daughter must 
 go the same way ? " 
 
 " There, there, Matilda ! " cried the husband. " 'T was 
 said in jest only and was nothing more than lip music. Come 
 back — " the speech ended there as a door at a distance 
 banged. " Now she '11 have a cry all by herself," groaned the 
 squire. " 'T is a strange thing she took it so bravely when 
 the road was rough, yet now, when 't is easy pulling, she lets 
 it fret and gall her." 
 
 Then Mr. Meredith looked into his fire, and saw another 
 young girl, a little more serious than Janice, perhaps, but still 
 gay-hearted and loved by many. He saw her making a stolen 
 match with himself; passed in review the long years of aliena- 
 tion from her family, the struggle with poverty, and, saddest of 
 all, the row of litde gravestones which told of the burial of the 
 best of her youth. He saw the day finally when, a worn, sad- 
 dened woman, she at last was in the possession of wealth, to 
 find in it no pleasure, yet to turn eagerly, and apparently with 
 comfort, to the teachmgs of that strange combination of fire 
 and logic, Jonathan Edwards. He recalled the two sermons dur- 
 ing Edwards's brief term as president of Nassau Hall, which 
 moved him so little, yet which had convinced Mrs. Meredith 
 that her dead babies had been doomed to eternal punishmsnt 
 and had made her the stem, unyielding woman she was. The 
 squire was too hearty an animal, and lived too much in the 
 
58 Janice Meredith 
 
 open air, to be given to introspective thought, but he shook 
 his head. " A strange warp and woof we weave of the skein," 
 he sighed, " that sorrow for the dead should harden us to the 
 living." Mr. Meredith rose, went upstairs, and rapped at a 
 door. Getting no reply, after a repetition of the knock, he 
 went in. 
 
 A glance revealed what at first sight looked like a crumpled 
 heap of clothes upon the bed, but after more careful scrutiny 
 the mass was found to have a head, very much buried between 
 two pillows, and the due quantity of arms and legs. Walking 
 to the bed, the squire put his hand on the bundle, 
 
 "There, lass," he said, "'tis nought to make such a pother 
 about." 
 
 "Oh, dadda," moaned Janice, "I am the most unhappy 
 girl that ever lived." 
 
 It is needless to say after this remark that Miss Meredith's 
 knowledge of the world was not of the largest, and the squire, 
 with no very great range of experience, smiled a little as he 
 said : — 
 
 "Then 'twill not make you more miserable to wed the 
 parson ? " 
 
 " Dadda ! " exclaimed the girl, rolling over quickly, to get 
 a sight of his countenance. When she found him smiling, the 
 a^xious look on the still red and tear-stained face melted 
 away, and she laughed merrily. « Think of the life I 'd give 
 the good man 1 How I would wherrit him ! He 'd have to 
 give up his church to have time enough to preach to me." 
 Apparently the deep woe alluded to the moment before was 
 forgotten. 
 
 " I 've no manner of doubt he 'd enjoy the task," declared 
 the father, with evident pride. "Ah, Jan, many a man would 
 enter the ministry, if he might be ordained parson of ye." 
 
 "The only parson I want is a father confessor," said Janice, 
 sitting up and giving him a kiss. 
 
 " Then what 's this maggot your mother has got in her 
 head about ye and Charles and paradise?" laughed her 
 father. 
 
 " Indeed, dadda," protested the girl, eagerly, " mommy was 
 most unjust. I was to stir some syrup, and Charles came into 
 
Paradise and Elsewhere 59 
 
 the kitchen and would talk to me, and as I could n't leave the 
 pot, I had to listen, and then — well — " 
 
 "I thought as much!" cried the squire, heartily, when 
 Janice paused. "Where the syrup is, there'll find ye the 
 flies. But we'll have no horse-fly buzzing about ye. My 
 fine gentleman shall be taught where he belongs, if it takes 
 the whip to do it." 
 
 " No, dadda," exclaimed Janice. " He spoke but to warn 
 me of danger to you. He says there 's preparation to tar 
 and feather you unless you — you do something." 
 
 " Foo ! " sniffed the squire. " Let them snarl. I '11 show 
 them I 'm not a man to be driven by tag, long tail, and 
 bobby." 
 
 « But Charles — " began the girl. 
 
 "Ay, Charles," interrupted Mr. Meredith. " I 've no doubt 
 he 's one of 'em. 'T is always the latest importations take 
 the hottest part against the gentry." 
 
 « Nay, dadda, I think he — " 
 
 " Mark me, that 's what takes the tyke to the village so 
 often." 
 
 " He said 't was to drill he went" 
 
 "To drill?" questioned the squire. " What meant he by 
 that?" 
 
 " I asked him, and he said 't was quadrille. Dost think he 
 meant dancing or cards?" 
 
 " 'T is in keeping that he should be a. dancing master or a 
 card-sharper," asserted Mr. Meredith. " No wonder 't is a dis- 
 ordered land when 't is used as a catchall for every man not 
 wanted in England. We '11 soon put a finish to his night- 
 walking." 
 
 " I don't think he 's a villain, dadda, and he certainly 
 meant kindly in warning us." 
 
 " To make favour by tale-bearing, no doubt." 
 
 " I 'm sure he 'd not a thought of it," declared Janice, 
 with an unconscious eagerness which made the squire knit 
 his brows. 
 
 " Ye speak warmly, child," he said. " I trust your mother 
 be not justified in her suspicion." 
 
 The girl, whp meanwhile had sprung off the bed, drew her- 
 
6o Janice Meredith 
 
 self up proudly. " Mommy is altogether wrong," she replied. 
 " I 'd never descend so low." 
 
 " I said as much," responded the squire, gleefully. 
 
 "A likely idea, indeed!" exclaimed Janice. "As if I'd 
 have aught to do with a groom ! No, I never could shame 
 the family by that." 
 
 " Wilt give me your word to that, Jan? " asked the squire. 
 
 " Yes," cried the girl, and then roguishly added, " Why, 
 dadda, I 'd as soon, yes, sooner, marry old Belza, who at 
 least is a prince in his own country, than see a Byllynge marry 
 a bond-servant." 
 
A COLONIAL CHRISTMAS 
 
 FOR some weeks following the pledge of Janice, the life 
 at Greenwood became as healthily monotonous as of 
 yore. Both Mr. and Mrs. Meredith spoke so sharply 
 to both Sukey and Charles of his loitering about the 
 kitchen that his visits, save at meal times, entirely ceased. 
 The squire went further and ordered him to put an end to 
 his trips to the village, but the man took this command in 
 sullen silence, and was often absent. 
 
 One circumstance, however, very materially lessened the 
 possible encounters between the bond-servant and the maiden. 
 This was no less than the setting in of the winter snows, which 
 put a termination to all the girl's outdoor life, excepting the 
 attendance at the double church services on Sundays, which 
 Mrs. Meredith never permitted to be neglected. From the 
 window Janice sometimes saw the groom playing in the drifts 
 with Clarion, but that was almost the extent of her knowledge 
 of his doings. It is to ^e confessed that she eagerly longed 
 to join them or, at least, to have a like sport with the dog. 
 Eighteenth-century etiquette, however, neither countenanced 
 such conduct in the quality, nor, in fact, clothed them for it. 
 
 A point worth noting at this time was connected with one 
 window of the parlour. Each afternoon as night shut down, it 
 was Peg's duty to close all the blinds, for colonial windows not 
 being of the tightest, every additional barricade to Boreas was 
 welcome, and this the servant did with exemplary care. But 
 every evening after tea, Janice always walked to a particular 
 window and, opening the shutter, looked out for a moment, as 
 if to see what the night promised, before she took her seat at 
 her tambour frame or sewing. Sometimes one of her parents 
 called attention to the fact that she had not quite closed the 
 
62 Janice Meredith 
 
 shutters again, and she always remedied the oversight at once. 
 Otherwise she never looked at the window during the whole 
 evening, glance where she might. Presumably she still re- 
 membered the fright her putative ghost had occasioned her, 
 and chose not to run the chance of another sight of him. 
 Almost invariably, however, in the morning she blew on the 
 frost upon the • window of her own room and having rubbed 
 clear a spot, looked below, much as if she suspected ghosts 
 could leave tracks in the snow. In her behalf it is only fair 
 to say that the girls of that generation were so shut in as far 
 as regarded society or knowledge of men tliat they let their 
 imaginations question and wander in a manner difficult now 
 to coneeive. At certain ages the two sexes are very much 
 interested in each other, and if this interest is not satisfied 
 objectively, it will be subjectively. 
 
 Snow, if a jailer, was likewise a defence, and apparently 
 cooled for a time the heat of the little community against the 
 squire. Even the Rev. Mr. McClave's flame of love and love 
 of flame were modified by the depth of the drifts he must 
 struggle through, in order to discourse on eternal torment 
 while gazing at earthly paradise. Janice became convinced 
 that the powers of darkness no longer had singled her out as 
 their particular prey, and in the peaceful isolation of the win- 
 ter her woes, when she thought of them, underwent a change 
 of grammatical tense which suggested that they had become 
 things of the past. 
 
 One of her tormenting factors was not to be so treated. 
 Philemon alone made nothing of the change of season, riding 
 the nine miles between his home and Greenwood by daylight 
 or by moonlight, as if his feeling for the girl not merely 
 warmed but lighted the devious path between the drifts. Yet 
 it was not to make love he came j for he sat a silent, awkward 
 figure when once within doors, speaking readily enough in 
 response to the elders, but practically inarticulate whenever 
 called upon to reply to Janice. Her bland unconsciousness 
 was a barrier far worse than the snow ; and never dreaming 
 that he was momentarily declaring his love for her in a 
 manner far stronger than words, he believed her wholly igno- 
 rant of what he felt, and stayed for hours at a time, longing 
 
A Colonial Christmas 63 
 
 helplessly for a turn of events which should make it possible 
 for him to speak. 
 
 Philemon was thus engaged or disengaged one December 
 morning when Peg entered the parlour where the family were 
 sitting as close to the fire as the intense glow of the hickory 
 embers would allow, and handing Janice a letter with an air 
 of some importance, remarked, " Charles he ask me give you 
 dat." Then, colonial servants being prone to familiarity, and 
 negro slaves doubly so, Peg rested her weight on one foot, 
 and waited to learn what this unusual event might portend. 
 All present instantly fixed their eyes upon Janice, but had 
 they not done so it is probable that she would have coloured 
 much as she did, for the girl was enough interested and 
 enough frightened to be quite unconscious of the eyes upoa 
 her. 
 
 " A letter for thee, lass ! " exclaimed the squire. " Let 's 
 have the bowels of it." 
 
 The necessity for that very thing was what made the occur- 
 rence so alarming to Janice, for her woman's intuition had at 
 once suggested, the moment she had seen the bold hand- 
 writing of the superscription, that it could be from none other 
 than Evatt, and she had as quickly surmised that her father 
 and mother would insist upon sight of the missive. Unaware 
 of what it might contain, she sat with red cheeks, not daring 
 to break the seal. 
 
 " Hast got the jingle brains, child ? " asked her mother, 
 sharply, "that thou dost nothing but stare at it?" 
 
 Janice laid the letter in her lap, saying, " 'Twill wait till I 
 finish this row." It was certainly a hard fate which forced her 
 to delay the opening of the first letter she had ever received. 
 
 " 'T will nothing of the sort," said her mother, reaching out 
 for the paper. "Art minded to read it on the sly, iniss? 
 There shall be no letters read by stealth. Give it me." 
 
 " Oh, mommy," begged the girl, desperately, " I '11 show 
 it to you, but — oh — let me read it first, oh, please ! " 
 
 " I think 't is best not," replied her mother. " Thy anxiety 
 has an ill look to it, Janice." 
 
 The girl handed the letter dutifully, and with an anxious 
 attention watched her mother break it open, all pleasure in 
 
(64 Janice Meredith 
 
 the novelty of the occurrence quite overtopped by dread of 
 what was to come. 
 
 "What nonsense is this?" was Mrs. Meredith's anything 
 but encouraging exclamation. Then she read out : — 
 
 "'Tis unworthy of you, and of your acceptance, but ^tis the 
 fairest gift I could think of, and the best that I could do. If 
 you will but put it in the frame you have, it may seem more 
 befitting a token of the feelings that inspired it." 
 
 Janice, unable to restrain her curiosity, rose and peered over 
 her mother's shoulder. From that vantage point she ejacu- 
 lated, " Ohj how beautiful she is ! " 
 
 What she looked at was an unset miniature of a young girl, 
 with a wealth of darkest brown hair, powdered to a gray, and 
 a little straight nose with just a suggestion of a tilt to it, giving 
 the mignon face an expression of pride that the rest of the 
 countenance by no means aided. For the remaining features, 
 the mouth was still that of a child, the short upper lip pro- 
 jecting markedly over the nether one, producing not so much 
 a pouty look as one of innocence ; the eyes were brilliant 
 black, or at least were shadowed to look it by the long lashes, 
 and the black eyebrows were slender and delicately arched 
 upon a low forehead. 
 
 " Art a nizey, Janice," cried her mother, " not to know thine 
 own face?" 
 
 " Mommy ! " exclaimed the girl. " Is — am I as pretty 
 as that?" 
 
 " 'T is vastly flattered," said her mother, quickly. " I should 
 scarce know it." 
 
 " Nay, Matilda," dissented the squire, who was now also 
 gazing at the miniature. " 'T is a good phiz of our lass, and 
 but does her justice. Who ever sent it ye, Jan?" 
 
 "I suppose 'twas Mr. Evatt," confessed Janice. 
 
 " Let 's have sight of the wrapper," said the father. "Nay, 
 Jan. This has been in no post-rider's bag or 't would bear the 
 marks." 
 
 " Peg, tell Charles to come here," ordered Mrs. Meredith, 
 and after a five minutes spent by the group in various sur- 
 mises, the bond-servant, followed by the still attentive Peg, 
 entered the room. 
 
A Colonial Christmas 65 
 
 " Didst find this letter at the tavern? " demanded the squire. 
 
 The groom looked at the wrapper held out to him, and 
 repHed, " Mayhaps." 
 
 "And what took ye there against my orders?" 
 
 Charles shrugged his shoulders, and then smiled. "Ask 
 Hennion," he said. 
 
 "What means he, Phil? " questioned the squire. 
 
 " Now you 've been an' told the whole thing," exclaimed 
 Philemon, looking very much alarmed. 
 
 "Not I," replied the servant. " 'T is for you to tell it, 
 man, if 'tis to be told." 
 
 " Have done with such mingle-mangle talk," ordered Mr. 
 Meredith,- fretfully. " Is 't not enough to have French gib- 
 berish in the world, without — " 
 
 " Charles," interrupted Mrs. Meredith, " who gave thee 
 this letter?" 
 
 " Ask Miss Meredith," Fownes responded, again smiling. 
 
 "It must be Mr. Evatt," said Janice. Then as the bond- 
 servant turned sharply and looked at her, she became con- 
 scious that she was colouring. " I wish there was no such 
 thing as a blush," she maaned to herself, — a wish in which no 
 one seeing Miss Meredith would have joined. 
 
 " 'T was not from Mr. Evatt," denied the servant. 
 
 Without time for thought, Janice blurted out, " Then 't is 
 from you? " and the groom nodded his head. 
 
 "AVhat nonsense is this?" cried Mr. Meredith. "Dost 
 mean to say 't is from ye ? Whence came the picture ? " 
 
 " I was the limner," replied Charles. 
 
 " What danker have we here ? " exclaimed the squire. 
 
 "'Tis no lie, Mr. Meredith," answered the servant. "In 
 England I 've drawn many a face, and 'twas even said in jest 
 that I might be a poor devil of an artist if ever I quitted the 
 ser — quitted service." 
 
 "And where got ye the colours? " 
 
 "When I went to Princeton with the shoats I found Mr. 
 Peale painting Dr. Witherspoon, and he gave me the paints 
 and the ivory." 
 
 " Ye '11 say I suppose too that ye wrote this," demanded 
 the squire, indicating the letter. 
 
 5 
 
66 Janice Meredith 
 
 " I '11 not deny it." 
 
 "Though ye could not sign the covenant? " 
 
 Fownes once more shrugged his shoulders. " 'T is a fool 
 would sign a bond," he asserted. 
 
 "Better a fool than a knave," retorted Mr. Meredith, an- 
 gered by Charles' manner. "Janice, give the rogue back 
 the letter and picture. No daughter of Lambert Meredith 
 accepts gifts from her father's bond-servants." 
 
 The man flushed, while evidently struggling to control his 
 temper, and Janice, both in pity for him, as well as in desire 
 for possession of the picture, for gifts were rare indeed in 
 those days, begged : — 
 
 "Oh, dadda, mayn't I keep it?" 
 
 "Mr. Meredith," said Charles, speaking with evident re- 
 pression, " the present was given only with the respect — " 
 he hesitated as if for words and then continued — " the respect 
 a slave might owe his — his better. Surely on this day it 
 should be accepted in the same spirit." 
 
 " What day mean ye ? " asked Mr. Meredith. 
 
 The servant glanced at each face with surprise on his own. 
 When he read a question in all, he asked in turn, " Hast for- 
 gotten 'tis Christmas? " 
 
 Mrs. Meredith, who was still holding the portrait, dropped 
 it on the floor, as if it were in some manner dangerous. 
 " Christmas ! " she cried. " Janice, don't thee dare touch 
 the — " 
 
 "Oh, mommy, please," beseeched the girl. 
 
 "Take it away, Charles," ordered Mrs. Meredith. "And 
 never let me hear of thy being the devil's deputy again. 
 We '11 have no papish mummery at Greenwood." 
 
 The servant sullenly stooped, picked up the slip of ivory 
 without a word, and turned to leave the room. But as he 
 reached the door, Philemon found tongue. 
 
 " I '11 trade that 'ere for the fowlin'-piece you set such 
 store by," he offered. 
 
 The bondsman turned in the doorway and spoke bitterly. 
 " This is to be got for no mess of pottage, if it is scorned," he 
 said. 
 
 " I don't scorn — " began Janice, but her father broke in there. 
 
A Colonial Christmas 67 
 
 -•Give it me, fellow!" ordered the squire. "No bond- 
 servant shall have my daughter's portrait." 
 
 An angry look came into the man's eyes as he faced his 
 master. " Come and take it, then," he challenged savagely, 
 moving a step forward, — an action which for some reason 
 impelled the squire to take a step backward. 
 
 "Oh, dadda, don't," cried Janice, anxiously. "Charles, 
 you would n't ! " 
 
 Fownes turned to her, with the threat gone from his 
 face and attitude. " There 's my devil's temper again, Miss 
 Janice," said he, in explanation and apology. 
 
 " Please go away," implored the girl, and the man went to 
 the door. As he turned to close it, Janice said, " 'T was very 
 pretty, and — and — thank you, just the same." 
 
 The formalism of bygone generations was no. doubt con- 
 ducive to respectful manners, but not to confidential relations, 
 and her parents knew so little of their daughter's nature as 
 never to dream that they had occasioned the first suggestion 
 of tenderness for the opposite sex the young girl's heart had 
 ever felt. And love's flame is superior to physical law in that, 
 the less ventilation it has, the more fiercely it burns. 
 
XI 
 
 "'TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NOBODY GOOD" 
 
 THE next ripple in the Greenwood life was due to 
 more material circumstances, being inaugurated by 
 the receipt of the Governor's writ, convening the 
 Assembly of New Jersey. A trivial movement of 
 a petty pawn on the chess-board of general politics, it never- 
 theless was of distinct importance in several respects to the 
 Meredith family. Apparently the call meant only a few weeks' 
 attendance of the squire's at Burlington, in the performance 
 of legislative duties, and Janice's going with him to make a 
 return visit to the Drinkers at Trenton. These, however, were 
 the simplest aspects of the summons, and action by the citi- 
 zens of Middlesex County quickly injected a more serious 
 element into the programme. 
 
 The earliest evidence of this was the summoning by the 
 Committee of Observation and Correspondence of a gathering 
 to " instruct " the county representatives how they should vote 
 on the question as to indorsing or disapproving the measures 
 of the recent Congress. The notice of the meeting was read 
 aloud by the Rev. Mr. McClave before his morning sermon 
 one Sunday, and then he preached long and warmly from 2 
 Timothy, ii. 25, — " Instructing those that oppose them- 
 selves," — the purport of his argument being the duty of the 
 whole community to join hands in resisting the enemies of 
 the land. The preacher knew he was .directly antagonising 
 the views of his wealthiest parishioner and the father of his 
 would-be wife, but that fact only served to make him speak 
 the more forcefully and fervently. However hard and stem 
 the old Presbyterian faith was, its upholders had the merit of 
 knowing what they believed, and of stating that belief without 
 flinch or waver. 
 
"An 111 Wind" 69 
 
 As he sat and listened, not a little of the squire's old Madeira 
 found its way into his face, and no sooner were the family 
 seated in the sleigh than the wine seemed to find expression 
 in his tongue as well. 
 
 " 'T is the last time I set foot in your church, Mrs. Mere- 
 dith," he declared, loudly enough to make it evident that he 
 desired those filing out of the doors to hear. " Never before 
 have I—" 
 
 " Hold thy tongue, Lambert ! " interrupted Mrs. Meredith, 
 in a low voice. " Dost think to make a scene on the Sabbath? " 
 
 "Then let your parson hold his," retorted Mr. Meredith, 
 but like a well-trained husband, in so low a voice as to be 
 inaudible to all but the occupants of the sleigh-i " Ge wug. 
 Joggles ! What is the land coming to, when such doctrines 
 are preached in the pulpits ; when those in authority are told 
 'tis their duty to do what the riff-raff think best? As well let 
 their brats and bunters tell us what to do. They '11 not force 
 me to attend their meeting, nor to yield a jot." 
 
 In fulfilment of his assertion, the squire sat quietly at home 
 on the afternoon that the popular opinion of the county 
 sought to voice itself, nodding his head over a volume ol 
 " Hale's Compleat Body of Husbandry." But as night drew 
 near he was roused from his nap by the riding up of Squire 
 Hennion and Philemon. Let it be confessed that, despite Mr. 
 Meredith's contempt for what he styled the "mobocracy," 
 his first question concerned the meeting. 
 
 "A pooty mess yer've made of it, Meredith," growled Mr. 
 
 Hennion. 
 
 « I ! " cried the squire, indignantly. " 'T is naught I had to 
 
 do with it." 
 
 "An' 'tis thet'ere keepin' away dun the harm, scolded 
 the elder Hennion. "Swamp it, yer let the hotheads con- 
 trol' Had all like yer but attended, they'd never hev bm 
 able to carry some of them 'ere resolushuns. ^ On mor'n one 
 resolve a single vote would hev bin a negative." 
 
 "Pooh!" sneered the squire. "Sit down and warm thy 
 feet while thee cools thy head, man. Ye '11 not get me to 
 believe that one vote only was needed to prevent 'em indorsmg 
 the Congress association." 
 
JO Janice Meredith 
 
 " Sartin they approved the Congress doins, nemine contra- 
 dicente, as they wuz baound ter do since all aginst kep 9rway, 
 
 but — " 
 
 "Dost mean to say ye voted for it?" demanded Mr. 
 
 Meredith. 
 
 Squire Hennion's long, shrewd face slightly broadened as 
 he smiled. " I wuz jest stepped over ter the ordinary ter git 
 a nipperkin of ale when thet ere vote wuz took." 
 
 "Who let the hotheads control, then?" jerked out Mr. 
 Meredith. 
 
 " 'T ain't no sort of use ter hev my neebours set agin me." 
 
 " And ye '11 vote at Burlington as they tell ye? " fumed the 
 squire. 
 
 " I 'm rayther fearsome my rheumatiz will keep me ter hum 
 this winter weather. I 've had some mortal bad twinges naow 
 an' agin." 
 
 " Now damn me ! " swore the squire, rising and pacing the 
 room with angry strides. " And ye come here to blame me 
 for neglecting a chance to check ' em." 
 
 " I duz," responded Hennion. " If I go ter Assembly, 
 't won't prevent theer votin' fer what they wants. But if yer 
 had attended thet 'ere meetin', we could hev stopped them 
 from votin' ter git up a militia company an' ter buy twenty 
 barrels — " 
 
 " Dost mean to say they voted rebellion ? " roared Mr. 
 Meredith, halting in his angry Stride. 
 
 " It duz hev a squint toward it, theer ain't no denyin . 
 But I reckon it wuz baound ter come, vote ay or vote nay. 
 Fer nigh three months all the young fellers hev been drillin' 
 pooty reg'lar." , 
 
 " Oh ! " spoke up Janice. " Then that 's what Charles 
 meant when he said 'twas drill took him to the village." 
 
 "What?" demanded the squire. " My bond-servant ? " 
 
 " Ay. 'T is he duz the trainin', so Phil tells me." 
 
 Mr. Meredith opened the door into the hall, and bawled, 
 " Peg ! " Without waiting to give the maid time to answer 
 the summons he roared the name again, and continued to 
 fairly bellow it until the appearance of the girl, whom he then 
 ordered to " find Charles and send him here." Slightly re- 
 
"An 111 Wind" 71 
 
 lieved, he stamped back to the fire, muttering to himself in 
 his ire. 
 
 A pause for a moment ensued, and then the elder Hennion 
 spoke : " Waal, Meredith, hev yer rumpus with yer servant, 
 but fust off let me say the say ez me and Phil come fer." 
 
 "And what's that?" 
 
 " I rayther guess yer know areddy," continued the father, 
 while the son's face became of the coloar of the hickory 
 embers. " My boy 's in a mighty stew about yer gal, but he 
 can't git the pluck ter tell her ; so seein' he needed some help 
 an' since I 'd come ez far ez Brunswick, says I we '11 make one 
 ride of it, an' over we comes ter tell yer fair an ' open what 
 he 's hangin' araound fer." 
 
 Another red face was hurriedly concealed by its owner 
 stooping over her tambour-frame, and Janice stitched away as 
 if nothing else were worth a second thought. It may be 
 noted, however, that, as a preliminary to further work the next 
 morning, a number of stitches had to be removed. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " laughed the squire, heartily, and slapping Phil 
 on the shoulder. " A shy bird, but a sly bird, eh? Oh, no ! 
 Mr. Fox thought the old dogs did n 't know that he wanted 
 little Miss Duck." 
 
 Already in an agony of embarrassment, this speech reduced 
 Phil to still more desperate straits. He could look at his 
 father only in a kind of dumb appeal, and that individual, 
 seeing his son 's helplessness, spoke again. 
 
 " 1 'd hev left the youngsters ter snook araound till they wuz 
 able ter fix things by themselves," Mr. Hennion explained. 
 " But the times is gittin' so troublous thet I want ter see Phil 
 sottled, an' not rampin' araound as young fellers will when 
 they hain't got nuthin' ter keep them hum nights. An' so I 
 reckon thet if it ever is ter be, the sooner the better. Yer 
 gal won't be the wus oif, hevin' three men ter look aout fer 
 her, if it duz come on ter blow." 
 
 "Well said!" answered the squire. "What say ye, 
 Matilda?" 
 
 " Oh, dadda," came an appeal from the tambour-frame, 
 " I don't want to marry. I want to stay ^t home with — " 
 
 "Be quiet, child," spoke up her mother, "and keep thine 
 
72 Janice Meredith 
 
 opinion to thyself till asked. We know best what is for thy 
 good." 
 
 " He, he, he ! " snickered the elder Hennion. " Gals hain't 
 changed much since I wuz a-courtin'. They alius make aout 
 ter be desprit set agin the fellers an' mortal daown on mar- 
 ryin', but, lordy me ! if the men held off the hussies 'ud do 
 the chasin'." 
 
 " Thee knows, Lambert," remarked his better half, " that I 
 think Janice would get more discipline and greater godliness 
 in — " 
 
 " I tell ye he sha'n 't have her," broke in the squire, " No 
 man who preaches against me shall have my daughter ; no, 
 not if 't were Saint Paul himself." 
 
 " For her eventual good I — " 
 
 " Damn her eventual — " 
 
 " I fear 't will come to that." 
 
 "Well, well, Patty, perhaps it will," acceded the squire. 
 *' But since 't is settled already by foreordination, let the lass 
 have a good time before it comes. Wouldst rather marry the 
 parson than Phil, Janice ? " 
 
 " I don 't want to marry any one," cried the girl, beginning 
 to sob. 
 
 ■ A. stiff-necked child thou art," said her mother, sternly. 
 ■"Dost hear me?" 
 
 "Yes, mommy," responded a woful voice. 
 
 " And dost intend to be obedient ? " * 
 
 "Yes, mommy," sobbed the girl. * 
 
 " Then if thee '11 not give her to the parson, Lambert, 't is 
 test that she marry Philemon. She needs a husband to rule 
 and chasten her." 
 
 " Then 't is a bargain, Hennion," said Mr. Meredith, offer- 
 ing a hand each to father and son. 
 
 "Yer see, Phil, it's ez I told yer," cried the elder. 
 " Naow hev dun with yer stand-offishness an' buss the gal, 
 Thet 'ere is the way ter please them." 
 
 Philemon faltered, glancing from one to another, for Janice 
 was bent low over her work and was obviously weeping, — 
 facts by no means likely to give courage to one who needed 
 that element as much as did the suitor. 
 
"An 111 Wind" 73 
 
 " A noodle ! " sniggered Mr. Hennion. " 'T ain't ter be 
 wondered at thet she don't take ter yer. The jades always 
 snotter first off, but they 'd snivel worse if they wuz left 
 spinsters — eh, squire ? " 
 
 Thus encouraged, Phil shambled across the room and put 
 his hand on the shoulder of the girl. At the first touch Janice 
 gave a cry of desperation, and springing to her feet she fled 
 toward the hall, her eyes still so full of tears that she did not 
 see that something more than the door intervened to prevent 
 her escape. In consequence she came violently in contact with 
 Charles, and though to all appearance he caught her in his 
 arms only to save her from falling, Janice, even in her despair, 
 was conscious that there was more than mere physical support. 
 To the girl it seemed as if an ally had risen to her need, and 
 that the moment's tender clasp of his arms was a pledge of 
 aid to a sore-stricken fugitive. 
 
 " How now ! " cried the squire. " Hast been listening, 
 fellow?" 
 
 " I did not like to interrupt," said Charles, drily. 
 
 " I sent for ye, because I 'm told ye 've been inciting re- 
 bellion against the king. 
 
 The man smiled. "'Tis little inciting they need," he 
 answered. 
 
 " Is 't true that ye 've been drilling them ? " demanded the 
 squire. 
 
 " Ask Phil Hennion," replied the. servant. 
 
 "What mean ye?" 
 
 " If 't is wrong for me to drill, is 't not wrong for him to be 
 drilled?" 
 
 "How?" once more roared the squire. "Dost mean to 
 say that Phil has been drilling along with the other villains?" 
 
 "Naow, naow, Meredith," spoke up the elder Hennion. 
 " Boys will be boys, yer know, an' — " 
 
 "That 's enough," cried the father. " I '11 have no man at 
 Greenwood who takes arms against our good king. Is there 
 no loyalty left in the land? " 
 
 " Naow look here, Meredith," Mr. Hennion argued. " Theer 
 ain't no occasion fer such consarned highty-tighty airs. Yer 
 can't keep boys from bein' high-sperited. What 's more — " 
 
74 Janice Meredith 
 
 " High-spirited ! " snapped the squire. " Is that the name 
 ye give rebellion, Justice Hennion?" 
 
 "Thet 'ere is jest what I wuz a-comin' ter, Meredith," 
 went on his fellow-justice. " Fust off I wuz hot agin his 
 consarnin' himself, an' tried ter hold him back, but, lordy 
 me ! young blood duz love fightin', an' with all the young 
 fellows possest, an' all the gals admirin', I might ez well a-tried 
 ter hold a young steer. So, says I, 't is the hand of Provi- 
 dence, fer no man kin tell ez what 's ahead of us. There 
 ain't no good takin' risks, an' so I '11 side in with the one side, 
 an' let Phil side in with t' other, an' then whatsomever comes, 
 't will make no differ ter us. Naow, ef the gal kin come it 
 over Phil ter quit trainin', all well an' good, an' — " 
 
 "I'll tell ye what I think of ye," cried Mr. Meredith. 
 " That ye 're a precious knave, and Phil 's a precious fool, 
 and I want no more of either of ye at Greenwood." 
 
 " Now, squire," began Phil, " 't ain't — " 
 
 " Don't attempt to argue ! " roared Mr. Meredith. " I say 
 the thing is ended. Get out of my house, the pair of ye ! " 
 and with this parting remark, the speaker flung from the 
 room, and a moment later the door of his office banged with 
 such force that the whole house shook. Both the elder and 
 younger Hennion stayed for some time, and each made an 
 attempt to see the squire, but he refused obstinately to have 
 aught to do with them, and they were finally forced to ride 
 away. 
 
 Though many men were anxiously watching the gathering 
 storm, a girl of sixteen laid her head on her pillow that night, 
 deeply thankful that British regiments were mustering at 
 Boston, and that America, accepting this as an answer to her 
 appeal, was quietly making ready to argue the dispute with 
 something more potent than petitions and associations. 
 
XII 
 A BABE IN THE WOOD 
 
 THE following morning the squire went to the stable, 
 and after soundly rating Charles for his share in 
 the belligerent preparation of Brunswick, ordered 
 him, under penalty of a flogging, to cease not only 
 from exercising the would-be soldiers, but from all absences 
 from the estate " without my order or permission." The man 
 took the tirade as usual with an evident contempt more irritat- 
 ing than less passive action, speaking for the first time when 
 at the end of the monologue the master demanded : — 
 
 "Speak out, fellow, and say if ye intend to do as ye are 
 ordered, for if not, over ye go with me this morning to the 
 sitting of the justices." 
 
 " I 'm not the man to take a whipping, that I warn you," 
 was the response. 
 
 "Ye dare threaten, do ye?" cried the master. "Saddle 
 Jumper and Daisy, and have 'em at the door after breakfast. 
 One rascal shall be quickly taught what rebellion ends in." 
 
 Fuming, the squire went to his morning meal, at which he 
 announced his intention to ride to Brunswick and the purport 
 of the trip. 
 
 " Oh, dadda, he — please don't ! " begged Janice. 
 
 '• And why not, child ? " demanded her mother. 
 
 " Because he — oh ! he is n't like most bondsmen and — " 
 
 "What did I tell thee, Lambert? " said Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Nonsense, Matilda," snorted the squire. " The lass gave 
 me her word for 't — " 
 
 " Word ! " ejaculated the wife. " What 's a word or any- 
 thing else when — Since thee 's sent Phil off, the quicker thee 
 comes to my mind, and gives her to the parson, the better." 
 
 " What mean ye by objecting to this fellow being flogged, 
 Jan ? " asked the father. 
 
76 Janice Meredith 
 
 Poor Janice, torn between the two difficulties, subsided, and 
 meekly responded, "I — Well, I don't like to have things 
 whipped, dadda. But if Charles deserves it, of course he — 
 he — 't is right." 
 
 " There ! " said Mr. Meredith, " ye see the lass has the 
 sense of it." 
 
 The subject was dropped, but after breakfast, as the crunch 
 of the horse's feet sounded, Janice left the spinet for a 
 moment to look out of the window, and it was a very dole- 
 ful and pitiful face she took back to her task five minutes 
 later. 
 
 When master and man drew rein in front of the Brunswick 
 Court-house, it was obvious to the least heedful that something 
 unusual was astir. Although the snow lay deep in front of the 
 building and a keen nip was in the air, the larger part of the 
 male population of the village was gathered on the green. 
 Despite the chill, some sat upon the steps of the building, 
 others bestowed themselves on the stocks in front of it, and 
 still more stood about in groups, stamping their feet or swing- 
 ing their arms, clearly too chilled to assume more restful 
 attitudes, yet not willing to desert to the more comfortable 
 firesides within doors. 
 
 Ordering the bond-servant to hitch the two horses in the 
 meeting-house shed and then to come to the court-room, the 
 squire made his way between the loafers on the steps, and 
 attempted to open the door, only to discover that the padlock 
 was still fast in the staple. i 
 
 "How now, Mr. Constable?" he exclaimed, turning, and 
 thus for the first time becoming conscious that every eye was 
 upon him. " What means this ? " 
 
 The constable, who was one of those seated on the stocks, 
 removed a straw from between his lips, spat at the pillory post, 
 much as if he were shooting at a mark, and remarked, " I 
 calkerlate yer waan't at the meetin', squire ? " 
 
 " Not I," averred Mr. Meredith. 
 
 "Yer see," explained the constable, " they voted that there 
 shouldn't be no more of the king's law till we wuz more 
 sartin of the king's justice, an' that any feller as opposed that 
 'ere resolution wuz ter be held an enemy ter his country an' 
 
A Babe in the Wood 77 
 
 treated as such. That ain't the persition I'm ambeetious ter 
 hold, an' so I did n't open the court-house." 
 
 " What? " gasped Mr. Meredith. " Are ye all crazy? " 
 
 " Mebbe we be," spoke up one of the listeners, " but we ain't 
 so crazy by a long sight as him as issued that." The speaker 
 pointed at the king's proclamation, and then, either to prove 
 his contempt for the symbol of monarchy, or else to show the 
 constable how much better shot he was, he neatly squirted a 
 mouthful of tobacco juice full upon the royal arms. 
 
 "And where are the other justices? " demanded the squire, 
 looking about as if in search of assistance. 
 
 " The old squire an' the paason wuz at the meetin', an' I 
 guess they knew it 'ud only be wastin' time to attend this 
 pertiklar sittin' of the court." 
 
 " Belza take them ! " cried the squire. "They 're a pair of 
 cotswold lions, and I'll tell it them to their faces," he added, 
 alluding to a humorous expression of the day for a sheep. 
 " Here I have a rebellious servant, and I 'd like to know how 
 I 'm to get warrant to flog him, if there is to be no court. 
 Dost mean to have no law in the land? " 
 
 " I guess," retorted Bagby, " that if the king won't regard the 
 Taw, he can't expect the rest of us to, noways. What 's sauce 
 for the goose is sauce for the gander, and if there ever was a 
 gander it 's hiir" — a mot which produced a hearty laugh from 
 the crowd. • 
 
 "As justice of the peace I order ye to open this door, 
 constable," called the squire. 
 
 The constable pulled out a bunch of keys and tossed it in 
 the snow, saying, "'T ain't fer me to say there sha'n't be no 
 sittin' of the court, an' if yer so set on tryin', why, try." 
 
 The squire deliberately went down two steps to get the keys, 
 but the remaining six he took at one tumble, having received 
 a push from one of the loafers back of him which sent his 
 heavy body sprawling in the snow, his whip, hat, and, worst of 
 all, bis wig, flying in different directions. In a moment he 
 had risen, cleared the snow from his mouth and eyes, and 
 recovered his scattered articles, but it was not so easy to 
 recover his dignity, and this was made the more difficult by 
 the discovery that the bunch of keys had disappeared. 
 
yS Janice Meredith 
 
 " Who took those keys?" he roared as soon as he could 
 articulate, but the only reply the question produced was 
 laughter. 
 
 " Don't you wherrit yourself about those keys, squire," ad- 
 vised Bagby. " They 're safe stowed where they won't cause 
 no more trouble. And since that is done with, we 'd like to 
 settle another little matter with you that we was going to 
 come over to Greenwood about to-day, but seeing as you 're 
 here, I don't see no reason why it should n't be attended to 
 now." 
 
 "What's that?" snapped the squire. 
 
 " The meeting kind of thought things looked squawlish 
 ahead, and that it would be best to be fixed for it, so I offered 
 a resolution that the town buy twenty half-barrels of grain, 
 and that — " 
 
 " Grain ! " exclaimed the squire. " What in the 'nation 
 can ye want with grain?" 
 
 " As we are all friends here, I '11 tell you confidential sort, 
 that we put it thataways, so as the resolutions need n't read 
 too fiery, when they was published in the ' Gazette.' But the 
 folks all knew as the grain was to be a black grain, that 's not 
 very good eating." 
 
 " Why, this is treason ! " cried Mr. Meredith. " Gunpowder 1 
 That's — " 
 
 "Yes. Gunpowder," continued the spokesman, quite as 
 much to the now concentrated crowd as to the questioner. 
 " We reckon the time 's coming when we '11 want it swingeing 
 bad. And the meeting seemed to think the same way, for they 
 voted that resolution right off, and appointed me and Phil Hen- 
 nion and Mr. Wetman a committee to raise a levy to buy it." 
 
 " Think ye a town meeting can lay a tax levy ? " contempt- 
 uously demanded Mr. Meredith. " None but the — " 
 
 " 'T is n't to be nothing but a voluntary contribution," inter- 
 rupted Bagby, grinning broadly, " and no man 's expected to 
 give more than his proportion, as settled by his last rates." 
 
 " An' no man 's expected ter give less, nuther," said a voice 
 back in the crowd. 
 
 " So if you 've nine pounds seven and four with you, squire," 
 went on Bagby, " 't will save you a special trip over to pay it." 
 
A Babe in the Wood 79 
 
 " I '11 see ye all damned first ! " retorted the squire, warmly. 
 « Why don't ye knock me down and take my purse, and have 
 done with it?" 
 
 " 'T would be the sensible thing with such a tarnal cross 
 tyke," shouted some one. 
 
 " Everything fair and orderly is the way we work," con- 
 tinued the committee man. " But we want that nine pounds 
 odd, and 'twill be odd if we don't get it." 
 
 " You '11 not get it from me," asserted the squire, turning to 
 walk away. 
 
 As he did so, half a dozen hands were laid upon his arms 
 from behind, and he was held so firmly that he could not 
 move. 
 
 " Shall we give him a black coat, Joe ? " asked some one. 
 " No," negatived Bagby. " Let 's see if being a ' babe in 
 the wood ' won't be enough to bring him to reason." 
 
 The slang term for occupants of the stocks was quite sug- 
 gestive enough to produce instant result. The squire was 
 dragged back till his legs were tripped from under him by the 
 frame, the bunch of keys, which suddenly reappeared, served 
 to unlock the upper board, and before the victim quite realised 
 what had transpired he was safely fastened in the ignominious 
 instrument. Regrettable as it is to record, Mr. Meredith be- 
 gan to curse in a manner highly creditable to his knowledge 
 of Anglo-Saxon, but quite the reverse of his moral nature. 
 
 So long as the squire continued to express his rage and to 
 threaten the bystanders with various penalties, the crowd stood 
 about in obvious enjoyment, but anger that only excites amuse- 
 ment in others very quickly burns itself out, and in this par- 
 ticular case the chill of the snow on which the squire was 
 sitting was an additional cause for a rapid cooling. Within 
 two minutes his vocabulary had exhausted itself, and he re- 
 lapsed into silence. The fun being over, the crowd began to 
 scatter, the older ones betaking themselves indoors while the 
 youngsters waylaid Charles, as he caine from hitching the 
 horses, and suggested a drill. 
 
 The bondsman shook his head and walked to the squire. 
 "Any orders, Mr. Meredith?" he asked. 
 
 " Get an axe and smash this thing to pieces." 
 
8o Janice Meredith 
 
 "They would not let me," replied the man, shrugging his 
 shoulders. " Hadst best do as they want, sir. You can't 
 fight the whole county." 
 
 " I '11 never yield," fumed the master. 
 
 Charles again shrugged his shoulders, and walking back to 
 the group, said, "Get your firelocks." 
 
 In five minutes forty men were in line on the green, and as 
 the greatest landholder of the county sat in the stocks, in a 
 break-neck attitude, with a chill growing in fingers and toes, 
 he was forced to watch a rude and disorderly attempt at com- 
 pany drill, superintended by his own servant. It was a clumsy, 
 wayward mass of men, and frequent revolts from orders oc- 
 curred, which called forth sharp words from the drill-master. 
 These in turn produced retorts or jokes from the ranks that 
 spoke ill for the discipline, and a foreign officer, taking the 
 superficial aspect, would have laughed to think that such a 
 system could make soldiers. Further observation and thought 
 would have checked his amused contempt, for certain con- 
 ditions there were which made these men formidable. Angry 
 as they became at Fownes, not one left the ranks, though pres- 
 ence was purely voluntary, and scarce one of them, ill armed 
 though he might be, but was able to kill a squirrel or quail at 
 thirty paces. 
 
 When the drill had terminated, a result due largely to the 
 smell of cooking which began to steal from the houses facing 
 the green, Charles drew Bagby aside, and after a moment's 
 talk, the two, followed by most of the others, crossed to t^e 
 squire. 
 
 " Mr. Meredith," said Charles, " I 've passed my word to 
 Bagby that you '11 pay your share if he '11 but release you, and 
 that you won't try to prosecute him. Wilt back up my pledge ? " 
 
 The prisoner, though blue and faint with cold, shook his 
 head obstinately. 
 
 " There ! I told you how it would be," sneered Bagby. 
 
 " But I tell you he '11 be frosted in another hour. 'T will be 
 nothing short of murder, 'man." 
 
 " Then let him contribute his share," insisted Bagby. 
 
 "'Tis unfair to force a man on a principle." 
 
 " Look here," growled Bagby. " We are getting tired of 
 
A Babe in the Wood 8 1 
 
 your everlasting hectoring and attempting to run everytliing. 
 Just because you know something of the manual don't make 
 you boss of the earth." 
 
 The bondsman glanced at the squire, and urged, " Come, 
 Mr. Meredith, you 'd better do it. Think how anxious Mrs. 
 Meredith and — will be, aside from you probably taking a 
 death cold, or losing a hand or foot." 
 
 At last the squire nodded his head, and without more ado 
 Bagby stooped and unlocked the log. Mr. Meredith was so 
 cramped that Charles had to almost lift him to his feet, and 
 then give him a shoulder into the public room of the tavern, 
 where he helped him into a chair before the fire. Then the 
 servant called to the publican : — 
 
 " A jorum of sling for Mr. Meredith, and put an extra pepper 
 in it." 
 
 " That sounds pretty good," said Bagby. " Just make that 
 order for the crowd, and the squire '11 pay for it." ' 
 
 While the favourite drink of the period was sizzling in the 
 fire, Mr. Meredith recovered enough to pull out his purse and 
 pay up the debatable levy. A moment later the steaming 
 drink was poured into glasses, and Bagby said : — 
 
 " Now, squire, do the thing up handsome by drinking to the 
 toast of Liberty." 
 
 " I '11 set you a better toast than that," offered the bonds- 
 man. 
 
 " 'T ain't possible," cried one of the crowd. 
 
 The servant raised his glass and with an ironical smile 
 said : — 
 
 " Here 's to liberty and fair play, gentlemen." 
 
 "That's a toast we can all drink," responded Bagby, "just 
 as often as some one '11 pay for the liquor." 
 
xin 
 
 THE WORLD IN, MINIATURE 
 
 THE exposure of the squire brought on a sharp attack 
 of the gout which confined him to the house for 
 nigh a month. Incidentally it is to be noted that 
 his temper during this period was not confined, 
 and when Philemon appeared one morning he was met with a 
 reception that drove him away without a chance to plead his 
 cause. Mrs. Meredith and Janice were compelled to listen to 
 many descriptions as to what punitive measures their particular 
 lord of creation intended to set in motion against the villagers 
 when he should attend the Assembly, or when King George 
 had reduced the land to its old-time order. 
 
 One piece of good fortune the attack brought its victim was 
 its putting him in bed on the particular day selected for the 
 committee of the town meeting to inform the squire as to the 
 instruction voted by that gathering for his conduct \n the 
 Assembly. In default of an interview, they merely leit an 
 attested copy of the resolution, and had to rest satisfied, with- 
 out knowing in what way their representative received it. M/s. 
 Meredith, Janice, and Peg did not remain in any such doubt. 
 
 Another unfortunate upon whom the vials of his wrath were 
 poured out was the parson, who came a-calling one afternoon. 
 News that he was in the parlour was sufficient to bring Mr. 
 Meredith downstairs prematurely, where he enacted a high scene, 
 berating the caller, and finally ordering him from the house. 
 
 A relapse followed upon the exertion and outburst, but even 
 gout had its limitations, and finally the patient was sufficiently 
 convalescent for preparations to begin for the journey to 
 Trenton and Burlington. 
 
 It did not take Janice long one morning to pack her little 
 leather-covered and brass-nail studded trunk, and, this done, 
 
The World in Miniature 83 
 
 her conduct became not a little peculiar. After dinner she spent 
 some time in spinet practice, and then rising announced to the 
 elders that she must pack for the morrow's journey. Her 
 absence thus explained, she left, the room, only to steal through 
 the kitchen, and catch Sukey's shawl from its hook in the pas- 
 sage to the wood-shed. , Regardless of slippers and snow, she 
 then sped toward the concealing hedge, and behind its friendly 
 protection walked quickly to the stable. The door was rolled 
 back enough to let the girl pass in quietly, and when she had 
 done so, she glanced about in search of something. For an 
 instant a look of disappointment appeared on her face, but the 
 next moment, as a faint sound of scratching broke upon her ear, 
 she stole softly to the feed and harness room, and peeked in. 
 
 The groom was sitting on a nail barrel, in front of the meal- 
 bin, the cover of which was closed and was thus made to 
 serve for a desk. On this were several sheets of what was 
 then called pro patria paper, or foolscap, and most of these 
 were very much bescribbled. An ink-hom and a sand-box 
 completed the outfit, except for a quill in the hands of the bond- 
 servant, which had given rise to the sound the girl had heard. 
 Now, however, it was not writing, for the man was chewing 
 the feather end with a look of deep thought on his face. 
 
 "O Clarion," he sighed, as the girl's glance was momen- 
 tarily occupied with the taking in of these details, " why canst 
 thou not give me a word to rhyme with morn ? 'Twill not 
 come, and here 'tis the thirteenth." 
 
 A low growl from Clarion, sounding like anything more 
 than the desired rhyme, made the servant glance up, and the 
 moment he saw the figure of some one, he rose, hastily bunched 
 together the sheets of paper, and holding them in his hand 
 cried, "Who's that?" in a voice expressing both embarrass- 
 ment and anger. Then as his eyes dwelt oil the intruder, he 
 continued in an altered tone, " I ask your pardon. Miss Janice ; 
 I thought 'twas one of the servants. They are everlastingly 
 spying on me. Can I serve you?" he added, rolling the 
 papers up and stuffing them into his belt. 
 
 Janice's eyes sought the floor, as she hesitatingly said, " I 
 — I came to — to ask a favour of you." 
 
 " 'T is but for you to name," rgpUed the man, eagerly. 
 
84 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Will you let me — I want — I should like Tibbie to see 
 the — the picture of me, and I wondered if — if you would 
 let me take it to Trenton -- 1 '11 bring it back, you know, 
 and — " 
 
 " Ah, Miss Janice," exclaimed the servant, as the girl halted, 
 "if you'd but take it as a gift, 'twould pleasure me so!" 
 While he spoke, without pretence of concealment he un- 
 buttoned the top button of his shirt and taking hold of a string 
 about his neck pulled forth a small wooden case, obviously 
 of pocket-knife manufacture. Snapping the cord, he offered 
 its pendant to Janice. 
 
 "I — I would keep it, Charles," replied Janice, " but you 
 know mommy told me — " 
 
 " And what right has she to prevent you ? " broke in Charles, 
 warmly. " It does her no wrong, nor can it harm you to keep 
 it. What right have they to tyrannise over you? 'Tis all 
 of a piece with their forcing you to marry that awkward, igno- 
 rant put. Here, take it." The groom seized her hand, put 
 the case in her palm, closed her fingers over, and held them 
 thus, as if striving to make her accept the gift. 
 
 "Oh, Charles," cried the girl, very much flustered, "you 
 should n't ask — " 
 
 " Ah, Miss Janice," he begged, " won't you keep it ? 
 They need never know." 
 
 "But I only wanted to show it to Tibbie," explained the 
 girl, " to ask her if mommy was right when she said 't was 
 monstrous flattered." « 
 
 "'Tis an impossibility," responded the man, earnestly, 
 though he was unable to keep from slightly smiling at the 
 unconscious naivete of the question. " I would she could see 
 it in a more befitting frame, to set it off. If thou 't but let me, 
 I 'd put it in the other setting. Then 't would show to proper 
 advantage." 
 
 "Would it take long?" 
 
 " A five minutes only." 
 
 The girl threw open the shawl, and thrusting her hand 
 ■under her neckerchief into the V-cut of her bodice, pro- 
 duced the miniature. 
 
 The servant recoiled a step as she held it out to him» 
 
The World in Miniature 85 
 
 Then snatching rather than taking the trinket from her hand, 
 he said, " That is no place for this." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Janice. 
 
 " Because she is uniit to rest there," cried the man. He 
 pulled out a knife, and with the blade pried up the rim, and 
 shook free the protective glass and slip of ivory. " Now 
 't is purged of all wrong," he said, touching the setting to his 
 lips. " I would it were for me to keep, for 't has lain near 
 your heart, and 't is still warm with happiness." 
 
 The speech and act so embarrassed Janice that she hur- 
 riedly said, " I really must n't stay. I 've been too long as 't is, 
 and — " 
 
 "'Twill take but a moment," the servant assured her 
 hastily. " Wilt please give me t' other one ? " Throwing the 
 miniature he had taken / from the frame on the floor, he set 
 about removing that of Janice from its wooden casing and 
 fitting it to its new setting. 
 
 " Don't," cried Janice, in alarm, stooping to pick up the slip 
 of ivory. " 'Tis not owing to you that 't wasn't spoiled," she 
 added indignantly, after a glance at it. 
 
 " Small loss if 't were ! " responded the man, bitterly. 
 " Promise me. Miss Janice, that you '11 not henceforth cany 
 it in your bosom?" 
 
 " 'T is a monstrous strange thing to ask." 
 
 " I tell thee she 's not fit to rest near a pure heart." 
 
 " How know you that ? " 
 
 " How know I ? " cried the man, in amazement. " Why — " 
 There he stopped and knit his brows. 
 
 " I knew thou wert deceiving us when thee said 't was not 
 thine," charged the girl. 
 
 "Nay, Miss Janice, 'twas the truth I told you, though 
 a quibble, I own. The miniature never was mine, tho' 't was 
 once in my possession." 
 
 " Then how came you by it? ■' 
 
 " I took it by force from — never mind whom." The old bit- 
 ter look was on the man's face, and anger burned in his eyes. 
 
 " You stole it ! " cried the girl, drawing away from him. 
 
 " Not I," denied the man. "'Twas taken from one who 
 had less right to 't than I." 
 
86 Janice Meredith 
 
 "You knew her? " questioned the girl. 
 
 "Ay," cried the man, with a kind of desperation. "I 
 should think I did I " 
 
 "And — and you — you loved her?" she asked with a 
 hesitancy which might mean that she was in doubt whether 
 to ask the question, or perhaps that she rather hoped her 
 surmise would prove wrong. 
 
 The young fellow halted in his work of trimming the ivory 
 to fit the frame, and for a moment he stood, apparently look- 
 ing down at his half-completed job, as it lay on the top of 
 the meal-box. Then suddenly he put his hand to his throat 
 as if he were choking, and the next instant he leaned for- 
 ward, and, burying his face in his arms, as they rested on the 
 whilom desk, he struggled to stifle the sobs that shook his 
 frame. 
 
 " Oh, I did n't mean to pain you ! " she cried in an agony 
 of guilt and alarm. 
 
 Charles rose upright, and dashing his shirt sleeve across his 
 eyes, he turned to the girl. " 'T is over, Miss Janice," he 
 asserted, "and a great baby I was to give way to 't." 
 
 " I can understand, and I don't think 't was babyish," said 
 Janice, her heart wrung with sympathy for him. " She is so 
 lovely ! " 
 
 The man's lips quivered again, despite of his struggle to 
 control himself. "That she is," he groaned. "And I — I 
 loved her — My God ! how I loved her ! I thought her an 
 angel from heaven ; she was everything in life to me. When 
 I fled from London, it seemed as if my heart was — was dead 
 for ever." 
 
 " She was untrue ? " asked Janice, with a deep sigh. 
 
 The servant's face darkened. " So untrue — Ah ! 'T is 
 not to be spoken. The two of them ! " 
 
 "You challenged and killed him!" surmised Janice, ex- 
 citedly. " And that 's why you came to America." 
 
 The groom shook his head sadly. " Not that. Miss Janice. 
 They robbed me of both honour and revenge. I was powerless 
 to punish either — except by — Bah! I've done with them 
 for ever." 
 
 "Foh mussy's sakes, chile," came Sukey's voice, "what 
 
The World in Miniature 87 
 
 youse doin' hyar? Run quick, honey, foh your roah is 'quirin' 
 foh youse." 
 
 " Oh, Luddy ! " cried the girl, reaching out for the miniature. 
 
 " 'T is not done, but I '11 see to 't that you get it this even- 
 ing," exclaimed Charles. 
 
 The girl turned and fled toward the house, closely followed 
 by Sukey. 
 
 "Peg she come to de kitchen foh youse," the cook ex- 
 plained ; " an' 'cause I dun see youse go out de back do', I 
 specks whar youse gwine, an' I sens her back to say dat young 
 missus helpin' ole Sukey, an' be in pretty quick, an' so dey 
 never know." 
 
 " Oh, Sukey, you're a dear ! " 
 
 "But, missy dear, doan youse do nuthin' foolish 'bout dat 
 fellah, 'cause I 'se helped youse. Doan youse — " 
 
 " Of course I won't," asserted the girl. " I could n't, 
 Sukey. You know I couldn't." 
 
 " bat 's right, honey. Ole Sukey knows she can trust 
 youse. Now run right along, chile." 
 
 " What have you been doing, Janice ? " asked her mother, as 
 the girl entered the parlour. 
 
 " I 've been in the kitchen with Sukey, mommy," jeplied 
 Janice. And if there was wrong in the quibble, both father 
 and mother were equally to blame with the girl, for " Ole 
 Sukey " was actually better able to enter into her feelings and 
 thoughts than either of them; and where obedience is en- 
 forced from authority and not from sympathy and confidence, 
 there will be secret deceit, if not open revolt. 
 
 Left to himself, the bondsman finished trimming the ivory 
 to a proper size, and neatly fitted it into the frame. Then he 
 spread the papers out, and in some haste, for the winter's day 
 was fast waning, he resumed his scribbling, varied by intervals 
 of pen-chewing and knitting of brows. Finally he gave a sigh 
 of relief, and taking a blank sheet he copied in a bold hand- 
 writing what was written on the paper he had last toiled over. 
 Then picking up the miniature, he touched it to his lips. 
 "She was sent to give me faith again in women," he said, as 
 he folded the miniature into the paper. 
 
 " Well, old man," he remarked, as he passed frem the stable, 
 
88 Janice Meredith 
 
 to the dog, who had followed in his footsteps, and sought to 
 attract his attention by fawning upon him, "has blindman's 
 holiday come at last? Wait till I bestow this, and get a bite 
 from Sukey to put in my pocket, and we '11 be off for a look at 
 the rabbits. 'Tis a poor sport, but 'twill do till something 
 better comes. Oh for a war ! " 
 
 The bondsman passed into the kitchen, and made his plea 
 to Sukey for a supper he could take away with him. The 
 request was granted, and while the cook went to the larder to 
 get him something, Charles stepped into the hall and listening 
 intently he stole upstairs and tapped gently on a door. Get- 
 ting no reply, he opened it, and tiptoeing hastily to the dress- 
 ing-stand, he tucked the packet under the powder-box. A 
 minute later he was back in the kitchen, and erelong was 
 stamping through the snow, whistling cheerfully, which the 
 hound echoed by yelps of excited delight. 
 
 Janice was unusually thoughtful all through supper, and 
 little less so afterwards. She was sent to her room earlier than 
 usual, that she might make up in advance for the early start 
 of the journey, and she did not dally with her disrobing, the 
 room being almost arctic in its coldness. But after she had 
 put on the short night- rail that was the bed-gown of the period, 
 the girl paused for a moment in front of her mirror, even 
 though she shivered as she did so. 
 
 " I really thought 't was for me he cared," she said. " But 
 she is so much more beautiful that — " Janice tucked the fly- 
 away locks into the snug-fitting nightcap, which together with 
 the bed-curtains formed the protections from the drafts inevi- 
 table to leaky windows and big chimneys, and having thus 
 done her best to make herself ugly, she blew out her candle, 
 and as she crept into bed, she remarked, " 'T was very foolish 
 of me." 
 
XIV 
 
 A QUESTION CONCERNING THALIA 
 
 ALL was animation at Greenwood the next morning, 
 while yet it was dark, and as Janice dressed by 
 candle-light, she trembled from something more 
 than the icy chill of the room. The girl had been 
 twice in her life to New York, once each to Newark and to 
 Burlington, and though her visits to Trenton were of greater 
 number, the event was none the less too rare an occurrence 
 not to excite her. Her mother had to order her sharply to 
 finish what was on her plate at breakfast, or she would scarce 
 have eaten. 
 
 " If thou dost not want to be frozen, lass, before we get to 
 Trenton," warned the squire, " do as thy mother says. Stuff 
 cold out of the stomach, or 'tis impossible to keep the scamp 
 out of the blood." 
 
 " Yes, dadda," said the girl, obediently falling to once more. 
 After a few mouthfuls she asked, " Dadda, who was Thalia? " 
 
 " 'T was a filly who won the two-year purse at the Phila- 
 delphia races in sixty-eight," the squire informed her, between 
 gulps of sausage and buckwheat cakes. 
 
 " Was she very lovely? " asked Janice, in a voice oi surprise. 
 
 " No. An ill-shaped mare, but with a great pace." 
 
 The girl looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked, 
 "Is that the only one there is? " 
 
 " Only what ? " demanded her mother. 
 
 "The only Thalia?" 
 
 " 'T is the only one I 've heard of," said the squire. 
 
 " Thou 'rt wrong, Lambert," corrected his spouse, in wifely 
 fashion. " 'T was one of those old heathens with horns, or 
 tail, or something, I forget exactly. What set thy mind on 
 that, child? Hast been reading some romance on the sly? " 
 
90 Janice Meredith 
 
 " No, mommy," denied the girl. 
 
 '' Put thy thoughts to better uses, then," ordered the mother. 
 " Think more of thy own sin and corruption and less of what 
 is light and vain." 
 
 It had been arranged that Thomas was to drive the sleigh, 
 the squire preferring to leave Fownes in care of the remaining 
 horses. It was Charles, however, who brought down the two 
 trunks, and after he had put them in place he suggested, '■' If 
 you '11 take seat. Miss Janice, I '11 tuck you well in." Spreading 
 a large bearskin on the seat and bottom of the sleigh, he put in 
 a hot soapstone, and very unnecessarily took hold of the little 
 slippered feet, and set them squarely upon it, as if their owner 
 were quite unequal to the effort. Then he folded the robe 
 carefully about her, and drew the second over that, allowing the 
 squire, it must be confessed, but a scant portion for his share. 
 
 " Thank you, Charles," murmured the girl, gratefully. " Of 
 course he 's a bond-servant and he has a horrid beard," she 
 thought, " but it is nice to have some one to — to think of your 
 comfort. If he were only Philemon ! " 
 
 The bondsman climbed into the rear of the sleigh, that he 
 might fold the back part of the skin over her shoulders. The 
 act brought his face close to the inquirer, and she turned her 
 head and whispered, "Who was Thalia?" 
 
 " 'T was one of — " 
 
 " Charles, get out of that sleigh," ordered Mrs. Meredith, 
 sharply. " Learn thy place, sir. Janice, thou 'rt quite old 
 enough to take care of thyself. We '11 have no whispering or 
 coddling, understand." 
 
 The bondsman sullenly obeyed, and a moment later the 
 sleigh started. Tlie servant looked wistfully after it until the 
 sound of the bells was lost, and then, with a sigh, he went to 
 his work. 
 
 With all the vantage of the daylight start, it took good driving 
 among the drifts to get over the twenty-eight miles that lay 
 between Greenwood and Trenton before the universal noon 
 dinner, and as the sleigh drew up at the Drinkers' home on 
 the main street of the village, the meal was in the air if not on 
 the table. 
 
 For this reason the two girls had not a chance for a mo- 
 
A Question concerning Thalia 91 
 
 ment's confidence before dinner j and though Janice was fairly 
 bursting with all that had happened since Tibbie's visit, the 
 departure of the squire for Burlington immediately the meal 
 was ended, and the desire of Tabitha's father and aunt to have 
 news of Mrs. Meredith and of the doings "up Brunswick way," 
 filled in the whole afternoon till tea time — if the misnomer 
 can be used, for, unlike the table at Greenwood, tea was a 
 tabooed article in the Drinker home. One fact worth noting 
 about the meal was that Janice asked if any of them knew 
 who Thalia was. 
 
 " Ay," said Mr. Drinker, " and the less said of her the 
 better. She was a lewd creature that — " 
 
 " Mr. Drinker ! " cried Tabitha's aunt. " Thee forgets there 
 are gentlewomen present. Wilt have some preserve, Janice ? " 
 
 " No, I thank you," said the girl. " I 'm not hungry." And 
 she proved it by playing with what was on her plate for the rest 
 of the meal. 
 
 Not till the two girls retired did they have an opportunity to 
 exchange confidences. The moment they were by themselves, 
 Tabitha demanded, " What made thee so serious to-night? " 
 
 " Oh, Tibbie," sighed Janice, dolefully, "I'm very unhappy ! " 
 
 "What over?" 
 
 "I — he — Charles— =■ I 'm afraid he — and yet — 'Tis 
 something he wrote, but whether in joke or — Mr. Evatt said 
 he insulted me at the tavern — Yet 'tis so pretty that — and 
 mommy Interrupted just — " 
 
 " What art thou talking about, Jan? " exclaimed Tibbie. 
 
 Janice even in her disjointed sentences had begun to unlace 
 her travelling bodice, — for with a prudence almost abnormal 
 this one frock was not cut low, — and she now produced from 
 her bosom a paper which she unfolded, and then offered to 
 Tibbie with a suggestion of hesitation, asking " Dost think he 
 meant to insult me? " 
 
 Tabitha eagerly took the sheet, and read — 
 
 TO THALIA 
 
 These lines to her my passion tell. 
 Describe the empire of her spell; 
 A love which naught will e'er dispel. 
 
 That flames for sweetest Thalia, 
 
92 Janice Meredith 
 
 The sun that brights the fairest mom. 
 The stars that gleam in Capricorn, 
 Do not so much the skies adorn 
 As does my lovely Thalia. 
 
 The tints with which the rose enchants. 
 The fragrance which the violet grants; 
 Each doth suggest, but ne'er supplants. 
 The charms of dainty Thalia. 
 
 To gaze on her is sweet delight : 
 'Tis heaven whene'er she's in my sight. 
 But when she's gone, 'tis endless night — 
 All 'j dark without my Thalia. 
 
 I vow to her, by God above. 
 By hope of life, by depth of love. 
 That from her side I ne'er will rove. 
 So much love I my Thalia. 
 
 " How monstrous pretty ! " cried Tabitha. " I 'm sure he 
 meant it rightly." 
 
 " I thought 't was a beautiful valentine," sighed Janice, — 
 *' and 't was the first I ever had — but dadda says she was an 
 ill-shaped mare — and mommy says 't was something with a 
 tail — and 't is almost as bad to have her a wicked woman — 
 so I 'm feared he meant it in joke — or worse — " 
 
 " I don't believe it," comforted Tibbie. " He may have 
 made a mistake in the name, but I 'm sure he meant it ; that 
 he — well — thee knows. And if thee copies it fair, and puts 
 in ' Delia,' or • Celia,' 't will do to show to the girls, I wish 
 «ome one would send me such a valentine." 
 
 Made cheerful by her friend's point of view, Janice went 
 ♦n with more spirit, — 
 
 " Nor is that the end." She took from her trunk a hand- 
 kerchief and unwrapping it, produced the unset miniature. 
 " He let me keep it," she said. 
 
 " How mighty wonderful ! " again exclaimed Tibbie, grow- 
 ing big-eyed. " Who — " 
 
 " Furthermore, and in continuation, as Mr. McClave always 
 says after his ninthly," airily interrupted Janice, drawing from 
 
A Question concerning Thalia 93 
 
 her bosom the portrait of herself. "Who's that, Tibbie 
 Drinker?" 
 
 "Janice ! " cried the person so challenged. " How lovely ! 
 Who — Did Mr. Peale come to Greenwood? " 
 
 " Not he. Who, think you, did it ? " 
 
 " I vow if I can guess." 
 
 " Charles ! " 
 
 " No ! " gasped Tibbie, properly electrified. " Thee is 
 cozening me." 
 
 " Not for a moment," cried Janice, delightedly. 
 
 " Tell me everything about all" was Tabitha's rapturous 
 demand. 
 
 It took Janice many minutes, and Tibbie was called upon 
 to use many exclamation and question marks, ere the tale of 
 all these surprises was completed. Long before it had come 
 to a finish, the two girls were snuggled together in bed, half 
 in real love, as well as for the mutual animal heat, and half 
 that they might whisper the lower. The facts, after many 
 interruptions and digressions, having been narrated, Janice 
 asked, — 
 
 " Whom, think you, Charles loves, Tibbie ? " 
 
 " 'T is very strange ! From his valentine and miniature I 
 should think 't was thee. But from what he told thee — " 
 
 " 'T is exactly that which puzzles me." 
 
 " Oh, Janice ! He — Perhaps thee was right. He may 
 be a villain who is trying to beguile thee." 
 
 " For what could — Then why should he tell me about 
 her?" 
 
 "That — well — 'tis beyond me." 
 
 " If 't had not been for coming away, I — that is — " The 
 girl hesitated and then said, " Tibbie ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Dost think — I mean — " The girl drew her bedfellow 
 closer, and in an almost inaudible voice asked, "Would it 
 be right, think you — when I go back, you know — to — to 
 encourage him — that is, to give him a chance to tell me — so 
 as to find out ? " 
 
 The referee of this important question was silent for long 
 enough to give a quality of consideration to her opinion, and 
 
94 Janice Meredith 
 
 then decided, " I think thee shouldst. 'T is a question that 
 thou hast a right to know about." Having given the ruling, 
 this most upright judge changed her manner from one convey- 
 ing thought to one suggesting eagerness, and asked, " Oh, 
 Janice, if he does — if thee finds out anything, wilt thee tell 
 it me?" 
 
 " Ought I ? " asked Janice, divided between the pleasure of 
 monopolising a secret and the enjoyment of sharing it. 
 
 " Surely thee ought," cried Tabitha. " After telling me so 
 much, thou shouldst — for Charles' sake. Otherwise I might 
 misjudge him." 
 
 " Then I '11 tell you everything," cried Janice, clearly happy 
 in the decision. 
 
 "And if he does love you, Jan?" suggestively remarked 
 Tibbie. 
 
 "'Twill be vastly exciting," said Janice. "You know, 
 Tibbie, it frightens me a little, for he 's just the kind of man to 
 do something desperate." 
 
 " And — and you would n't — " 
 
 " Tibbie Drinker ! A redemptioner 1 " 
 
 " But Janice, he must have been a gentle " 
 
 "What he was, little matters," interrupted the girl. " He 's 
 a bond-servant now, and even if he weren't, he'd have a 
 bristly beard — Ugh ! " 
 
 " Poor fellow," sighed Tabitha. " 'T is not his fault ! " 
 
 " Nor is 't mine," retorted Janice. 
 
 A pause of some moments followed and then Janice asked : 
 "Dost think I am promised to Mr. Evatt, Tibbie?"— for 
 let it be confessed that every incident of what she had pledged 
 herself not to tell had been poured out to her confidant. 
 
 " I think so," whispered the girl, " and he being used to 
 court ways would surely know." 
 
 " He 's — well, he 's a fine figure of a man," owned Janice. 
 "And tho' I ne'er intended it, I 'd rather 'twould be he than 
 Philemon Hennion or the parson." 
 
 " What if thy father and mother should not consent? " said 
 Tabitha. 
 
 "'T would be lovely!" cried Janice, ecstatically. "Just 
 hke a romance, you know. And being court-bred, he 'd know 
 
A Question concerning Thalia 95 
 
 how to — well — how to give it eclat. Oh, Tibbie, think of 
 making a runaway match and of going to court ! " 
 
 Much as Tabitha loved her friend, the little green-eyed 
 monster gained possession of her momentarily. " He may 
 De deceiving thee," she suggested. " Perhaps he never was 
 there." 
 
 "Nay. He knows all the titled people. He was at one 
 of Lady Grafton's routs, Tibbie, and was spoke to by the 
 Duke of Cumberland ! " 
 
 For a man falsely to assert acquaintance with a royal duke 
 seemed so impossible to the girl that this was accepted as 
 indisputable proof; driven from her first position, Tibbie re- 
 marked, " Perhaps he won't return. Many 's the maid been 
 cozened and deserted by the men." 
 
 For a moment, either because this idea did not pfease 
 Janice or because she needed time to digest it, there was 
 silence. 
 
 " Oh, Janice," sighed Tibbie, presently, " 't is almost past 
 belief that thee has had so much happen to thee." 
 
 But a few weeks before the girl thought the chief part of 
 her experiences the most cruel luck that had ever befallen 
 maiden. Yet so quickly does youth put trouble in the past, 
 and so respondent is it to the romantic view of things, that 
 she now promptly answered, — 
 
 "Is't not, Tibbie! Am I not a lucky girl? If I only 
 was certain about Thalia, I should be so happy. 
 
XV 
 
 QUESTIONS OF DELICACY 
 
 OF the time Janice spent at Trenton little need be 
 said. Compared with Greenwood, the town was 
 truly almost riotous. Neither Presbyterian nor 
 Quaker approved of dancing, and so the regular 
 weekly assemblies were forbidden fruit to the girls, and Janice 
 and Tibbie were too well born to be indelicately of the throng 
 who skated long hours on Assanpink Creek, or to take part in 
 the frequent coasting-parties. But of other amusements they 
 had, in the expression of the day, "a great plenty." Four 
 teas, — but without that particular beverage, — two quilting- 
 bees, one candy-pulling and one corn-popping, three evenings 
 at singing-school, and a syllabub party supplied such ample 
 social dissipation to Janice that life seemed for the time fairly 
 to whirl. 
 
 Not the least of the excitement, it must be confessed, was 
 the conquest by Janice of a young Quaker cousin of Tabitha's 
 named Penrhyn Morris. Two other of the Trenton lads, too, 
 began to behave in a manner so suspicious to the girls as to 
 call for much discussion. Tibbie as well had several swains, 
 who furnished still further«subjects of conversation after sleep- 
 ing hours had come. Several times sharp reproofs were 
 shouted through the partition from Miss Drinker's room, but 
 the whispering only sank in tone and not in volume. 
 
 One incident not to be omitted was the appearance of 
 Philemon, nominally on business, in Trenton ; but he called 
 •upon the Drinkers, and remained to dinner when asked. He 
 stayed on and on after that meal, wearying the two girls be- 
 yond measure by the necessity of maintaining a conversation, 
 until, just as the desperation point was reached, Tibbie intro- 
 duced a topic which had an element of promise in it. 
 
questions ot Delicacy 97 
 
 "Hast thou seen Charles Fownes of late?" she asked of 
 the mute awkward figure; and though Janice did not look 
 up, there was a moment's flicker of her eyelashes. 
 
 "All I wants ter," said Phil, sulkily. "An' I guess that 
 ere 's the feelin' pretty generally." 
 
 "Why? " demanded Tabitha, after a glance at Janice. 
 
 " 'Cause of the airs he takes. He called me a put because 
 I was a bit slow — ter his mind — in learnin' the manual, an' 
 he's got a tongue an' a temper like a hedgehog. But the 
 fellers paid him off come Saturday week." 
 
 "How?" asked Janice, dropping her pose of indifference. 
 
 "He's been expectin' ter be appointed captain of the 
 Brunswick Invincibles, when they was trained, but he put on 
 such airs, an' was so sharp an' bitin' with his tongue, that 
 when they voted for officers last week I '11 be dinged if they 
 didn't drop him altogether. He didn't get a vote for so 
 much as a corporal's rank. He was in a stew, I tells you." 
 
 "What did he do?" questioned Tabitha. 
 
 "He was so took aback," snickered Philemon, "that he 
 up and says 't was the last he 'd have ter do with 'em, an' 
 that they was a lot of clouts an' clodpates, an' they 'd got a 
 captain ter match." 
 
 " Was that you ? " cruelly asked Janice. 
 
 "No. 'Twas Joe Bagby," replied Phil, not so much as 
 seeing the point. 
 
 " The village loafer and ne'er-do-weel," exclaimed Janice, 
 reflecting her father's view. 
 
 " He ain't idlin' much these-a-days," asserted Philemon, 
 " and the boys all like him for his jokes an' good-nature. I 
 tell you 'twas great sport ter see him an' your redemptioner 
 give it ter each other. Fownes, he said that if 't were n't 
 better sport ter catch rabbits, he 'd mightily enjoy chasin' the 
 whole company of Invincibles with five grenadiers of the 
 guard, an' Bagby he sassed back by sayin' that Charles need n't 
 be so darned cocky, for he 'd run from the regulars hisself, an' 
 then your man tells Joe ter give his red rag a holiday by 
 talkin' about what he know'd of, for then he 'd have ter be 
 silent, an* then the captain says he was a liar, and Charles 
 knocks him down, an' stood over him and made him take it 
 
98 Janice Mereditn 
 
 back. An' Bagby he takes it back, sayin' as how his own 
 words was very good eatin' anyways. I tell you, the whole 
 town enjoyed that 'ere afternoon." 
 
 " I suppose they made you an officer? " said Miss Meredith, 
 with unconcealed contempt. 
 
 "No, Miss Janice," Philemon eagerly denied, "an' that's 
 what I come over to tell you. Seein' that you an' the squire 
 did n't like my drillin', I 've left the company, an' I won't go 
 back, I pass you my word." 
 
 "'Tis nothing to me what you do," responded Janice, 
 crushingly. 
 
 " Don't say that. Miss Janice," entreated Phil. 
 
 "Is thee not ashamed," exclaimed Tabitha, "to seek to 
 marry a girl against her wishes ? If I were Janice, I 'd never 
 so much as look at thee." 
 
 " She never said as how she — " stammered Hennion. 
 
 " That was nothing," continued Tibbie. " Thee shouldst 
 have known it. The idea of asking the father first ! " 
 
 " But that 's the regular way," ejaculated Phil, in evident 
 bewilderment. 
 
 " To marry a girl when she does n't choose to ! " snapped 
 Tibbie. " A man of any decency would find out — on the 
 sly — if she wanted him." 
 
 " She never would — " 
 
 " As if the fact that she would n't was n't enough 1 " con- 
 tinued Tibbie, with anything but Quaker meekness. " Dost 
 think, if she wanted thee, she 'd have been so offish ? " 
 
 Phi!, with a sadly puzzled look on his face, said, " I know 
 I ain't much of a sharp at courtin'. Miss Janice, an' like as 
 not I done it wrong, but I loves you, that 's certain, an' I 
 would n't do anything ter displeasure you, if I only know'd 
 what you wanted. Dad he says that I wasn't rampageous 
 enough ter suit a girl of spirit, an' that if I 'd squoze you now 
 an' again, 'stead of — " 
 
 "That's enough," said Janice. "Mr. Hennion, there is 
 the door." 
 
 " Thou art a horrid creature ! " added Tibbie. 
 
 " I ain't goin' till I 've had it" all out with you," asserted 
 Phil, with a dogged determination. 
 
Questions of Delicacy 99 
 
 " Then you force us to leave you," said Janice, rising. 
 
 Just as she spoke, the door was thrown open, and Mr. 
 Meredith entered. His eye happened to fall first on Philemon, 
 and without so much as a word of greeting to the girls, he de- 
 manded angrily, " Ho ! what the devil are ye doing here ? 
 'T is all of a piece that a traitor to his king should work by 
 stealth." 
 
 Even the worm turns, and Philemon, already hectored to 
 desperation by the girls, gave a loose to his sense of the wrong 
 and injustice that it seemed to him every one conspired to 
 heap upon him. " I 've done no hugger-muggery," he roared, 
 shaking his fist in the squire's face, " an' the man 's a tarnal 
 liar who says I have." 
 
 " Don't try to threaten me, sir ! " roared back the squire, 
 but none the less retiring two steps. " Your father's son can't 
 bully Lambert Meredith. But for his cowardice, and others 
 like him, but for the men of all sides and no side, we 'd have 
 prevented the Assembly's approving the damned resolves oi 
 the Congress. Marry a daughter of mine ! I '11 see ye and 
 your precious begetter in hell first. Don't let me find ye 
 snooking about my girl henceforth, or 't will fare ill with ye 
 that I warn ye." 
 
 " If 't war n't that you are her father an' an old man, I '>. 
 teach you a lesson," growled Phil, as he went to the door; 
 "as 'tis, look out for yourself. You has enemies enough 
 without makin' any more." 
 
 "There's a good riddance to him," chuckled the squire. 
 "Well, hast a kiss for thy dad, Jan?" 
 
 « A dozen," responded the girl. " But what brought you 
 back? Surely the Assembly has not adjourned?" 
 
 " 'T is worse than that," asserted the squire. " For a week 
 we held the rascals at bay, but yesterday news came from 
 England that the ministry had determined not to yield, and 
 in a frenzy the Assembly indorsed the Congress's doings on 
 the spot. As a consequence this morning the king's governor 
 dissolved us, and the writs will shortly be out for a new elec- 
 tion. So back I must get me to Brunswick to attend to my 
 poll. I bespoke a message to Charles by Squire Perkins, who 
 rid on to Morristown, telling him to be herewith the sleigh 
 
loo Janice Meredith 
 
 to-morrow as early as he could ; and meanwhile must trust to 
 some Trenton friend or to the tavern for a bed, if thy father, 
 Tabitha, can't put me up." 
 
 Charles reported to the squire at an hour the following 
 morning which indicated either a desire for once to please his 
 master, or some other motive, for an obedience so prompt 
 must have necessitated a moonlight start from Greenwood in 
 order to reach Trenton so early. He was told to bait his 
 horses at the tavern, and the time this took was spent by the 
 girls in repeating farewells. 
 
 " 'T is a pity thee hast to go before Friend Penrhyn hath 
 spoken," said Tibbie, regretfully. 
 
 "Isn't it?" sighed Janice. "I did so want to see how 
 he'd say it." 
 
 " You may — perhaps Charles — " brokenly but suggestively 
 remarked Tibbie. 
 
 "Perhaps," responded Janice, "but 'twill be very differ- 
 ent. I know he '11 — well, he '11 be abrupt and — and excited, 
 and will — his sentences will not be well thought out before- 
 hand. Now Penrhyn would have spoken at length and feel- 
 jpgly. 'T would have been monstrously enjoyable." 
 
 " At least thee '11 find out who Thalia is." 
 
 *' Oh, Tibbie, I fear me I sha'n't dare. I tried to ask Mr. 
 Taggart, who, being college-bred, ought to know, but I was so 
 afraid she was a wicked woman, that I began to blush before 
 I 'd so much as got out the first word. I wish I was p%le 
 and delicate like Prissy Glover. 'Tis mortifying to be so 
 healthy." 
 
 " Thy waist is at least two inches smaller than hers, when 
 'tis properly laced." 
 
 " But I have red cheeks," moaned Janice, " and, oh, Tibbie, 
 at times I have suck an appetite ! " 
 
 " Oh, Jan ! so have I," confided Miss Drinker in the lowest 
 of whispers, as if fearing even the walls. " Sometimes when 
 the men are round, I 'd eat twice as much but for the fear 
 they 'd think me coarse and — " 
 
 " Gemini, yes ! " assented Janice, when the speaker paused. 
 " Many and many 's the time I 've wanted more. But 't is all 
 right as long as the men don't know that we do." 
 
Questions of Delicacy iok 
 
 " Here 's the sleigh," interrupted Tabitha, going to the door. 
 " Come out quickly, while thy father is having the stirrup cup, 
 and I '11 ask him about Thalia." 
 
 "Oh, willyou?" joyfully cried Janice. "Tibbie, you 're a — " 
 
 Miss Meredith's speech was stopped by the two coming 
 within hearing of the redemptioner, who promptly removed 
 his cap. " 'Twill be good to have you back at Greenwood, 
 Miss Janice," he salid with a bow. 
 
 " How gracefully he does it ! " whispered Tabitha, as they 
 approached the sleigh. Then aloud she asked, "Charles, 
 wilt tell me who — who — who was chosen captain of the ' In- 
 vincibles'?" 
 
 The question brought a scowl to the man's face, and both 
 girls held their breath, expecting an outbreak of temper, while 
 Tabitha to herself bemoaned that so unfortunate a subject 
 sprang first into her thoughts to replace the question she 
 dared not put. But before the groom replied, the scowl 
 changed suddenly into a look of amusement, and when he 
 spoke, it was to say, — 
 
 " 'T is past belief. Miss Tabitha, except they want to save 
 their skins by never fighting. 'T was Joe Bagby the bump- 
 kins chose — a fellow I 've knocked down without his resent- 
 ing it. A cotswold lion, who works his way by jokes and by 
 hand-shakes. He 's the best friend of every one who ever 
 lived, and I make no doubt, if a British regiment appears, 
 he '11 say he loves the lobsters too much to lead the ' Invin- 
 cibles' against them." 
 
 "No doubt," agreed Tibbie. " Canst tell me aiso who — 
 who — how Clarion is ? " 
 
 But this question was never answered, for the squire ap- 
 peared at this point, and the sleigh was quickly speeding 
 "towards Greenwood. It was after dark when it drew up at 
 its destination, for the spring thaw was beginning, and the 
 roads soft and deep. Janice was so stiff with the long sitting 
 and the cold that she needed help both in alighting and in 
 climbing the porch .teps. This the groom gave her, and 
 when she was safely in front of the parlor fire, he assisted in 
 the, removing of her wraps, while Mrs. Meredith performed a 
 like service for the squire in the hallway. 
 
I02 Janice Meredith 
 
 "Dost remember your question, Miss Janice," asked 
 Charles, "just as you drove away from Greenwood?" 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " She was one of the three graces." 
 
 " Was she very beautiful ? " 
 
 " The ancients so held her, but they had never seen you, 
 Miss Janice." 
 
 The girl had turned away as she nonchalantly asked the last 
 question, and so Charles could not see the charmingly demure 
 smile that her face assumed, nor the curve of the lips, and 
 perhaps it was fortunate for him that he did not. Yet all 
 Miss Meredith said was, — 
 
 " Not that I cared to know, but I knew Tibbie would be 
 curious." 
 
XVI 
 
 A VARIETY OF CONTRACTS 
 
 THE spring thaw set in in earnest the day after the 
 squire's return to Greenwood, and housed the 
 family for several days. No sooner, however, did 
 the roads become something better than troughs of 
 mud than the would-be Assemblyman set actively to work for 
 his canvass of the county, daily riding forth to make personal 
 calls on the free and enlightened electors, in accordance with 
 the still universal British custom of personal solicitation. What 
 he saw and heard did not tend to improve his temper, for 
 the news that the Parliament was about to vote an extension 
 to the whole country of the punitive measures hitherto directed 
 against Massachusetts had lighted a flame from one end of 
 the land to the other. The last election had been with diffi- 
 culty carried by the squire, and now the prospect was far 
 more gloomy. 
 
 When a realising sense of the conditions had duly dawned 
 on the not over-quick mind of the master of Greenwood, he 
 put pride in his pocket and himself astride of Joggles, and 
 rode of an afternoon to Boxley, as the Hennions' place was 
 named. Without allusion to their last interview, he announced 
 to the senior of the house that he wished to talk over the 
 election. 
 
 "He, he, he ! " snickered Hennion. " Kinder gettin' anx- 
 ious, heigh? I calkerlated yer 'd find things sorter pukish." 
 
 "Tush!" retorted Meredith, making a good pretence of 
 confidence. " 'Tis mostly wind one hears, and 't will be an- 
 other matter at the poll. I rid over to say that tho' we 
 may not agree in private matters, 'tis the business of the 
 gentry to make head together against this madness." 
 
I04 Janice Meredith 
 
 " I see," snarled Hennion. " My boy ain't good enuf far 
 yer gal, but my votes is a different story, heigh? " 
 
 "Votes for votes is my rule," rejoined the squire. "The 
 old arrangement, say I. My tenants vote for ye, and yours 
 for me." 
 
 " Waal, this year theer 's ter be a differ," chuckled Hennion. 
 " I 've agreed ter give my doubles ter Joe, an' he 's ter give 
 hisn ter me." 
 
 "Joe! What Joe?" 
 
 "Joe Bagby." 
 
 " What ! " roared the squire, " Art mad, man ? That 
 good-for-nothing scamp run for Assembly ? " 
 
 "Joe ain't no fool," asserted Hennion. "An' tho' his 
 edication and grammer ain't up ter yers an' mine, squire, he 
 thinks so like the way folks ere jest naow a-thinkin' thet it 
 looks ter me as if he wud be put in." 
 
 "The country is going to the devil-! " groaned Mr. Mere- 
 dith. "And ye '11 throw your doubles for that worthless — " 
 
 " I alius throw my doubles fer the man as kin throw the 
 most doubles fer me," remarked Hennion. " An' I ain't by 
 no means sartin haow many doubles yer kin split this year." 
 
 " Pox me, the usual number ! " 
 
 " Do yer leaseholds all pay theer rents? " 
 
 " Some have dropped behind, but as soon as there 's law in 
 the land again they '11 come to the rightabout." 
 
 " Exactly," sniggered Hennion. " As soon as theer 's layv. 
 But when 's thet 'ere goin' ter be? Mark me, the tenants 
 who dare refuse ter pay theer rent, dare vote agin tneer land- 
 lord. An' as Joe Bagby says he '11 do his durndest ter keep 
 the courts closed, I guess the delinquents will think he *s theer 
 candidate. Every man as owes yer money, squire, will vote 
 agin yer, come election day." 
 
 " And ye '11 join hands with these thieves and vote with 
 Bagby in Assembly ? " 
 
 " Guess I mought do wus. But if thet 'ere 's displeasin' 
 ter yer, jest blame yerself for't." 
 
 " How reason ye that, man? " 
 
 "Cuz I had it arranged thet I wuz ter side in with the 
 king, and Phil wuz ter side in with the hotheads. But yer gal 
 
A Variety of Contracts 1 05 
 
 hez mixed Phil all up, so he 's turned right over an' talks ez 
 ef he wuz Lord North or the Duke of Bedford. Consuma- 
 quently, since I don't see no good of takin' risks, I hed ter 
 swing about an' jine the young blood." 
 
 What the squire said in reply, and continued to say until he 
 had made his exit from the Hennion house, is far better 
 omitted. In his wrath he addressed a monologue to his 
 horse, long after he had passed through the gate of Boxley ; 
 until, in fact, he met Phil, to whom, as a better object 
 for them than Joggles, the squire at once transferred his 
 vituperations. 
 
 Instead of going on in his original direction, Philemon 
 turned his horse and rode along with the squire, taking the 
 rating in absolute silence. Only when Mr. Meredith had 
 expressed and re-expressed all that was in him to say did the 
 young fellow give evidence that his dumbness proceeded from 
 policy. 
 
 "Seems ter me, squire," he finally suggested, "like you're 
 layin' up against me what don't suit you 'bout dad. I 've done 
 my bestest ter do what you and Miss Janice set store by, an' 
 it does seem ter me anythin' but fairsome ter have a down on 
 me, just because of dad. 'T ain't my fault I 've got him for a 
 father ; I had n't nothin' ter do with it, an' if you have any one 
 ter pick a quarrel with, it must be with God Almighty, who 
 fixed things as they is. I 've quit driUin' ; I 've spoke against 
 the Congress ; an' there ain't nothin' else I would n't do ter 
 get Miss Janice." 
 
 "Go to the devil, then," advised the squire. "No son 
 of — " There the squire paused momentarily, and after a 
 brief silence ejaculated, " Eh ! " After another short inter- 
 mission he laughed aloud, as if pleased at something which 
 had occurred to him. " Why, Phil, my boy," he cried, slap- 
 ping his own thigh, " we '11 put a great game up on thy dad. 
 We '11 show him he 's not the only fox hereabout." 
 
 "And what 'ere 's that?" 
 
 " What say ye to being my double in the poll, lad ? " 
 
 " Run against father? " ejaculated Phil. 
 
 "Ay. We '11 teach him to what trimming and time-serving 
 come. And be damned to him ! " 
 
io6 Janice Meredith 
 
 « That *ere 's all very well for you," responded Hennion, 
 " but he hain't got the whip hand of you like he has of me. 
 He would n't stand my — " 
 
 "He'd have to," gleefully interrupted the squire. "Join 
 hands with me, lad, and I '11 fix it so ye can snap your fingers 
 at him." 
 
 " But — " began Phil. 
 
 « But," broke in the squire. " Nonsense ! No but, lad. 
 Butter — ay, and cream it shall be. Let him turn ye off. 
 There 's a home at Gr.eenwood for ye, if he does — and some- 
 thing better than that too. Sixteen, ye dog ! Sweet sixteen, 
 rosy sixteen, bashful sixteen, glowing sixteen, run-away-and- 
 want-to-be-found sixteen ! " 
 
 " She don't seem ter want me ter find her," sighed Phil. 
 
 "Fooh ! " jeered the father. "There's only two kinds of 
 maids, as ye 'd know if ye 'd been out in the world as I have 
 — those that want a husband and those that don't. But sue 
 months married, and ye can't pick the one from t' other, try 
 your best. There 's nothing brings a lass to the round-about 
 so quick as having to do what she does n't want. They are 
 born contrary and skittish, and they can't help shying at 
 fences and gates, but give 'em the spur and the whip, and 
 over they go, as happy as a lark. And I say so, Janice will 
 marry ye, and mark my word, come a month she '11 be com- 
 plaining that ye don't fondle her enough." 
 
 Mr. Meredith's pictorial powers, far more than his philos- 
 ophy, were too much for Philemon to resist. He held out his 
 hand, saying, " 'T is a bargain, squire ; an' I '11 set to on a 
 canvass to-day." 
 
 " Well said," responded the elder, heartily. " And that 's 
 not all, Phil, that ye shall get from it. I 've a tidy lot of 
 money loaned to merchants in New York, and I '11 get it from 
 'em, and we '11 buy the mortgages on your father's lands. 
 Who'll have the whip hand then, eh? Oh ! we'll smoke the 
 old fox before we 've done with him. His brush shall be well 
 singed." 
 
 The compact thus concluded to their common satisfaction, 
 the twain separated, and the squire rode the remaining six 
 miles in that agreeable state of enjoyment which comes from 
 
A Variety of Contracts 1 07 
 
 the sense of triumphing over enemies. His very stride as he 
 stamped through the hall and into the parlour had in it the 
 suggestion that he was planting his heel on some foe, and it 
 was with evident elation that he announced : — 
 
 " Well, lass, I 've a husband for ye, so get your lips and 
 blushes ready for him against to-morrow ! " 
 
 " Oh, dadda, no ! " cried the girl, ceasing her spinet practice. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! And no obstinacy, mind. Phil 's a good enough 
 lad for any girl. Where 's your mother that I may tell her? " 
 
 " She 's in the attic, getting out some whole cloth," answered 
 the girl ; and as her father left the room, she leaned forward 
 and rested her burning cheek on the veneer of the spinet for an 
 instant as if to cool it. But the colour deepened rather than 
 lessened, and a moment later she rose, with her lips pressed 
 into a straight line, and her eyes shining very brightly. " I 'U 
 not marry the gawk. No! And if they insist I'll — " 
 Then she paused. 
 
 " How did Janice take it?" asked Mrs. Meredith, when the 
 scyiire had broken his news to her. 
 
 " Coltishly," responded the father, " but no blubbering this 
 time. The filly 's getting used to the idea of a bit, and will go 
 steady from now on." All of which went to show how little 
 the squire understood the nature of women, for the lack of 
 tears should have been the most alarming fact in his daughter's 
 conduct. 
 
 When Phil duly put in an appearance on the following day, 
 he was first interviewed by what Janice would have called the 
 attorney for the prosecution, who took him to his office and 
 insisted, much to the lover's disgust, in hearing what he had 
 done politically. Finally, however, this all-engrossing subject 
 to the office-seeker was, along with Philemon's patience, 
 exhausted, and the squire told his fellow-candidate that the 
 object of his desires could now be seen. 
 
 " The lass jumped to her feet as ye rid up, and said she 'd 
 some garden matters to tend, so there 's the spot to seek her." 
 Then the father continued, " Don't shilly-shally with her, 
 whate'er ye do, unless ye are minded to have balking and 
 kicking for the rest of your days. I took Matilda — Mrs. 
 Meredith — by surprise once, and before she knew I was there 
 
io8 Janice Meredith 
 
 I had her in my arms. And, egad ! I never let her go, plead 
 her best, till she gave me one of my kisses back. She began 
 to take notice from that day. 'T is the way of women." 
 
 Thus stimulated, Phil entered the garden, prepared to per- 
 form most valiant deeds. Unfortunately for him, however, the 
 bondsman had been summoned by Janice to do the digging, 
 and his presence materially altered the situation and necessi- 
 tated a merely formal greeting. 
 
 Having given some directions to Charles for continuation of 
 the work, Janice walked to another part of the garden, 
 apparently quite heedless of Philemon. Her swain of course 
 followed, and the moment they were well out of hearing of the 
 servant, Janice turned upon him and demanded : — 
 
 "Art thou gentleman enough to keep thy word? " 
 
 " I hope as how I am, Miss Janice," stuttered Phil, very 
 much taken aback. 
 
 " Wilt give me your promise, if I tell thee something, to 
 repeat it to no one ? " 
 
 " Certain, Miss Janice, I '11 tell nothin' you don't want folks 
 ter know." 
 
 "Even dadda and mommy?" 
 
 " Cross my heart." 
 
 "You see that man over there?" 
 
 " Yer mean Charles? " 
 
 " Yes. He is desperately in love with me," announced the 
 girl. 
 
 " Living jingo 1 He 's been a-troublin' you ? " 
 
 " No. He loves me too much to persecute me, and, 
 besides, he's a gentleman." 
 
 " Now, Miss Janice, you know as how I — " 
 
 " Am trying to marry me against my will." 
 
 " But the squire says you '11 be gladsome enough a month 
 gone; that — " 
 
 "Ugh!" 
 
 " Now please don't — " 
 
 " And what I am going to tell you and what you 've given 
 your word not to repeat is this : If you persist in trying to 
 marry me, if you so much as try to — to — to be famiUar, that 
 moment I '11 run off with him — there 1 " 
 
A Variety of Contracts 109 
 
 *' You never would ! " 
 
 " In an instant." 
 
 " You 'd take a bondsman rather than me ? " 
 
 The girl coloured, but replied, " Yes." 
 
 "I '11 teach him ter have done with his cutty- eyed tricks," 
 roared Phil, doubling up his fists, and turning, " I '11 — " 
 
 " Mr. Hennion ! " exclaimed the girl, her cheeks gone very 
 white. "You gave me your word that — " 
 
 "I never gave no word 'bout not threshing the lick." 
 
 " Most certainly you did, for you — you would have to tell 
 him before — and if you do that, I '11 — " 
 
 " But, Miss Janice, you must n't disgrace — Damn him ! 
 Then Bagby wasn't lyin' when he told me how there 'd been 
 talk at the tavern of his bundlin' with you." 
 
 For a moment Janice stood speechless, everything about her 
 suggesting the shame she was enduring. " He — he never 
 said that ! " she panted more than spoke, as if she hf d ceased 
 to breathe. 
 
 " I told Bagby if he- said that he was lyin' ; but after — " 
 
 " Mr. Hennion, do you intend to insult me as well? " 
 
 " No, no, Miss Janice. I don't believe it. 'T was a lie foi 
 certain, and I 'm ashamed ter have spoke of it." 
 
 With unshed tears of mortification in her eyes Janice turned 
 to go, every other ill forgotten in this last grief. 
 
 " Miss Janice," called Phil, " you can't go without — " 
 
 The girl faced about. " You men are all alike," she cried, 
 interrupting. " You tease and worry and torture a girl you 
 pretend to care for, till 't is past endurance. I hate you, and 
 before I '11 — " 
 
 " Now, Miss Janice, say you '11 not run off with him. I 'D 
 — I '11 try ter do as you ask, if only you — " 
 
 "So long as you — as you don't — don't bother me, I 
 won't," promised Janice ; " but the instant — " 
 
 And leaving the sentence thus broken, the girl left Phile- 
 mon, and fled to her room. 
 
XVII 
 IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY 
 
 THE scheme devised by Janice to keep Philemon 
 at arm's length would hardly have succeeded for 
 long, had not the squire been so preoccupied with 
 the election and with the now active farm work 
 that he paid little heed to the course of true love. Poor 
 Phil was teased by him now and again for his " offishness ; " 
 but Janice carefully managed that their interviews were not 
 held in the presence of her parents, and so the elders did not 
 come to a realising sense of the condition, but really believed 
 that the courtship was advancing with due progress to the port 
 of matrimony. 
 
 Though this was a respite to Janice, she herself knew that 
 it was at best the most temporary of expedients, and that 
 the immediate press of affairs once over, her marriage with 
 Philemon was sure to be pushed to a conclusion. Already her 
 mother's discussions of clothes, of linen, and of furniture were 
 constant reminders of its imminence, and the mere fact that 
 the servants of Greenwood and the neighbourhood accepted 
 the matter as settled, made allusions to it too frequent for 
 Janice not to feel that her bondage was inevitable. A dozen 
 times a day the girl would catch her breath or pale or flush over 
 the prospect before her, frightened, as the bird in the net, not 
 so much by the present situation, as by what the future was 
 certain to bring to pass. 
 
 A still more serious matter was further to engross her par- 
 ents' thoughts. One evening late in April, as the squire sat 
 on the front porch resting from his day's labour, Charles, who 
 had been sent to the village on some errand, came cantering 
 up the road, and drew rein opposite. 
 
 "Have better care how ye ride that filly, sir," said the 
 
In the Name of Liberty 1 1 r 
 
 squire, sharply. "I'll not have her wind broke by hard 
 riding." 
 
 " I know enough of horses to do her no harm," answered 
 the man, dismounting easily and gracefully ; " and if I rode a 
 bit quick, 't is because I 've news that needs wings." 
 
 "What's to do?" demanded the master, laying down the 
 " Rivington's Royal Gazette " he had been reading. 
 
 "As I was buying the nails," replied the servant, speaking 
 with obvious excitement, " Mr. Bissel rode up to the tavern 
 with a letter from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to 
 the southward ; and as 't was of some moment, while he baited, 
 I took a copy of it." The groom held out a paper, his hand 
 shaking a little in his excitement, and with an eager look on 
 his face he watched the squire read the following : — 
 
 Water Town Wednesday Morning near ii of Clock. 
 To all friends of american liberty, be it known, that this 
 morning before break of day, a Brigade, consisting of about 
 1,000 or 1,200 Men, landed at Phipp's Farm at Cambridge 
 and marched to Lexington, where they found a Company of 
 our Militia in Arms, upon whom they fired without any provO' 
 cation and killed 6 Men 6-" wounded 4 others — By an ex- 
 press from Boston we find another Brigade are now upon 
 their march from Boston, supposed to be about 1,000 — The 
 bearer Israel Bissel is charged to alarm the Country quite ta 
 Connecticut; and all Persons are desired to furnish him with 
 fresh Horses, as they may be needed — / have spoken with 
 several, who have seen the dead &' wounded. 
 
 J. Palmer one of the Committee of safety. 
 Forwarded from Worcester April jg, 177s • 
 
 Brooklyn — Thursday n o Clock 
 
 Norwich 4 " Clock 
 
 New London 7 " Clock 
 
 Lynne — Friday Morning ^ Clock 
 
 Say Brook 4 <> Clock 
 
 Shillingsworth 7 " ^^"'^^ 
 
 E. Gillford 8 o Clock 
 
 Guilford 10 o Clock 
 
 Bradford '^ " Clock 
 
 New Haven — April 21 
 
112 Janice Mereaitn 
 
 Reed &• /awarded on certain Intelligence 
 
 Fairfield April 22d 8 o Clock 
 
 New York Committee Chamber 4 o Clock 
 
 23 d April 177s P- ^• 
 Reed the within Acet by Express, fotwd by Express to 
 N Brunswick with directions to stop at Elizabeth Town df 
 acquaint the Committee there with the foregoing particulars by 
 
 order 
 
 J. S. Low, Chairman. 
 
 " Huh ! " grunted the squire. " I said the day would come 
 when British regulars would teach the scamps a lesson. The 
 rapscallions are getting their bellyful, no doubt; 'tis to be 
 hoped that it will bring law and quiet once again in the land." 
 
 "'Twill more likely be the match that fires the mine. 
 You 've little idea, Mr. Meredith, how strong and universal 
 the feeling is against Great Britain." 
 
 " 'T is not as strong as British bayonets, that ye may tie to, 
 fellow." 
 
 The servant shook his head doubtfully. "'Twill take a 
 long sword to reach this far, and Gage is not the man to 
 handle it." 
 
 " Odd's life 1 " swore the squire. " What know ye of Gage? 
 If every covenant man does n't think himself the better of a 
 major-general or a magistrate ! " 
 
 " Had you ever made the voyage from England, you 'd 
 appreciate the difficulties. 'Tis as big a military folly to 
 suppose that if America holds together she can be conquered 
 by bayonets, as 't is to suppose that she '11 allow a rotten Par- 
 liament, three thousand miles away, to rule her." 
 
 " Have done with such talk ! What does a rogue like ye 
 know of Parliament, except that it passes the laws ye run 
 from? 'Tis the like of ye — debtors, runaways, and such 
 trash — that is making all this trouble." 
 
 The servant laughed ironically. " Fools do more harm in 
 the world than knaves." 
 
 " What mean ye by that? " demanded the squire, hotly. 
 
 " 'T is as reasonable to hold the American cause bad because 
 a, few bad men take advantage of it as 't is to blame the flock 
 
In the Name of Liberty 113 
 
 of sheep for giving the one wolf his covering. What the 
 Whigs demand is only what the English themselves fought 
 for under Pym and Hampden, and to-day, if the words ' Great 
 Britain ' were but inserted in the acts of Parliament of which 
 America complains, there 'd be one rebellion from Land's End 
 to Duncansby Head." 
 
 "Didst not hear my order to cease such talk?" fumed the 
 squire. " Go to the stable where ye belong, fellow ! " 
 
 The man coloured and bit his lip in a manifest attempt to 
 keep his temper, but he did not move, saying instead, " Mr. 
 Meredith, wilt please tell me what you paid for my bond?" 
 
 "Why ask ye that?" 
 
 " If I could pay you the amount — and something over — 
 wouldst be willing to release me from the covenant? " 
 
 " And why should I ? " demanded the squire. 
 
 The servant hesitated, and then said in a low voice : " As 
 a gentleman, you must have seen I 'm no groom — and think 
 how it must gall me to serve as one." 
 
 " Thou shouldst have thought of that before thou indentured, 
 rather — " 
 
 "I know," burst out the man, "but I was crazed — was 
 wild with — with a grief that had come to me, and knew not 
 what I was doing." 
 
 " Fudge 1 No romaptics. Every redemptioner would have 
 it he is a gentleman, when he 's only caught the trick by 
 waiting on them." 
 
 " But if I buy my time you — " 
 
 " How 'd come ye by the money? " 
 
 "I — I think I could get the amount." 
 
 "Ay. I doubt not ye know how money's to be got by 
 hook or by crook ! And no doubt ye want your freedom to 
 drill more rebels to the king. Ye '11 not get it from me, so 
 there 's an end on 't." With which the squire rose, and 
 stamped into the hall and then to his oflfice. 
 
 Charles stood for a moment looking at the ground, and 
 then raised his head so quickly that Janice, who had joined 
 the two during the foregoing dialogue and whose eyes were 
 upon him, had not time to look away. " Can't you persuade 
 him to let me go. Miss Janice? " he asked appealingly. 
 
 8 
 
114 Janice Meredith 
 
 "Why do you want your freedom?" questioned Janice, 
 letting dignity surrender to curiosity. 
 
 " I want to get away from here — to get to a place where 
 there'^s a chance for a quicker death than eating one 's heart 
 by inches." 
 
 " How beautifully he talks ! " thought Janice. 
 
 "Nor will I bide here to see — to see — "went on the 
 bondsman, excitedly, "I must run, or I shall end by — 'Twill 
 be better to let me go before I turn mad." 
 
 " 'T is as good as a romance," was Janice's mental opinion. 
 " How I wish Tibbie was here ! " 
 
 "'Tis no doubt a joke to you — oh! you need not have 
 avoided me as you 've done lately to show me that I was 
 beneath you. I knew it without that. But who is this put 
 you are going to marry?" 
 
 " Mr. Hennion is of good family," answered Janice, with 
 spirit. 
 
 " Good family ! " laughed the man, bitterly. " No doubt he 
 is. Think you Phil Hennion is less the clout because he has 
 '& pedigree? There are hogs in Yorkshire can show better 
 genealogies than royalty." 
 
 "'Tis quite in keeping that a bond-servant should think 
 little of blood," retorted Janice, made angry by his open 
 contempt. 
 
 "Blood ! Yes, I despise it, and so would you if you knew 
 it as I do," exclaimed Charles, hotly, cutting the air with his 
 whip. " T/iaf for all the blood in the world, unless there, be 
 honour with it," he said. 
 
 "The fox didn't want the grapes." 
 
 " 'T is no case of sour grapes, as you 'd know if I told you 
 my story." 
 
 " Oh ! I should monstrous like to hear it," eagerly ejaculated 
 Janice. 
 
 The man dropped the bridle and came to the porch. " I 
 swore it should die with me, but there 's one woman in the 
 world to whom — " he began, and then checked himself as a 
 figure came into view on the lawn out of the growing darkness. 
 "Who 's there? " Charles demanded. 
 
 " It 's me —Joe Bagby," was the answer, as that individual 
 
In the Name of Liberty 115 
 
 came forward. " Is the squire home, miss ? " he asked ; and, 
 receiving the reply that he was in his office, Joe volun- 
 teered the information that a wish to talk with the lord of 
 Greenwood about the election was the motive of his call. " I 
 want to see if we can't fix things between us." 
 
 Scarcely had he spoken when there was a sudden rush of 
 men, who seemed to appear from nowhere, and at the same 
 instant Joe gave a shove to the bond-servant, which, being en- 
 tirely unexpected, sent him sprawling on the grass, where he 
 was pinioned by two of the party. 
 
 "Keep your mouth shut, or I '11 have to choke you,". said 
 Bagby to Janice, as she opened her mouth to scream. " Two 
 of you stand by her and keep her quiet. Sharp now, fellows, 
 he 's in his office. Have him out, and some of you start a 
 fire, quick." 
 
 The orders were obeyed with celerity, and as some rushed 
 into the hall and dragged forth the squire, struggling, the 
 scene was lighted by the blazing up of a bunch of hay, which 
 had appeared as if by magic, and on which sticks of wood 
 were quickly burning. Over the fire a pot, swung on a stick 
 upheld by two men, was placed, telling a story of intention 
 only too obvious. 
 
 ' "There isn't any sort of use swearing like that, squire," said 
 Bagby. " We 've got a thing or two to say, and if you won't 
 listen to it quiet, why, we '11 fill your mouth with a hirap of tar, 
 to give you something to chew on while we say it. Cussing 
 did n't prevent your being a babe in the wood, and it won't 
 prevent our giving you a bishop's coat ; so if you don't want 
 it, have done, and listen to what we have to propose." 
 
 "Well?" demanded the squire. 
 
 " We 've stood your conduct just as long as it was possible, 
 squire," went on Bagby, " and been forbearing, hoping you 'd 
 mend your ways. But it 's no use, and so we 've come up this 
 evening to give you a last chance to put yourself right, for 
 we 're a peace-loving, law-abiding lot, and don't want to use 
 nothing but moral suasion, as the parson puts it, unless you 
 make us." 
 
 " That 's it. Give it to him, Joe," said some one, approv- 
 ingly. 
 
1 1 6 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Now that the regulars of old Guelph have begun slaugh- 
 tering the sons of liberty, we have decided to put an end to 
 snakes in the grass, and so you can come to the face-about, 
 or you can have a coat of tar and a ride on a rail out of the 
 county. And what 's more, when you 're once out, you 're to 
 stay out, mind. Which is your choice?" 
 
 " What do you want me to do ? " demanded the squire, 
 sullenly. 
 
 " First off, we 're tired of your brag that tea 's drunk on your 
 table. You 're to give us all you 've got, and you 're not to 
 get any new, whether 'tis East India or smuggled." 
 
 " I agree to that." 
 
 " Secondly," went on Bagby, in a sing-song voice, much as 
 if he was reading a series of resolutions, " you 're to sign the 
 Congress Association, and live up to it." 
 
 The squire looked to right and left, as if considering some 
 outlet ; but there were men all about him, and after a pause he 
 merely nodded his head. 
 
 "You're getting mighty reasonable, squire," remarked 
 Bagby, with a grin. " Lastly, we don't want to be represented 
 in Assembly by such a king's man, and so you 're to decline a 
 poll." 
 
 " If the electors don't want me, let them say so at the 
 election." 
 
 " Some of your tenants are 'feared to vote against you, and 
 we intend that this election shall be unanimous for the friends 
 of liberty. Will you decline a poll ? " 
 
 " Now damn me if — " began the squire. 
 
 "Come, come, squire," interrupted an elderly man. 
 " Yer 've stud no chance of election from the fust, so what 's 
 the use of stickling? " 
 
 " I wash my hands of ye," roared the squire. " Have 
 whom ye want for what ye want. I 've done with serving a 
 lot of ingrates. Ye can come to me in the future on your 
 knees, but ye '11 not get me to — " 
 
 " That 's just what we wants," broke in Joe. •' If you 'd 
 always been so open to public opinion, we'd have had no 
 cause for complaint against you. And now, squire, since 
 a united land is what we wants, while your daughter gets 
 
In the Name of Liberty 117 
 
 the tea and a pen to sign the Association, do the thing up 
 handsome by singing us the Hberty song." 
 
 " Burn me if I will," cried the owner of Greenwood, like 
 many another yielding big points without much to-do, but 
 obstinate over the small ones. 
 
 " Is that tar about melted? " inquired Bagby. 
 
 "Jest the right consistency, Joe," responded one of the 
 pole-holders. 
 
 " Better sing it, squire," advised Bagby. " We know you 're 
 not much at a song, but the sentiments is what we like." 
 
 Once again the beset man looked to right and left, rage and 
 mortification united. Then, with a remark below his breath, 
 he sang in a very tuneless bass, that wandered at will between 
 flat and sharp, with not a little falsetto : — 
 
 " Come join Hand in Hand, brave Americans all, 
 And rouse your bold Hearts at fair Liberty's Call ; 
 No tyrannous Acts shall suppress your just Claim 
 Or stain with Dishonour America's Name — 
 In Freedom we 're born and in Freedom we '11 liva 
 Our Purses are ready — 
 Steady, Friends, Steady — 
 Not as Slaves, but as Freemen our Money we '11 give." 
 
 "That's enough!" remarked the ringleader. "Now, 
 Watson, let the squire sign that broadside. Take the pot 
 off, boys, and dump the tea on the fire. Good-evening, 
 squire, and sweet dreams to you ; I hope 't will be long before 
 you make us walk eight miles again. Fall in, Invincibles. 
 You 've struck your first blow for freedom." 
 
 For a moment the steady tramp of the departing men was 
 all that broke the stillness of the night ; but as they marched 
 they fell into song, and there came drifting back to the trio 
 standing silent about the porch the air of " Hearts of Oak," 
 and the words : — 
 
 " Then Join Hand in Hand, brave Americans all I 
 To be free is to live, to be Slaves is to fall ; 
 Has the Land such a Dastard, as scorns not a Lord, 
 Who dreads not a Fetter much more than a Sword ? 
 In Freedom we 're bom, and, like Sons of the Brave, 
 We '11 never surrender, 
 But swear to defend her. 
 And scorn to survive, if unable to save." 
 
XVIII 
 FIGUREHEADS AND LEADERS 
 
 THE squire's mood in the next few days was anything 
 but genial, and his family, his servants, his farm- 
 hands, his tenants, and in fact all whom he en- 
 countered, received a share of his spleen. 
 His ill-nature was not a little increased by hearing indirectly, 
 through his overseer, that it was the elder Hennion who had 
 planned the surprise party ; and in revenge Mr. Meredith set 
 about the scheme, already hinted at, of buying assignments of 
 the mortgages on Boxley. For this purpose he announced 
 his intention of journeying to New York, and ordered Phile- 
 mon to be his travelling companion that he might have the 
 advantage of his knowledge of the holders of the elder Hen- 
 nion's bonds. The would-be son-in-law at first objected to 
 being made a cat's-paw, but the squire was obstinate, and 
 after a night upon it, Phil acceded. No other difficulty was 
 found in the attainment of Mr. Meredith's purpose, the money- 
 lenders in New York being only too glad, in the growing inse- 
 curity and general suspension of law, to turn their investments 
 into cash. It was a task of some weeks to gather them all in, 
 but it was one of the keenest enjoyment to the squire, who 
 each evening, over his mulled wine in the King's Arms Tavern, 
 pictured and repictured the moment of triumph, when, with 
 the growing bundle of mortgages completed, he should ride to 
 Boxley and inform its occupant that he wished them paid. 
 
 " We '11 show the old fox that he 's got a ferret, not a goose, 
 to deal with," he said a dozen times to Phil, — a speech which 
 always made the latter look very uneasy, as if his conscience 
 were pricking. 
 
 This absence of father and lover gave Janice a really restful 
 breathing space, and it was the least eventful time the girl had 
 
Figureheads and Leaders 1 1 9 
 
 known since the advent of the bondsman nearly a yeai before. 
 Even he almost dropped out of the girl's life, for the farm- 
 work was now at its highest point of activity, and he was little 
 about house or stable. Furthermore, though twenty thousand 
 minutemen and volunteers were gathered before Boston, though 
 the thirteen colonies were aflame with war preparations, and 
 though the Continental Congress was voting a declaration on 
 taking up arms and appointing a general, nothing but vague 
 report of all this reached Greenwood. 
 
 In Brunswick, however, Dame Rumour was more precise, 
 and one afternoon as the bondsman rode into the town, with 
 some horses that needed shoeing, he was hailed by the tavern- 
 keeper. 
 
 " Say ! Folks tells that yer know how tew paint a bit ? " 
 And, when Charles nodded, he continued : " Waal, we 've 
 hearn word that the Congress has appinted a feller named 
 George Washington fer ginral, who 's goin' tew come through 
 here tew-morrer on his way tew Boston, an' I want tew git 
 that ere name painted out and his'n put in its place. Are yer 
 up tew it, and what 'ud the job tax me ? " As the publican 
 spoke he pointed at the lettering below the weather-beaten 
 portrait of George the Third, which served as the signboard 
 of the tavern. 
 
 " Get me some colours, and bide till I leave these horses at 
 the smith's, and I '11 do it for nothing," said Charles, smiling ; 
 and ten minutes later, sitting on a barrel set in a cart, he was 
 doing his share toward the obliteration of kinghood and the 
 substitution Qf a comparatively unknown hero. 
 
 " 'T is good luck that they both is called George," remarked 
 the tavern-keeper; "fer yer 've only got tew paint out the 
 'King' an' put in a 'Gen.' in the first part, which saves 
 trouble right tew begin on." 
 
 Charles Smilingly adopted the suggestion, and then meas- 
 ured off "the III." "'Tis a long name to get into such 
 space," he said. 
 
 " Scant it is," assented the publican. " I '11 tell yer what. 
 
 Jist leave the 'the' an' paint in 'good' after it. That'll 
 
 make it read slick." Pleased with this solution of the diffi- 
 
 -culty, the hotel-keeper retired to the " public," with a part- 
 
1 20 Janice Meredith 
 
 ing invitation to the painter to drink something for his 
 trouble. 
 
 While Charles was doing the additional work, he was inter- 
 rupted by a roar of laughter, and, twisting about on his barrel, 
 he found a group of horsemen, who had come across the green 
 and drawn rein just behind him, looking at the newly lettered 
 sign. From the one of the three who rode first came the 
 burst of laughter — a man of medium size and thinly built, 
 perhaps fifty years of age, with a nose so out of proportion 
 to his face, in its size and heaviness, that it came near enough 
 to caricature to practically submerge all his other features. 
 The second man was evidently trying not to smile, and as 
 Charles glanced at him, he found him looking at the third of 
 the trio, as if to ascertain his mood. This last, a man of 
 extreme tallness, and in appearance by far the youngest of the 
 group — for he looked not over thirty at most — was scruti- 
 nising the signboard gravely, but his eyes had a gleam of 
 merriment in them, which neutralised the set firmness of the 
 mouth. All the party were in uniform, save for a couple of 
 servants in livery, and all were well mounted. 
 
 " Haw, haw, haw ! " laughed the noisy one. " Pray God 
 mine host be not as chary with his spit as he is with his paint 
 or 't will be lean entertainment." 
 
 " I said 't was best to make a push for 't to Amboy," re- 
 marked the second. 
 
 " Nay, gentlemen," responded the third, smiling pleasantly. 
 " A man so pnident and economical must keep a good ordi- 
 nary. Better bide here for dinner and kill a warm afternoon, 
 and then push on to Amboy, in the cool of the evening, with 
 rested cattle." 
 
 " Within there ! " shouted the noisy rider, " hast dinner and 
 bait for a dozen travellers? " 
 
 The call brought the publican to the door, and at first he 
 gasped a startled " By Jingo ! " Then he jerked his cap off, and 
 ducked very low, saying : " 'T was said, yer — yer — Lordship, 
 that yer 'd not come till the morrow. But if yer '11 honour my 
 tavern, yer shall have the bestest in the house." He kept 
 bowing between every word to the man with the big nose. 
 
 " Then here we tarry for dinner," said the young-looking 
 
Figureheads and Leaders 121 
 
 man, gracefully swinging himself out of the saddle, a proceed- 
 ing imitated by all the riders. "Take good heed of the 
 horses, Bill," he said, as a coloured servant came forward. 
 "Wash Blueskin's nose and let him cool somewhat before 
 watering him." He turned toward the door of the tavern, 
 and this bringing Charles into vision again, he looked up at 
 the painter to find himself being studied with so intent a gaze 
 that he halted and returned the man's stare. 
 
 " Art struck of a heap by the resemblance ? " demanded the 
 noisy officer. 
 
 "Go in, gentlemen," replied the tall one. "Well, my 
 man," he continued to Charles, "ye change figureheads 
 easily." 
 
 " Ay, 't is easier to get new figureheads than 't is to be true 
 to old ones." 
 
 A grave, almost stern look came into the officer's face, 
 making it at once that of an older man. "Then ye think 
 the old order best?" he asked, scanning the man with his 
 steady blue eyes. 
 
 The bondsman put his hand on the signboard. "'Tis 
 safest to stick to an old figurehead until one can find a true' 
 cader," he answered. 
 
 " And think you he is one ? " demanded the officer, pointing 
 at the signboard. 
 
 Charles laughed and laid a finger on the chin of royalty. 
 " No man with so little of that was ever a leader," he asserted. 
 He reached down and picked up a different pot of paint from 
 the one he had been using, dipped his brush in it, and with 
 one sweep over the lower part of the face cleverly produced 
 a chin of character. Then he took another colour and gave 
 three or four deft touches to the lips, transforming the expres- 
 sionless mouth into a larger one, but giving to it both strength 
 and expression. " There is a beginning of a leader, I think," 
 he said. 
 
 "Thou art quick with thy brush and quick with thy eyes," 
 replied the man, smiling slightly and starting to go. In the 
 doorway he turned and said with a sudden gravity, quite as 
 much to himself as to the bondsman : " Please God that thou 
 be as true in opinion." 
 
122 Janice Meredith 
 
 Left alone, the bondsman once more took his brush and 
 broadened and strengthened the nose and forehead. Just as 
 be had completed these, the tavern-keeper came bustling out 
 of the door. " Wilt seek Joe Bagby -an' tell him tew git the 
 Invincibles tewgether?" he cried. " He intended tew review 
 'em tew-morrer fer the ginral, an* their Lordships says they '11 
 see 'em go through — Why, strap me, man, what hast thou 
 been at?" 
 
 " I 've been making it a better portrait of the general than 
 it ever was of the king." 
 
 " But yer 've drawn the wrong man ! " exclaimed the publi- 
 can, " That quiet young man is not him. 'T is the heavy- 
 nosed man is his Excellency." 
 
 "Nonsense ! " retorted the bondsman. "That loud-voiced 
 fellow is Leftenant-Colonel Lee, a half-pay officer. Many and 
 many 's the time I 've seen him — - and if I had n't, I 'd have 
 known the other for the general in a hundred." , 
 
 " I tell yer yer 're wrong," moaned the hotel-keeper. *' Any 
 one can see he 's a ginral, an' 't is he gives all the orders fer 
 victuals an' grog." 
 
 Charles laughed as he descended from the barrel and the 
 cart. " 'T is ever the worst wheel in the cart which makes the 
 most noise," he said, and walked away. 
 
 Two hours later the Invincibles were bunched upon the 
 green. As the diners issued from the inn, Bagby gave an 
 erder. With some slight confusion the company fell in, anfi 
 two more orders brought their guns to " present arms." 
 
 "Bravo!" exclaimed Lee. "Here are some yokels who 
 for once don't hold their guns as if they were hoes." 
 
 Joe, fairly swelling with the pride of the moment, came 
 strutting forward. When he was within ten feet of the officers 
 he took off his hat and bowed very low, " The Invincibles iS 
 ready to be put through theif paces, your honour," he 
 announced. 
 
 "Damme!" sneered Lee, below his breath. "Here's a 
 mohair in command who does n't so much as know the salute." 
 
 The tall officer, despite his six feet and three inches of 
 height, swung himself lightly into the saddle without using a 
 Stirrup, and rode forward. 
 
Figureheads and Leaders 123 
 
 « Proceed with the review, sir," he said to Joe. 
 
 " Yes, sir — that is, I mean — your honour," replied Joe ; 
 and, turning, he roared out, " Get ready to go on, fellows. 
 Attention ! Dress ! " 
 
 Instant disorder was visible in the ranks, some doing one 
 thing, and some another, while a man stepped forward three 
 or four steps and shouted: "Yer fergot ter git the muskets 
 back ter the first persition, Joe." 
 
 " Get into line, durn you ! " shouted Joe ; « an' I '11 have 
 something to say to you later, Zerubbabel Buntling." 
 
 " O Lord I " muttered Lee to the other officers, most of 
 whom were laughing. " And they expect us to beat regulars 
 with such I " 
 
 " Attention I " once more called Joe. " To the right face — 
 no — I mean, shoulder firelocks first off. Now to the left 
 face." But by this time he was so confused that his voice sank 
 as he spoke the last words, and so some faced right and some 
 left; while altercations at once arose in the ranks that broke 
 the alignment into a number of disputing groups and set the 
 captain to swearing. 
 
 " Come," shouted one soldier, " cut it, Joe, an' let Charles 
 take yer place. Yer only mixes us ap." 
 
 The suggestion was greeted by numerous, if various, assent- 
 ing opinions from the ranks, and without so much as waiting 
 to hear Bagby's reply, Charles sprang forward. Giving the 
 salute to the mounted ofHcers, he wheeled about, and, with two 
 orders, had the lines in formation, after which the manoeuvres 
 were gone through quickly and comparatively smoothly. 
 
 The reviewing officer had not laughed during the confusion, 
 watching it with a sternly anxious face, but as the drill pro- 
 ceeded this look changed, and when the parade was finished, 
 he rode forward and saluted the Invincibles. " Gentlemen," 
 he said, " if you but conduct yourselves with , the same steadi- 
 ness in the face of the enemy as you have this afternoon, your 
 country will have little to ask of you and much to owe." He 
 turned to Joe, standing shamefaced at one side, and con- 
 tinued : "You are to be complimented on your company, 
 sir. 'Tis far and away the best I have seen since I left 
 Virginia." 
 
124 Janice Meredith 
 
 «• And that is n't all, your honour," replied Joe, his face 
 brightening and his self-importance evidently restored. " We 
 are a forehanded lot, and we 've got twenty half-barrels of 
 powder laid in against trouble." 
 
 After a few more words with Bagby, which put a pleased 
 ■mile on his face, the officer wheeled his horse. " Well, gen- 
 tlemen, we '11 proceed," he called to the group ; and, as they 
 were mounting, he rode to where Charles stood. " You have 
 served ? " he said. 
 
 Charles, with the old sullen look upon his face, saluted, and 
 replied bitterly : " Yes, general, and would give an eye to be 
 in the ranks again." 
 
 Tie general looked at him steadily. " If ye served in the 
 ranks, how comes it that ye give the officers salute?" he 
 usked. 
 
 Charles flushed, but met the scrutinising eye to eye, as he 
 answered : " None know it here, but I held his Majesty's 
 commission for seven years." 
 
 "You look o'er young to have doue tbat," said the 
 general. 
 
 " I was made a comet at twelve.** 
 
 " How comes it that you are here?"» 
 
 " My own folly," muttered the man. 
 
 " 'T is a pity thou 'rt indentured, for we have crying need 
 of tramed men. But do what you can hereabouts, smce you 
 are not free to join us." 
 
 " I will, general," said Charles, eagerly, and, as the offi<;er 
 wheeled his horse, he once more saluted. Then as the travel- 
 lers rode toward the bridge, the bondsman walked over and 
 looked up at his crude likeness of the general. 
 
 " Yer wuz right," remarked the innkeeper. " The young- 
 lookin' feller wuz Ginral Washington." 
 
 " Ay," exclaimed the man ; " and, mark me, if a face goes 
 for aught, he 's general enough to beat Gage — and that — " 
 the man paused, and then added : " that sluggard Howa. 
 And would to God I could help iu it i " 
 
XIX 
 
 SPIES AND COUNTER-SPIES 
 
 IT was the middle of July when the squire and Phil ro- 
 turned from New York, bringing with them much news 
 of the war preparations, of Washington's passing through 
 the city, and of the bloody battle of Bunker Hill. Of 
 far more importance, however, to the ladies of Greenwood, 
 were two pieces of information which their lord and master 
 promptly announced. First, that he wished the marriage to 
 take place speedily, and second, that at New York he had met 
 Mr. Evatt, just landed from a South Carolina ship, and intend- 
 ing, as soon as some matter of business was completed, to 
 repeat his former visit to Greenwood, — an intention that the 
 squire had heartily indorsed by the warmest of invitations. 
 Both brought the colour to the cheeks of Janice, but had the 
 parents been watchful, they would have noted that the second 
 bit of news produced the higher tint. 
 
 Although Phil was still on apparently good terms with his 
 father, he was, from the time of his return, much at Green- 
 wood ; and, his simple nature being quite incapable of deceit, 
 Janice very quickly perceived that his chief motive was not so 
 much the lover's desire to be near, as it was to keep watch of 
 her. Had the fellow deliberately planned to irritate the girl, 
 he could have hit upon nothing more certain to enrage her, 
 and a week had barely elapsed when matters reached a 
 crisis. 
 
 Janice, who, it must be confessed, took pleasure in deliber- 
 ately arousing the suspicion of Philemon, and thus forcing him 
 to reveal how closely he spied upon her, one evening, as they 
 rose from the supper-table, slipped out of the window and 
 walked toward the stable. Her swain was prompt in pursuit ; 
 and she, quite conscious of this, stepped quickly to one side 
 
126 Janice Meredith 
 
 as she passed through the last opening in the box, and stood 
 half-buried in the hedge. Ignorant of her proximity, Phile- 
 mon came quickly through the hedge, and was promptly made 
 aware of it by her hot words. 
 
 " 'T is past endurance. I 'II not be spied on so." 
 
 "I — I — Why, Janice, you know how I likes ter be with 
 you," falteringly explained Hennion. 
 
 " Spy, spy, spy — nothing but spy ! " rebuked Janice ; " I 
 can't so much as — as go to pick a flower but you are hiding 
 behind a bush." 
 
 " 'Deed, Janice, you 're not fairsome ter me. After you 
 sayin' what you did about that rake-helly bondsman, 't is only 
 human ter — " 
 
 " To treat me as if I was a slave. Why, Peg has more 
 freedom than I have. If you — I'm going to the stable — to 
 see Charles — and if you dare to follow me, I'll — " The 
 girl walked away and disappeared through the doorway, leaving 
 Philemon standing by the box, the picture of indecision and 
 anxiety. " He does n't know that Charles was sent to the 
 village," thought Janice, laughing merrily to herself as she went 
 to a stall, and pulling the horse's head down put her cheek 
 against it. " Oh, Joggles dear," she sighed, " they are all 
 against me but you." She went from one horse to another, 
 giving each a word and a caress. Then she stole back to the 
 door and peeked through the crack, to find that her shadow 
 had disappeared ; this ascertained, she went and sat down on 
 the hay. " If he tortures me, I '11 torture him," was hgr 
 thought. 
 
 Janice waited thus for but a few minutes, when she heard 
 the rapid trot of a horse, which came to a halt at the stable 
 door. As that sound ceased, the voice of Charles broke the 
 silence, saying, "You stall the horse, while I see the 
 squire ; " and, in obedience to this direction, some one led 
 Daisy into the stable. The gloom of nightfall made the 
 interior too dark for the girl to recognise the man, and, 
 not wishing it to be known that she was there, she sat 
 quiet. 
 
 For a good ten minutes the man waited, whistling sofdy the 
 while, before Charles returned. 
 
Spies and Counter-Spies 1 27 
 
 "Waal, what luck?" asked the stranger ere Charles had 
 come through the doorway. 
 
 "Luck!" growled the bondsman. "The devil's own, as 
 mine always is, curse it ! " 
 
 " From which I calkerlate that old Meredith wuz obstinate 
 and wudn't set yer free." 
 
 " Not he, plead my best. But that 's the last I ask of him ; 
 and 't would have served him as well to let me go, for go I will." 
 
 " You '11 go off without — " 
 
 « I will." 
 
 " Yer know what it means if brought back ? " 
 
 " Double the time. Well, treble it, and still I '11 do it. I 
 gave my word I 'd help, and the general shall have the powder, 
 if for nothing else than to spite that dirty coward Bagby, 
 though I serve thrice five years for' t. Tell the lads I '11 lead 
 them, and if they '11 meet me at Drigg's barn to-morrow even- 
 ing at ten we '11 scheme out how to do it." 
 
 Without further parley the stranger walked away, and no 
 sooner had the crunch of his boots ceased than Janice came 
 forward. 
 
 Charles gave a startled exclamation as she appeared, and 
 caught the girl roughly by the wrist. "Who's this?" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " You hurt," complained Janice. 
 
 The bondsman relaxed but not released his hold at the 
 sound of her voice. " You 've heard all I said ?" he demanded. 
 
 " Yes. I — I did n't like to come out while the man was here." 
 
 " And you '11 tell your father? " 
 
 "No," denied the girl. " I did n't want to listen by stealth, 
 but since I did, I 'm no tale-bearer." 
 
 Raising the hand he held by the wrist, Charles kissed it. 
 "I should have known you were no eavesdropper, Miss 
 Janice," he said, releasing his hold. 
 
 " But — Oh, what is it you are going to do ? " asked Janice. 
 
 " I have your word that it goes no further? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " A secret letter came to the Brunswick Committee yester- 
 morn from General Washington, saying that it had just been 
 discovered that their powder account was a lie, and that there 
 
128 Janice Meredith 
 
 •were less than ten rounds to each man in stock. He knew by 
 ■some means of what is here, and he begged the committee to 
 :send it to him ; for if the British attacked him in his present 
 plight, 't would be fatal. And yet what think you the com- 
 jnittee did?" 
 
 •" They asked you to take it to him ? " 
 
 " Not they, the — Ah ! there 's no words to fit them. Old 
 Hennion, mean hunks that he is, wanted them to write and 
 offer to sell it at double what had been paid for 't, while 
 Bagby would n't part with it on any terms, because he said 
 't was needed by the ' Invincibles ' to defend the town. The 
 two voted down Parson McClave, who declared that Brunswick 
 should be laid in ashes rather than that Washington should 
 not be helped. Ah, Miss Janice, that's a man for these 
 times." 
 
 "Then what dost intend?" 
 
 "The parson came to me to counsel what was best, and 
 'tween us we concocted a plan to outwit the time-servers. 
 There are plenty of fellows of spirit in the ' Invincibles,' and 
 't is our scheme to steal the powder some night, put it on a 
 sloop, and be to sea before daylight." 
 
 " How monstrous exciting ! " exclaimed Janice, her eyes 
 sparkling. "And you — " 
 
 " I '11 lead them. I 'm desperate enough to do anything 
 that has risk. There 's real lighting there, if the accounts 
 speak true, and perhaps a bullet will cancel both my shame 
 and my bond — ay, and my — my love for you. For I love 
 you. Miss Janice, love you more — " 
 
 Though taken very much by surprise, Janice drew herself 
 up proudly, and interrupted : " You forget — " she began. 
 
 " Of course I forget ! " broke in the groom. " What would 
 love be worth if it did n't forget everything but itself? I 
 forget I 'm a bond-servant, you 'd say. So I should if I were 
 a king. But you are too heartless to know what love is," he 
 ended bitterly. 
 
 " 'T is not so," denied Janice, angrily ; « but I '11 love no 
 redemptioner, though he be as good-looking and good-tem- 
 pered as you are ill-natured and ugly." 
 
 " And who are you," demanded the man, passionately, " to 
 
Spies and Counter-Spies 129 
 
 take such mighty airs? A daughter of a uobody, dubbed 
 Esquire because he is the biggest bubble in a pint pot." 
 
 " I shall not stay here to be insulted," cried Janice, moving 
 away. But in the doorway her exasperation got the better of 
 her dignity, and she faced about and said : " You evidently 
 don't know that my great-grandfather was Edward Byllynge." 
 
 The man laughed contemptuously. " Why, you little ninny," 
 he retorted, " my great-grandfather was king of England ! " 
 
 Janice caught hold of the lintel, and stood as if transfixed 
 for a moment, even the mortifying epithet of the groom for- 
 gotten in her amazement. "A likely tale!" she ejaculated 
 finally when the first mute surprise was conquered. 
 
 The bond-servant had gained control of himself in the 
 pause, for he quietly rejoined : " 'T is true enough, thougb 
 nothing to make boast of, save to those who set great store 
 by grandfathers." Then, in a sadder tone, he added: 
 " 'T was a foolish brag I never thought to make, for it carries 
 more shame than honour, and 'tis therefore best forgotten. 
 Moreover, I ask your pardon for saying what else I did ; 't was 
 my tongue and not my heart which spoke," 
 
 The insult being atoned, Janice came back. "You said 
 you would tell me your history." 
 
 " But then — that was when I hoped — a fool I was." The 
 redemptioner paused, and then took a quick step toward 
 Janice with an eager look on his face and his hand out- 
 stretched. " There is but one woman in the world can gain 
 the right to hear my sorry tale. May I tell it to you ? " 
 
 Young and inexperienced as the girl was, the implication 
 of the question was too obvious for her to miss, and she 
 replied, "No." 
 
 The man dropped his arm and stood quietly for a moment, 
 then gave a short, abrupt laugh. "Either 'tis my lot to 
 worship clay idols," he said, " or no woman is worth loving." 
 
 "Small blame to them for not loving you," rejoined Janice. 
 
 " Electing to marry a put like Hennion ! There 's a hus- 
 band of whom to be proud." 
 
 " At least he is no indentured servant," retorted the girl, 
 in her irritation, walking away from the stable. Once through 
 the garden and in sight of the house; she halted, her atten- 
 
 9 
 
i^o Janice Meredith 
 
 tion attracted by some to-do about the porch. Coming 
 swiftly forward, it was to discover the squire there, candle in 
 hand, to light the dismounting of a horseman, and that no less 
 than Mr. Evatt. 
 
 " A welcome to ye," the host was saying. " Peg, tell 
 Charles to come and take this horse. Get ye into the house, 
 man ; I '11 hold him. Ah ! Jan. Take Mr. Evatt in, lass, 
 and tell your mother we 've a visitor." 
 
 Janice, feeling strangely shy, led the way to the parlour, and 
 when her mother, after the briefest of greetings, promptly 
 bustled off to order a glass of wine and to inspect the best 
 lodging-room — as guest chambers were then termed • — her 
 embarrassment was sufficient to bring the blood glowing into 
 her cheeks, while, not daring so much as to meet Evatt's 
 eye, she hung her head and had much ado to keep from 
 trembling. 
 
 Evatt stood with a broad smile on his face and unconcealed 
 pleasure in his eyes, for in truth the girl made a picture to 
 charm any man ; and not till Janice lifted her eyes, and shot 
 a furtive look at him, did he move toward her. He took her 
 hand and whispered : " For nine months I 've thought me of 
 those lips and wondered when I should have taste of them. 
 Quickly, or thy father will — " 
 
 "You mustn't!" gasped Janice, hanging her head more 
 than ever. " I 'm to marry Philemon." 
 
 " Tush ! " exclaimed the man. " I heard that tarradiddle 
 in York City. Why, thou 'rt promised to me, dost not remem. 
 ber, and I '11 not release thee, that I bind to. Wouldst rather 
 have that clout than me, Janice?" 
 
 Very falteringly and still with downcast face the girl mur- 
 mured, " No." 
 
 " Then I '11 save ye from him, mark my word. Come, up 
 with your lips, and give me a kiss for the promise. What I 
 still frightened? 'Tis nothing so terrible. A court lady 
 would have had a dozen kisses in the time I 've pleaded. 
 And ye are no mere country hoyden, without manners or — " 
 
 Already Janice was raising her head, the possibility of 
 seeming countrified being worse even than a man's caress j 
 but her intended submission and Evatt's speech were both 
 
Spies and Counter-Spies 131 
 
 Interrupted by the clump of boots in the hall, and the pair 
 had barely time to assume less tell-tale attitudes when the 
 squire and Phil were standing in the doorway. 
 
 "Friend Evatt," ejaculated Mr. Meredith, "come to my 
 office at once. I've a matter needing your advice. Lass, 
 tell your mother to send us the Madeira and rum, with some 
 hot water, but let us not be disturbed." 
 
 Evatt made a grimace as he followed, and threw himself 
 into a chair with a suggestion of irritation. 
 
 "This lad, for a reason he won't tell," began the squire, as 
 he closed the door, " has kept eye on a bondsman of mine, 
 and this evening, as luck would have it, he stood upon a barrel, 
 by one of the stable windows, and overheard a pretty story the 
 fellow told to some one whom Phil could n't see. Tell it o'er, 
 lad, as ye told it me." 
 
 Hennion, thus admonished, retold the story of the powder, 
 as the bond-servant had related it to Janice. But two omis- 
 sions he made : the first being a failure to mention the con- 
 nection of his father with the matter, and the second the 
 presence of Janice in the stable. 
 
 " Here 's news indeed ! " exclaimed Evatt. 
 
 " Ay. But what to do with it is the question." 
 
 " Do ! Why, get word of it to Howe as quick as may be, 
 so that he may take advantage of their plight. We must send 
 him a letter." 
 
 " 'T is easier said than done. Boston is encompassed, and 
 no man can get through the lines." 
 
 " I have it. The * Asia ' frigate, with her tender, lies in the 
 lower bay at New York j the latter can be sent round with a 
 letter to Boston. And ye shall bear it, lad," added Evatt, 
 turning to Phil. 
 
 " 'T ain't no wish of mine," ejaculated Philemon. 
 
 "There is no one else we can trust. Twill be but a 
 month's affair, at worst." 
 
 " But I don't care ter go," dissented Hennion. " I want 
 ter get married ter Miss Janice right off, an' not — " 
 
 " Come, squire, tell the fellow he must n't shirk his duty to 
 his king. He can marry your daughter any time, but now 's 
 the moment to do a service to his country. Why, man, if it 
 
132 Janice Meredith 
 
 ends this rebellion, as it seems like to, they 1\ give ye a title — ^ 
 and ye, too, squire, I doubt not." 
 
 " He speaks true, Phil. Here 's a chance, indeed. Put 
 the girl out of thy head for a time, and think a man's 
 thoughts." 
 
 " Ay," cried Evatt. " Don't prove the old saying : 
 
 ' He who sighs for a glass without G, 
 Take away L and that is he.' " 
 
 It took much more urging to get Phil to yield, but finally, 
 •n a promise of the master of Greenwood that he should wed 
 so soon as he returned, he gave a half-hearted consent. Over 
 the rum a letter to Sir William Howe was written by Evatt, 
 and he and Phil arranged to be up and away betimes in 
 the morning. 
 
 " That gets him well out of the way," remarked Evatt, as 
 in his bedroom he stripped oflf his clothes. " Now to be at 
 eaccessful with Miss Blushing Innocence," 
 
XX 
 
 THE LOGIC OF HONOURED PARENTS AND 
 DUTIFUL CHILDREN 
 
 PHILEMON and Evatt were in the saddle by five the 
 next morning and a little more than an hour later held 
 consultation with Bagby. Everything except Phil's 
 intended mission was quickly told him. 
 
 "Jingo!" he remarked, and then whistled. "Why, 'tis 
 Stealing? Isn't there to be no lavr in the land? When do 
 they plot to rob us?" 
 
 " They meet this evenin' ter scheme it, an* a body can't teH 
 when they 'U act." 
 
 " 'T won't likely be to-night, but I '11 keep guard myself, all 
 the same, and some of the Invincibles shall watch every night." 
 
 This warning given, and a bite taken at the tavern by way of 
 breakfast, the ride to Amboy was made in quick time. Here 
 a boat was secured, and the two were rowed off to the "Asia" 
 as she lay inside the Hook. Evatt had a long conference with 
 her captain in his cabin, and apparently won consent to his 
 plan ; for when he returned on deck, a cutter was cleared away, 
 and Phil was told it would put him on the tender which was 
 to carry him to Boston. With many a longing glance at the 
 shore, he bade good-by to Evatt, who cheered liim by predic- 
 tions of reward and speedy return. 
 
 Philemon gone, Evatt remained a short time in conference 
 with the chaplain of the man-of-war, and then returned to 
 Amboy. Once more taking horse, he set off on his return 
 to Greenwood, arriving there in the heat of the afternoon. 
 He was forced, by tlie absence of all the working force in the 
 hayfield, to stable his horse himself, and then he walked toward 
 what he had already observed from the saddle, — Janice, seated 
 upon a garden bench under a poplar oa the lawn, making 
 
134 Janice Meredith 
 
 artificial flowers. Let it be acknowledged that until the appear- 
 ance of Evatt the girl had worked languidly, and had allowed 
 long pauses of idleness while she meditated, but with his adveil 
 she became the embodiment of industry. 
 
 " Odd 's life 1 " the man ejaculated as he sat down beside the 
 worker. " 'Twixt love's heat and an August sun, your lover, 
 Janice, has come nigh to dissolving." 
 
 Janice, with hands tliat shook, essayed to si.ip out a rose 
 petal which her own cheeks matched in tint. 
 
 Evatt removed first his hat and then his wig, that he might 
 mop his head. Having replaced the hirsute ornament, he 
 continued : " And thy father is as hot for thy marriage with 
 that yokel. He set the day yestere'en." 
 
 "When?" demanded the girl, looking up anxiously. 
 
 "What say ye to this day week?" 
 
 " Oh 1 " cried Janice. " Was ever maid born under such 
 a ha'penny planet?" 
 
 " Don't make outcry 'gainst your star when it has sent ye 
 a lover in the nick of time, ready to save ye from the 
 bumpkin." 
 
 •Janice took a shy come-and-go glance at him and said: 
 " You mean — " 
 
 "What say ye to an elopement?" 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the girl, meeting Evatt's gaze eagerly. 
 "T would be monstrous delightsome to be run off with, of 
 course ; but — " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " Well — I — Mommy told me that in the province no 
 maid could be lawfully wed without her parents' consent." 
 
 " True," assented the tempter, " if she wed where the colony 
 law holds good. But we '11 get round that by having the knot 
 tied on royal ground." 
 
 "Not in England?" said the girl, drawing back a little. 
 
 "Think ye I 'd treat the lass I love like that?" responded 
 Evatt, reproachfully. « Nay. A friend of mine is chaplain on 
 the 'Asia' man-of-war, and he'll make no bones about helping 
 us. And as the king's flag and broad arrow puts the ship out 
 of the colony jurisdiction, 't will make the thing legal despite 
 the law." 
 
Honoured Parents and Dutiful Children 135 
 
 " How romantic ! " exclaimed Janice. " To think of making 
 a stolen match, and of being wed on a king's ship ! " 
 
 " Now dost want to rail at thy star ? " 
 
 "'Tis great good fortune," ecstatically sighed the girl. 
 "Think you 'twould be right?" 
 
 " Would I ask it if 't were not? " rejoined Evatt, heartily. 
 
 " But dadda and mommy — " began the falterer. 
 
 " Will be pleased enough when the job 's done. Think ye, 
 if they were n't bound they 'd not rather have a titled son-in- 
 law than that gawk ? " 
 
 "A what? " cried Janice. 
 
 " Thou dost not know thy lover's true name, Janice. T is 
 John Ombrey, Lord Clowes, who sits beside thee." 
 
 Janice sprang to her feet. "And I've spoke to you as if 
 you were just — just a man," she cried in a horrified voice. 
 " 'T was not fair so to beguile me ! " 
 
 Evatt looked at the ground to hide the smile he could not 
 suppress. " 'T was done for the king, Janice," he said. " And 
 't is all the more romantic that I 've won ye without your know- 
 ing. Sit down again ; if 't were not in view of the house I 
 should be kneeling to ye." 
 
 Janice sank back on the garden seat. " I can't believe it yet ! " 
 she gasped breathlessly. " I knew of course thou wast a court 
 gentleman, but — " 
 
 " And now I suppose ye '11 send me packing and wed the 
 yokel ? " suggested the lover. 
 
 " Oh, no !" cried Janice. "If you — if you really — " the 
 girl gave a glance at the man, coloured to the temples, and, 
 springing to her feet, fled toward the house. She did not stop 
 till she reached her room, where she flung herself on the bed 
 and buried her cheeks in the pillow. Thus she lay for some 
 time, then rose, looked at herself in the mirror, and finding her 
 hair sadly disordered, she set about the task of doing it over. 
 " 'T is beyond belief! " she murmured. " I must be very beau- 
 tiful ! " She paused in her task, and studied her own face. 
 " Now I know why he always makes me feel so uncomfortable 
 — and afraid — and — and gawky. 'T is because he is a lord. 
 Sometimes he does look at me as if — as if he were hungry — 
 ugh! It frights me. But he must knoff what's the mode. 
 
136 Janice Meredith 
 
 ' Lady Janice Clowes.' 'T is a pity the title is not prettier. 
 Whatever will Tibbie say when she hears ! " 
 
 It was a little after ten that evening when the squire and 
 Evatt parted for the night in the upper hall, the former being, 
 as usual, not tipsy, but in a jovial mood toward all things ; and 
 as this attitude is conducive to sleep, his snores were ere long 
 reverberating to all waking ears. One pair of these were so 
 keenly alive to every noise that not the chirp of a cricket escaped 
 them, and from time to time their owner started at the smallest 
 sound. Owing to this attention, they heard presently the creak 
 of the stairs, the soft opening of the front door, and even the swish 
 of feet on the grass. Then, though the ears fairly strained to 
 catch the least noise, came a silence, save for the squire's 
 trumpeting, for what seemed to the girl a period fairly inter- 
 minable. 
 
 Finally the rustling of the grass told of the return of the 
 prowler, and as the girl hea!rd it she once more began trembling, 
 " Oh I " she moaned. " If only I had n't — if only he 'd go 
 away I" She rose from the bed, and stole to the window. 
 
 " Mr. Evatt, I 'm so frightened, I don't dare," she whis- 
 pered to the figure standing below. "Wait till to-morrow 
 night 1 " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said the man, so loudly that Janice was more 
 scared than ever. " I told ye it must be to-night. Come down 
 quickly." 
 
 " Oh, please ! " moaned Janice. 
 
 " Dost want to be the wife of that gawk?" demanded Evatt, 
 impatiently. 
 
 Though he did not know it, the girl vacillated. « At least 
 I 'm not frightened of Phil," was her thought. 
 
 »' Well," called the man more loudly, " art going to keep me 
 here all night ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Janice. "Thee '11 wake — " 
 
 " Belike I will," he retorted irritably. " And if they ask me 
 what's in the wind, they shall have the truth. Odd's life! 
 I'm not a man to be fooled by a chit of a girl." 
 
 « Oh, hush ! " again she begged, more frightened at the pros- 
 pect of her parents knowing than by any other possibility. " I '11 
 come if you 'U only be quiet." 
 
Honoured Parents and Dutiful Children 137 
 
 She took a small bundle, hurriedly stole downstairs, and 
 passed out of the house. 
 
 " Now ye 've come to your senses," said the man. " Give 
 me the bundle and your hand," he continued, and set out at a 
 rapid pace across the lawn, having almost to drag the girl, her 
 feet carried her so unwillingly. "Over with ye," he ordered, 
 as they reached the stile at the corner, and when Janice de- 
 scended she found two horses hitched to the fence and felt a 
 little comforted by the mere presence of Daisy. She was 
 quickly mounted, and they set off, the girl so helpless in her 
 fright that Evatt had to hold her horse's bridle as well as his 
 own. 
 
 " Bum it ! " exclaimed Evatt, presently, " art never going to 
 end thy weeping?" 
 
 " If you would only have waited till — " sobbed Janice. 
 
 "'Twas no time for shilly-shallying," interrupted the man. 
 " Dost not see that we had to take to-night, when the groom 
 was gone, for there *d have been no getting the horses with him 
 sleeping in the stable?" 
 
 "What if we meet him returning?" cried the girl, her voice 
 shaking. 
 
 " 'T would little matter. Think ye he could catch us afoot ? " 
 
 " But he could tell dadda." 
 
 " And by that time we shall be two-thirds of the way to 
 Amboy. 'T is but a twenty miles, and we should be there by 
 three. Then if we meet no delay in getting a boat, we shaU 
 be on the ' Asia' near seven. By eight the chaplain will have 
 made us twain one." 
 
 " Oh ! " moaned the girl, " what ever will dadda say?" 
 
 As this was a question no one could answer, a silence ensued, 
 which lasted until they rode into Brunswick. Guiding the 
 horses upon the green, to reduce the beat of their hoofs to a 
 minimum, Evatt turned off the grass at the river road and 
 headed toward the bridge across the Raritan. As they ap- 
 proached, a noise of some kind arrested Evatt's attention, and 
 he was just checking the horses when a voice cried : — 
 
 « Stand ! " 
 
 Janice gave a startled cry which instantly set a dog barkinjp 
 
 " Keep silence ! " again ordered the unseen man. 
 
138 Janice Meredith 
 
 Evatt, after an oath below his breath, demanded, " By what 
 right do ye stop us, whoever ye are ? " 
 
 " By the right of powder and ball," remarked the voice, drily. 
 
 Again the dog barked, and both Evatt and the unseen man 
 swore. " Curse the beast I " said the latter., " Hist, Charles I 
 Call the dog, or he '11 wake the town." 
 
 Another voice from a little distance called, " Clarion ! " in a 
 guarded inflection ; meantime the hound had discovered his 
 mistress, and was jumping about her horse, giving little yelps 
 of pleasure. 
 
 In another instant Charles came running up. " What 's 
 wrong?" he questioned. 
 
 '"Tis a couple of riders I've halted," said the voice from 
 the shadow. 
 
 " Out of the way ! " ordered . Evatt. " Ye 've no right to 
 prevent us from going forward. I 've pistols in my holsters, 
 and ye 'd best be careful how ye take the law into your own 
 hands." 
 
 The groom gave an exclamation as he recognised the riders ; 
 and paying no attention to Evatt, he sprang to the side of the 
 girl and rested his hand on the bridle, as if to prevent her horse 
 from moving, while he asked in amazement : " What brings 
 you here?" 
 
 Speechless and shamed, the girl hung her head. 
 
 " Let go that bridle, ye whelp ! " blustered Evatt, throwing 
 back the flap of his holster and pulling out a heavy horse pistol. 
 
 As he made the motion, the bondsman dropped the rein and 
 seized the hand that held the weapon. For a moment there 
 was a sharp struggle, in which the third man, who sprang from 
 the shadow, joined. Nor did Evatt cease resistance until three 
 men more came running up, when, overborne by numbers, he was 
 dragged from his horse and held to the ground. In the whole 
 contest both sides had maintained an ahnost absolute silence, 
 as if each had reasons for not waking the villagers. 
 
 " Stuff a sod of grass in his mouth to keep him quiet," 
 ordered Charles, panting, " and tie him hand and foot." Tak- 
 ing a lantern from one of the men, he walked back to the speech- 
 less and frightened girl and held the light to her face. " 'T is 
 not possible you — you — oh ! I '11 never believe it of you." 
 
Honoured Parents and Dutiful Children 139 
 
 With pride and mortification struggling for mastery, Janice 
 replied : " What you think matters not to me." 
 
 "You were eloping with this man? " 
 
 Though the groom's thoughts were of no moment to the 
 girl, she replied: " To escape marrying Philemon Hennion." 
 
 " What things women are ! " he exclaimed contemptuously. 
 " You deserve no better than to be his doll common, but — " 
 
 " We were to be married," cried Janice. 
 
 " In the reign of Queen Dick ! " 
 
 " This very day on the ' Asia ' frigate." 
 
 " A likely tale," jeered the man. " Bring that fellow down 
 to the boat," he called, and catching hold of the bridle, he 
 started walking. 
 
 " Whither are you taking me ? " inquired Janice, in fright. 
 
 " The parson is down by the river, helping transfer the pow- 
 der, and I 'm going to leave you with him to take back to 
 Greenwood." 
 
 "Oh, Charles," besought the girl, "you'll not be so 
 cruel ! I 'd sooner die than — than — Think what mommy — 
 and dadda — and the whole village — I didn't want to go 
 with him — but — Please, oh, please! You'll not disgrace 
 me? I'll promise never to go off with him — indeed — " 
 
 " Of that I '11 be bound," sneered the servant, with a harsh 
 laugh, " for I 'm going to take him with me to Cambridge." 
 
 For a moment Janice was silent, then cried : " If you only 
 knew how I hate you." 
 
 The man laughed bitterly. "I do — from the way I hate — 
 ay, and despise you ! " 
 
 Another moment brought them to the edge of a wharf, where 
 a number of men were busying themselves in stowing barrels on 
 board a small sloop. " Hold this horse," ordered the servant, 
 while he joined one of the toilers and drew him apart in 
 consultation. 
 
 " Powder aboard, cap'n," presently called some one. 
 
 " Take that man and stow him below decks along with it," 
 ordered Charles. " Good-by, parson. I hope to send good 
 news from Cambridge of this night's work. Boys, take Bagby 
 out of the stocks before daylight, and tell him if the Invin- 
 cibles want their powder to follow us, and they shall hare fifty 
 
140 ' Janice Meredith 
 
 rounds of it a man, with plenty of fighting to boot. All aboard 
 that are for the front ! " 
 
 Half a dozen men followed, while those on the wharf cast of! 
 the fasts. But all at once stood still when the parson, with 
 bowed head, began a prayer for the powder, for the adventurers 
 who took it, and for the general and army it was designed to 
 serve. Sternly yet eloquently he prayed until the boat had 
 drifted with the tide out of hearing, and the creak of the block? 
 came across the water, showing that those on board were mak- 
 ing sail. Then, as the men on the wharf dispersed, he mounted 
 the horse Evatt had ridden. 
 
 "Janice Meredith," he said sternly,"! propose to occupy 
 this ride with a discourse upon the doctrine of total depravity, 
 from which downward path you have been saved this night, 
 deducing therefrom an illustration of the workings of grace 
 through foreordination, — the whole with a view to the saving 
 of your soul and the admonishment of your sinful nature," 
 
XXI 
 
 A SUDDEN SCARCITY OF BEAUX 
 
 IT was daylight when the parson and Janice rode through 
 the gate of Greenwood, and the noise of hoofs brought 
 both the girl's parents to the window of their bedroom 
 in costumes as yet by no means completed. Yet when, 
 in reply to the demand of the squire as to what was the mean- 
 ing of this arrival, it was briefly explained to him that his daugh- 
 ter had attempted to elope with his guest, he descended to the 
 porch without regard to scantiness of clothing. 
 
 A terrible ten minutes for Janice succeeded, while the squire 
 thundered his anger at her, and she, overcome, sobbed her grief 
 and mortification into Daisy's mane. Then, when her father 
 had drained the vials of his wrath, her mother appeared more 
 properly garbed, and in her turn heaped blame and scorn on 
 the girl's bowed head. For a time the squire echoed his wife's 
 indignation, but It is one thing to express wrath oneself and 
 quite another to hear it fulminated by some one else ; so pres- 
 ently the squire's heart began to soften for his lass, and he at- 
 tempted at last to interpose in palliation of her conduct. This 
 promptly resulted m Mrs. Meredith's ordering Janice off the 
 horse and to her room. " Where I '11 finish what I have to 
 say," announced her mother ; and the girl, helped down by Mr. 
 Meredith, did as she was told, longing only for death. 
 
 The week which succeeded was a nightmare to Janice, her 
 mother constantly recurring to ker wickedness, the servants ad- 
 dressing her with a scared breathlessness which made her feel 
 that she was indeed declassed for ever, while the people of the 
 neighbourhood, when she ventured out-of-doors, either grinned 
 broadly or looked dourly when they met her, showing the girl 
 that her shame was town property. 
 
142 Janice Meredith 
 
 Mrs. Meredith also took frequent occasion to insist on the 
 girl's marriage with Mr. McClave, on the ground that he alone 
 could properly chasten her ; but to this the squire refused to 
 listen, insisting that such a son-in-law he would never have, and 
 that he was bound to Philemon. "We '11 keep close watch on 
 her for the time he 's away, and then marry her out of hand the 
 moment he 's returned," he said. 
 
 Had the parents attempted to carry out the system of espion- 
 age that they enforced during the first month they would have 
 had their hands full far longer than they dreamed. Week after 
 week sped by, summer ripened into fall, and fall faded into 
 winter, but Philemon came not. Litde by little Janice's mis- 
 conduct ceased to be a general theme of village talk, and the 
 life at Greenwood settled back into its accustomed groove. 
 Even the mutter of cannon before Boston was but a matter of 
 newspaper news, and the war, though now fairly inaugurated, 
 affected the squire chiefly by the loss of the bondsman, for 
 whom he advertised in vain. 
 
 One incident which happened shortly after the proposed 
 elopement, and which cannot be passed over without mention, 
 was a call from Squire Hennion on Mr. Meredith. The master 
 of Boxely opened the interview by shaking his fist within a few 
 inches of the rubicund countenance of the master of Green- 
 wood, and, suiting his words to the motion, he roared : " May 
 
 Belza take yer, yer old " and the particular epithet is best 
 
 omitted, the eighteenth-century vocabulary being more expres- 
 sive than refined — " fer sendin' my boy ter Boston, wheer, 
 belike, he '11 never git away alive." 
 
 " Don't try to bully me ! " snorted the squire, shaking his fist 
 in turn, and much nearer to the hatchet-face of his antipathy. 
 " Put that down or I '11 teach ye manners ! Yes, damn ye, 
 for the first time in your life ye shall be made to behave like a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 " I defy yer ter make me ! "• retorted Hennion, with uncon- 
 scious humour. 
 
 " Heyday 1 " said Mrs. Meredith, entering, " what 's the 
 cause of all this hurly-burly?" 
 
 "Enuf cause, an' ter spare," howled Hennion. "Here 
 this " once more the title is left blank for propriety's sake — 
 
A Sudden Scarcity of Beaux 143 
 
 "hez beguiled poor Phil inter goin' on some fool errand ter 
 Boston, an' the feller knew so well I would n't hev it thet all he 
 
 dun wuz ter write me a line, tellin' how this ■ insisted he 
 
 should go, an' thet he 'd started. 'Twixt yer whiffet of a gal an' 
 
 yer old of a husband, yer 've bewitched all the sense the 
 
 feller ever hed in his noddle, durn yer ! " 
 
 " Let him talk," jeered the squire. " 'T will not bring Phil 
 back. What s more, I '11 make him smile the other side of his 
 teeth before I 've done with him. Harkee, man, I 've a rod in 
 pickle tliat will make ye cry small." The squire took a bundle of 
 papers from an iron box and flourished them under Hennion's 
 nose " There are assignments of every mortgage ye owe, ye 
 old fox, and pay day 's coming." 
 
 "Let it," sneered the owner of Boxely. "Yer think I 
 did n't know, 1 s'pose ? Waal, thet 's wheer yer aout. Phil, 
 he looked so daown in the maouth just afore yer went ter 
 York thet I knew theer must be somethin' ter make him act so 
 pukish, an' 1 feels araound a bit, an' as he ain't the best hand 
 at deceivin' I hez the fac's in no time. An' as I could n't hev 
 them 'ere mortgages in better hands, I tell 'd him ter go ahead 
 an' help yer all he could. 'T was I gave him the list of them 
 I owed." 
 
 The squire, though taken aback, demanded : "And I suppose 
 ye have the money ready to douse on pay day ? " 
 
 Hennion sniggered. " Yer won't be hard, thet I know, 
 squire. I reckon yer '11 go easy on me." 
 
 " If ye think I 'm going to spare ye on account of Phil ye are 
 mightily out. I 'II foreclose the moment each falls due, that I 
 warn ye." 
 
 " Haow kin yer foreclose whin theer ain't no courts?" 
 
 "^ Pish ! " snapped the creditor. " 'T is purely temporary ; 
 within a twelve-month there '11 be law enough. Think ye E^ng- 
 land is sleeping?" 
 
 " We '11 see, we '11 see," retorted Hennion. " In the mean- 
 time, squire, I hope yer won't worrit because I don't pay 
 interest. Times is thet onsettled thet yer kain't sell craps naw 
 nothin,' an' ready money 's pretty hard ter come by." 
 
 "Not I," rejoined the squire. "'Twill enable me to fore- 
 close all the quicker." 
 
144 Janice Meredith 
 
 " When theer 's courts ter foreclose," replied Hennion, grin- 
 ning suggestively. With this parting shot, he left the house and 
 rode away. 
 
 On the same day this interview occurred, another vOok place in 
 the Craigie House in Cambridge, then occupied as the head- 
 quarters of General Washington. The commander-in-chief was 
 sitting in his room, busily engaged in writing, when an orderly 
 entered and announced that a man who claimed to have import- 
 ant business, which he refused to communicate except to the 
 general, desired word with him. The stranger was promptly 
 ushered in, and stood revealed as a fairly tall, well-shaped young 
 fellow, clad in coarse clothing, with a well-made wig of much 
 better quality, which fitted him so ill as to suggest that it was 
 never made for his head. 
 
 " I understand your Excellency is in dire need of powder," 
 he said as he saluted. 
 
 A stern look came upon Washington's face. " Who are yoUj 
 and how heard you that? " he demanded. * 
 
 "My name is John Brereton. How I heard of your want 
 was in a manner that needs not to be told, as — " 
 
 " Tell you shall," exclaimed Washington, warmly. " The fact 
 was known to none but the general officers and to the powdei 
 committee, and if there has been unguarded or unfaithful speech 
 it shall be traced to its source." 
 
 " Your Excellency wrote a letter to the committee of Middle- 
 sex County in Jersey ? '' 
 
 " 1 did." 
 
 " The committee refused to part with the powder." 
 
 Washington rose. " Have they no public spirit, no considera^ 
 tion of our desperate plight?" he exclaimed. 
 
 " But your Excellency, though the committee would not part 
 With the powder, some lads of spirit would not see you want for 
 it,' and — and by united effort we succeeded in getting and 
 bringing to Cambridge twenty half-barrels of powder, which is 
 now outside, subject to your orders." 
 
 With an exclamation mingling disbelief and hope, the com- 
 mander sprang to the window. A glance took in the two carts 
 loaded with kegs, and he turned, his face lighted with 
 emotion. 
 
A Sudden Scarcity of Beaux 1 45 
 
 " God only knows the grinding anxiety, the sleepless nights, I 
 have suffered, knowing how defenceless the army committed to 
 my charge actually was ! You have done our cause a service 
 impossible to measure or reward." He shook the man's hand 
 warmly. 
 
 "And I ask in payment, your Excellency, permission to 
 volunteer." 
 
 " In what capacity? " 
 
 " I have served in the British forces as an officer, but all 1 
 ask is leave to fight, without regard to rank." 
 
 "Tell me the facts of your hfe." 
 
 " As I said, my name is John Brereton. Nothing else abort 
 me will ever be known from me." 
 
 Washington scrutinised the man with an intent surprise. 
 "You cannot expect us to trust you on such information." 
 
 " An hour ago it would have been possible for me to have 
 sneaked by stealth into the British lines with this letter," said 
 the man, taking from his pocket a sheet of paper and handing 
 it to the general. " What think you would Sir William Howe 
 have given me for news, over the signature of General Wash 
 ington, that the Continental Army had less than ten rounds d 
 powder per man? " 
 
 Washington studied the face of the young fellow steadily for 
 twenty seconds. "Are you good at penmanship?" he asked. 
 
 " I am a deft hand at all smouting work," replied Brereton. 
 
 " Then, sir," said Washington, smiling slightly, " as I wish to 
 keep an eye on you until you have proved yourself, 1 shall for 
 the present find employment for you in my own family." 
 
 Thus a twelve-month passed without Philemon Hennion, Joha 
 Evatt, Charles Fownes, Parson McClave, or any other lover so 
 much as once darkening the doors of Greenwood. 
 
 "Janice," remarked her mother at the end of the year, " dost 
 realise that in less than a twelve-month thou 'it be a girl of 
 eighteen and without a lover, much less a husband? I was wed 
 before I was seventeen, and so are all respectably behaved 
 females. See what elopements come to. 'T is evident thou "it 
 to die an old maid." 
 
XXII 
 
 THE OLIVE BRANCH 
 
 IF this year was bare of courtships, of affairs of interest it 
 was far otherwise. Scarcely was 1776 ushered in than 
 news came that the raw and ill-equipped force, which 
 for nine months had held the British beleaguered in 
 Boston, had at last obtained sufficient guns and powder to as- 
 sume the offensive, and had, by seizing Dorchester Heights, 
 compelled the evacuation of* the city. Howels army and the 
 fleet sailed away without molestation to Halifax, leaving be- 
 hind them a rumour, however, that great reinforcements were 
 coming from Great Britain, and that upon their arrival, New 
 York would be reduced and held as a strategic base from 
 which all the middle colonies would be overrun and reduced 
 to submission. 
 
 This probability turned military operations southward. Gen- 
 eral Lee, who early in the new year had been given command 
 of the district around Manhattan Island, set about a system of 
 fortifications, even while he protested that the water approaches 
 made the city impossible to hold against such a naval force as 
 Britain was certain to employ. At the same time that this 
 protection was begun against an outward enemy, a second was 
 put in train against the inward one, and this involved the 
 household of Meredith. 
 
 One morning, while the squire stood superintending two of 
 his laborers, as they were seeding a field, a rider stopped his 
 horse at the wall dividing it from the road and hailed him 
 loudly. Mr. Meredith, in response to the call, walked toward 
 the man ; but the moment he was near enough to recognise 
 Captain Bagby, he came to a halt, indecisive as to what course 
 to pursue toward his enemy. 
 
The Olive Branch 147 
 
 "Can't do no talking at this distance, squire," sang out 
 Bagby, calmly ; " and as I 've got something important to say, 
 and my nag prevents me from coming to you, I reckon you '11 
 have to do the travelling." 
 
 After a moment's hesitation, the master of Greenwood came 
 to the stone wall. But it was with a bottled-up manner which 
 served to indicate his inward feelings that he demanded crust- 
 ily, " What want ye with me ? " 
 
 "It's this way," explained Joe. "If what's said is true, 
 Howe is coming to York with a bigger army than we can raise, 
 to fight us, if we fights, but with power to offer us all we 
 wants, if we won't. Now there 's a big party in Congress as is 
 mortal afraid that there '11 be a reconciliation, and so they is 
 battling tooth and nail to get independence declared before 
 Howe can get here, so that there sha'n't be no possibility of 
 making up." 
 
 " The vile Jesuits ! " exclaimed the squire, wrathfully, 
 " and but a three-month gone they were tricking their con- 
 stituents with loud-voiced cries that the charge that they 
 desired independence was one trumped up by the ministry to 
 injure the American cause, and that they held the very thought 
 in abhorrence." 
 
 " 'T is n't possible to always think the same way in politics 
 straight along," remarked the politician, " and that 's just what 
 I come over to see you about. Now, if there 's going to be 
 war, I guess I '11 be of some consequence, and if there 's going 
 to be a peace, like as not you '11 be on top ; and I '11 be con- 
 cerned if I can tell which it is like to be." 
 
 " I can tell ye," announced Mr. Meredith. " 'T is — " 
 
 "Perhaps you can, squire," broke in Bagby, "but your 
 opinions have n't proved right so far, so just let me finish what 
 I have to say first. Have you heard that the Committee of 
 Safety has arrested the Governor? " 
 
 " No. Though 't is quite of a piece with your other law- 
 less proceedings." 
 
 " Some of his letters was intercepted, and they was so tory- 
 ish that 't was decided he should be put under guard. And 
 at the same time it was voted to take precautionary proceed- 
 ings against all the other enemies of the country." 
 
148 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Then why are n't ye under arrest ? " snapped the squire. 
 
 " 'Cause there 's too many of us, and too few of you," ex- 
 plained Bagby, equably. " Now the Committee has sent orders 
 to each county committee to make out a list of those we think 
 ought to be arrested, and a meeting 's to be held this after- 
 noon to act on it. Old Hennion he came to me last night 
 and said he wanted your name put on, and he 'd vote to 
 recommend that you be taken to Connecticut and held in 
 prison there along with the Governor." 
 
 " Pox the old villain ! " fumed Mr. Meredith. " For a six- 
 months I 've sat quiet, as ye know, and 't is merely his way of 
 ■paying the debts he owes me. A fine state ye 've brought the 
 /land to, when a man can settle private scores in such a. 
 •manner." 
 
 " There is n't no denying that you 're no friend to thi 
 ■cause, and if any one 's to be took up hereabouts, it should be 
 you. Still, I 'm a fair-play fellow, and so I thought, before I 
 •let him have his way, I 'd come over and have a talk with you, 
 to see if we couldn't fix things." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " If the king 's come to his senses and intends to deal fait 
 ■with us," remarked Bagby, with a preliminary glance around 
 ^nd a precautionary dropping of his voice, " that 's all I ask, 
 and so I don't see no reason for attacking his friends until we 
 are more certain of what's coming. At the same time, if 
 Hennion wants to jail you, I think you '11 own I have n't much 
 reason to take your part. You 've always been as stuck up 
 and abusive to me as you well could be. So 't is only naturid 
 I should n't stand up for you." 
 
 The lord of Greenwood swallowed before he said, " Per- 
 haps I 've not been neighbourly, but what sort of revenge is 
 it to force me from my home, and distress my wife and 
 daughter?" 
 
 "That's it," assented the Committeeman. "And so I 
 came over to see what could be done. We have n't been the 
 best of friends down to now, but that is n't saying that we 
 could n't have been, if you 'd been as far-seeing as me, and 
 known who to side in with. It seemed to me that if I stood 
 by you in this scrape we might fix it up to act together. I 
 
The Olive Branch 149 
 
 take it that my brains and your money could run Middlesex 
 County about as we pleased, if we quit fighting, and work 
 together. Squire Hennion would have to take a back seat in 
 politics, I guess." 
 
 The squire could not wholly keep the pleasure the thought 
 gave him from his face. "'T would be a god-send to the 
 county," he cried. " Ye know that as well as I." 
 
 " As to that, I '11 say nothing," answered Joe. " But of 
 course, if I 'm going to throw my influence with you, I expect 
 something in return." 
 
 "And what's that?" asked Mr. Meredith, still dwelling on 
 his revenge. 
 
 " I need n't tell you, squire, that I 'm a rising man, and I 'm. 
 going to go on rising. 'T won't be long before I 'm about 
 what I please, especially if we make a deal. Now, though 
 there has n't been much intercourse between us, yet I 've had 
 my eye on your daughter for a long spell, and if you '11 giv3 
 your consent to my keeping company with her, I '11 be your 
 friend through thick and thin." 
 
 For a moment Mr. Meredith stood with wide-open mouth,, 
 then he roared : " Damn your impudence ! ye — ye — have 
 my lass, ye — be off with ye — ye — " There all articulate- 
 epeech ended, the speaker only sputtering in his wrath, but his 
 two fists, shaken across the wall, spoke eloquently the words 
 that choked him. 
 
 " I thought .you 'd play the fool, as usual," retorted the 
 suitor, as he pulled his horse's head around. " You '11 live to 
 regret this day, see if you don't." And with this vague threat 
 he trotted away toward Brunswick. 
 
 Whether Bagby had purposely magnified the danger with 
 the object of frightening the squire into yielding to his wishes, 
 or whether he and Hennion were outvoted by Parson McClave 
 and the other members of the Committee, Mr. Meredith never 
 learned. Of what was resolved he was not left long in doubt, 
 for the morning following, the whole Committee, with a con- 
 tingent of the Invincibles, invaded the privacy of Greenwood, 
 and required of him that he surrender to them such arms as 
 he was possessed of, and sign a parol that he would in no way 
 give aid or comfort to the invaders. To these two require- 
 
150 Janice Meredith 
 
 ments the squire yielded, at heart not a little comforted that 
 the proceedings against him were no worse, though vocally he 
 protested at such "robbery and coercion." 
 
 "Ye lord it high-handedly now," he told the party, "but 
 ye '11 sing another song ere long." 
 
 "Yer've been predictin' thet fer some time," chuckled 
 Hennion, aggravatingly. 
 
 " 'T will come all the surer that it comes tardily. ' Slow and 
 sure doth make secure,' as ye '11 dearly learn. We '11 soon see 
 how debtors who won't pay either principal or interest like 
 the law ! " 
 
 Hennion chuckled again. " Yer see, squire," he said, "it 
 don't seem ter me ter be my interest ter pay principal, nor 
 my principle ter pay interest. Ef I wuz yer, I would n't het 
 myself over them mogiges; I ain't sweatin'." 
 
 " I '11 sweat ye yet, ye old rascal," predicted the creditor." 
 
 "When '11 thet be?" asked Hennion. 
 
 " When we are no longer tyrannised over by a pack of 
 debtors, scoundrels, and Scotch Presbyterians," with which 
 remark the squire stamped away. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that bad as the master of 
 Greenwood deemed the political situation, he gave far more 
 thought to his private affairs. Every day conditions were be- 
 coming more unsettled. His overseer had left his employ to 
 enlist, throwing all care of the farm on the squire's shoulders ; 
 a second bondsman, emboldened by Charles' sjiccessful levant- 
 ing, had done the same, making labourers short-handed ; while 
 those who remained were more eager to find excuses taking 
 them to Brunswick, that they might hear the latest news, and 
 talk it over, than they were to give their undivided attention to 
 reaping and hoeing. Finally, more and more tenants failed to 
 appear at Greenwood on rent day, and so the landlord was 
 called upon to ride the county over, dunning, none too suc- 
 cessfully, the delinquent. 
 
 Engrossing as all this might be, Mr. Meredith was still too 
 much concerned in public events not to occasionally find an 
 excuse for riding into Brunswick and learning of their progress ; 
 and one evening as he approached the village, his eyes and 
 ears both informed him that something unusual was in hand, 
 
The Olive Branch 151 
 
 for muskets were being discharged, great fires were blazing 
 on the green, and camped upon it was a regiment of troops. 
 
 Riding up to the tavern, where a rushing business was being 
 done, the squire halted the publican as he was hurrying 
 past with a handful of mugs, by asking, " What does all this 
 mean? " 
 
 " Living jingo, but things is on the bounce," cried the land- 
 lord, excitedly. " Here 's news come that the British fleet of 
 mor 'n a hundred sail is arrived inside o' Sandy Hook, an' all 
 the Jersey militia hez been ordered out, an' here 's a whole 
 regiment o' Pennsylvania 'Sociators on theer way tew Amboy 
 tew help us fight 'em, an' more comin' ; an' as if everythin' was 
 tew happien all tew once, here 's Congress gone an' took John 
 Bull by the horns in real arnest." The cupbearer-to-man 
 thrust a broadside, which he pulled from his pocket, into the 
 squire's hand, and hastened away cellar-ward. 
 
 The squire unrumpled the sheet, which was headed in bold- 
 faced type : — 
 
 In Congress, July 4, 1776, 
 
 A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States 
 
 of America in General Congress assembled. 
 
 Ere he had more than seen the words, he was interrupted by 
 Joe, who, glass in hand, left the bench and came to the rider, 
 where, in a low voice, he said : — 
 
 "You see, squire, the independents has outsharped the 
 other party, and got the thing passed before Howe got here. 
 It was a durned smart trick, and don't leave either side nothing 
 but to fight. I guess 't won't be long before you'll be sorry 
 enough you did n't take up with my offer.'' 
 
 Mr. Meredith, who had divided his attention between what 
 his interlocutor was saying and the sentence, " When, in the 
 course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people 
 to dissolve the political bands which have connected them 
 with another," concluded that human events could wait, and 
 ceasing to read, he gave his attention to the speaker. 
 
 " If ye think to frighten or grieve me, ye are mightily out," 
 he trumpeted .loudly. "Hitherto Britain has dealt gently 
 with ye, but now ye '11 feel the full force of her wrath. A six 
 
1^2 Janice Meredith 
 
 weeks will serve to bring the whole pack of ye to your knees, 
 whining for pardon." 
 
 The prediction was greeted with a chorus of gibes and pro- 
 ^ests, and on the instant the squire was the centre of a strug- 
 gling mass of militiamen and villagers, who roughly pulled him 
 *Tom his horse. But before they could do more, the colonel 
 of the troops and the parson interfered, loudly commanding 
 the mob to desist from all violence ; and with ill grace and with 
 muttered threats and angry noddings of heads, the crowd, one 
 by one, went back to their glasses. That the interference was 
 none too prompt was shown by the condition of the squire, for 
 his hat, peruke, and ruffles were all lying on the ground in 
 tatters, his coat was ripped down the back, and one sleeve 
 hung by a mere shred. 
 
 "You do wrong to anger the people unnecessarily, sir," 
 said Mr. McClave, sternly. "Dost court ducking or other vio- 
 knce? Common prudence should teach you to be wiser." 
 
 The squire hastily climbed into the saddle. From that 
 rantage point he replied, " Ye need not think Lambert Mere- 
 dith is to be frightened into dumbness. But there are some who 
 will talk smaller ere long." Then, acting more prudently than 
 tie spoke, he shook his reins and started Joggles homeward. 
 
 It was little grief, as can be imagined, that the events of the 
 next few weeks brought to Greenwood ; and the day the news 
 came that Washington's force had been outflanked and success- 
 fully driven from its position on the hills of Brooklyn, with a loss 
 of two of its best brigades, the squire was so jubilant that noth- 
 ing would do but to have up a bottle of his best Madeira, — 
 a wine hitherto never served except to guests of distinction. 
 
 " Give a knave rope enough and he '11 hang himself," he 
 said gloatingly. " Because the land favoured them at Boston, 
 they got the idea they were invincible, and Congress would 
 have it that New York must be defended, though a hundred 
 thousand troops could not have done it against the fleet, let 
 alone Howe's army. Ho ! By this time the rogues have 
 learned what fifteen thousand butchers and bakers and can- 
 dlestick-makers can do 'gainst thirty thousand veterans. And 
 they 've had but the first mouthful of the dose they '11 have to 
 swallow." 
 
The Olive Branch 
 
 fS3 
 
 The jubilation of the prophet was short-lived, for even as 
 he spoke, and with decanter but half emptied, the tramp of 
 feet sounded in the hallway, and the door was flung open to 
 admit four men, armed with muskets. 
 
 " In the name of the Continental Congress, and by orders 
 of General Washington, I arrests yer, Lambert Meredith/' 
 announced the spokesman. 
 
 " For what? " cried Janice. 
 
 " For treason." 
 
xxin 
 
 HEADQUARTERS IN 1776 
 
 ON September 15, a group of horsemen, occupying a 
 slight eminence of ground on the island of Man- 
 hattan, were gazing eastward. Below and nearer 
 the water were spread lines of soldiers behind in- 
 trenchments, while from three men-of-war lying in the river 
 came a heavy cannonade that swept the shore line and spread 
 over the water a pall of smoke which, as it drifted to leeward, 
 obscured the Long Island shore from view. 
 
 " 'T is evidently a feint, your Excellency," presently as- 
 serted one of the observers, " to cover a genuine attack else- 
 where — most likely above the Haarlem." 
 
 The person addressed — a man with an anxious, care-worn 
 face that made him look fifty at least — lowered his glass, but 
 did not reply for some moments. " You may be right, sir," 
 he remarked, " though to me it has the air of an intended 
 attack. What think you. Reed?" 
 
 " I agree with Mifflin. The attack will be higher up. 
 Hah ! Look there ! " 
 
 A rift had come in the smoke, and a column of boats, mov- 
 ing with well-timed oars, could for a moment be seen as it 
 came forward. 
 
 " They intend a landing at Kip's Bay, as I surmised," ex- 
 claimed the general. " Gentlemen, we shall be needed be- 
 low." He turned to Reed and gave him an order concerning 
 reinforcements, then wheeled and, followed by the rest, trotted 
 over the ploughed field. Once on the highway, he spurred 
 his horse, putting him to a sharp canter. 
 
 "What troops hold the works on the bay, Mifflin? " asked 
 one of the riders. 
 
Headquarters in 1776 155 
 
 " Fellows' and Parsons' brigades, Breretori." 
 
 " If they are as good at fighting as at thieving, they '11 dis- 
 tinguish themselves." 
 
 « Ay," laughed Mifflin. " If the red coats were but chick- 
 ens or cattle, the New England militia would have had them 
 all captured ere now." 
 
 "They'll be hearn from to-day," said a third officer, 
 "They've earthworks to git behind, and they'll give the 
 British anuther Bunker Hill." 
 
 "Then you ought to be quick. General Putnam," said 
 Brereton, " for that 's the fighting you like." 
 
 The road lay in the hollow of the land, and not till the 
 party reached a slight rise were they able once more to get a 
 glimpse of the shores of the bay. Then it was to find the 
 flotilla well in toward its intended landing-place, and the 
 American troops retreating in great disorder from their breast- 
 works. 
 
 Exclamations of surprise and dismay sprang from the lips 
 of the riders, and their leader, turning his horse, jumped the 
 fence and galloped across the fields to intercept the fugitives. 
 Five minutes brought them up to the runaways, who, out of 
 breath with the sharpness of their pace, had come to a halt, 
 and were being formed by their ofiicers into a little less 
 disorder. 
 
 "General Fellows, what was the reason for this shameful 
 retreat?" demanded the general, when within speaking 
 distance. 
 
 " The men were seized with a panic on the approach of the 
 boats, your Excellency, and could not be held in the lines." 
 
 Washington faced the regiments, his face blazing with scorn. 
 " You ran before a shot had been fired ! Before you lost a 
 man, you deserted works that have taken weeks to build, and 
 which could be held against any such force." He paused for 
 a moment, and then, drawing his sword, he called with spirit : 
 "Who 's for recovering them? " 
 
 A faint cheer passed down the lines; but almost as it 
 founded, the red coats of fifty or sixty light infantry came into 
 view on the road, a skirmishing party thrown forward from 
 the landing to reconnoitre. Had they been Howe's whole 
 
156 Janice Meredith 
 
 army, however, they could not have proved more effective, for 
 instantly the two brigades broke and dissolved once more into 
 squads of flying men. 
 
 At such cowardice, Washington lost all control of himselfj 
 and, dashing in among the fugitives, he passionately struck 
 right and left with the flat of his sword, thundering curses at 
 them ; while Putnam and Mifflin, as well as the aides, followed 
 his example. It was hopeless, however, to stay the rush; the 
 men took the blows and the curses unheeding, while throwing 
 away their guns and scattering in every direction. 
 
 Made frantic by such conduct, Washington wheeled his 
 horse. " Charge ! " he cried, and rode toward the enemy, 
 waving his sword. 
 
 If the commander-in-chief had hoped to put some of his 
 own courage into the troops by his example, he failed. Not 
 a man of the runaways ceased fleeing. None the less, as if 
 regardless of consequences in his desperation, Washington 
 rode on, until one of the aides dashed his spurs into his horse 
 and came up beside his general at a mad gallop. 
 
 " Your Excellency ! " he cried, " 't is but hopeless and will 
 but end in — " Then, as his superior did not heed him, he 
 seized the left rein of his horse's bridle and, pulling on it, 
 swung him about in a large circle, letting go his hold only 
 when they were riding away from the enemy. 
 
 Washington offered no resistance, and rode the hundred 
 yards to where the rest of his staff were standing, with bowed 
 head. Nothing was said as he rejoined the group, and BJue- 
 skin, disappointed in the charge for which he had shown as 
 much eagerness as his rider, let his mind recur to thoughts ol 
 oats ; finding no control in the hand that held his bridle, he 
 set out at an easy trot toward headquarters. 
 
 They had not ridden many yards ere Washington lifted his 
 head, the expression of hopelessness, which had taken the 
 place of that of animation, in turn succeeded by one of stern 
 repose. He issued three orders to as many of the riders, 
 showing that his mind had not been dwelling idly on the 
 disaster, slipped his sword into its scabbard, and gathered up 
 his reins again. 
 
 " There ! " thought Blueskin, as a new direction was in- 
 
Headquarters in 1776 157 
 
 dicated by his bit, " I 'm going lo have another spell of it 
 riding all ways of a Sunday, just as we did last night. And 
 it's coming on to rain." 
 
 Rain it did very quickly ; but from post to post the horse- 
 men passed, the sternly silent commander speaking only when 
 giving the necessary orders to remedy so far as possible the 
 disaster of the afternoon. Not till eleven, and then in a 
 thoroughly drenched condition, did they reach the Morris 
 House on Haarlem Heights. It was to no rest, however, 
 that the general arrived ; for, as he dismounted. Major Gibbs 
 of his life guards informed him that the council of war he had 
 called was gathered and only awaited his attendance. 
 
 " Get you some supper, gentlemen," he ordered, to such of 
 his aides as were still of the party, " for 't is likely that you 
 will have more riding when the council have deliberated." 
 
 " 'T is advice he might take himself to proper advantage," 
 said one of the juniors, while they were stripping off their wet 
 coverings in a side room. 
 
 "Ay," asserted Brereton. "The general uses us hard, 
 Tilghman, but he uses himself harder." Then aloud he 
 called, "Billy!" 
 
 "Yis, sah!" 
 
 "Make a glass of rum punch and take it in to his 
 Excellency." 
 
 " Foh de Lord, sah, I doan dar go in, an' yar know marse 
 neber drink no spirits till de day's work dun." 
 
 " Make a dish of tea, then, you old coward, and I '11 take 
 it to him so soon as I get these slops off me. 'Fore George 1 
 How small-clothes stick when they 're wet ! " 
 
 "You mean when a man's so foppish that he will have 
 them made tight enough to display the goodness of his thighs," 
 rejoined Gibbs, who, being dry, was enjoying the plight of the 
 rest. " Make yourselves smart, gentlemen, there are ladies at 
 quarters to-night." 
 
 "You don't puff that take-in on us, sirrah," retorted 
 Tilghman, 
 
 '"Pen honour. They arrived a six hours ago, and have 
 ibeen waiting to see the general." 
 
 «You may be bound they are old and plain," prophesied 
 
1^8 Janice Meredith 
 
 Brereton, " or Gibbs would be squiring them, 'stead of wasting 
 time on us." 
 
 " Tliere you 're cast," rejoined the major, " I caught but a 
 glimpse, yet 't was enough to prove to me that all astronomers 
 lie." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " In saying that but twice in a century is there a transit of 
 Venus." 
 
 "Then why bide you here, man? " 
 
 "That's the disgustful rub. They were with a man under 
 suspicion, and orders were that none should hold converse 
 with him before the general examined into it. A plague 
 on't!" 
 
 Discussion of Venus was here broken by the announcement 
 of supper, and the make-shift meal was still unfinished when 
 the general's body-servant appeared with the tea. Taking it, 
 Brereton marched boldly to the council door, and, giving a 
 knock, he went in without awaiting a reply. 
 
 The group of anxious-faced men about the table looked up, 
 and Washington, with a frown, demanded, " For what do you 
 interrupt us, sir? " 
 
 The young officer put the tea down on the map lying in 
 front of the general. "Billy didn't dare take this to your 
 Excellency, so I made bold to e'en bring it myself." 
 
 " This is no time for tea. Colonel Brereton." 
 
 " 'T is no time for the army to lose their general," replied 
 the aide. " I pray you drink it, sir, for our sake if you won't 
 for your own." 
 
 A kindly look supplanted the sternness of the previous 
 moment on the general's face. " I thank you for your 
 thoughtfulness, Brereton," he said, raising the cup and pouring 
 some of the steaming drink into the saucer. Then as the 
 ofiicer started to go, he added, " Hold ! " Picking up a 
 small bundle of papers which lay on the table, he continued : 
 " Harrison tells me that there is a prisoner under guard for 
 my examination. I shall scarce be able to attend to it this 
 evening, and to-morrow is like to be a busy day. Take 
 charge of the matter, and report to me the moment the 
 council breaks up. Here are the papers." 
 
Headquarters in 1776 159 
 
 Standing in the dim light of the hallway, the aide opened 
 the papers and read them hastily. Either the strain on the 
 eyes, or some emotion, put a frown on his face, and it was 
 still there as he walked to the door before which stood a 
 sentry, and passed into a badly lighted room. 
 
 " Powerful proud ter meet yer Excellency," was his greeting 
 from a man in civilian shorts and a military coat, who held 
 out his hand. " Captain Bagby desired his compliments ter 
 yer, an' ter say that legislative dooties pervented his attindin' 
 ter the matter hisself." 
 
 Paying no heed to either outstretched hand or words, the 
 officer looked first at a man standing beside the fireplace and 
 then at the two women, who had risen as he entered. He 
 waited a moment, glancing from one to the other, as if expect- 
 ing each of them to speak; but when they did not, he asked 
 gruffly of the guard, though still with his eyes on the pris- 
 oners : "And for what were the ladies brought?" 
 
 " Becuz they wud n't be left behind on no accaount. Yer 
 see, yer Excellency, things hez been kinder onsettled in 
 Middlesex Caounty, an' it hain't been a joyful time to them 
 as wuz Tories ; so when orders cum ter bring old Meredith ter 
 York Island, his wife an' gal wuz so scar"t nothin' would do 
 but they must come along." 
 
 " Ay," spoke up the man by the fireplace, bitterly. " A 
 nice pass ye 've brought things to, that women dare not tarry- 
 in their own homes for fear of insult." 
 
 " You may go," said the officer to the captor, pointing at 
 the door. 
 
 "Ain't I ter hear the 'zamination, yer Excellency?" de- 
 manded the man, regretfully. " The hull caounty is sot on 
 knowin' ther fac's." But as the hand still pointed to the 
 entrance, the man passed reluctantly through it. 
 
 Taking a seat shadowed from the dim light of the solitary 
 candle, the officer asked : " You are aware, Mr. Meredith, on 
 what charge you are in military custody ? " 
 
 "Not I," growled the master of Greenwood. " For more 
 than a year gone I 've taken no part in affairs, but 't is all 
 of a piece with ye Whigs that — to trump up a charge 
 against — " 
 
i6o Janice Meredith 
 
 " This is no trumpery accusation," interrupted the officer. 
 " I hold here a letter to Sir William Howe, found after our 
 army took possession of Boston, signed by one Clowes, and 
 conveying vastly important information as to our lack of 
 powder, which he states he obtained through you." 
 
 " Now a pox on the villain ! " cried the squire. " Has he 
 not tried to do me enough harm in other ways, but he must 
 add this to it? Janice, see the evil ye 've wrought." 
 
 " Oh, dadda," cried the girl, desperately, " I know I was ■ — 
 was a wicked creature, but I 've been sorry, and suffered for 
 it, and I don't tliink 't is fair to blame me for this. 'T was not 
 I who brought huii — " 
 
 "Silence, miss !" interrupted her mother. "Wouldst sauce 
 thy father in his trouble ? " 
 
 " I presume you obtained the knowledge Clowes transmitted 
 from your daughter?" surmised the officer. 
 
 " My daughter? Not I ! How could a chit of a girl know 
 aught of such things? Clowes got it from young Hennion, 
 and devil a thing had I really to do with it, write what he 
 pleases." 
 
 " Pray take chairs, ladies," suggested the aide, with more 
 politeness. " Now, sir, unravel this matter, so far as 't is 
 known to you." 
 
 When the squire's brief tale of how the information was 
 obtained and forwarded to Boston was told, the officer was 
 silent for some moments. Then he asked : " Hast had word 
 of Clowes since then?" 
 
 " Not sight or word since the night the — "' 
 
 " Oh, dadda," moaned Janice, -' please don't ! " 
 
 " Since he attempted to steal my girl from me. And ii 
 e'er I meet him I trust I '11 have ray horsewhip handy." 
 
 " Is Hennion where we can lay hold upon him ? " 
 
 "Not he. 'Twas impossible for him to get out of Boston, 
 try his best, and the last word we had of him — wrote to his 
 rascally father — was that he 'd 'listed in Ruggles' loyalists." 
 
 " Then the only man we can bring to heel is this bond- 
 servant of thine." 
 
 " Not even he. The scamp took French leave, and if ye 
 want him ye must search your own army." 
 
Headquarters in 1776 16 j 
 
 "Canst aid us to find him? " 
 
 " I know nauglit of him, or his doings, save that last June 
 I received the price I paid for his bond, through Parson 
 McClave, who perhaps can give ye word of him." 
 
 The officer rose, saying : " Mr. Meredith, I shall report on 
 your case to the general, so soon as he is free, and have small 
 doubt that you will be acquitted of blame and released. I 
 fear me you will find headquarters' hospitality somewhat want- 
 ing in comfort, for we 're o'ercrowded, and you arrive in times 
 of difficulty. But I '11 try to see that the ladies get a room, 
 and, whatever comes, 't will be better than the guard-house."' 
 He went to the hall door and called, " Grayson ! " 
 
 "Well? " shouted back some one. 
 
 "There are two ladies to be lodged here for the night. 
 May 1 offer them our room?" 
 
 "Ay. And my compliments to them, and say they may 
 have my company along with it, if they be youngish." 
 
 " Tut, man," answered Brereton, reprovingly. " None of 
 your Virginian freeness, for they can hear you." He turned and 
 said : " You must be content with a deal feather-bed on the 
 floor here, Mr. Meredith, but if the ladies will follow me I 
 will see that they are bestowed in more comfortable quarters; " 
 and he led the way upstairs, where, lighting a candle, he 
 showed them to a small room, very much cluttered by military 
 clothes and weapons, thrown about in every direction. " I 
 apologise, ladies," he remarked ; " but for days it 's been ride 
 and fight, till when sleeping hours came 't was bad enough to 
 get one's clothes off, let alone put them tidy." 
 
 "And indeed, sir, there is no need of apology," responded 
 Mrs. Meredith, warmly, " save for us, for robbing you of the 
 little comfort you possess." 
 
 " 'Tis a pleasure amid all the strife we live in to be able to 
 do a service," replied the officer, gallantly, as he bowed low 
 over Mrs. Meredith's hand and then kissed it. He turned to 
 the girl and did the same. " May you r*t well," he added, 
 and left the room. 
 
 " Oh, mommy I " exclaimed Janice, " didst ever see a more 
 distinguished or finer-shaped man ? And his dress and man- 
 ners are — " 
 
1 62 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Janice Meredith ! Wilt never give thy thoughts to some- 
 thing else than men ? " 
 
 " Well, Brereton," asked Tilghtnan as the aide joined his 
 fellow-soldiers, " how did his Excellency take your bold- 
 ness ? " 
 
 " As punishment he sent me to examine Gibbs' Venus." 
 
 " Devil take your luck ! " swore Gibbs. " I '11 be bound 
 ye made it none too short. Gaze at the smug look on the 
 dandy's face." 
 
 Brereton laughed gleefully as he stripped off his coat and 
 rolled it up into a pillow. " I 've just kissed mamma's hand," 
 he remarked. 
 
 " I can't say much for thy taste ! " 
 
 " In order," coolly went on Brereton, as he stretched him- 
 self flat on the floor, " that I might then kiss that of Venus — 
 and over hers I did not hurry, lads. Therefore, gentlemen, 
 my present taste is, despite Gibbs' slur, most excellent, and I 
 expect sweet dreams till his Excellency wants me. Silence in 
 the ranks." 
 
XXIV 
 
 THE VALUE OF A FRIEND 
 
 AS the sun rose on the following morning, Brereton 
 came cantering up to headquarters. 
 "Is his Excellency gone?" he demanded of the 
 sentry, and received reply that Washington had 
 ridden away toward the south ten minutes before. Leaving 
 his horse with the man, the aide ran into the house and re- 
 turned in a moment with a great hunk of corn bread and two 
 sausages in his hand. Springing into the saddle, he set off at 
 a rapid trot, munching voraciously as he rode. 
 
 "Steady, dear lass," he remarked to the mare. "If you 
 make me lose any of this cake, I '11 never forgive you, Janice." 
 
 Fifteen minutes served to bring the officer to a group of 
 horsemen busy with field-glasses. Riding into their midst, he 
 saluted, and said: "The Maryland regiments are in position, 
 your Excellency." Then falling a little back, he looked out 
 over the plain stretched before them. Barely had he taken 
 in the two Continental regiments lying " at ease " half-way 
 down the heights on which he was, and the line of their 
 pickets on the level ground, when three companies of red- 
 coated light infantry debouched from the woods that covered 
 the corresponding heights to the southward. As t.ie skirmish- 
 ers fell back on their supports, the British winded their bugles 
 triumphantly, sounding, not a military order, but the fox- 
 hunting " stole away," — a blare intended to show their utter 
 contempt for the Americans. 
 
 Washington's cheeks flushed as the derisive notes came 
 floating up the hills, and he pressed his lips together in an 
 attempt to hide the mortification the insult cost him. " They 
 do not intend we shall forget yesterday," he said. 
 
 "We'll pay them dear for the insult yet," cried Brereton, 
 hotly. 
 
164 Janice Meredith 
 
 " 'T is a point gained that they think us beneath contempt," 
 muttered Grayson ; " for that is half-way to beating them." 
 
 " Colonel Reed, order three battalions of Weedon's and 
 Knovvlton's rangers to move along under cover of the woods, 
 and endeavour to get in the rear of their main party," directed 
 the commander-in-chief, after a moment's discussion with 
 Generals Greene and Putnam. " As you know the ground, 
 guide them yourself." 
 
 " Plague take his luck ! " growled Brereton. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed Tilghman, jeeringly. "Some of us 
 have hands to kiss and some regiments to fight. Harkee, 
 macaroni. The general thinks 't would be a pity to spot those 
 modish buskins and gloves. So much for thy dandyism." 
 
 " Colonel Brereton," said the general, " order the two Mary- 
 land regiments to move up in support of Knowlton." 
 
 Brereton saluted, and, as he wheeled, touched his thumb to 
 his nose at Tilghman. " You are dished," he whispered. 
 "The general dresses too well himself to misjudge a man 
 because he tries to keep neat and a la mode." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, as battalions of Grififiths' and 
 Richards' regiments advanced under guidance of Brereton, 
 the sharpness of the volleys in their front showed that the 
 fighting was begun ; and in response to his order, they broke 
 into double-quick time. Once out of the timber, it was 
 to find the Connecticut rangers scattered in small groups 
 wherever cover was to be had, but pouring in a hot fire at 
 the enemy, who had been reinforced materially. , 
 
 " Damn them ! '' cried Brereton. " Will they never fight 
 except under cover?" Louder he shouted; "Forward! 
 Charge them, boys ! " The order given, he rode toward the 
 rangers. "Where's your colonel?" he shouted. 
 
 "Dead," cried one, "and there's no one to tell us what 
 to do." 
 
 «Do?" roared the aide. "Get out from behind that 
 cover, and be damned to you. Show that Connecticut 
 does n't always skulk. Come on ! " 
 
 A cheer broke out, and, without even stopping to form, 
 the men went forward, driving the enemy into the woods for 
 shelter, and then forcing them through it. The fire of the 
 
The Value of a Friend 165 
 
 British slackened as they fell back, and when new Conti- 
 nental troops appeared on their right flank as well, the re- 
 treat became almoiit a rout. 
 
 " We '11 drive them the length of the island," yelled Brere- 
 ton, frantic with excitement, as the men went clambering up 
 the rocks after the flying enemy. 
 
 " Colonel Brereton, his Excellency directs you to call in the 
 regiments to their former position," shouted Grayson, cantering 
 up. 
 
 Brereton swore forcibly before he galloped among the men, 
 and even after they, in obedience to his orders, had fallen back 
 slowly and taken up their original position, he growled to the 
 aide as they began the ascent, " I 'm sick of this over-caution, 
 Grayson ! What in — " 
 
 " The general was right," asserted Grayson. " Look there." 
 He pointed over the treetops that they had now risen above to 
 where columns of Royal Highlanders and Hessian Yagers 
 were hastening forward at double-quick. "You would have 
 had a sharp skimper-scamper hadst been allowed to go another 
 half-mile." 
 
 "'Tis too bad, though," sighed the young officer, "that 
 when the men will fight they have to be checked." 
 
 " Be thankful you did your double-quick in the cool of the 
 morning, and are done with it. Lord ! it makes me sweat 
 just to see the way they are hurrying those poor Yagers. 'Tis 
 evident we 've given them a real scare." 
 
 Upon reaching the top of the height Brereton rode forward 
 to where Washington still stood. " I tried to have the ' stole 
 away ' sounded, your Excellency," he said exultingly, " but 
 those who knew it were so out of breath chasing them that 
 there was not a man to wind it." 
 
 Washington's eyes lighted up as he smiled at the enthusiasm 
 of the young fellow. " At least you may be sure that they 
 had less wind than you, for they ran farther. They 've had 
 the best reply to their insult we could give them." 
 
 " Thet there fox they wuz gwine tu hunt did a bit of huntin' 
 hisself," chuckled Putnam. 
 
 " They are still falling back on their supports," remarked 
 Greene. " Evidently there is to be no more fighting to-day." 
 
i66 Janice Meredith 
 
 "They've had their bellyful, I guess," surmised Putnam. 
 "Then they're better off than I am," groaned Brereton. 
 " I could eat an ox." 
 
 When the fact became obvious that the British had no in- 
 tention of renewing their intended attack, a general move was 
 made toward quarters, and as they rode Brereton pushed up 
 beside AVashington and talked with him for a moment. 
 
 The commander ended the interview by nodding his head. 
 " Colonel Tilghman," he ordered, as Brereton dropped be- 
 hind, " ride on to announce our coming ; also present my 
 compliments to Mr. Meredith and bespeak his company and 
 that of his ladies to dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Meredith and Janice, not having gone to bed till after 
 one the previous night, slept until they were wakened by the 
 firing ; and when they had dressed and descended it was to 
 find headquarters practically deserted, save for the squire and 
 a corporal 's guard. At the suggestion of the servant who gave 
 them breakfast, they climbed to the cupola of the house, but 
 all they could see of the skirmish were the little clouds of 
 smoke that rose above the trees and the distant advance of 
 the British reinforcements. Presently even these ceased or 
 passed from view, and then succeeded what Janice thought a 
 very " mopish " two hours, terminated at last by the arrival of 
 the aide with his invitation, which sent her to her room for a 
 little extra prinking. 
 
 " If I had only worn my lutestring," she sighed. Her toilet 
 finished, — and the process had been lengthened by the trem-. 
 bling of her hands, — Janice descended falteringly to go through 
 the hall to the veranda. In the doorway she paused, really 
 taken aback by the numberof men grouped about on the grass; 
 and she stood there, with fifty eyes turned upon her, the 
 picture of embarrassment, hesitating whether to run away 
 and hide. 
 
 " Come hither, child," called her mother ; and Janice, with 
 a burning face and down-turned eyes, sped to her side. 
 "This is my daughter Janice, your Excellency," she told the 
 tall man with whom she had been speaking. 
 
 "Indeed, madam," said Washington, bowing politely over 
 the girl's hand, and then looking her in the face with 
 
The Value of a Friend 167 
 
 pleasure. " My staff has had quite danger enough this morn- 
 ing without my subjecting them to this new menace. How- 
 ever, being lads of spirit, they will only blame me if I seek 
 to spare them. Look at the eagerness of the blades for the 
 engagement," he added with a laugh, as he turned to where 
 the youngsters were idling about within call. 
 
 "Oh, your Excellency!" gasped Janice, "I — I — please 
 mayn't I talk to you?" 
 
 " Janice ! " reproved her mother. 
 
 " Oh 1 I did n't mean that, of course," faltered the girl. 
 " 'T was monstrous bold, and I only wanted — " 
 
 " Nay, my child," corrected the general. " Let an old man 
 think it was intended. Mrs. Meredith, if you '11 forgive the 
 fas, I '11 glad General Greene with the priialege of your hand 
 to the table, while the young lady honours me with hers. 
 Never fear for me. Miss Janice," he added, smiling ; " the 
 young rascals will be in a killing mood, but they dare not 
 challenge their commander. There, I '11 spare your blushes 
 by joking you no more. I hope you were not greatly discom- 
 forted in your accommodation ? " he asked, as they took their 
 seats at the long table under the tent on the lawn. 
 
 " No, indeed, your Excellency. One of thy staff — I know 
 not his name, but the one who questioned dadda — was vastly 
 polite, and gave his room to us." 
 
 " That was Colonel Brereton, — the beau of my family. 
 Look at him there ! Wouldst think the coxcomb was in 
 the charge this morning?" 
 
 Janice, for the first time, found courage to raise her eyes 
 and glance along what to her seemed a sea of men's faces, till 
 they settled on the person Washington indicated. Then she 
 gave so loud an exclamation of surprise that every one looked 
 at her. Conscious of this, she was once more seized with 
 stage fright, and longed to slip from her chair and hide herself 
 «nder the table. 
 
 « What startled thee, my child ? " asked the general. 
 
 "Oh — he — nothing — " she gasped. " Who — what didst 
 thou say was his name ? " 
 
 " John Brereton." 
 
 " Oh ! " was all Janice replied, as she drew a long breath. 
 
1 68 Janice Meredith 
 
 " 'T will ne'er do to let him know you 've honoured him by 
 particular notice," remarked the commander; "for both at 
 Boston and New York the ladies have pulled caps for him to 
 such an extent that 't is like he '11 grow so fat with vanity that 
 he '11 soon be unable to sit his horse." 
 
 " Is — is he a Virginian, your Excellency?" 
 
 " No. 'T is thought he 's English." 
 
 Janice longed to ask more questions, but did not dare, and 
 as the bottle passed, the conversation became general, permit- 
 ting her to become a listener. When the moment came for the 
 ladies to withdraw, she followed her mother. 
 
 "Oh, mommy ! " she said the instant she could, " didst 
 recognise Charles?" 
 
 " Charles ! What Charles ? " 
 
 " Charles Fownes — our bond-servant — Colonel Brereton." 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! What maggot idea hast thee got now? " 
 
 " 'T is he truly — and I never thought he could be hand- 
 some. But his being clean-shaven and wearing a wig — " 
 
 " No more of thy silly clack ! " ordered her mother. "A 
 runaway bond-servant on his Excellency's staff, quotha 1 
 Though he does head the rebels, General Washington is a 
 man of breeding and would never allow that." 
 
 Before the men rose from the table the ladies were joined 
 by Washington and Mr. Meredith. 
 
 "I have already expressed my regrets to your husband, Mrs. 
 Meredith," said the general, "that a suspicion against him 
 should have put you all to such material discomfort, and I de- 
 sire to repeat them to you. Yet however greatly I mourn the 
 error for your sake, for my own it is somewhat balanced by the 
 pleasure you have afforded me by your company. Indeed, 't is 
 with a certain regret that I received Colonel Brereton's report, 
 which, by completely exonerating Mr. Meredith, is like to 
 deprive us of your presence." 
 
 "Your Excellency is over-kind," replied Mrs. Meredith, 
 with an ease that excited the envy of her daughter. 
 
 "The general hns ordered his barge for us, my dear," said 
 the squire, " and 't is best that we get across the river while 
 there 's daylight, if we hope to be back at Greenwood by 
 to-morrow evening " 
 
The Value of a Friend 169 
 
 Farewells were promptly made, and, under the escort of 
 Major Gibbs, they set out for the river. Once in the boat, 
 Janice launched into an ecstatic eulogium on the commander- 
 in-chief. 
 
 " Ay," assented Mr. Meredith ; " the general 's a fine man in 
 bad company. 'T is a mortal shame to think he 's like to come 
 to the gallows." 
 
 " Dadda ! No ! " 
 
 " Yes. They put a bold face on 't, but after yesterday's de- 
 feat they can't hold the island another week ; and when they 
 lose it the rebellion is split, and that 's an end to 't. 'T will be 
 all over in a month, mark me." 
 
 Janice pulled a very serious face for a moment, and then 
 asked : "Didst notice Colonel Brereton, dadda?" 
 
 " Ay. And a polite man he is. He not merely had us re- 
 leased, but I have in my pocket a protection from the general 
 he got for me." 
 
 " Didst not recognise him ? " 
 
 "Recognise? Who? What?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing," replied Janice. 
 
XXV 
 
 FREEDOM IN RETROGRADE 
 
 THE departure of the Merediths for headquarters 
 under arrest had set Brunswick agog, and all 
 sorts of surmises as to their probable guilt and fate 
 had given the gossips much to talk of j their return, 
 three days later, not merely unpunished, but with a protection 
 from the commander-in-chief, set the village clacks still more 
 industriously at work. 
 
 Events were moving so rapidly, however, that local affairs 
 were quickly submerged. News of Washington's abandon- 
 ment of the island of New York and retreat into Westchester, 
 pursued by Howe's army, of the capture of Fort Washington 
 and its garrison, of the evacuation of Fort Lee, of the steady 
 dwindling of the Continental Army by the expiration of the 
 terms of enlistment, and still more by wholesale desertions, 
 reached the little community in various forms. But interest- 
 ing though all this was for discussion at the tavern of an 
 evening, or to fill in the vacant hour between the double 
 service on a Sunday, it was still too distant to seem quite 
 real, and so the stay-at-home farmers peacefully completed 
 the getting in of their harvests, while the housewives baked 
 and spun as of yore, both conscious of the conflict more 
 through the gaps in the village society, caused by the 
 absences of their more belligerently inclined neighbours, 
 than from the actual clash of war. 
 
 The absent ones, it is needless to say, were the doughty 
 warriors of the " Invincibles," who had been called into service 
 along with the rest of the New Jersey militia when Howe's 
 fleet had anchored in the bay of New York three months 
 before, and who had since formed part of the troops defend- 
 ing the towns of Amboy and Elizr.bethport, but a few miles 
 
Freedom in Retrograde 171 
 
 away, from the possible descent of the British forces lying on 
 Staten Island. This arrangement not only spared them from 
 all active service, thus saving the parents and wives of Bruns- 
 wick from serious anxiety, but also permitted frequent home 
 visits, with or without furlough, thus supplying the town with 
 its chief means of news. 
 
 An end came, however, to this period of quiet. Early in 
 November vague rumours, growing presently to specific state- 
 ments, told the villagers that their day was approaching. The 
 British troops on Staten Island were steadily reinforced ; the 
 small boats of the line-of-battle ships and frigates were gath- 
 ered opposite Amboy and Paulus Hookj large supplies of 
 forage and cattle were massed at various points. Everything 
 betokened an intended descent of the royal army into New 
 Jersey; that the new-made State was to be baptised with 
 blood. 
 
 The successive defeats of the Continental army wonderfully 
 cooled many of the townspeople who but a few months before 
 had vigorously applauded and saluted the glowing lines of the 
 Declaration of Independence, when it had been read aloud to 
 them by the Rev. Mr. McClave. One of the first evidences 
 of this alteration of outward manner, if not of inward fiiith, 
 was shown in the sudden change adopted by the community 
 toward the household of Greenwood. When the squire had 
 departed in custody he apparently possessed not one friend in 
 Brunswick, but within a month of his return the villagers, the 
 parson excepted, were making bows to him, in the growing 
 obsequiousness of which might be inferred the growing des- 
 peration of the Continental cause. Yet another indication 
 was the appearance of certain of the " Invincibles," who came 
 straggling sheepishly ir>to town one by one — " Just ter see how 
 all the folks wuz " — and who, for reasons they kept more 
 private, failed to rejoin their company after having satisfied 
 their curiosity. Most incriminating of all, however, was the 
 return of Bagby from the session of the Legislature then being 
 held in Princeton, and his failure to go to Amboy to take 
 command of his once gloried-in company. 
 
 " 'T would n't be right to take the ordering away from 
 Zerubbabel just when there 's a chr.nce for fighting, after he 's 
 
1/2 Janice Meredith 
 
 -done the work all summer," was the captain's explanation of 
 ■his conduct ; and though his townsmen may have suspected 
 another motive, they were all too bent on staying at home 
 themselves, and were too busy taking in sail on the possibility 
 ■of having to go about on another tack, to question his 
 reasons. 
 
 If the mountain would not go, Mahomet would come ; and 
 one evening late in November, while the wind whistled and 
 the rain beat outside the " Continental Tavern," as it was now 
 termed, the occupants of the public room suddenly ceased 
 from the plying of glasses and pipes, upon the hurried en- 
 trance of a man. 
 
 " The British is comin' ! " he bellowed, bringing every man 
 ■to his feet by the words. 
 
 " How does yer know? " demanded Squire Hennion. 
 
 " I wuz down ter the river ter see if my boat wuz tied fast 
 •enuf ter stand the blow an' I hearn the tramp of snogers 
 -comin' across the bridge." 
 
 " The bridge ! " shouted Bagby. " Then they must be — 
 Swamp it ! there is n't more than time enough to run." 
 
 Clearly he spoke truly, for even as he ended his sentence 
 the still unclosed door was filled by armed men. A cry of 
 terror broke from the tavern frequenters, but in another 
 moment this was exchanged for others of relief and welcome, 
 when m.in after man entered and proved himself to be none 
 other than an invincible. 
 
 "How, now, Leftenant Buntling?" demanded Bagby, in 
 an attempt to regain his dignity. " What is the meaning of 
 this return without orders?" 
 
 "The British landed a swipe o' men at Amboythis mornin', 
 makin' us fall back mighty quick ter Bonumtown, an' there, 
 arter the orficers confabulated, it wuz decided thet as the 
 bloody-backs wuz too strong ter fight, the militia and the 
 flyin' camp thereabouts hed better go home an' look ter their 
 families. An' so we uns come off with the rest." 
 
 "You mean to say," asked Joe, "that you didn't strike 
 one blow for freedom ; did n't fire one shot at the tools of the 
 tyrant?" 
 
 " Oh, cut it, Joe," growled one of the privates. " Thet "ore 
 
Freedom in Retrograde 173 
 
 talk duz fer the tavern and fer election times, but 't ain't 
 worth a darli when ye 've marched twenty miles on an empty 
 stomick. Set the drinks up fer us, or keep quiet." 
 
 "That I will for you all," responded Bagby, "and what's 
 more, the whole room shall tipple at my expense." 
 
 No more drinks were ordered, however j for a second time 
 the occupants of the room were startled by the door being 
 thrown open quickly to give entrance to a man wrapped in a 
 riding cloak, but whose hat and boots both bespoke the ofScer. 
 
 " Put your house in readiness for General Washington and 
 his staff, landlord," the new-comer ordered sharply. " They 
 will be here shortly, and will want supper and lodgings." He 
 turned in the doorway and called : " Get firewood from where 
 you can. Colonel Hand, and kindle beacon fires at both ends- 
 of the bridge, to light the waggons and the rest of the forces ; 
 throw out patrols on the river road both to north and south, 
 and quarter your regiment in the village barns." Then he 
 added in a lower voice to a soldier who stood hofding a horse 
 at the door : " Put Janice in the church shed, Spalding j rub 
 her down, and see to it that she gets a measure ot oats and 
 a bunch of fodder." He turned and strode to the fire, his 
 boots squelching as he walked, as if in complaint at their be- 
 soaked condition. Hanging his hat upon the candle hook on 
 one side of the chimney breast and his cloak on the other, 
 he stood revealed a well-dressed officer, in the uniform of a 
 Continental colonel. 
 
 It had taken the roomful a moment to recover their equi- 
 poise after the fright, but now Squire Hennion spoke up : 
 
 " So yer retreatin' some more, hey?" 
 
 The officer, who had been facing the fire in an evident 
 attempt to dry and warm himself, faced about sharply: 
 " Retreat ! " he answered bitterly. " Can you do • anything 
 else with troops who won't fight ; who in the most critical, 
 moment desert by fifties, by hundreds, ay, by whole regiments? 
 Six thousand men have left us since we crossed into Jersey.. 
 A brigade of your own troops — of the State we had come to 
 
 fight for left us yesterday morning, when news came that 
 
 Cornwallis was advancing upon our position at Newark. 
 What can we do but retreat?" 
 
174 Janice Meredith 
 
 "Well, may I be dummed ! " ejaculated Bagby, " if it isn't 
 Squire Meredith's runaway bondsman, and dressed as fine 
 as a fivepence ! " 
 
 The officer laughed scornfully. "Ay," he assented. "'Tis 
 the fashion of the land to run away, so 't is only a la mode 
 that bondsmen and slaves should imitate their betters." 
 
 " Yer need n't mount us Americans so hard, seein' as yer 
 took mortal good care ter git in the front ranks of them as 
 wuz retreatin'," asserted an Invincible. 
 
 " I undertook to guide the retreat, because I knew the 
 roads of the region," retorted the officer, hotly, evidently 
 «tung by the remark ; then he laughed savagely and continued : 
 ■" And how comes it, gentlemen all, that you are not gloriously 
 serving your country ? Cornwallis, with nine thousand picked 
 infantry, is but a twenty miles to the northward ; Knyphausen 
 and six thousand Hessians landed at Perth Amboy this morn- 
 ing, and woujd have got between us and Philadelphia but for 
 our rapid retreat. Canst sit and booze yourself with flip and 
 swizzle when there are such opportunities for valour? Hast 
 forgotten the chorus you were for ever singing? " Brereton 
 sang out with spirit : — 
 
 " ' In Freedom we 're born, and, like Sons of the Brave, 
 We'll never surrender, 
 But swear to defend her, 
 And scorn to survive, if unable to save.'" 
 
 •' 'T ain't no good fighting when we hav n't a general," 
 snarled Bagby. 
 
 " Now damn you for a pack of dirty, low-minded curs ! " 
 swore the officer, his face blazing with anger. " Here you 've 
 a general who is risking life, and fortune, and station ; and 
 then you blame him because he cannot with a handful of raw 
 troops defeat thirty thousand regulars. There 's not a general 
 in Europe — not the great Frederick himself — who'd so 
 much as have tried to make head against such odds, much 
 less have done so much with so little. After a whole summer's 
 campaign what, have the British to show? They've gained 
 the territory within gimshot of their fleet ; but at White Plains, 
 though they were four to one, they dared not attack us, 
 and valiantly turned tail about, preferring to overrun unde- 
 
Freedom in Retrograde 17^ 
 
 fended country to assaulting our position. I tell you General 
 Washington is the honestest, bravest, most unselfish man in 
 the world, and you are a pack of — " 
 
 "Are my quarters ready. Colonel Brereton?" asked a tall 
 man, standing in the doorway. 
 
 " This way, yer Excellency," obsequiously cried the land- 
 ford, catching up a candle and coming out from behind the 
 bar, " I 've set apart our settin'-room and our bestest room 
 — thet 'ere with the tester bed — for yer honourable Ex- 
 cellency." 
 
 " Come with me. Colonel Brereton," ordered the general, as 
 he followed the publican. 
 
 Motioning the tavern-keeper out of the room, Washington 
 threw aside his wet cloak and hat, and taking from a pocket 
 what looked like a piece of canvas, he unfolded and spread 
 it out on the table, revealing a large folio map of New Jersey. 
 
 " You know the country," he said ; " show me where the 
 Raritan can be forded." 
 
 " Here, here, and here," replied Brereton, indicating with 
 his -finger the points. " But this rain to-night will probably so 
 swell it that there '11 be no crossing for come a tv/o days." 
 
 " Then if we destroy the bridge Cornwallis cannot cross for 
 the present? " 
 
 " No, your Excellency. But if 't is their policy to again try 
 to outflank us, they '11 send troops from Staten Island by boat 
 to South Amboy ; and by a forced march through Monmouth 
 they can seize Princeton and Trenton, while Cornwallis holds 
 us here." 
 
 " 'T is evident, then, that we can make no stand except at 
 the Delaware, should they seek to get in our rear. Orders 
 must be sent to secure all the boats in that river, and 
 to—" 
 
 A knock at the door interrupted him, and in reply to his 
 "Come in,' an officer entered, and, saluting, said hurriedly: 
 " General Greene directs me to inform your Excellency that 
 word has reached him that a brigade of the New Jersey militia 
 have deserted and have seized and taken with them the larger 
 part of the baggage train. The commissary reports that the 
 stores saved will barely feed the forces one day more." 
 
I 76 Janice Meredith 
 
 Washington stood silent for a moment. " I will send ^ 
 message back to General Greene by you presently. In the 
 meantime join my family, who are supping. Major Williams." 
 Then, when the officer had left the room, the commander sat 
 down at the table and rested his head on his hand, as if weary. 
 " Such want of spirit and fortitude, such disaffection and 
 treachery, show the game to be pretty well up," he muttered 
 to himself. 
 
 Brereton who had fallen back at the entrance of the aide, 
 once more came to the table. " Your Excellency," he said, 
 " we are but losing the fair-weather men, who are really no 
 help, and what is left will be tried troops and true." 
 
 « Left to starve ! " 
 
 *' This is a region of plenty. But give me the word, and in 
 one day I '11 have beef and corn enough to keep the army for 
 a three months." 
 
 " They refuse to sell for Continental money." 
 
 " Then impress." 
 
 " It must come to that, I fear. Yet it will make the farmers 
 enemies to the cause." 
 
 " No more than they are now, I wot," sneered the aide. 
 "And if you leave them their crops 'twill be but for them to 
 sell to the British. 'Tis a war necessity." 
 
 Washington rose, the moment's discouragement already 
 conquered and his face set determinedly. " Give orders to 
 Hazlett and Hand to despatch foraging parties at dawn, to 
 seize all cattle, pigs, corn, wheat, or flour they may find, save 
 enough for the necessities of the people, and to impress horses 
 and wagons in which to transport them. Then join us at 
 supper." 
 
 Brereton saluted, and turned, but as he did so Washington 
 again spoke : — ■ 
 
 "I overheard what you were saying in the public room, 
 Brereton," he said. " Some of my own aides are traducing 
 me in secret, and making favour with other generals by prais- 
 ing them and criticising me, against tlie possibility that I may 
 be superseded. But I learned that I have one faithful 
 man." 
 
 *' Ah, your Excellency," impulsively cried the young officer. 
 
Freedom in Retrograde 377 
 
 starting forward, " 't is a worthless life, — which brought dis- 
 grace to mother, to father, and to self; but what it is, is yours." 
 " Thank you, my boy," replied Washington' laying his hand 
 affectionately on Brereton's shoulder. " As you' say, 't is a 
 time which winnows the chaff from the wheat. I thank God 
 He has sent some wheat to me." And there were tears in 
 the general's eyes as he spoke. 
 
XXVI 
 
 NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAWS 
 
 WHILE the family of Greenwood were still at the 
 breakfast-table on the following morning, they 
 were startled by a shriek from the kitchen, and 
 then by Peg and Sukey bursting into the room 
 where they sat. 
 
 " Oh, marse," gasped the cook, " de British ! " 
 
 Both the squire and Janice sprang to the windows, to 
 see a file of soldiers, accompanied by a mounted officer, drawn 
 up at the rear of the house. As they took this in, the line 
 broke into squads, one of which marched toward the stable, 
 a second toward the barn, while the third disappeared round 
 the corner of the house. With an exclamation the squire 
 hurried to the kitchen and intrenched himself in the door 
 just as the party reached it. 
 
 " Who are ye, and by what right do ye trespass on my 
 property? " he demanded. 
 
 " Git out of the way, ole man," ordered the sergeant. 
 " We hev orders ter take a look at yer store-room and cellar, 
 an' we ha'n't got no time to argify." * 
 
 " Ye '11 not get into my cellar, that I can tell — " began 
 the squire ; but his remark ended in a howl of pain, as the 
 officer dropped the butt of his musket heavily on the 
 squire's toes. The agony was sufficient to make the owner of 
 Greenwood collapse into a sitting position on the upper step 
 and fall to nursing the injured member. 
 
 Janice, who had followed her father into the kitchen, sprang 
 forward with a cry of sympathy and fright, just as the mounted 
 officer, who had heard the squire's yell, came trotting round 
 the corner. 
 
 " No violence, sergeant I " he called sternly. 
 
Necessity Knows No Laws 179 
 
 " Not a bit, sir," replied the aggressor. " One of the boys 
 happened ter drop his muskit on the old gentleman's corns, 
 an' I was apologisin' fer his carelessness." 
 
 " You dreadful liar ! " cried Janice, hotly, turning from her 
 attempted comforting of the squire. " He did it on — oh ! "" 
 She abruptly ended her speech as the mounted officer un- 
 covered and bowed to her, and the " Oh ! " was spoken as 
 she recognised him. " Charles — Colonel Brereton ! " the 
 girl exclaimed. 
 
 " Charles ! " exclaimed Mrs. Meredith, coming to the door- 
 " Hoighty toighty, if it is n't ! " 
 
 " I am very sorry that we are compelled to impress food, 
 Mrs. Meredith," said the aide ; " but as it is useless to resist I 
 trust you will not make the necessity needlessly unpleasant." 
 
 "Ye 're a pack of ruffians and thieves!" cried the 
 squire. 
 
 "Nay, Mr. Meredith," answered the aide, quietly; "we 
 pay for it." 
 
 " In paper money that won't be worth a penny in the 
 pound, come a month." 
 
 "That remains to be seen," responded the officer. 
 
 " 'T is quite of a piece that a runaway redemptioner should 
 return with other thieves and rob his master ! " fumed the 
 owner of Greenwood. 
 
 Brereton grew red, and retorted : " I am not in command 
 of this force and rode out with them at some sacrifice to save 
 you from possible violence or unnecessary discomfort. Since 
 you choose to insult me, I will not remain. Do your duty, 
 sergeant," was the officer's parting injunction as he wheeled 
 his horse and started toward the road. 
 
 "Stick him with yer bagonet, Pelatiah," ordered the 
 sergeant, motioning toward the squire, who, still sitting in the 
 doorway, very effectually blocked the way. Pelatiah, duly 
 obedient, pricked the well-developed calf of the m.aster of 
 Greenwood, bringing that individual to his feet with another 
 howl, which drew sympathetic shrieks from Mrs. Meredith and 
 Janice. 
 
 Evidently the cries made it impossible for Colonel Brereton 
 to hold to his intention, for he once again turned his horse 
 
i8o Janice Meredith 
 
 and came riding back. By the time he reached the door the 
 squire had been shoved to one side, and the men could be 
 heard ransacking the larder and cellar none too quietly. 
 
 " Though you slight my services," the aide explained, " I '11 
 bide for the present." 
 
 Meanwhile the parties that had been detached to the other 
 points could be seen harnessing oxen and horses to the hay 
 cart, farm waggons, and even the big coach, and loading them 
 from the corn-crib and barn. Presently the cortege started for 
 the house, and here more stores of various kinds were loaded. 
 
 During the whole of this operation the squire kept busily 
 expressing his opinions of the proceedings of the foragers, of 
 the army to which they belonged, and of the Continental 
 cause generally, which, but for the presence of the staff officer, 
 would have probably led to his ducking in the horse trough, 
 or to some other expression of the party's displeasure. 
 
 " I see ye take good care to steal all my horses, so that I 
 shall not be able to ride to Brunswick and report ye to the 
 commander," he railed, just as the last armful of hams and 
 sides of bacon was thrown into the coach. " We heard tales 
 of how ye robbed and plundered about York, unbeknownst to 
 the general, and I 've no doubt ye are thieving now without 
 his knowledge." 
 
 " If you want to get to Brunswick you shall have a lift," 
 offered the aide. " We '11 drive you there, and I '11 see to it 
 that you have a horse to bring you back." 
 
 " Ay. And leave my wife and daughter to be outraged by 
 you villainous Whigs." 
 
 Again Brereton lost his temper. " I challenge you to prove 
 one case of our army insulting a woman," he cried. " And 
 hast heard of the doings of the. last few days? Of the con- 
 duct of British soldiers to the women of Hackensack and 
 Elizabethtown, or of the brutality of the Hessians at Rahway? 
 At this very moment Mr. Collins is printing for us broadsides 
 of the affidavits of the poor miserable victims, in the hopes 
 that we can rouse the country by them." 
 
 " 'T is nothing but a big Whig danker, I '11 be bound ! " 
 snorted Mr. Meredith. 
 
 ■" I would for the sake of manhood they were I " said the 
 
Necessity Knows No Laws i8r 
 
 officer. "I was once proud to be a British soldier — " h<r 
 checked himself sharply, and then went on : " If you fear for 
 Mrs. Meredith and Miss Janice, take thcati with you. I '11 
 see to it that you all return in comfort." - 
 
 Although the squire had no particular fear of the safety of 
 his womankind, he did not choose to confess it after what he 
 had said ; and so, without more ado, his wife and daughter- 
 were ordered to don their calashes and cloaks. Then the 
 odd-looking caravan, of five vehicles, nine cows, and four 
 squealing pigs, started, — Mrs. Meredith and Janice and the- 
 squire seated on the box of the coach, while the driver 
 bestrode one of the horses. 
 
 The excitement of the drive was delightful to Janice, and it 
 was not lessened by what she heard. The aide rode beside 
 the coach, and at first tried to engage her in conversation, but 
 the girl was too shy and self-conscious to talk easily to him, 
 and so it ended in chat between the officer and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Meredith, in which he told of how he had secured his position 
 on the staff of the general, and gave an outline history of the 
 siege of Boston, the campaigning about New York, and the 
 retreat to Brunswick. 
 
 " I knew the rake-hells 'ud never fight," asserted the squire^ 
 at one point. 
 
 " Like all green troops, they object to discipline, and have 
 shown cowardice in the face of the enemy. But the British 
 would not dare say as much as you say, after the lessons 
 they 've had. The fault is mainly with the officers, who, by 
 the system of election or appointment, are chiefly politicians 
 and popularity-seekers not fit to black boots, much less com- 
 mand companies and regiments. Here in this town, the life 
 was sapped out of the 'Invincibles ' by their own officers ; but 
 the parson went among the men this morning', and the best of 
 them formed a new company under him and enlisted for the 
 year. And those who helped me take the powder to Cam- 
 bridge volunteered, and have proved good men. All they 
 need are good officers to make them good soldiers." 
 
 "What did ye with that rogue Evatt?" demanded the 
 squire, his mind recalled to the subject by the allusion to the 
 powder; and Janice hastily caught hold of the fore-string of 
 
1 82 Janice iviereaitn 
 
 her calash to pull the headgear forward so that her face should 
 be hidden from the aide. Yet she listened to the reply with 
 an attentive if red face. 
 
 " Our kidnapping of him not being easy to justify, I did not 
 choose to take him to Cambridge and so, when we spoke a 
 brig outside Newport, bound for Madeira, I e'en bargained his 
 passage on her. 'T is naturally the last I ever heard of him." 
 
 Then poor Janice had to hear her father and mother ex- 
 press their thanks to the officer and berate the runaway pair ; 
 and the painful subject was abandoned only when they drove 
 into Brunswick, where its interest could not compete with that 
 oi the masses of soldiers camped on the green, the batteries of 
 artillery planted along the river front, and the general hurly- 
 burly everywhere. 
 
 " You had best sit where you are, ladies," the aide re- 
 marked, " for the inn is full of men ; " and the two accepted 
 liis suggestion, and from their coign of vantage surveyed the 
 scene, while the squire, tumbling off the waggon, demanded 
 word with the commander-in-chief. 
 
 " I '11 tell him you wish speech with him," said Brereton, 
 dismounting and going into the tavern. 
 
 It is only human when one is in misery to take a certain 
 satisfaction in finding that misfortune is not a personal mo- 
 nopoly. While the squire waited to pour out his complaint, he 
 found farmer after farmer standing about with similar intent ; 
 and, greatly comforted by the grievances of his neighbors, he 
 became almost joyous when Squire Hennion, following a long 
 line of carts loaded with his year's harvest, added himself to 
 the scene, and with oaths and wails sought in turn to express 
 his anger and misery. 
 
 "Tew rob a genuine Son o' Liberty," he whined, "ezhez 
 alius stood by the cause ! The general shall hear o' 't. I 'm 
 ruined. I '11 starve. I'll — " 
 
 « Ho, ho ! " laughed Mr. Meredith, heartily, " So sitting on 
 both sides don't pay, eh ? And a good serve out it is to ye, ye 
 old trimmer. What ! object to paper dollars, when ye are so 
 warm a Whig? What if they are only worth two shillings in 
 the pound, specie ? Liberty for ever I Ho, ho I This is 
 worth the trip to Brunswick alone," 
 
iNecessity Knows No Laws 183 
 
 Colonel Brereton came out of the tavern with a paper in his 
 hand, and called the squire aside. 
 
 " Mr. Meredith," he said in a low voice, his face eager, yet 
 worn with anxiety, " I find that since I left camp this morning 
 the rest of the New Jersey and all of the Maryland flying 
 camps have refused to stay, and have left us, though Corn- 
 wallis's advance is at Piscataway, and as he is pushing forward 
 by forced marches he will reach the Raritan within two hours." 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt," assented the squire, gleefully. 
 " Another week will put him in Philadelphia, and then ye 
 rebels will dance for it. No wonder ye look frighted, 
 man." 
 
 " I am not scared on my own account," replied the officer, 
 bitterly. " A dozen bullets, whether in battle or standing 
 blindfold against a white wall, are all the same to me. I '11 
 take the gallows itself, if it comes, and say good quittance." 
 
 " Ay," grunted Mr. Meredith, " go on. Tip us a good 
 touch of the heroics." 
 
 The aide smiled, but then went on anxiously : " But what I 
 do fear, and why I tell you what I do, is for — for — for Mrs. 
 Meredith and — ■ The loss of this force leaves us barely three 
 thousand men to fight Cornwallis's and Knyphausen's fifteen 
 thousand. We shall burn the bridge within the hour, but 
 that will scarce check them, and so we must retreat to the 
 Delaware." 
 
 " And how does this affect me ? " 
 
 " Every hour brings us word of the horrible excesses of the 
 British soldiery. No woman seems safe from — For God's 
 sake, Mr. Meredith, don't remain here ! But go with our 
 army, and I '11 pledge you my word you shall h^ safe and as 
 comfortable as it is in my power to make you." 
 
 "Tush ! British officers never — " 
 
 " 'T is not the officers, but the common soldiers who straggle 
 from the lines for plunder and — while the pigs of Hessians 
 and Waldeckers, sold by their princes at so much per head, 
 cannot be controlled, even by their own officers. See, here, is 
 the broadside of which I spoke. I have seen every affidavit, 
 and swear to you that they are genuine. Donft — you can't 
 mk. such a fate for Mrs. Meredith or — " Brereton stopped. 
 
gSi}. Janice Mereditn 
 
 onable to say more, and thrust the paper he held in his hand 
 into that of the squire. 
 
 " I '11 have none of your Whig lies puffed on me I " persisted 
 the squire, obstinately. 
 
 The officer started to argue ; but as he did so the gallop of a 
 horse's feet was heard, and Colonel Laurens came dashing up. 
 Throwing himself from the saddle, he flung into the tavern; 
 and that he brought important news was so evident that 
 Brereton hurriedly left Mr. Meredith and followed. Barely a 
 moment passed when aide after aide issued from the inn, and, 
 mounting, spurred away in various directions. The results 
 were immediate. The carts were hurriedly put in train ai»d 
 started southward on the Princeton post-road, smoke began to 
 rise from the bridge, the batteries limbered up, and the regi- 
 ments on the green fell in and then stood at ease. 
 
 While these obvious preparations for a retreat were in pro- 
 gress a coloured man appeared, leading so handsome and 
 powerful a horse that Janice, who had much of her father's 
 taste, gave a cry of pleasure and, jumping from her perch, 
 went forward to stroke the beast's nose. 
 
 " What a beauty ! " she cried. 
 
 "Yes, miss, dat Blueskin," replied the darky, grinning 
 proudly. " He de finest horse from de Mount Vernon stud, 
 but he great villain, jus' de same. He so obstropolus when he 
 hear de guns dat the gin'l kian't use him, an' has tu ride ole 
 Nelson when dyars gwine tu be any fightin'." 
 
 Janice leaned forward and kissed the " great villain " on his 
 soft nose, and then turned to find the general standing in the 
 doorway watching her. 
 
 " 1 have not time to attend to your complaints, gentlemen," 
 he announced to the two esquires and the group of farmers, all 
 of whom started forward at his appearance. " File your 
 Statements and claims with the commissary-general, and in due 
 time they'll receive attention." Then he came toward his 
 horse, and as he recognised the not easily forgotten face he 
 uncovered. " I trust Miss Janice remembers me ! " he said, a 
 smile succeeding the careworn look of the previous moment, 
 and added ; " Had ye been kind, ye 'd have kept that caress 
 for the master." 
 
Necessity Knows No Laws 185 
 
 Janice coloured, but replied with a mixture of assurance 
 and shyness : " Blueskin could not ask for it, but your Excel- 
 lency — " Then she paused and coloured still more. 
 
 Washington laughed, and, stooping, kissed her hand. 
 " Being a married man, must limit the amount of his yielding 
 to temptation," he said, finishing the sentence for the girl. 
 " I would I were to have the honour of your company at din- 
 ner once more, but your friends, the British, will not give us 
 the time. So I must mount and say farewell." 
 
 Janice turned an eager face up to the general, as he swung 
 himself into the saddle. " Oh, your Excellency," she ex- 
 claimed below her breath, " dadda would think it very wicked 
 of me, but I hope you '11 beat them ! " 
 
 Washington's face hghted up, and, leaning over, he once 
 more kissed her hand. "Thank you for the wish, my child," 
 he said, and, giving Blueskin the spur, rode toward the river. 
 
 " Ii Philemon was only like his Excellency ! " thought the 
 girl. 
 
XXVII 
 A CHECK TO THE ENEMY 
 
 THERE followed a weary hour of waiting, while first 
 the carts, then the artillery, and finally the few 
 hundred ill-clad, weary men filed off on the post- 
 road. Before the rear-guard had begun its march, 
 British regiments could be discerned across the river, and pres- 
 ently a battery came trotting down to the opposite shore, and 
 a moment later the guns were in position to protect a crossing. 
 This accomplished, a squadron of light dragoons rode into the 
 water and struck boldly across, a number of boats setting out 
 at the same moment, each laden with redcoats. While they 
 were yet in mid-stream the Continental bugles sounded the re- 
 treat, and the last American regiment marched across the green 
 and disappeared from view. 
 
 Owing to the fact that the coach had not been parked with 
 the waggons, but had been brought to the tavern door, the bag- 
 gage-train had moved off without it, — a circumstance, needless 
 to say, which did not sadden the squire. It so happened that 
 the vehicle had stopped immediately under the composite por- 
 trait sign-board of the inn ; and no sooner was the last Ameri- 
 can regiment lost to view than the publican appeared, equipped 
 with a paint-pot and brush, and, muttering an apology to the 
 owner of the coach, now seated beside his wife and daughter 
 on the box, he climbed upon the roof and, by a few crude 
 strokes, altered the lettering from " Gen. George the Good " 
 into "King George the Good." But he did not attempt to 
 change the firm chin and the strong forehead the bondsman 
 had added to the fa^2. 
 
 Barely was the operation finished when the British light 
 horse came wading out of the water and cantered up the river 
 
A Check to the Enemy 187 
 
 road to the green, the uniforms and helmets flashing brilliantly, 
 the harness jingling, and the swords clanking merrily. 
 
 " There are troops worth talking about," cried the squire, 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 He spoke too quickly, for the moment the "dismount" 
 sounded, twenty men were about the coach. 
 
 "Too good horses for a damned American ! " shouted one, 
 and a dozen hands were unharnessing them on the instant. 
 " A load of prog, boys ! " gleefully shouted a second, and 
 both doors were flung open, and the soldiers were quickly 
 crowding each other in their endeavours to get a share. 
 " Egad ! " announced another, " but I '11 have a tousel and a 
 buss from yon lass on the box." " Well said! " cried a fourth, 
 and both sprang on the wheel, as a first step to the attainment 
 of their wishes. 
 
 Mr. Meredith, from the box, had been shrieking affirmations 
 of his loyalty to King George without the slightest heed being 
 paid to him ; but there is a limit to passivity, and as the two men 
 on the wheel struggled which should first gain the desired 
 prize, the squire kicked out twice with his foot in rapid succes- 
 sion, sending both disputants back into the crowd of troopers. 
 Howls of rage arose on all sides ; and it would have fared 
 badly with the master of Greenwood had not the noise brought 
 an officer up. 
 
 "Here, here!" he cried sharply, "what's all this pother 
 about?" 
 
 " 'T is a damned Whig, who is — " 
 
 " A lie ! " roared the squire. "There is no better subject 
 of King George living than Lambert Meredith." 
 
 The officer jeered. "That's what every rebel claims of 
 late. Not one breathes in the land, if you 'd but believe the 
 words of you turncoats." 
 
 "'Tis not a lie," spoke up Janice, her face blazing with 
 temper and her fists clinched as if she intended to use them. 
 " Dadda always — " 
 
 "Ho ! " exclaimed the officer, "what a pretty wench ! Art 
 a rebel, too ? for if so, I '11 see to it that guard duty falls to 
 me. Come, black eyes, one kiss, and I '11 send the men to 
 right about." 
 
1 88 Janice Meredith 
 
 Janice caught the whip from its socket and raised it threat- 
 eningly, just as another officer from a newly arrived company 
 came spurrmg up and, without warning, began to strike right 
 and left with the flat of his sword. "Off with you, you 
 damned rapscallions ! " he shouted. " Leftenant Bromhead, 
 where are your manners?" 
 
 " And where are yours, Mr. Hennion, that ye dare speak so 
 to your superior officer?" demanded the lieutenant. 
 
 There was no mistaking Philemon, changed tliough he was. 
 He wore a fashionable wig, and his clothes fitted well a figure 
 that, once shambling and loose-jointed, had now all the erect- 
 ness of the soldier, but the face was unchanged. 
 
 " I '11 not quarrel with you now," swaggered Philemon. 
 " If you want ter fight later I 'm your man, an' if you want 
 ter go before Colonel Harcourt with a complaint I '11 face you. 
 But now I 've other matters." He turned to the trio on the 
 box, and exclaimed as he doffed his hat : " Well, squire, didst 
 ever expect sight of me again? An' how do Mrs. Meredith 
 and Janice ? Strap my vitals, if I 've seen such beauty since I 
 left Brunswick," he added airily, and making Janice feel very 
 much put out of countenance. 
 
 "Welcome, Philemon !" cried Mrs. Meredith, "and doubly 
 welcome at such a moment." 
 
 " Ay," shouted the squire, heartily. " Ye arrived just in the 
 nick o' time to save your bride, Phil." A remark which sent 
 the whip rattling to the ground from the hands of Janice. 
 " An' ye a king's officer ! " he ended. " Bubble your story 
 to us, lad." 
 
 " There ain't much ter tell as you don't know already. Sir 
 William put no faith in the news I carried, thinkin' it but a Whig 
 trick, and so they held me prisoner. But later, when 't was 
 too late ter use it, they learned the word I brought them 
 wa j true ; so they set me free, and as there was no gettin' 
 away from Boston, the general gave me a cornetcy, that I 
 should not starve." 
 
 " I '11 lay to it that there '11 be no more starvation now that 
 you 're back home," cried the squire, " though betwixt your 
 cheating old sire, who '11 pay no interest on his mortgages, 
 and the merchants gone bankrupt in York, and now this loss 
 
A Check to the Enemy 189 
 
 of harvest and stock, 't is like Greenwood will show but a lean 
 larder for a time. But mayhaps now that ye 've gone up in 
 the world, ye 'd like to cry off from the bargain?" 
 
 " But let me finish the campaign by capturin' Philadelphia, 
 and dispersin' Washington's pack of peddlers and jail-birds, 
 which won't take mor 'n a fortnight, and then you can't name 
 a day too soon for me, an' I hope not for your daughter. 
 You can't call me gawk any longer, I reckon, Janice ? " 
 
 "Thou camst nigh to losing her, Phil," declared Mrs. 
 Meredith. 
 
 "Ay," added the squire. "Hast heard of how that jcoun- 
 drel Evatt schemed — " 
 
 " Oh, dadda ! " moaned Janice, imploringly. 
 
 " No scoundrel is he, squire, nor farmer neither ; he bein' Lord 
 Clowes," asserted Phil. " He joined our army at New York, 
 and is Sir William's commissary-general an' right-hand man." 
 
 A more effectual interruption than that of the girl's pre- 
 vented Mr. Meredith from enlarging upon the theme, for 
 the bugle sounded in quick succession the " assembly " and 
 "boots and saddles." 
 
 "That calls me," announced Phil, with an air of importance, 
 " We ain't goin' ter give the runaways no rest, you see." 
 
 "But Phil," cried the squire, "ye '11 not leave us to be 
 again — And they 've stole Joggles and Jumper, and all my 
 hams and sides. Ye must — " 
 
 " 1 can't bide now," called back the cornet, hurriedly tak- 
 ing his position just as the bugle called the marching order, 
 and the squadron moved off after the retreating Continentals. 
 
 Helpless to move, the Merediths sat on their coach while 
 an officer, accompanied by a file of soldiers and half a dozen 
 drummers, took station at the Town Hall. First a broadside 
 was posted on the bulletin-board, and the drums beat the 
 " parley " long and loudly. Then the drummers and the file 
 split into two parties, and marching down the village street in 
 opposite directions, the non-commissioned officers, to the beat 
 of drum, shouted summons to all the population to assemble 
 at the hall to take the oath of allegiance to " King George the 
 Third, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ire- 
 land, King, Defender of the Faith, and so forth." 
 
190 Janice Meredith 
 
 The first man to step forward to take the oath, sign the 
 submission, and receive his pardon was the Hon. Joseph 
 Bagby, erstwhile member of the Assembly of New Jersey, but 
 now loudly declaring his loyalty to the crown, and his joy 
 that "things were to be put in order again." The second 
 signer was the publican ; the third was Esquire Hennion ; and 
 after him came all the townsmen, save those who had thrown 
 in their lot along with the parson that morning by marching 
 off with Washington. 
 
 Mr. Meredith descended from his seat and waited his turn 
 to go through what was to him a form, and during this time 
 the ladies watched the troops being ferried across the river. 
 Presently an officer rode up the river road, issuing orders to 
 the regiments, which promptly fell in, while the rider halted 
 at the tavern, announced the soon-to-be-expected arrival of 
 Generals Howe and Cornwallis, and bade the landlord pre- 
 pare his best cheer. While he spoke a large barge landed its 
 burden of men and horses on the shore, and a moment later 
 a dozen officers came trotting up to the tavern between lines 
 of men with their guns at "present arms." 
 
 "What ho ! Well met, friend Meredith," cried one of the 
 new-comers, as the group halted at the tavern. " I was but 
 just telling Sir William that the king had one good friend in 
 Brunswick town, and now here he is ! " Evatt, or Clowes, 
 swung out of the saddle and extended his hand. 
 
 Although the squire had just recovered the whip dropped 
 by Janice, he did not keep to his intention of laying it across 
 the shoulders of the would-be abductor, but instead grasped 
 the hand offered. 
 
 "Well met, indeed," he assented cordially. "'Tis a glad 
 sight to us to see our good king's colours and troops." 
 
 " Sir William," called the baron, " thou must know Mr. 
 Lambert Meredith, first, because he 's the one friend our king 
 has in this town, and next, because, as thy commissary, I for- 
 bid thee to dine at the tavern on the vile fried pork or bubble 
 and squeak, and the stinking whiskey or rum thou 'It be served 
 with, and, in Mr. Meredith's name, invite thee and his Lord- 
 ship to eat a dinner at Greenwood, where thou 'It have the 
 best of victuals, washed down with Madeira fit for Bacchus." 
 
A Check to the Enemy 191 
 
 "Ay," cried Mr. Meredith, "the rebels have done their 
 best to bring famine to Greenwood, but it shall spread its best 
 to any of his Majesty's servants." 
 
 "Here's loyalty indeed," said Sir William, heartily, as he 
 leaned in his saddle to shake the squire's hand. " Damn 
 your rebel submissions and oaths, not worth the paper they 're 
 writ on ; but good Madeira, — that smacks loyal and true on a 
 parched tongue and cannot swear false. Lead the way, Mr. 
 Meredith, and we '11 do as much justice to your wine as later 
 we '11 do to Mr. Washington, if we can ever come up with him. 
 Eh, Charles?" 
 
 The officer addressed, who was frowning, gave an impatient 
 movement in the saddle that seemed to convey dissent. " Of 
 what use was our forced march," he demanded, " if not to 
 come up with the fox before he finds cover? " 
 
 " Nay, the rebels are so little hampered by baggage that 
 they can outstrip all save our light horse. And because they 
 have the legs of us is no reason for our starving ourselves ; the 
 further they run, the more exhausted they '11' be.'' 
 
 " Well argued," chimed in Clowes. " And your Excellency 
 will find more at Greenwood than mere meat and drink. 
 Come, squire, name your dame and Miss Janice to Sir 
 William. In playing quadrille to win, man, we never hold 
 back the queens." 
 
 All the horsemen uncovered to the ladies, as they were 
 introduced, and Howe uttered an admiring epithet as his eyes 
 fixed on the girl. "The Queen of Hearts scores, and the 
 game is won," he cried, bowing low to Janice. " Ho, Charles, 
 art as hot for the rebels as thou wert a moment since ? " 
 
 "I still think the light horse had best be pushed, and 
 should be properly supported by the grenadiers." 
 
 " Nay, wait till Knyphausen comes up, and then we '11 — " 
 
 " 'Tis no time to play a waiting game." 
 
 " Tush ! Lord Cornwallis," replied Sir William, irritably. 
 " The infantry have done their twenty miles to-day. I '11 not 
 jade my troops into the runaway state of the rebels. What 
 use to kill our men, when the rebellion is collapsing of 
 Itself? " During all his argument the commander-in-chief 
 kept his eyes fixed on Janice. 
 
192 Janice Meredith 
 
 " I can't but think — " began the earl. 
 
 "Come, come, man," interjected Howe, "we mustn't 
 let the Whigs beat us by starvation. Must we, eh, Mr. 
 Meredith?" 
 
 " 'T would be a sad end to all our hopes," assented the 
 squire. " And while we have to do with the rebels, let me 
 point out to ye the two most malignant in this town. There 
 stand the precious pair who have done more to foment dis- 
 loyalty than any other two men in the county." It is needless 
 to say that Mr. Meredith was pointing at Squire Hennion and 
 Bagby, who, more curiously than wisely, had lingered at the 
 tavern. ' 
 
 " He lies ! " and " 'T ain't so ! shrieked Bagby and Hennion 
 in unison, and each began protestations of loyalty, which were 
 cut short by Sir William, who turned to Cornwallis and ordered 
 the two under arrest, pending further information. 
 
 "Now we '11 see justice," chuckled the master of Greenwood, 
 gleefully. " If ye '11 not pay interest on your debts, I '11 pay 
 interest on mine — ay, and with a hangman's cord belike." 
 
 " But I signed a submission and oath, and here 's my 
 pardon," protected Bagby, producing the paper, an example 
 that Hennion imitated. 
 
 " Damn Campbell's carelessness ! " swore Howe. " He 
 deals pardons as he would cards at piquet, by twos, without so 
 much as a look at their faces. A glance at either would have 
 shown both to be rapscallion Whigs. However, 't is done, and 
 not to be undone. Release them, but keep eye on each, and 
 if they give the slightest cause, to the guardhouse with them. 
 Now, Mr. Meredith." 
 
 " I must ask your Excellency's assistance to horse my coach, 
 and his Majesty owes me a pair not easy to match, stole by 
 your troops this very morning." 
 
 " Make note of it, Mr. Commissary, and see to it that Mr. 
 Meredith has the two returned, with proper compensation. And, 
 Charles, if the theft can be fixed, let the men have a hundred 
 stripes apiece. Unless a stop can be put to this plundering 
 and raping, we '11 have a second rebellion on our hands." 
 
 Cornwallis shrugged his shoulders and issued the necessary 
 orders. Then horses being secured for the carriage, the 
 
A Check to the Enemy 193 
 
 squire and dames, accompanied by the generals, set out for 
 Greenwood. 
 
 It was long past the customary dining hour when the house 
 was reached, and though Mrs. Meredith and Janice joined 
 Sukey and Peg in the hurried preparation of the meal, it 
 was not till after three that it could be announced. As a 
 consequence, before the men had tired of the Madeira, dark 
 had come. One unfortunate of the staff was therefore de- 
 spatched to order the regiments to bivouac for the night. 
 
 " Tell the commissaries to issue an extra ration of rum," 
 directed Sir William, made generously minded by the generous 
 use of the wine. " And now, friend Lambert, let 's have in the 
 spirits, and if it but equal thy Madeira in quality we '11 sing a Te 
 Deum and make a night of it." 
 
 Janice, at a call from the host, brought in the squat decan- 
 ters; and the general insisted, with a look which told his 
 admiration, that his first glass should be mixed by the girl. 
 
 " Nay, nay," he cried, checking her as she reached for the 
 loaf sugar." " Put it to thy lips, and 'twill be sweeter than 
 any sugar can make it. Take but a sip and give us a toast 
 along with it." And the general caught at the girl's free hand 
 and tried to put his other arm about her waist. 
 
 " Oh, fie, Sir William ! " called Clowes, too flushed with wine 
 to guard his tongue. " What will Mrs. Loring think of such 
 talk? " 
 
 " Think ! Let her think what she may," retorted the gen- 
 eral, with a laugh. " Dost thou not know that woman is never 
 sweeter than when she is doubtful of her empire ? " 
 
 Janice, with heightened colour and angry eyes, eluded Howe's 
 familiarities by a backward step, and, raising the glass, defiantly 
 gave, " Success to Washington ! " Then, scared at her own 
 temerity, she darted from the room, in her fright carrying 
 away the tumbler of spirits. But she need not have fled, for 
 her toast only called forth an uproarious burst of laughter. 
 
 "I always said 'twas a rebellion of petticoats," chuckled 
 Sir William. " And small blame to them when they sought 
 to tax their only drink. 'Fore George, I 'd rebel myself if 
 they went to taxing good spirits unfairly. Ah, gentlemen, 
 after we have finished with Mr. Washington next week, what 
 
 x3 
 
194 Janice Meredith 
 
 sweet work 't will be to bring the caps to a proper submission ! 
 No wonder Cornwallis is hot to push on and have done with 
 the men." 
 
 The morrow found Sir William no less inclined to tarry than 
 he had been the day before, and, using the plea that they 
 would await the arrival of Knyphausen's force, he sent orders 
 to the advance to remain bivouacked at Brunswick, much to 
 the disgust of Cornwallis, who was little mollified by the con- 
 sent he finally wrung from his superior to push forward the 
 Light Horse on a reconnoissance, — a task on which he at 
 once departed. 
 
 Thus rid of his disagreeable spur, the general settled down 
 before the parlour fire to a game of piquet with Clowes, not 
 a little to the scandalising of card-hating Mrs. Meredith. 
 Worse still to the mother, nothing would do Sir William but 
 for Janice to come and score for him, and it is to be confessed 
 that his attention was more devoted to the black of her eyes and 
 the red of her cheeks than it was to the same colours on the 
 cards. Three times he unguarded a king in the minor hand, 
 and twice he was capoted unnecessarily. As a result, the 
 baron won easily; but the gain in purse did not seem to 
 cheer him, for he looked discontented even as he pocketed 
 his winnings. And as every gallant speech his commander 
 made the girl had deepened this look, the cause for the feel- 
 ing was not far to seek. 
 
 Dinner eaten, the general, without leaving the table, lapsed 
 into gentle, if somewhat noisy, slumber; and his superior thus 
 disposed of for the moment, Clowes sought Janice, only to 
 find that two young fellows of the staff, having abandoned the 
 bottle before him, had the longer been enjoying her society. 
 He joined the group, but, as on the preceding evening, Janice 
 chose to ignore his presence. What he did not know was 
 something said before his entrance, which had much to do 
 with the girl's determination to punish him. 
 
 " Who is this person who is so intimate with Sir William? " 
 she had asked the staff secretary. 
 
 McKenzie gave his fellow-staffsman a quick glance which, 
 manlike, he thought the girl would not perceive. " He 's 
 commissary-general of the forces," he then replied. 
 
A Check to the Enemy 195 
 
 Janice shrugged her shoulders. « Thank you for enlighten- 
 ing my ignorance," she said ironically. " Let me add in pay- 
 ment for the information that this is a spinet." 
 
 Again McKenzie exchanged a look with Balfour. The latter, 
 however, after a glance at the door, said, in a low voice : 
 *' He 's no favourite with us ; that you may be sure." 
 
 " He — Is he — Is Baron Clowes his true name ? " Janice 
 questioned. 
 
 "More true than most things about him," muttered 
 McKenzie. 
 
 " Then he has another name? " persisted the girl. 
 
 " A half-dozen, no doubt," assented Balfour. "There are 
 dirty things to be done in every kind of work, Miss Meredith, 
 and there are always dirty men ready to do them. I 'd not 
 waste thought on him. Knaves go to make up a complete 
 pack as much as kings, you know," he finished, as Lord Clowes 
 entered the room. 
 
 Cornwallis returned at nightfall, with word of the junction 
 of reinforcements ; but, despite the news, it required all the 
 urgence of himself and Clowes to induce the commander-in- 
 chief to give the marching order for the next morning. Nor, 
 when the hour of departure came, was Howe less reluctant, 
 lingering over his adieux with his host and hostess, and espe- 
 cially with their daughter, to an extent which set the earl 
 stamping with impatience and put a scowl on Clowes' face. 
 Even when the general was in the saddle, nothing would do 
 him but he must have a stirrup cup ; and when this had been 
 secured, he demanded another toast of the girl. 
 
 " You gave Mr. Washington your good wishes last time, Miss 
 Janice, runaway though he was. Canst not give a toast for the 
 troops that don't run? " he pleaded. 
 
 Janice, with a roguish look in her eyes that boded no good 
 to the British, took the glass, and, touching it to her lips, said : 
 " Here 's to the army which never runs away, and which 
 never — " Then she paused, and caught her breath as if 
 wanting courage. 
 
 " Out with it ! Complete the toast ! " cried the general, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " And which never runs after 1 " ended Janice. 
 
XXVIII 
 THE EBB-TIDE 
 
 CLOWES lingered behind for a brief moment after the 
 departure of Howe, in pretended desire to advise 
 Mr. Meredith concerning the British policy about 
 provisions and forage, but in truth to say a word of 
 warning which proved that he already regretted having secured 
 for his commander-in-chief the entree of Greenwood. 
 
 " I heard Sir William say he 'd bide with ye on his return 
 from Philadelphia," the commissary told the squire in part- 
 ing. " Have an eye to your girl, if he does. Though a mar- 
 ried man, his Excellency is led off by every lacing^string that 
 comes within reach." 
 
 The master of Greenwood privately thought that the pre- 
 cautionary advice as to his daughter might come with better 
 grace from some other source ; but both guest and host, for 
 reasons best known to each, had tacitly agreed to ignore the 
 past, and so the squire thanked his counsellor. 
 
 " Ye '11 not forget to seek out my horses 1 " he added, when 
 the commissary picked up his bridle. 
 
 "Assuredly not," promised Clowes. "How many didst 
 say ye lost? " 
 
 "Two. All the Whig thieves left to me of the nine I had." 
 
 " Fudge, man ! Say nothing of the Whig thieves, but lay 
 them all to our account. We 've plunderers in plenty in our 
 own force, let alone the dirty pigs of Hessians, and King 
 George shall pay for the whole nine." 
 
 " Nay, Lord Clowes, because I 've been robbed, I '11 not 
 turn — " began the squire. 
 
 " What is more," went on the benevolently-inclined officer, 
 " I will tell ye something that will be worth many a pound. 
 'T was decided betwixt Sir William and myself that we should 
 
The Ebb-Tide 197 
 
 seize all provisions and fodder throughout the province. But 
 I need scarce say — " 
 
 " Surely, man, thou wilt do nothing as crazy as that," burst 
 out Mr. Meredith. " Dost not see that it will make an enemy 
 of every man, from one end — " 
 
 " Which they are already," interrupted the baron, in turn. 
 " 'T is our method of bringing punishment home to the scamps. 
 We '11 teach them what rebellion comes to ere we have finished 
 with them. But, of course, such order does not extend to my 
 personal friends, and if ye have any fodder or corn, or anything 
 else ye can spare, I will see to it that his Majesty buys it at prices 
 that will more than make good to ye what ye lost through the 
 rebels." 
 
 The squire made a motion of dissent. " The Whig rascals 
 have swept my barn and storehouses so clean that I '11 have to 
 buy for my own needs, and — " 
 
 " Then buy what ye can hereabout before we begin seizing, 
 and see to it that ye buy a good surplus which ye can sell to 
 us at a handsome advance. Our good king is a good pay- 
 master, and I '11 show ye what it is to have a friend in the 
 commissariat." With this Clowes put spurs to his horse, con- 
 fident that he had more than offset any prejudice against him 
 that might still exist in Mr. Meredith's mind. None the less, 
 that individual stood for some moments on the porch with 
 knitted brows, gazing after the departing horseman • and when 
 he finally turned to go into the house he gave a shake to his 
 head that seemed to express dissatisfaction. 
 
 Although Mr. Meredith did not act upon the commissary's 
 suggestion in securing a supply of provisions, there was quickly 
 no lack of food or forage at Greenwood. From the moment 
 that Brunswick was occupied by the British, every one of Mr. 
 Meredith's tenants, who for varying periods had refused to 
 pay rent, adopted a different course and wholly or in part 
 settled up the arrears owing. Most of them first endeavoured 
 to liquidate the claim in the Continental currency, now de- 
 preciated through the desperation of the American cause to a 
 point that made it scarcely worth the paper on which its 
 pseudo-value was stamped. The squire, however, with many 
 a jeer and flout at each would-be payer for his folly in having 
 
1^8 Janice Meredith 
 
 taken the money, and his still greater foolishness in expecting 
 to pay rent on leaseholds with it, declined to accept it. His 
 refusal of each tender, which indeed had been expected, was 
 usually followed by a second offer of payment in the form of 
 fodder or provisions, or " in kind," as the leases then ex- 
 pressed it ; and the moment the rumour went through the com- 
 munity that the British were forcibly seizing provisions, every 
 farmer hastened to save his entire surplus by paying it to his 
 landlord. 
 
 Nothing better proved the hopeless outlook of the American 
 cause than the conduct of Esquire Hennion, for that worthy 
 rode to Greenwood, and after a vain attempt, like that of the 
 tenants, to pay in the worthless paper money the arrears of 
 interest on his mortgages, with a like refusal by Mr. Meredith, 
 he completely broke down, and with snivels and wails besought 
 his " dear ole friend " to be lenient and forbearing. " I made 
 a mistake, squire," he pleaded ; " but I alius liked yer, an' Phil 
 he likes yer, an' naow yer 're too ginerous ter push things too 
 far, I knows." 
 
 " Huh ! " grunted the creditor. " I said I 'd make ye cry 
 small, ye old trimmer. So it 's no longer to your interest to 
 pay principal, or your principle to pay interest, eh? No, I 
 won't push ye too far ! I '11 only turn ye out of Boxely and 
 let ye be farmed on the town as a pauper. If I had the deal- 
 ing with ye, ye 'd be in the provost prison at York awaiting 
 trial as a traitor. And my generosity would run to just six 
 feet of rope." 
 
 Of the tide of war only vague rumours came back to the 
 non-combatants, until at noon, a week later, Sir William, 
 accompanied by two aides and an escort of dragoons, came 
 cantering up. 
 
 " In the king's name, dinner ! " he cried cheerily, as he 
 shook the welcoming hand of the squire. " You see, Mr. 
 Meredith, we 've forgot neither your loyalty nor your Madeira. 
 No, nor your dainty lass, either ; and so we are here again to 
 levy taxation without representation on them all. 'T is to be 
 hoped, Mrs. Meredith, that 't will be met more kindly than 
 our Parliamentary attempt at the same game. Ah, Miss 
 Janice, your face is a pleasant sight to look at after the bleak 
 
The Ebb-Tide 199 
 
 banks of the Delaware, at which we 've been staring and 
 cursing for the last five days." 
 
 " We hoped to hear of ye as in Philadelphia before this, 
 Sir William," said the squire, so soon as they were seated at 
 the table. 
 
 " Ay, and so did we all ; but Mr. Washington was too quick 
 and sharp for us. By the time we had reached Trenton, he 
 had got safely across the river, and had taken with him or 
 destroyed all the boats." 
 
 " Could ye not have forded the river higher up? " 
 
 " Cornwallis was hot for attempting something of the sort, 
 but sight of the ice-floes in the river served to cool him, so he 
 is going into winter quarters and will not stir from his canton- 
 ments until spring, unless the river freeze strong enough for 
 him to cross on the ice." 
 
 " And what of the rebels? " 
 
 " 'T is sudden gone so out of fashion there is scarce one 
 left. Washington has a few ragged troops watching us from 
 across the river ; but, except for these, there 's not a man in 
 the land who will own himself one. How many pardons have 
 we issued in the Jerseys alone, Henry?" demanded the 
 general, appealing to his secretary. 
 
 " Nigh four thousand ; and at Trenton and Burlington, Mr. 
 Meredith, the people are flocking in in such numbers that 
 over four hundred took the king's oath yesterday," responded 
 McKenzie. 
 
 "That shows how the wind holds, and what a summer's 
 squall the whole thing has been," answered the host, gleefully ; 
 " I always said 't was a big windy bubble, that needed but the 
 prick of British bayonets to collapse." 
 
 " There '11 be little left of it by spring, I doubt not," as- 
 serted Howe. " In faith, we may take it as a providence 
 that we could not cross the Delaware, for a three-months will 
 probably put an end to all armed opposition, and we may 
 march into Pennsylvania with beating drums and flying colours. 
 Even Cornwallis himself confesses that time is playing our 
 game." 
 
 "Miss Meredith will be put to 't to find a new toast," 
 suggested Balfour. 
 
200 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Well spoke," laughed his superior. "What will it be, fair 
 rebel?" 
 
 " However," asserted Janice. 
 
 " Bravo ! " vociferated the general. " Now indeed rebellion 
 is on its last legs. You make me regret 1 can tarry but the 
 meal, for when submission is so near 't is a pity not to stay 
 and complete it." 
 
 "Was that why you left the Delaware, your Excellency?" 
 asked Janice, archly. 
 
 The colour came flushing into Howe's cheeks, while both 
 father and mother spoke sharply to the girl for her boldness 
 and impertinence. But in a moment the general's good-nature 
 was once more in the ascendant, and he interfered to save her 
 from the scolding. 
 
 " Nay, nay," he interjected. " 'T was but a proper retort to 
 niy teasing. I left the Delaware, Miss Janice, because the 
 •Brune' frigate sails for England in three days, and there are 
 despatches to be writ and sent by her. And for the same 
 reason I can tarry here but another hour, much as I should 
 like to stay. Mr. Meredith, 't is a man's duty to aid a creditor 
 to pay his debts. May I not hope to see you and Mrs. Mere- 
 dith and Miss Janice at headquarters ere long ? For if you 
 come not willingly, I '11 put Miss Janice under arrest as an 
 arrant and avowed rebel, and have her brought to York under 
 guard." 
 
 The departure of these guests gave but a brief quiet to the 
 household, for two days later, at dusk, Clowes rode up, and his 
 coming was welcomed all the more warmly that his escort of 
 half a dozen dragoons led with them Joggles and Jumper. 
 
 " Have in, have in, man," cried the host, genially, " to where 
 there 's a fire and something to warm your vitals." 
 
 " Curse thy climate ! " ejaculated the new-comer, as he 
 stamped and shook himself in the hallway, to rid his shoulders 
 and boots of their burden of snow. " The storm came on 
 after we started ; and six hours it 's took us to ride from 
 Princeton, while the wind blew so I feared the cattle would 
 founder. But here 's warmth enough to make up for the 
 weather," he added, as he entered the parlour, all aglow with 
 the light of the great blazing logs, and of the brushwood and 
 
The Ebb-Tide 201 
 
 corn-cobs which Janice had thrown on their top when the 
 liorses had first been heard at the door. He shook Mrs. 
 Meredith's hand, and then extended his own to Janice, only 
 to have it ignored by her. In spite of this, and of an erect 
 attitude, meant to express both distance and haughtiness, her 
 flushed cheeks, and eyes that looked everywhere except into 
 those of the visitor, proved that the girl was not as unmoved as 
 she wished to appear. 
 
 " Where are thy manners, Jan? " reproved the father, who, 
 having declared an amnesty as regarded the past, forgot that 
 his daughter might not be equally forgiving. 
 
 " Give Mr. — Lord Clowes thy hand, child," commanded 
 her mother, sternly, " and place a seat for him by the fire." 
 
 Janice pulled one of the chairs nearer to the chimney 
 breast, and then returned to the quilting-frarae, at which she 
 had been working when the interruption came. 
 
 " Didst hear me ? " demanded Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 Janice turned and faced the three bravely, though her voice 
 trembled a little as she replied : " I will not shake his 
 hand." 
 
 " Yoicks ! Here 's a kettle of fish ! " ejaculated the com- 
 missary. " What 's wrong ? " 
 
 " Janice, do as thou art told, or go to thy room," ordered 
 the mother. 
 
 The girl opened her lips as if about to protest, but courage 
 failed her, and she hurriedly left the parlour, and flying to her 
 room, she threw herself on the bed and Wept out her sense of 
 wrong on her pillow. 
 
 " I never would have, if he had n't — and it was n't I asked 
 him to the house — and he took a mean advantage — and he 
 was n't scolded for it, nor shamed to all the people — and now 
 they show him every honour, though he — though for a year it 
 was held up to me." 
 
 Presently the girl became conscious of the clatter of knives 
 and forks on plates in the room beneath her, and of an accom- 
 paniment of cheerful voices and laughter. Far from lessening 
 her woe, they only served to intensify it, till finally she rose in 
 a kind of desperation, wishing only to escape from the merry 
 sounds. " I '11 go and see Clarion and Joggles and Jumper," 
 
202 Janice Meredith 
 
 she thought. " They love me, and — and they don't punish 
 me when others are to blame." 
 
 Not choosmg to pass through the kitchen, where the dra- 
 goons would probably be sitting, she stole out of the front door, 
 without wrap or calash, an'^ in an instant was almost swept off 
 her feet and nearly blinded by the rush of wind and snow. 
 Heeding neither, nor the instant wetting of her slippered feet, 
 she struggled on through the waxing drifts to the stable door. 
 With a sigh of relief that the goal was attained, she passed 
 through the partly open doorway and paused at last, breathless 
 from her exertion. 
 
 On the instant she caught her breath, however, and 
 then demanded, "Who's there?" A whinny from Joggles 
 was the only response. Taking no heed of the horse's greet- 
 ing, Janice stood, listening intently for a repetition of the 
 sound that had alarmed her. " I heard you," she continued, 
 after a moment. Then she gave a little cry of fright, which 
 was scarcely uttered when it was succeeded by a half-sob and 
 half-exclamation of mingled joy and relief. " Oh, Clarion ! " 
 she exclaimed, "you gave me such a turn, with your cold nose. 
 And what was mommy's darling doing with the harness ? I 
 thought some one was here." 
 
 Again Joggles whinnied, and, her fright entirely gone, 
 Janice walked to his stall. " Was my precious glad to get 
 back?" she asked, patting him on the back as she went into 
 the stall. " Why, my poor dear ! Did they go to their sup- 
 per without even taking his saddle off? Well, he should — 
 and his bridle, too, so that he could n't eat his hay ! 'T was a 
 shame, and — " Once again, Janice uttered an exclamation 
 of fright, as her fingers, moving blindly forward in search of 
 the buckle, came in contact with some cloth, under which she 
 felt a man's arm. Nor was her fright lessened, though she 
 did not scream, when instantly her arm in turn was seized 
 firmly. The unknown peril is always the most terrifying. 
 
 " I did not want to frighten you. Miss Janice — " began the 
 interloper. 
 
 " Charles ! " ejaculated the girl. " I mean, Colonel Brereton." 
 
 " I thought you 'd scarcely come into the stall, and hoped 
 to get away undiscovered." 
 
The Ebb-Tide 203 
 
 " But what are you — I thought you were across — How 
 did you get here?" 
 
 "I had business to the northward," explained the officer, 
 " and meant to have been in Bound Brook by this time. But 
 the cursed snow came on, and, not having travelled the west- 
 erly roads, I thought best to keep to those wirth which I was 
 familiar, though knowing full well that I ran the risk of landing 
 in the arms of the British. Fortunately their troops are no 
 fonder of facing our American weather than our American 
 riflemen, and tucked themselves within doors, leaving it to 
 us — " There the aide checked his flow of words. 
 
 "But why did you come here?" 
 
 Brereton laughed. " Does not a runaway servant always 
 turn horse thief? My mare has covered near forty miles to- 
 day, the last ten of it in the face of this storm, and so I left her 
 at the Van Meter barn, and thought to borrow Joggles to ride 
 on to Morristown to do the rest." Colonel Brereton's hand, 
 which had continued on the girl's arm, relaxed its firm hold, 
 and slipped down till it held her fingers. " And then, I — I 
 wanted word of you, for the stories of Hessian doings that 
 come to us are enough to make any man anxious." Janice felt 
 his lips on her hand. "All is well with you?" he asked 
 eagerly, after the caress. 
 
 Janice, forgetful of her recent woe, answered in the affirma- 
 tive, as she tried to draw herself away. Her attempt only led 
 to the man's hand on hers tightening its grip. " I can't let you 
 go. Miss Janice, till you give me your word not to speak of this 
 meeting. They could scarce catch me such a night, but my 
 mission is too vital to take any risks." 
 
 " I promise," acceded Janice, readily. 
 
 Brereton let go her hand at once, and his fingers rattled the 
 bit, as he hastily completed the buckling the girl's entrance 
 had interrupted. " If I never return, you will claim your name- 
 sake, my mare. Miss Janice," he suggested as he backed Jog- 
 gles out of the stall. " And treat her well, I beg you. She 's 
 the one thing that has any love for me. God knows if I ever 
 see her again." 
 
 Forgetting that Brereton could not see her, Janice nodded 
 her head. " You are going for good? " she asked. 
 
204 Janice Meredith 
 
 " I fear for anything but that ! For good or bad, however, 
 I must ride my thirty miles to-niglit." 
 
 " Thirty miles ! " cried Janice, with a shiver. "And your 
 hands are dreadfully cold, and your teeth chatter." 
 
 " 'T is only the chill of inaction after hard and hungry rid- 
 ing. Ten minutes of cantering will set the blood jumping 
 again." 
 
 " Can't you wait a moment while I get something for you to 
 eat ? " besought the girl. 
 
 " Bless you for the thought," replied the aide, with a little 
 husk in his voice. " But my mission is too important to risk 
 delay, much more the nearness of yon dragoons." 
 
 " For what are you going ? " questioned Janice. 
 
 " To order — to get the dice for a last desperate main." 
 
 " General Washington is going to try — ? " 
 
 " Ay. Ah, Miss Janice, they have beaten our troops, but: 
 they 've still to beat our general, and if I can but make Lee — 
 I must not linger. Wilt give me a good-by and God-speed 
 to warm me on the ride?" 
 
 " Both," answered Janice, holding out her hand, which the 
 officer once again stooped and kissed, " And to-night I '11 
 pray for his Excellency." 
 
 Brereton shoved open the door wide enough for the horse 
 to pass through. "And not for his Excellency's aide ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Janice laughed a little shyly as she replied : " Does not the 
 greater always include the lesser?" 
 
 Barely were the words spoken, when a sound from the out- 
 side reached them, making both start and listen intently. It 
 needed but an instant's attention to resolve the approaching 
 noise into the jingle of bits and sabres. 
 
 " Hist ! " whispered the officer, warningly. " Cavalry." 
 He threw back the holster-flap of the saddle to free a pistol, 
 and, grasping his scabbard to prevent it from clanking, he 
 stepped through the doorway, leading Joggles by the bridle. 
 
 " Ho, there ! " came a voice out of the driving snow. 
 "We've lost sight and road. Which way is 't to Green- 
 wood?" 
 
 Brereton put foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. 
 
The Ebb-Tide 205 
 
 " Away to the right," he responded, as he softly drew his 
 sabre, and slipped the empty scabbard between his thigh and 
 the saddle. Gathering up the reins, he wheeled Joggles to the 
 left. 
 
 " Can't ye give us some guidance, whoever ye be ? " asked 
 the voice, now much nearer, while the sound of horses' breath- 
 ing and the murmur of men's voices proved that a considerable 
 party were struggling through the deepening snow. " Where 
 are you, anyway?" 
 
 Brereton touched Joggles with the spur gently, and the 
 steed moved forward. Not five steps had been taken before 
 the horse shied slightly to avoid collision with another, and, 
 in doing so, he gave a neigh. 
 
 " Here 's the fellow, Hennion," spoke up a rider. " Now 
 we '11 be stabled quick enough." He reached out and caught 
 at the bridle. 
 
 There was a swishing sound, as Brereton swung his sword 
 aloft and brought it down on the extended arm. Using what 
 remained of the momentum of the stroke, the aide let the 
 flat of the weapon fall sharply on Joggles' flank ; the horse 
 bounded forward, and, in a dozen strides, had passed through 
 the disordered troop. 
 
 A shrill cry of pain came from the officer, followed by a 
 dozen exclamations and oaths from the troopers, and then a 
 sharp order, " Catch or kill him ! " 
 
 " Ha, Joggles, old boy," chuckled his rider, " there 's not 
 much chance of our being cold yet a while. But we know the 
 roads, and we '11 show them a trick or two if they '11 but stick 
 to us long enough." 
 
 Bang I bang ! bang ! went some horse-pistols. 
 
 " Shoot away ! " jeered the aide, softly, though he leaned 
 low in the saddle as he wheeled through the small opening 
 in the hedge aftd galloped over the garden beds. " 'T is only 
 British dragoons who 'd blindly waste lead on a northeaster. 
 'T is lucky the snow took no offence at my curses of it an 
 hour ago." 
 
XXIX 
 
 ON CONTINENTAL SERVICE 
 
 ONCE across the garden, the aide rode boldly, trusting 
 to the snow overhead to hide his doings and the 
 snow underfoot to keep them silent. Turning 
 northward, he kept Joggles galloping for five 
 minutes, then confident that his pursuers had been distanced, 
 or misled, he varied the pace, letting the horse walk where the 
 snow was drifted, but forcing him to his best speed where the 
 road was blown clear. 
 
 "We know the route up to Middlebrook, Joggles; but after 
 that we get into the hills, and blindman's work 't will be for 
 the two of us. So 't is now we must make our time, if we are 
 to be in Morristown by morning." 
 
 The rider spoke truly, for it was already six o'clock when he 
 reached the cross-roads at Baskinridge. Halting his horse at 
 the guide-post, he drew his sword and struck the crosspiece a 
 blow, to clear it of its burden of snow. 
 
 " Morristown, eight miles," he read in the dark grayness of 
 approaching day. " Hast go enough in thee left to do it, old 
 fellow? Damn Lee for his tardiness and folly, which forces 
 man and beast to journey in such cold." Pulling a flask from 
 his pocket, he uncorked it. " There 's scarce a drop left, but 
 thou shouldst have half, if it would serve thee," he said, as he 
 put it to his lips and drained it dry. " 'Tis the last I have, 
 and ei"-ht miles of Lee way still to do ! " He laughed at his 
 own pun, and pricked up the horse. Just as the weary animal 
 broke into a trot, the rider pulled rein once more and looked 
 up at a signboard which had attracted his notice by giving a 
 discordant creak as the now dying storm swung it. 
 
 "A tavern ! Here 's luck, for at least we can get some more 
 
On Continental Service 207 
 
 rum." Spurring the horse up to the door, he pulled a pistol 
 from its holster and pounded the panel noisily. 
 
 It required more than one repetition of the blows to rouse 
 an indweller, but finally a window was enough raised to permit 
 the thrusting out of a becapped head. 
 
 "Who's below, and what do yez want?" it challenged 
 gruffly. 
 
 " Never mind who I am. I want a pint of the best spirits 
 you have, and a chance to warm myself for a ten minutes, if 
 you 've a spark of fire within." 
 
 " Oi 've nothin' for anny wan who comes routin' me out av 
 bed at such an hour, an' may the devil fly off wid yez for that 
 same," growled the man. " Go away wid yez, an' niver let me 
 see yez more." 
 
 The head was already drawn in, when Brereton, with quick 
 readiness, called lustily : " Do as I order, or I '11 have my 
 troopers break in the door, and then look to yourself." 
 
 "Just wan minute, colonel," cried the man, in a very dif- 
 ferent tone ; and in less than the time asked for the bolts were 
 slipped back and the door was opened by a figure wrapped in 
 a quilt, which one hand drew about him, while the other held 
 a tallow dip aloft. 
 
 I» the brief moment it took to do this, the officer not so 
 much dismounted as tumbled from his horse, and he now 
 walked stiffly into the public room, stamping his feet to lessen 
 their numbness. 
 
 " Where 's thim troopers yez was talkin' av ? " questioned 
 the landlord, peering out into the night. 
 
 " Throw some wood on those embers, and give me a drink 
 of something, quickly," ordered Brereton, paying no heed to 
 the inquiry. 
 
 " Bad 'cess to yez lies," retorted the man, shutting the door. 
 " It 's not wan bit av firing or drink yez get this night from — 
 Oh, mother in hivin, don't shoot, an' yez honour shall have the 
 best in the house, an' a blessin' along wid it ! Only just point 
 it somewheer else, darlin', for thim horse-pistols is cruel fond 
 av goin' off widout bein' fired. Thank yez, sir, it 's my wife 
 in bed will bless the day yez was born." The man hastily 
 raked open the bed of ashes and threw chips and billets on 
 
2o8 Janice Meredith 
 
 the embers. Then he unlocked a corner cupboard. " Oi 've 
 New England rum, corn whiskey, an' home-made apple-jack, 
 sir." 
 
 " Give me the latter, and if you 've any food, let me have 
 it. Brrrew 1 From nigh Brunswick I 've rid since nine last 
 night and thought to perish a dozen times with the cold, dis- 
 mount and run beside my horse as I would." 
 
 " Drop that pistol, or I shoot ! " came a sharp order, 
 spoken from the gloom of a doorway across the room. 
 "You are a prisoner." 
 
 Brereton had been stooping over the fire, as it gained fresh 
 life, but with one spring he was behind the chimney breast. 
 
 " 'T is idle to resist," persisted the hidden speaker. " The 
 way is barred in both directions, and there are three of us." 
 
 Brereton laughed recklessly. " Come on, most coura- 
 geous three. I 've a bullet for one, and a sword for two." 
 
 " Howly hivin ! just let me out first off," besought the 
 publican. 
 
 " If I had lead to spare, you should have the first of it 
 for letting me into this trap," Brereton told him viciously. 
 ■"Why did you not warn me there were British hereabout? " 
 
 " Hold ! " came the distant voice. " If you think us 
 British, who are you?" 
 
 The officer hesitated, pondering on the possibility of being 
 tricked, or of possibly tricking. " If you were a gentleman," 
 he said, after a pause, " you 'd give me a hint as to which side 
 you belong." 
 
 The unseen man laughed heartily at Jack's reply. "Set me 
 an example, then." 
 
 " That I will," said Jack, " though I don't guarantee the 
 truth of it. I am an aide of General Washington, riding on 
 pubhc service." 
 
 " Time enough it took you to know it. And if so, what 
 were you doing near Brunswick?" 
 
 " I took the route I knew best." 
 
 "Thy name is?" 
 
 "Jack Brereton." 
 
 "Art thou a green-eyed, carrot-faced put, who frights all 
 the women with his ill looks?" cried the man, entering. 
 
On Continental Service 209 
 
 Brereton laughed as he stepped out from the sheltering 
 projection. "Switch you, whoever you are, for keeping me 
 from the fire when I am chilled to the marrow. Why, Eus- 
 tace, this is luck beyond belief! But hast swallowed a frog? 
 You croak so that I knew you not." 
 
 "Not I," responded the new-comer, shaking his fellow- 
 officer's hand, " but I swallowed enough of yesterday's storm to 
 spoil my voice, let-alone this creeping out of bed in shirt only, 
 to catch some malignant Tory or spy of King George." 
 
 "Where art thy comrades?" inquired Brereton, peering 
 past the major. 
 
 Eustace laughed. "They're making acquaintance with 
 thy troop of horse." 
 
 " But what art thou doing here in this lonely hostel, with a 
 British force no further away than Springfield? Dost court 
 capture? " 
 
 " Just what I told the general when he said he 'd bide here 
 till — " 
 
 " The general ! " interrupted Bre;reton. " Is Lee here — in 
 this tavern?" 
 
 "Ay. And sleeping through all the rout you made as 
 sound — " 
 
 " 'T is madness ! However, I '11 not throw blame, for it 
 has saved me eight miles of weary riding. Wake him at 
 once, as I must have word with him. And you, landlord, 
 stable my horse, and see to it that he has both hay and oats 
 in plenty." 
 
 There was some delay before Eustace returned with the 
 word that the major-general would see the aide, and with 
 what ill grace the interview was granted was shown by the 
 reception, for on Brereton being ushered into the room, it was 
 to find Lee still in bed, and so far under the counterpane that 
 only the end of a high-coloured but very much soiled nightcap 
 •was in view, while on the top of the covering lay two dogs, 
 who rose with the entrance of the interloper. 
 
 " Who the devil are ye ; why the devil did ye have me 
 -waked; and what the devil do ye want? " was the greeting, 
 grumbled from the bedclothes. 
 
 Brereton flushed as he answered sharply : " Eustace has no 
 
 14 
 
21 o Janice Meredith 
 
 doubt told you who I am, and letters from his Excellency must 
 have already broke the purport of my mission. Finding you 
 paid no heed to his written orders, he has sent me with verbal 
 ones, trusting your hearing may not be as seriously defective 
 as your eyesight." 
 
 The head of the general appeared, as he sat up in bed. " Is 
 this a message from General Washington?" he vociferated. 
 
 " No. 'T is my own soft speaking, in recognition of your 
 complaisant welcome. But I bear a message of his Excel- 
 lency. He directs that you march the entire force under you, 
 without delay, by way of Bethlehem and Easton, and effect a 
 junction with him." 
 
 "To what end?" 
 
 "The British think us so bad beat, and are so desirous 
 to hold a big territory, for purposes of forage and plunder, 
 that they have scattered their troops beyond supporting dis- 
 tance. Can we but get a force together sufficient to attack 
 Burlington, Trenton, or Princeton, 't will be possible to beat 
 them in detail." 
 
 "I have a better project than that," asserted Lee. "Let 
 Washington but make a show of activity on the Delaware, and 
 he shall hear of my doings shortly." 
 
 " But what better can be done than to drive them back 
 from a country rich with food supplies, relieve the dread of 
 their advancing upon Philadelphia, and give the people a 
 chance to rally to us?" protested the aide. 
 
 " Pooh ! " scoffed Lee. " 'T is pretty to talk of, but 't is 
 another thing to bring it off, and I make small doubt that 
 'twill be no more successful than the damned ingenious 
 manoeuvres of Brooklyn and Fort Washington, which have 
 unhinged the goodly fabric we had been building. I tell you 
 we shall be in a declension till a tobacco-hoeing Virginian, who 
 was put into power by a trick, and who has been puffed up 
 to the people as a great man ever since, is shown to be most 
 damnably weak and deficient. He 's had his chance and 
 failed ; now 't is for me to repair the damage he 's done." 
 
 Brereton clinched his fist and scowled. " Do I understand 
 that you refuse to obey the positive orders of his Excel- 
 lency?" 
 
On Continental Service 211 
 
 " 'T is necessary in detachment to allow some discretion to 
 the commanding officer. However, I'll think on it after 
 I 've finished the sleep you 've tried to steal." The general 
 dropped back on the pillows, and drew up the bedclothes so 
 as to cover his nose. 
 
 The aide, muttering an oath, stamped noisily out of the 
 room, slamming the door with a bang that rattled every win- 
 dow in the house. 
 
 "I read failure in your face," remarked Eustace, still 
 crouched before the fire. 
 
 " Failure ! " snapped the scowling man, as he, too, stooped 
 over the blaze. " Nothing but failure. Here, when the 
 people have been driven frantic by the outraging of their 
 women and the plundering of their property, and want but 
 the smallest encouragement to rise, one man dishes all our 
 hopes by his cursed ambition and disobedience." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 Too angry to control himself, even to Lee's aide, Jack con- 
 tinued his tirade. " Ever since the general was put into office 
 his subordinates have been scheming to break him down, and 
 in Congress there has always been a party against him, who, 
 through dislike or incapacity, clog all he advises or asks. With 
 the recent defeats, the plotters have gained courage to speak 
 out their thoughts, and your general goes so far as to refuse to 
 obey orders that would make possible a brilliant stroke, be- 
 cause he knows that 't would stop this clack against his 
 Excellency. Instead, he would have Washington sit passive 
 and freezing on the Delaware while he steals the honours by 
 some attempted action. And all the while he is writing to his 
 Excellency letters signed, 'Yours most affectionately,' or 'God 
 bless you,' — cheap substitutes for the three thousand troops 
 he owes us." The aide went to the cupboard and helped 
 himself to the, apple-jack. " Canst get me a place to sleep, 
 for God knows I'm tired?" 
 
 "Thou shalt have my bed, and welcome to thee," offered 
 Eustace, leading the way upstairs. " Thou 'It not mind my 
 getting into iny clothes, for 't is not shirt-tail weather." 
 
 " Sixty miles and upward I 've come since five o'clock yes- 
 terday morning, and I 'd agree to sleep under a field-piece in 
 
2 1 2 Janice Meredith 
 
 full action." Brereton took off his cap and wig to toss both 
 on the floor, unbuckled his belt, and let his sabre fall noisily ; 
 then sitting on the bed, he begged, " Give me a hand with my 
 boots^ will you?" Those pulled off, without rising he rolled 
 over, and, bundling the disarranged bedclothes about him, he 
 was instantly asleep. 
 
 It was noon before consciousness returned to the tired body, 
 and only then because the clatter of horses' feet outside waked 
 the sleeper and startled him so that he sprang from the bed 
 to the window. Relieved by the sight of Continental uniforms, 
 Brereton stretched himself as if still weary, and felt certain 
 muscles, to test their various degrees of soreness, muttering 
 complaints as he did so. Throwing aside his jacket, waist- 
 coat, and shirt, he took his sword and pried out the crust of 
 ice on the water in the tin milk-pail which stood on the wash- 
 stand. Swashing the ice-cold water over his face and shoul- 
 ders, he groaned a curse or two as the chill sent a shiver 
 through him. But as he rubbed himself into a glow, he be- 
 came less discontented, and when resuming the flannel shirt, 
 he laughed. " Thank a kind God that it 's as cold to the 
 British as 't is to us, and there are more of them to suffer." 
 Another moment served to don his outer clothing and boots, 
 and to fit on his wig and sword. His toilet made, he went 
 downstairs, humming cheerily. He turned first to the kitchen 
 door, drawti thither by the smell that greeted his nostrils. 
 
 " Canst give a bestarved man a big breakfast and quickly ? " 
 he asked the woman. 
 
 " Shure, Oi 've all Oi can do now," was the surly response, 
 ' ' wid the general an' his staff, an' his escort, an' thim as is 
 comin' an' goin', an' — " 
 
 Brereton came forward. " Ye 'd niver let an Oirishman go 
 hungry," he appealed, putting a brogue on his tongue. 
 " Arrah, me darlin', no maid wid such lips but has a kind 
 heart." The officer boldly put his hand under the woman's 
 chin and made as if he would kiss her. Then, as she eluded 
 the threatened blandishment, he continued, " Sure, and do ye 
 call yeself a woman, that ye starve a man all ways to wanst? " 
 
 "Ah, go long wid yez freeness and yez blarney," retorted 
 the woman, giving him a shove, though smiling. 
 
On Continental Service 213 
 
 " An', darlin'," persisted the unabashed officer, " it 's owin' 
 me somethin' ye do, for it was meself saved yez father's life 
 this very morning." 
 
 " My father — shure, it 's dead he 's been this — It 's my 
 husband yez must be aftlier spakin' av." 
 
 " He 's too old to be that same," flattered Brereton. 
 
 "'Tis he, Oi make shure," acknowledged the woman, as 
 she nevertheless set her apron straight and smoothed her 
 hair. "An' how did yez save his loife?" 
 
 " Arrah, by not shooting him, as I was sore tempted to do." 
 
 The landlady melted completely and laughed. " An' what 
 would yez loike for breakfast?" she asked. 
 
 Brereton looked at the provisions spread about. " Just give 
 me four fried eggs wid bacon, an' two av thim sausages, an' 
 corn bread, wid something hot to drink, an' if that 's buck- 
 wheat batter in the pan beyant, just cook a dozen cakes or so, 
 for I 've a long ride to take an' they do be so staying. Also, 
 if ye can make me up something — ay, cold sausages an' 
 hard-boiled eggs, if ye 've nothing else, to take wid me j an* 
 then a kiss, to keep the heart warm inside av me, 't is wan 
 man ye '11 have given a glimpse av hivin." 
 
 " Bless us all 1 " marvelled Eustace, when twenty minutes 
 later he entered the kitchen, to learn what delayed the gen- 
 eral's lunch. " How came you by such a spread, when it 's 
 all any of us can do to get enough to keep life in us ? Is 't 
 sorcery, man ? " 
 
 " No, witchery," laughed the aide. " If thy chief were but 
 a woman, Eustace, I 'd have Washington reinforced within a 
 two days." 
 
 His breakfast finished, the aide secured pen and paper, and 
 wrote a formal order for Lee to march. This done, he sought 
 the general, and, interrupting a consultation he was holding 
 with General Sullivan, he delivered the paper into his hands. 
 
 "I ask General Sullivan to witness that I deliver you posi- 
 tive instructions to march your force, to effect a junction with 
 General Washington." 
 
 " I 've already writ him a letter that will convince him I act 
 for the best," answered Lee, holding out the missive. 
 
 The aide took it without a wbrd, saluted, and left the room. 
 
214 Janice Meredith 
 
 Going to the front door, where Joggles already awaited him, 
 he put a Continental bill into the hands of the publican, bade 
 adieu to Eustace, and rode away. 
 
 " 'T is as bright a day as 't was dark a night, old man," he 
 said to the horse, " but it never looked blacker for the cause, 
 and I've had my long ride for nothing. Perhaps, though, 
 there may be pay day coming. She knows that I 'm to be 
 at Van Meter's barn to-night. What say you, Joggles ? Think 
 you will she be there?" 
 
XXX 
 
 SOME DOINGS BY STEALTH 
 
 THE sound of shots outside put a sudden termination 
 to the supper in both the dining-room and kitchen 
 of Greenwood, and served to bring inmates and 
 candles to the front and back doors. Beyond the 
 moment's rush of a body of horsemen past the house, no light 
 on the interruption was obtained, until some of the escort of 
 Clowes were despatched to the stable to learn if all was well with 
 their horses. There they found the wounded man stretched on 
 the snow, and just within the doorway lay Janice in a swoon, 
 with Clarion licking her face. Both were carried to the house, 
 and while Mrs. Meredith and the sergeant endeavoured to save 
 the officer by a rude tourniquet, the squire held Janice's head 
 over some feathers which Peg burned in a bed-warmer. 
 
 " Did they kill him ? " was the first question the girl asked, 
 when the combined stench and suffocation had revived con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 " He 's just expiring," her father replied. " His arm was 
 struck off above the elbow, and he bleeds like a stuck pig." 
 
 Janice staggered up, though somewhat languidly. " May — 
 " Did he ask to see me ? " 
 
 " Not he," she was told. " Come, lass, sit quiet for a bit 
 till thy head is steady, and tell us what 't was all about." 
 
 Janice sank into the chair her father set beside the fire. 
 " He was on some mission for his Excellency," she gasped, " and 
 stopped here to get a fresh horse — that was how I came to 
 know it — and while we were talking we heard the dragoons com- 
 ing, so he mounted, to escape. Then I heard a cry — oh ! such 
 a cry — and the pistols — and — and — that 's all I remember." 
 
 " Why went he to the stable rather than to the house in the 
 first case? " demanded hei* father. 
 
21 6 Janice Meredith 
 
 Janice looked surprised. " He knew the troopers were 
 here," she explained. 
 
 The squire was about to speak, when Clowes' hand on his 
 shoulder checked him. " There 's more here than we under- 
 stand," the latter whispered. "Let me ask the questions." 
 He came to the fire and said : — 
 
 " Why did he take this route, if he was bearing despatches?" 
 
 The lirst sign of colour came creeping back into the pale 
 cheeks of the girl, as she recalled the double motive the aide 
 had given. " Colonel Brereton said he did not know the 
 westerly roads, and so — " 
 
 " Colonel Brereton ! " rapped out her father. " And what 
 was he doing hereabout? Plague take the scamp that he must 
 be forever returning to worry us ! " 
 
 " How much of a force had he with him ? " asked the com- 
 missary. 
 
 " He was alone," replied Janice. 
 
 " Alone ! " exclaimed the baron, incredulously j then his 
 face lost its look of surprise. " He came by stealth to see you, 
 eh?" 
 
 There was enough truth in the supposition to destroy the 
 last visible signs of the girl's swoon, and she responded over- 
 eagerly : " I told you he was on a mission for his Excellency, 
 and but stopped here to get a fresh horse." 
 
 " Ay," growled the squire, " he steals himself, then steals my 
 crop, and now turns horse thief." 
 
 " He was not stealing, dadda," denied Janice. " His own- 
 horse was tired, so he left her and said he 'd return Joggles some 
 time to-morrow evening." 
 
 Clowes whistled softly, as he and the squire exchanged 
 glances. Just as the former was about to resume his question- 
 ing, the sound of the front door being violently thrown open 
 gave him pause, and the next instant Phil hurriedly entered 
 the room. 
 
 "The troopers at the stable say ye found Captain Boyde. 
 Is he bad hurt?" he demanded. 
 
 "To the death," spoke up the squire, for once missing the 
 commissary's attempt to keep him silent. " Hast caught 
 Brereton?" 
 
Some Doings by Stealth 2 1 7 
 
 Janice had sprung to her feet and now stood listening, with 
 a half-eager, half-frightened look. 
 
 " Brereton ! " cried Philemon. " Did he head the party? " 
 
 The growing complexity was too much for the patience of 
 the simple-minded owner of Greenwood. " May Belza have us 
 all," he fumed, " if I can see the bottom or even the sides of 
 this criss-cross business. Just tell us a straight tale, lad, if we 
 are not to have the jingle brains." 
 
 " 'Tis a swingeing bad business," groaned Phil. " Our troop 
 rode over from Princeton ter-day, an' the houses at Brunswick 
 bein' full of soldiers, I tells 'em that we could find quarters 
 here. We was gropin' our way when the enemy set upon us, 
 an' in the surprise cuts down the captain, an' captures three of 
 our men." 
 
 " Dost mean to say ye let one man kill your captain and 
 take three of ye prisoners ? " scoffed the squire. 
 
 " One man ! " protested the dragoon. " Think you one man 
 could do that?" 
 
 "Janice insists that there was but Brereton — but Charles 
 Fownes, now a rebel colonel." 
 
 " You may lay ter it there was mor 'n — " Then Philemon 
 wavered, for the sight of the flushed, guilty look on the 
 girl's face gave a new bent to his thoughts. " What was 
 he here for?" he vociferated, growing angrily red as he 
 spoke and striding to the fire. " So he 's doin' the 
 Jerry Sneak about you yet, is he ? I tell you, squire, I won't 
 have it." 
 
 " Keep thy blustering and bullying for the mess-room and 
 the tavern, sir," rebuked Clowes, sharply, also showing temper. 
 "What camp manners are these to bring into gentlemen's 
 houses and exhibit in the presence of ladies?" 
 
 " 'S death, sir," retorted Phil, hotly, " I take my manners 
 from no man, nor — " 
 
 " Hoighty, toighty ! " chided Mrs. Meredith, entering. " Is 
 there not wind enough outside but ye must bellow like mad 
 bulls within ?" 
 
 "Ay," assented the squire, "no quarrellingj gentlemen, for 
 we 've other things to set to. Phil, there is no occasion to go 
 off like touchwood ; 't is not as thee thinks. What is true. 
 
21 8 Janice Meredith 
 
 however, is that we 've a chance to catch this same rogue of a 
 Brereton, if we but lay heads together." 
 
 " Oh, dadda ! " expostulated Janice. " You '11 not — ■ for I 
 promised him to tell nothing — and never would have spoken 
 had I not been dazed — and thinking him dead. I should 
 die of—" f 
 
 "Fudge, child!" retorted Mr. Meredith. "We'll have no 
 heroics over a runaway redemptioner who is fighting against 
 our good king. Furthermore, we must know all else he told 
 ye." 
 
 " I passed him my promise to keep secret — " 
 
 " And of that I am to be judge," admonished the parent. 
 " Dost think thyself of an age to act for thyself? Come : out 
 with it ; every word he spake." 
 
 " I '11 not break my faith," rejoined Janice, proudly, her eyes 
 meeting her father's bravely, though the little hands trembled 
 as she spoke, half in fright and half in excitement. 
 
 " Nay, Miss Janice, ye scruple foolishly," advised Lord 
 Clowes. " Remember the old adage, that 'A bad promise, like 
 a good cake, is better broken than kept. ' " 
 
 " ' Children, obey thy parents in the Lord, for this is right,' " 
 quoted Mrs. Meredith, sternly. 
 
 "God never meant for me to lie — and that's what you 
 would have me do." 
 
 The squire stepped into the hall, and returned with his rid- 
 ing-whip. " Thou 'rt a great girl to be whipped, Janice," he 
 announced ; " but if thou 'rt not old enough to obey, thou 'rt 
 not too old for a trouncing. Quickly, now, which wilt thou 
 have?" 
 
 "You can kill me, but I'll keep my word," panted the 
 maiden, while shaking with fear at her resistance, at the threat- 
 ened punishment, and still more at the shame of its publicity. 
 
 Forgetful of everything in his anger, the squire strode toward 
 his daughter to carry out his threat. Ere he had crossed the room, 
 however, to where she stood, his way was barred by Philemon. 
 
 "Look a-here, squire," the officer remonstrated, "I ain't 
 a-goin' ter stand by and see Janice hit, no ways, so if there 's 
 any thrashin' ter be done, you've got ter begin on me." 
 
 " Out of my way ! " roared Mr. Meredith. 
 
Some Doings by Stealth 219 
 
 Phil folded his arms. " I 've said my say," he affirmed, shak- 
 ing his head obstinately ; " and if that ain't enough, I '11 quit 
 talkin' and do something. " 
 
 "The boy's right, Meredith," assented Clowes. "Nor do 
 we need more of her. Send the girl to bed, and then I '11 
 have something to say." 
 
 Reluctantly the squire yielded ; and Janice, with glad tears in 
 her eyes, turned and thanked Philemon by a glance that meant 
 far more than any words. Then she went to her rooni, only 
 to lie for hours staringly awake, listening to the wild whirring 
 and whistling of the wind as she bemoaned her unintentional 
 treachery to the aide, and sought for some metliod of warning 
 him. 
 
 " I must steal away to-morrow to the Van Meters' barn at 
 nightfall," was her conclusion, " and wait his coming, to tell him 
 of my — of my mistake, for otherwise he may bring Joggles 
 back and be captured. If I can only do it without being dis- 
 covered, for dadda — " and the anxious, overwrought, tired 
 girl wept the rest of the sentence into her pillow. 
 
 Meantime, in the room below, Lord Clowes unfolded his plan 
 and explained why he had wished the maiden away, 
 
 " 'T is obvious thy girl has an interest in this fellow," he sur- 
 mised, " and so 't is likely she will try to-morrow evening to see 
 him, or get word to him. Our scheme must therefore be to let 
 her go free, but to see to 't that we know what she 's about, 
 and be prepared to advantage ourselves by whatever comes to 
 
 pass." 
 
 The storm ceased before the winter daylight, and with the 
 stir of morning came information concerning the missing dra- 
 goons : the body of one was found close to the stable, with a 
 bullet in his back, presumably a chance shot from one of his 
 comrades ; a second rode up and reported himself, having in 
 the storm lost his way, and wellnigh his life, which he owed 
 only to the lucky stumbling upon the house of one of the ten- 
 ants ; and Clarion discovered the third, less fortunate than his 
 fellow, frozen stiff within a quarter of a mile of Greenwood. 
 
 " 'T is most like that rebel colonel and horse-thief shared the 
 same fate, for 'twas a wild night," remarked Clowes at the 
 breakfast table. " Howbeit, 'twill be best to have some troops 
 
220 Janice Meredith 
 
 hid in your stable against this evening, for he may have weath- 
 ered the storm." 
 
 The morning meal despatched, Philemon rode over to Bruns- 
 wick to report the death of his superior to the colonel, as well 
 as to unfold the trap they hoped to spring, and Harcourt con- 
 sidered the news so material that he and Major Tarleton accom- 
 panied Philemon on his return. After a plentiful justice to the 
 dinner and to the decanters, the men, as the early winter dark- 
 ness came on, settled down to cards, while Mrs. Meredith, in 
 mute protest against the use of the devil's pictures, left the 
 room, summoned Peg, and in the garret devoted herself to the 
 mysteries of setting up a quilting-frame. As for the dragoons, 
 they sprawled and lounged about the kitchen, playing cards or 
 toss, and grumbling at the quantity and quality of the Green- 
 wood brew of small beer, till Sukey was wellnigh desperate. 
 
 Had Janice been older and more experienced, the very un- 
 guardedness would have aroused her suspicions. To her it 
 seemed, however, but the arrangement of a kind destiny, and 
 not daring to risk a delay till after tea, when conditions might not 
 again so favour her, she left the wojk she had sat down to in the 
 parlour after dinner, and tiptoeing through the hall, lest she 
 should disturb the card-players in the squire's office, she secured 
 her warmest wrap. Returning to the parlour, she softly raised 
 a window, and, slipping out, in another moment was within the 
 concealing hedge-row of box. 
 
 Speeding across the garden, the girl crept through a break in 
 the hedge, then, stooping low, she followed a stone wall till the 
 road was reached. No longer in sight of the house, she hurried 
 on boldly, till within sight of the Van Meter farm. She skirted 
 the house at a discreet distance and stole into the barn. 
 With a glance to assure herself that the mare was still there, 
 and a kindly pat as she passed, she mounted into the mow, 
 where for both prudence and warmth she buried herself deep in 
 the hay. Then it seemed to Janice that hours elapsed, the sole 
 sounds being the contented munching of horses and cattle 
 varied by the occasional stamp of a hoof. 
 
 Suddenly the girl sat up, with a realising sense that she had 
 been asleep, and with no idea for how long. A sound below 
 explained her waking, and as she listened, she made out the noise 
 
Some Doings by Stealth 221 
 
 to be that of harnessing or unharnessing. Creeping as near the 
 edge of the mow as she dared, she peered over, but all was 
 blackness. 
 
 " Colonel Brereton ? " she finally said. 
 
 A moment's silence ensued before she had an answer, though 
 it was eager enough when it came. " Is 't you, Miss Janice, 
 and where are you ? " 
 
 The girl came down the ladder and moved blindly toward 
 the stalls. As she did so, somebody came in contact with her ; 
 instantly she was enfolded by a pair of arms, and before she 
 could speak she felt a man's eager lips first on her cheek, and 
 next on her chin. 
 
 " Heaven bless you for coming, my darling," whispered 
 Brereton. 
 
 Janice struggled to free herself as Brereton tried to caress 
 her the third time. "Don't," she protested. "You — I — 
 How dare you?" 
 
 " A pretty question to ask an ardent lover and a desperate 
 man, whose beloved confesses her passion by coming to him ! " 
 
 " I did n't ! " expostulated the girl, as, desperate with mor- 
 tification, she broke away from the embrace by sheer strength 
 and fled to the other side of the barn. " How dare you think 
 such things of me ? " 
 
 "Then for what came you?" inquired Jack. 
 
 "To warn you." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 "That you must not bring Joggles back, for they — the 
 soldiers — are watching the stable." 
 
 "You told them?" 
 
 The girl faltered, hating to acknowledge her mistake, now 
 that it was remedied. " If I had, why should I take the risk 
 and the shame of coming here?" she replied. 
 
 "Forgive me. Miss Janice, for doubting you, and for my 
 freedom just now. I did — for the moment I thought you 
 like other women. I wanted to think you came to me, even 
 though it cheapened you. And being desperate, I — " 
 "Why? " questioned the girl. 
 
 " I have failed in my mission, thanks to Lee's folly and 
 selfishness. Would to God the troopers who lie in wait for 
 
22 2 Janice Meredith 
 
 me would gar after him ! A quick raid would do it, for he lies 
 eight miles from his army, and with no guard worth a thought. 
 There 'd be a fine prize, if the British did but know it." 
 
 " Thanks for the suggestion," spoke up a deep voice, and at 
 the first word blankets were tossed off two lanterns, followed 
 by a rush of men. For a moment there was a wild hurly-burly, 
 and then Brereton's voice cried, " I yield ! " 
 
 As the confusion ended as suddenly as it had begun, he 
 added scornfully : — 
 
 " To treachery ! " 
 
XXXI 
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS 
 
 THE prisoner's arms were hurriedly tied and he 
 was mounted behind one of the troopers. Jan- 
 ice, meanwhile, who had been seized by Philemon 
 and drawn to one side out of the struggle, besought 
 permission of her special captor to speak to Brereton, her 
 fright over the surprise and her dread of what was to come 
 both forgotten in the horror and misery the last words of the 
 aide caused her. The jealousy of the lover, united to the 
 strictness of the soldier, made Philemon heedless of her 
 prayers and tears, and finally, when the cavalcade was ready 
 to start, she was forced to mount her namesake, and, with such 
 seat as she could keep in the man's saddle, ride between 
 Colonel Harcourt and Hennion. 
 
 No better fortune awaited her at Greenwood, the captive 
 being taken to the kitchen, while the culprit was escorted to 
 the parlour, to stand, shivering, frightened, and tearful, as her 
 father and mother berated her for most of the sins of the 
 Decalogue. 
 
 Fortunately for the maid, other hearts were not so sternly 
 disapproving J and Lord Clowes, after waiting till the girl's 
 distress was finding expression in breathless sobs, in order 
 that she might be the more properly grateful, at last interfered. 
 
 "Come, come, squire," he interjected, crossing to the 
 bowed form, and taking one of Janice's hands consolingly, « the 
 lass has been giddy, but 't is an ill wind, truly, for through it 
 we have one fine bird secured yonder, to say nothing of an 
 even bigger prize in prospect. Cry a truce, therefore, and 
 let the child go to bed." 
 
 "Ay, go to thy room, miss," commanded Mrs. Meredith, 
 who had in truth exhausted her vocabulary, if not her wrath. 
 " A pretty hour 't is for thee to be out of bed, indeed ! " 
 
224 Janice Meredith 
 
 Janice, conscious at the moment of but one partisan, turned 
 to the baron. "Oh, please," she besought, "mayn't I say 
 just one word to Colonel Brereton — just to tell him that I 
 didn't—" 
 
 "Hast not shamed us enough for one night with thy stolen 
 interviews ? " ejaculated her mother. " To thy room this 
 instant ! " 
 
 Made fairly desperate, Janice was actually raising her head 
 to protest, when Harcourt and Philemon entered. 
 
 " One moment, madam," intervened the colonel. " I have 
 been plying our prisoner with questions, and have some to 
 ask of your daughter. Now, Miss Meredith, Lee's letter, that 
 we found on the prisoner, has told us all we need, but we 
 want to test the prisoner's statements by yours. Look to it 
 that you speak us truly, for if we find any false swearing or 
 quibbling, 't will fare ill with you." Then for three or four 
 minutes the officer examined the girl concerning her first 
 interview with the rebel officer, seeking to gain additional in- 
 formation as to Lee's whereabout. Finding that Janice really 
 knew nothing more than had been overheard in the Van 
 Meter barn, he ended the examination by turning to Philemon 
 and saying : — 
 
 " Sound boots and saddles. Lieutenant Hennion. You can 
 guide us, I take it, to this tavern from which General Lee 
 writes? " 
 
 "That I kin," asserted Phil, "though 'twill be a stiff 
 ride ter git there afore morning." 
 
 As the two officers went toward the door Janice made her 
 petition anew. " Colonel Harcourt, may I have word with 
 Colonel — with the prisoner, that he shall not think 'twas my 
 treachery?" she pleaded. 
 
 " I advise agin it. Colonel Harcourt," interjected Philemon, 
 his face red with some emotion. "That prisoner's a sly, 
 sneaky tyke, and — " 
 
 " Get the troop mounted, Mr. Hennion," commanded his 
 superior. " Mr. Meredith, I leave our captive in charge of a 
 sergeant and two troopers, with orders that if I am not back 
 within twenty-four hours he be taken to Brunswick. Whether 
 we succeed or fail in our foray. Sir William shall hear of the 
 
An Exchange of Prisoners 225 
 
 Bervice you have been to us." Unheeding Janice's plea, the 
 colonel left the room, and a moment later the bugle sounded 
 in quick succession, " To horse," " The march," and " By- 
 fours, forward." 
 
 Interest in the departing cavalry drew the elders to the 
 windows, and in this preoccupation Janice saw her opportunity 
 to gain by stealth what had been denied her. Slipping silendy 
 from the parlour, she sped through hall and dining-room, paus- 
 ing only when the kitchen doorway was attained, her courage 
 wellnigh gone at the thought that the aide might refuse to 
 believe her protestations of innocence. Certainty that she 
 had but a moment in which to explain prevented hesitancy, 
 and she entered the kitchen. 
 
 The two troopers were already stretched at full length on 
 the floor, their feet to the fire, while the sergeant sat by the 
 table, with a pitcher of small beer and a pipe to solace his 
 particular hours of guard mount over the prisoner. The latter 
 was seated near the fire, his arms drawn behind him by a rope 
 which passed through the slats of the chair back. So far as 
 these fetters would permit, Brereton was slouched forward, 
 with his chin resting on his chest in a most break-neck attitude, 
 sound asleep. There could be no doubt about it, beyond 
 credence though it was to the girl 1 While she had been 
 miserably conceiving the officer as ablaze with wrath at her, 
 he, with the philosophy of the experienced soldier, had lost 
 not a moment in getting what rest he could after his forty- 
 eight hours of hard riding. 
 
 Such callousness was to Janice a source of indignation, and 
 as she debated whether she should wake the slumberer and 
 make her explanation, or punish his apathy by letting him 
 sleep, Mrs. Meredith's voice calling her name in a not-to-be- 
 misunderstood tone turned the balance, and, flying up the 
 servants' stairway, Janice was able to answer her mother's 
 third call from her own room. Worn out by excitement, 
 worry, and physical fatigue, the girl, like the soldier, soon 
 found oblivion from both past and future. 
 
 It was well toward morning when a finish was made to the 
 night's doings, and the early habits of the household were for 
 once neglected to such an extent t'/>at the dragoons at last lost 
 
 15 
 
226 Janice Meredith 
 
 patience and roused Peg and Sukey with loudly shouted demands 
 for breakfast, — a racket which served to set all astir once more. 
 
 With the conclusion of the morning meal, Janice rose from 
 the table and went toward the kitchen, — an action which at 
 once caused Mrs. Meredith to demand : " Whither art thou 
 going, child? " 
 
 Facing about, the girl replied with some show of firmness : 
 " 'T is but fair that Colonel Brereton should If now I had no 
 hand in his captivation ; and I have a right to tell him so." 
 
 " Thou shalt do nothing of the sort," denied Mrs. Meredith. 
 "Was not thy conduct last evening indelicate enough, but 
 thou must seek to repeat it?" 
 
 Janice, with her hand on the knob, began to sob. "'Tis 
 dreadful," she moaned, " after his doing what he did for us 
 at York, and later, that he should think I had a hand in his 
 capture." 
 
 " Tush, Jan 1 " ejaculated the squire, fretfully, the more that 
 his conscience had already secretly blamed him. " No grati- 
 tude I owe the rogue, if both sides of the ledger be balanced. 
 'T is he brought about the scrape that led to my arrest." 
 
 " Ay," went on Mrs. Meredith, dehghted to be thus sup- 
 ported, " I have small doubt thy indelicacy with him will land 
 us all in prison. Such folly is beyond belief, and came not 
 from my family, Mr. Meredith," she added, turning on her 
 husband. 
 
 " Well, well, wife ; all the folly in the lass scarce comes 
 from my side, for 't is to be remembered that ye were fooHsh 
 enough to marry me," suggested the squire, placably, his anger 
 at his daughter already melted by the sight of her distress. 
 " Don't be too stern with the child ; she is yet but a filly." 
 
 "Thee means but a silly," snapped Mrs. Meredith, made the 
 more angry by his defence of the girl. "Men are all of a 
 piece, and cannot hold anger if the eyes be bright, or the waist 
 be slim," she thought to herself wrathfully, quite forgetful of 
 the time when that very tendency in masculine kind had been 
 to her one of its merits. " Set to on the quilt, girl, and see to 
 it that there 's no sneaking to the kitchen." 
 
 Scarcely had Janice, obedient to her mother's behest, seated 
 herself at the big quilting-frame, when Lord Clowes joined her. 
 
An Exchange of Prisoners 227 
 
 " They treat ye harsh, Miss Janice," he remarked sympa- 
 thetically; "but 'tis an unforgiving world, as I have good 
 cause to wot." 
 
 Janice, who had stooped lower over the patches when first 
 he spoke, flashed her eyes up for an instant, and then dropped 
 them again. 
 
 " And one is blamed and punished for much that deserves 
 it not. I' faith, I know one man who stands disgraced to the 
 woman he loves best, for no better cause than that the depth 
 of his passion was so boundless, that he went to every length to 
 gain her." 
 
 The quilter fitted a red calimanco patch in place, and 
 studied the effect with intense interest. 
 
 " Wouldst like me to carry a message to the prisoner. Miss 
 Janice? " 
 
 " Oh, will you ? " murmured the girl, gratefully and eagerly. 
 " Wilt tell him that I knew nothing of the plan to capture him, 
 and was only trying to aid his escape ? That, after all his 
 kindness, I would never — " 
 
 Here the eager flow of words received a check by the re-en- 
 trance of Mrs. Meredith. Dropping his hand upon the quilt- 
 ing-frame so that it covered one of the girl's, the commissary 
 conveyed by a slight pressure a pledge of fulfilment of her wish, 
 and, after a few moments' passing chat, left the room. Before 
 a lapse of ten minutes he returned, and toofc a chair near the 
 girl. 
 
 Glancing at her mother, to see if her eyes wandered from 
 the sock she was resoling, Janice raised her eyebrows with 
 furtive inquiry. In answer the baron shoOk his head. 
 
 " 'T is a curious commentary on man, " he observed thought- 
 fully, " that he always looks on the black side of his fellow- 
 creatures, and will not oelicve that they can be honest and 
 truthful." 
 
 "Man is born in sin," responded Mrs. Meredith. "Janice, 
 that last patch is misplaced ; pay heed to thy work." 
 
 " I lately had occasion to justify an action to a man," went 
 on Clowes, " but, no, the scurvy fellow would put no faith in 
 my words, insisting that the person I sought to clear was covin- 
 ous and tricky, and wholly unworthy of trust." 
 
«28 Janice Meredith 
 
 •' The thoughts of a man who prefars to think such things,'* 
 broke in Janice, hotly, " are of no moment." 
 
 "Ye are quite right. Miss Janice," assented the emissary, 
 "and I would I 'd had the wit to tell him so. 'T is my inten- 
 tion some day to call him to account for his words." 
 
 Further communion on this topic was interrupted by the 
 incoming of Mr. Meredith, and during the whole day the two 
 were never alone. His forgiveness partly won by his service, 
 the commissary ventured to take a seat beside the quilter, and 
 sought to increase his favour with her by all the arts of tongue 
 and manner he had at command. As these were manifold, 
 he saw no reason, as dusk set in, to be dissatisfied with the 
 day's results. Inexperienced as Janice was, she could not 
 know that the cooler and less ardent the man, the better he 
 plays the lover's part; and while she never quite forgot his 
 ■previous deceit, nor the trouble into which he had persuaded 
 her, yet she was thoroughly entertained by what he had to tell 
 her, the more that under all his words he managed to convey 
 an admiration and devotion which did not fail to flatter the 
 girl, even though it stirred in her no response. Entertained 
 as she might be, her thoughts were not so occupied by the 
 charm and honey of I/)rd Clowes's attentions as to pretermit 
 all dwelling on the aide's opinion of her, and this was shown 
 when finally an interruption set her free from observation. 
 
 It was after nightfall ere there was any variation of the mo- 
 notonous quiet ; and indeed the tall clock had just announced 
 the usual bedtime of the family when Clarion's bark made the 
 squire sit up from his drowse before the fire, and set all listen- 
 ing. Presently came the now familiar sound of hoof-beat and 
 sabre-clank ; springing to his feet and seizing a candle, Mr. 
 Meredith was at the front door as a troop trotted in from the 
 road. 
 
 "What cheer?" called the master of Greenwood. 
 
 "'Twas played to a nicety," answered the voice of Har- 
 court, as he threw himself from the saddle. " Sound the 
 stable call, bugler. Dismount your prisoner, sergeant, and 
 bring him in," he ordered ; and then continued to the host : 
 " We had the tavern surrounded, Mr. Meredith, ere they so 
 much as knew, bagged our game, and here we are." 
 
An Exchange of Prisoners 229 
 
 The words served to carry the two to the parlour, and closely 
 following came a sergeant and trooper, while between them, 
 clothed in a very soiled dressing-gown and a still dirtier shirt, 
 in slippers, his queue still undressed, and with hands tied be- 
 hind his back, walked the general who but a few hours before 
 had been boasting of how he was to save the Continental cause. 
 
 " If you have pity in you," besought the prisoner, " let me 
 warm myself. What method of waging war is it which forces 
 a man to ride thirty miles in such weather in such clothes? 
 For the sake of former humanity, Mr. Meredith, give me 
 something hot to drink." 
 
 In the excitement and confusion of the new arrivals, Janice 
 had seen her chance, and, intent upon making her own state- 
 ment of justification, she once again stole from the parlour and 
 into the kitchen, so softly that the occupants of neither room 
 were aware of escape or advent. She found the prisoner still 
 tied to his chair, his body and head hanging forward in an 
 attitude denoting weariness, Sukey engaged in cutting slices 
 of bacon in probable expectation of demands from the new- 
 comers, while the single trooper on guard had just opened the 
 entry door, and was shouting inquiries concerning the success 
 of the raid to his fellow-dragoons as they passed to the stable. 
 
 Acting on a sudden impulse which gave her no time for 
 consideration, Janice caught the knife from the hand of 
 Sukey, and, with two hasty strokes, cut the cord where it was 
 passed through the slats of the chair-back, setting the pris- 
 oner free. 
 
 "Fo' de good Lord in hebin — " began the cook, in amaze- 
 ment ; but, as the import of her young mistress's act dawned 
 upon her, she ran to the fireplace and, catching up a log of 
 wood, held it out to Brereton. 
 
 Owing to his stooping posture, the release of the cords had 
 caused the aide to fall forward out of the chair ; but he instantly 
 scrambled to his feet, and without so much as a glance behind 
 him, seized the billet from the hands of the cook and sprang 
 toward the doorway, reaching it at the moment the dragoon 
 turned about to learn the cause of the sudden commotion. 
 Bringing the log down with crushing force on the man's head. 
 Jack stooped as the man plunged forward, possessed himself 
 
230 Janice Meredith 
 
 of his sabre, caught one of the long cavalry capotes from its 
 hook in the entry, and, banging to the door, vanished in the 
 outer darkness. There he stood for a moment, listening in- 
 tently, apparently in doubt as to his next step ; then electing 
 the bolder course, he threw the coat about his shoulders, 
 fastened the sabre to his side, and ran to the stable, where 
 the tired troopers, in the dim light furnished by a solitary 
 lantern, were now dismounting from their horses. Without 
 hesitation the aide walked among them, and in a disguised 
 voice announced : " Colonel Harcourt orders me to look to 
 kis horse." 
 
 "Here," called a man, and the fugitive stepped forward 
 and caught the bridle the trooper threw to him. He stood 
 quietly while the dragoons one by one led their horses into 
 the stable, then pulling gently on the reins, he slowly walked 
 the colonel's horse forward as if to follow their example, but, 
 turning a little to the left, he passed softly around the side of 
 the building. Letting down the bars into the next field, he 
 quickened his pace until the road was reached ; swinging him- 
 self into the saddle, he once more spurred northward. 
 
 " Poor brute," he remarked, " spent as thou art, we must 
 make a push for it until beyond Middle-Brook, if I am to 
 save my bacon. 'T is a hard fate that makes thee serve both 
 sides by turn, until there is no go, left in thee. Luckily, the 
 other horses are as tired as thou, or my escape would be very 
 questionable, even though I had wit enough about me to see 
 to it that I got the officer's mount. Egad, a queer shift it is 
 that ends with Lee in their hands and me spurring northward 
 to repeat the general's orders to Sullivan. Who knows but 
 Mrs. Meredith and the parson may be right in their holding 
 to foreordination?" 
 
XXXII 
 
 UNDER DURANCE 
 
 AS BRERETON slammed the kitchen door behind 
 him, the girl ran to the assistance of the injured 
 trooper, only to recoil at sight of the blood flowing 
 from his mouth and nose, and in uncontrollable hor- 
 ror and fright she fled to her own room. Here, cowering and 
 shivering, she crouched on the floor behind her bed, her breath 
 coming fast and short, as she waited for the sword of vengeance 
 to fall. Ere many seconds the sounds below told her that the 
 escape had been discovered, hangings of doors, shouts, bugle 
 calls, and the clatter of horses' feet each in succession giving 
 her fresh terror. Yet minute after minute passed without any 
 one coming to find her, and at last the suspense became so 
 intolerable that the girl rose and went to the head of the stairs 
 to listen. From that point of vantage she could hear in the 
 dining-room the voice of Harcourt sternly asking questions, the 
 replies to which were so -inarticulate and so intermixed with 
 sobs and wails that Janice could do no more than realise that 
 the cook was under examination. Harcourt's inquiries, how- 
 ever, served to reveal that the faithful Sukey was endeavouring 
 to conceal her young mistress's part in the prisoner's escape ; 
 and as Janice gathered this, the figure which but a moment 
 before had expressed such fear suddenly straightened, and with- 
 out hesitation she ran down the stairs and entered the dining- 
 room just in time to hear Sukey aflSrm : — 
 
 " I dun it, I tells youse, I dun it, and dat 's all I will tells 
 youse." 
 
 " Colonel Harcourt," announced the girl, steadily, " Sukey 
 did n't do it. I took the knife from her and cut the prisonei 
 loose before she knew what I had in mind." 
 
 " Doan youse believe one word dat chile says," protested 
 Sukey. 
 
232 Janice Meredith 
 
 " It is true," urged Janice, as eager to assume the guilt as 
 five minutes before she had been anxious to escape it ; " and if 
 you want proof, you will find the knife on my bed upstairs." 
 
 " Oil, missy, missy ! " cried Sukey, " vvha' fo'"youse tell dat? 
 Now dey kill youse an' not ole Sukey ; " and the sobs of the 
 slave redoubled as she threw herself on the floor in the intens- 
 ity of her grief. 
 
 It took but few interrogations on the part of Harcourt to 
 wring all the truth from the culprit, and ordering her to follow 
 him to the parlour, he angrily denounced the girl to her parents. 
 Much to her surprise, she found that this latest enormity called 
 forth less of an outburst than her previous misconduct, her 
 father being quite staggered by its daring and seriousness ; while 
 Mrs. Meredith, with a sudden display of maternal tenderness 
 that Janice had not seen for years, took the girl in her arms, 
 and tried to soothe and comfort her. 
 
 One more friend in need proved to be Clowes, who, when 
 Harcourt declared that the girl should be carried to Princeton 
 in the morning, along with Lee, that Lord Cornwallis might 
 •decide as to her punishment, sought to make the officer take 
 less summary measures, but vainly, except to win the conces- 
 sion that if Hennion recaptured the prisoner he would take a 
 less drastic course. The morrow brought a return of the pur- 
 suing party, empty-handed, and in a hasty consultation it was 
 agreed that the squire should accompany Janice, leaving Mrs. 
 Meredith under the protection of Philemon, — an arrangement 
 by no means pleasing to the young lieutenant, and made the 
 less palatable by the commissary's announcement that he should 
 retrace his own steps to Princeton in the hope of being of 
 service to his friends. Philemon's protests were ineffectual, 
 however, to secure any amendment ; and the sleigh, with Brere- 
 ton's mare and Joggles to pull it, received the three, and, to- 
 gether with Lee and the escort, set out for headquarters about 
 noon. 
 
 With the arrival at Nassau Hall, then serving as barracks for 
 the force centred there, a fresh complication arose, for Colonel 
 Harcourt learned that Lord Cornwallis, having seen his force 
 safely in winter quarters at Princeton, Trenton, and Burlington, 
 had departed the day previous for New York, while General 
 
Under Durance 233 
 
 Grant, who succeeded him, was still at Trenton. Taking the 
 night to consider what was best to be done, Harcourt made 
 up his mind to carry his prisoners to New York, a decision 
 which called forth most energetic protests from the squire, 
 who had contrived in the doings of the last two days to take 
 cold, and now asserted that an attack of the gout was begin- 
 ning. His pleadings were well seconded by the baron, and 
 not to harass too much one known to be friendly both to the 
 cause and to the commander-in-chief, the colonel finally con- 
 sented that the fate of Janice should be left to the general in 
 command. This decided, Lee was once more mounted, and 
 captive and captors set about retracing their steps, while the 
 sleigh carried the squire and Janice, under guard, on to 
 Trenton, Mr. Meredith having elected to make the short 
 trip to that town rather than await the indefinite return of 
 Grant. 
 
 It was dusk when they reached Trenton, iind once more they 
 were doomed to a disappointment, for the major-general had 
 departed to Mount Holly. Mr, Meredith's condition, as well as 
 nightfall, put further travel out of the question, and an appeal 
 was made to Rahl, the Hessian colonel commanding the brigade 
 which held the town, to permit them to remain, which, thanks 
 to the influence of the commissary, was readily granted, on 
 condition that they could find quarters for themselves. 
 
 " No fear," averred the squire, cheerily. " I '11 never want 
 for sup or bed in Trenton while Thomas Drinker lives." 
 
 " Ach ! " exclaimed the colonel. " Dod iss mein blace ver I 
 sleeps und eats und drinks. Und all bessitzen you will it 
 find." 
 
 Notwithstanding the warning, the sleigh was driven to the 
 Drinkers' door, now flanked by a battery of field-pieces, and in 
 front of which paced sentries, who refused to let them pass. 
 Their protests served to attract the attention of the inmates, 
 and brought the trio of Drinkers running to the door ; in an- 
 other moment the two girls were locked in each other's arms, 
 while Mr. Meredith put his question concerning possible 
 hospitality. 
 
 " Ay, in with thee all, Friend Lambert," cried Mr. Drinker, 
 leading the way. " Thou 'It find us pushed into the garret. 
 
234 Janice Meredith 
 
 and forced to eat at second table, while our masters take 
 our best, but of what they leave us thou shalt have thy 
 share." 
 
 "Is't so bad as that?" marvelled Mr. Meredith, as, passing 
 by the parlour, he was shown into the kitchen, and a chair set 
 for him before the fire. 
 
 "Thee knows the tenets of our faith, and that I accept 
 them," replied the Quaker. " Yet the last few days have made 
 me feel that non-resistance — " 
 
 " Thomas ! " reproved his sister. " Say it not, for when the 
 curse is o'er, 't will grieve thee to have even thought it." 
 
 If the tempered spirit of the elders spoke thus, it was more 
 than the warm blood of youth could do, and Tabitha gave a 
 loose to her woes. 
 
 " 'T is past endurance ! " she cried, " to come and treat us 
 all as if we were enemies who had no right even to breathe. 
 They take possession of our houses and turn them into pig-sties 
 with their filthy German ways ; they eat our best and make us 
 slave for them day and night ; they plunder as they please, not 
 merely our cattle and corn, so that we are forced to beg back 
 from them -the very food we eat, but take as well our horses, 
 our silver, our clothes, and whatever else happens to please 
 their fancy. The regiment of Lossberg has at this moment nine 
 waggon-loads of plunder in the Fremantle barn. No woman is 
 safe on the streets after sundown, and scarcely so in the day- 
 time, while night after night the town rings with their drunken 
 carousals. I told Friend Penrhyn the other night that if he 
 had the spunk of a house cat he would get something to fight 
 with, if 't were nothing better than a toasting-fork tied to a stick, 
 and cross the river to Washington ; and so I say to every man 
 who stays in Trenton. I only wish I were not a female ! " 
 
 "Hush, Tabitha!" chided Miss Drinker, "'tis God's will 
 that we suffer as we do, and thee shouldst bow to it." 
 
 " I don't believe it 's God's will that we should be turned out 
 of our rooms and made to live in the garret, or even in the 
 barns, as some are forced to do ; I don't believe it 's God's will 
 that they should have taken our silver tea-service and spoons. 
 If God is just. He must want Washington to beat them, and so 
 every man would be doing God's work who went to help him." 
 
Under Durance 235 
 
 Evidently with whatever strength her father and aunt held to 
 the tenets of their sect, Tabitha's was not sufficiently ingrained 
 to stand the test of the Hessian occupation. 
 
 " Dost think it is God's work to kill fellow-mortals ? " expos- 
 tulated Miss Drinker. "No more of such talk, child; it is 
 time we were making ready for supper." 
 
 There was, however, very much more talk of this kind over 
 the hastily improvised meal, and small wonder for it. In a town 
 of less than a thousand inhabitants, nearly thirteen hundred 
 troops, with their inevitable camp followers, were forcibly quar- 
 tered, filling every house and every barn, to the dire discomfort 
 of the people. As if this in itself were not enough, the Hessian 
 soldiery, habituated to the plundering of European warfare, and 
 who had been sold at so much per head by their royal rulers 
 to fight another country's battles, brought with them to America, 
 ideas of warfare which might serve to conquer, but would 
 never serve to pacify, England's colonies. Open and violent 
 seizure had been made, without regard to the political tenets of 
 the owner, of every kind of provision ; and this had generally 
 been accompanied with stealthy plundering of much else by the- 
 common soldiery, and, indeed, by some of the officers. Thus, 
 in every way, despite their submissions and oaths of allegiance- 
 to King George, the Jerseymen were being treated as if they 
 were enemies. 
 
 Of this treatment the Drinker family was a fair example.. 
 Without so much as "by your leave," Colonel Rahl had takea 
 possession of the first two floors of their house for himself and 
 the six or seven officers whom he made his boon companions. 
 Moreover, Mr. Drinker was called upon to furnish food, firewood, 
 and even forage for them ; while his servants were compelled to 
 labour from morning till night in the service of the new over lords. 
 
 When the squire, after his fatiguing day, was compelled, 
 along with his host and hostess and the girls, to climb two flights 
 of stairs to an ice-cold garret, his loyalty was little warmer than 
 the atmosphere ; and when the five were further forced to make 
 the best they could of two narrow trundle-beds, but a brief 
 time before deemed none too good for the coloured servitors, 
 with a scanty supply of bedclothes to eke the discomfort, he 
 became quite of the same mind with Tabitha. Even the most 
 
236 Janice Meredith 
 
 flaming love of royalty and realm serves not to keep warm toes 
 extended beyond short blankets at Christmas-tide. It is not 
 strange that late in December, 1776, all Jersey was mined with 
 discontent, and needed but the spark of Continental success to 
 explode. 
 
 Clowes had left his friends, after the interview with Rahl, to 
 quarter himself upon an army acquaintance, and thus knew 
 nothing of the hardships to which they were subjected. When 
 he heard in the morning how they had fared, he at once sought 
 the commander, and by a slirewd exaggeration of the Merediths' 
 relations with Howe, supplemented by some guineas, secured 
 the banishment of enough officers from the house to restore to 
 the Drinkers two of their rooms. 
 
 To contribute to their entertainment, as well as to their com- 
 fort, he brought them word that Colonel Rahl, by his favour, bid 
 them all to a Christmas festival the following day ; and when 
 Mr. and Miss Drinker refused to have aught to do with an un- 
 known German, and possibly Papistical, if not devihsh orgy, he 
 obtained the rescinding of this veto by pointing out how unwise 
 it would be to offend a man on whom their comfort for the 
 winter so much depended. 
 
 It was, as it proved, a very novel and wonderful experience 
 to the girls. After the two o'clock dinner which the invading 
 force had compelled the town to adopt, the three regiments of 
 Anspach, Lossberg, and Rahl, and the detachments of the 
 Yagers and light horse, with beating drums and flying colours, 
 paraded from one end of the town to the other, ending with a 
 review immediately in front of the Drinkers' house. Following 
 this the regimental bands of hautboys played a series of German 
 airs which the now disbanded rank and file joined in vocally. 
 Then, as night and snow set in, a general move was made in- 
 doors, at Rahl's quarters, to the parlour, where a tall spruce tree, 
 brilliant with lighted tallow dips, and decorated with bits of 
 coloured paper, red-tinted eggs, and not a little of the recent 
 plunder, drew forth cries of admiration from both Janice and 
 Tabitha, neither of whom had ever seen the like. 
 
 After a due enjoyment of the tree's beauty, the gifts were 
 distributed ; and then the company went to the dining-room, 
 where the table sagged with the best that barnyard and pantry 
 
Under Durance 237 
 
 could be made to produce, plus a perfect forest of botdes, — 
 tall, squat, and bulbous. The sight of such goodly plenty was 
 irresistible, and the cheer and merriment grew apace. The 
 girls, eagerly served and all the time surrounded by a host of 
 such officers as could speak Epglish, and in fact by some who, 
 for want of that language, could only show tlieir admiration by 
 ardent glances, were vastly set up by the unaccustomed atten- 
 tions j the squire felt a new warmth of loyalty creep through his 
 blood with the draining of each glass ; and even Miss Drinker's 
 sallow and belined spinster face took on a rosy hue and a cheer- 
 ful smile as the evening advanced. 
 
 A crescendo of enjoyment secured by means of wine is ^pt 
 to lack restraint, and presently, as the fun grew, It began to 
 verge on the riotous. The officers pressed about the girls until 
 the two were separated, and Janice found herself in a corner 
 surrounded by flushed-faced men who elbowed and almost 
 wrestled with one another as to which should stand closest to her. 
 Suddenly one man so far forgot himself as to catch her about 
 the waist ; and but for a prompt ducking of her head as she 
 struggled to free herself, she would have been forcibly kissed. 
 Her cries rose above the sounds of conviviality ; but even before 
 the first was uttered, Clowes, who had kept close to her the 
 whole evening, struck the officer, and the whole room was in- 
 stantly in a turmoil, the women screaming, the combatants 
 locked, others struggling to separate them, and Rahi shouting 
 half-drunken orders and curses. Just as the uproar was at its 
 greatest came a loud thundering at the door ; and when it was 
 opened a becloaked dragoon, white with snow, entered and gave 
 Rahl a despatch. Both the dispute and the conviviality ceased, 
 as every one paused to learn what the despatch portended. 
 
 The commander was by this time so fuddled with drink that 
 he could not so much as break the seal, much less read the 
 contents ; and the commissary, who for personal reasons had 
 been drinking lightly, came to his assistance, and read aloud as 
 
 follows : — 
 
 Burlington, Dei:. 25, 1^/6. 
 Sir, — By a spy just come in I have word that Mr. 
 Washington, being informed of our troops having marched into 
 winter quarters, and having been reinforced by the arrival of a 
 
238 Janice Meredith 
 
 •column under the command of Sullivan, meditates an attack on 
 some of our posts. I do not believe that in the present state of 
 the river a crossing is possible, but be assured my information is 
 undoubtedly true, and in case the ice clears, I advise you to be 
 upon your guard against an unexpected attack at Trenton. 
 I am, sir, your most obed't h'ble serv't, 
 
 James Grant, Major- General. 
 
 " Nein, nein," grunted Rahl, tipsily, " I mineself has vort dat 
 Vashington's mens hass neider shoes nor blankets, und die mil 
 cold und hunger. Day vill not cross to dis side, mooch ice or 
 no ice, but ifdey do, ve prisoners of dem make." 
 
 And once more thfe toasting and merry-making was resumed. 
 
 With not a litde foresight the three ladies had availed them- 
 selves of the lull to escape from the festival to their own room, 
 where, not content with locks and bolts, nothing would do Miss 
 Drinker, as the sounds below swelled in volume and laxity, but 
 the heavy bureau should be moved against the door as an 
 additional barrier. 
 
 " Our peril is dire," she admonished the girls ; " and if to- 
 morrow's sun finds me escaped unharmed I shall thank Heaven 
 indeed." Then she proceeded to lecture Janice. "Be as- 
 sured thee must have given the lewd creatures some encourage- 
 ment, or they would never have dared a familiarity. Not a onp 
 of them showed me the slightest disrespect ! " 
 
 " Oh, Jan," whispered Tibbie, once they were in bed and 
 snuggled close together, " if thee hadst been kissed 1 " 
 
 " What then?" questioned the maiden. 
 
 " It would be so horrible to be kissed by a man ! " declared 
 the friend. 
 
 " Wilt promise to never, never tell? " asked Janice, with bated 
 breath. 
 
 "Cross my heart," vowed Tabitha. 
 
 "It — well — I — It isn't as terrible as you'd think, 
 Tibbie ! " 
 
XXXIII 
 
 ANOTHER CHRISTMAS PARTY 
 
 AT the same hour that the Hessians were parading 
 through the village streets a horseman was speeding 
 along the river road on the opposite side of the 
 Delaware. As he came opposite the town, the blare 
 of the hautboys sounded faintly across the water, and he checked 
 his horse to listen for a moment, and then spurred on. 
 
 "Ay, prick up your ears," he muttered to his steed. "Your 
 friends are holding high carnival, and I wonder not that you 
 long to be with them, 'stead of carrying vain messages in a lost 
 cause. But for this damned floe of ice you 'd have had your 
 wish this very night." 
 
 A hundred rods brought the rider within sight of the cross- 
 road at Yardley's Ferry, just as a second horseman issued from 
 it. The first hastily unbuckled and threw back his holster flap, 
 even while he pressed his horse to come up with the new arri- 
 val ; while the latter, hearing the sound of hoofs, halted and 
 twisted about in his saddle. 
 
 " Well met, Brereton," he called when the space between had 
 lessened. " I am seeking his Excellency, who, I was told at 
 Newtown, was to be found at Mackonkey's Ferry. Canst give 
 me a guidance? " 
 
 " You could find your way, Wilkinson, by following the track 
 of Mercer's brigade. For the last three miles I could have 
 kept the route, even if I knew not the road, by the bloody foot- 
 prints. Look at the stains on the snow." 
 
 " Poor fellows ! " responded Wilkinson, feelingly. 
 
 " Seven miles they 've marched to-day, with scarce a sound 
 boot to a company, and now they '11 be marched back with not 
 so much as a sight of the enemy." 
 
 " You think the attack impossible?" 
 
240 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Impossible ! " ejaculated Brereton. " Look at the rush of 
 ice, man. 'T would be absolute madness to attempt' a crossing. 
 The plan was for Cadwallader's brigade to attack Burlington at 
 the same time we made our attempt, but I bring word from 
 there that the river is impassable and the plan abandoned. His 
 Excellency cannot fight both the British and such weather." 
 
 " 1 thought the game up when my general refused the com- 
 mand and set out for Philadelphia," remarked Wilkinson. 
 
 " Gates is too good a politician and too little of a fighter to 
 like forlorn liopes," sneered Brereton. " He leaves Washington 
 to bear the risk, and, Lee being out of the way, sets off at once 
 to make favour with Congress, hoping, I have little doubt, that 
 another discomfiture or miscarriage will serve to put him in the 
 saddle. If we are finally conquered, 't will not be by defeat in 
 the field, but by the dirty politics with which this nation is rid- 
 dled, and which makes a man general because he comes from 
 the right State, and knows how to wire-pull and intrigue. 
 Faugh!" 
 
 A half-hour served to bring thern to their destination, a rude 
 wooden pier, employed to conduct teams to the ferry-boat. 
 Now, however, the ice was drifted and wedged in layers and 
 hummocks some feet beyond its end, and outside this rushed 
 the river, black and silent, save for the dull crunch of the ice- 
 floes as they ground against one another in their race down the 
 stream. On the end of the dock stood a solitary figure watch- 
 ing a number of men, who, with pick and axe, were cutting 
 away the lodged ice that blocked the pier, while already a 
 motley variety of boats being filled with men could be seen at 
 each point of the shore where the ground ice made embarkation 
 possible. Along the banks groups of soldiers were clustered 
 about fires of fence-rails wherever timber or wall offered the 
 slightest shelter. 
 
 Dismounting, the two aides walked to the dock and delivered 
 their letters to the commander. Taking the papers, Washing- 
 ton gave a final exhortation to the sappers and miners : " Look 
 alive there, men. Every minute now is worth an hour to- 
 morrow," and, followed by Brereton, walked to the ferry-house 
 that he might find light with which to read the despatches. By 
 the aid of the besmoked hall lantern, he glanced hastily through 
 
Another Christmas Party 241 
 
 the two letters. " General Gates leaves to us all the honour to 
 be gained to-night. Colonel Cadwallader declares it impossible 
 to get his guns across," he told his aide, without a trace of 
 emotion in his voice, as he refolded the despatches and handed 
 them to him. Then his eye flashed with a sudden exultation 
 as he continued : " It seems there are some in our own force, 
 as well as the enemy, who need a lesson in winter campaigning." 
 
 "Then your Excellency intends to attempt a crossing?" 
 deprecated Brereton. 
 
 "We shall attack Trenton before daybreak, Brereton; and 
 as we are like to have a cold and wet march, stay you within 
 doors and warm yourself after your ride. You are not needed, 
 and there is a good fire in the kitchen." 
 
 Brereton, with a disapproving shake of his head, stepped from 
 the hallway into the kitchen. Only one man was in the room, 
 and he, seated at the table, was occupied in rolling cartridges. 
 
 " Ho, parson, this is new work for you," greeted Brereton, 
 giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. " You are putting 
 your sulphur and brimstone in concrete form." 
 
 " Ay," assented McClave, " and, as befits my calling, properly 
 combining them with religion." 
 
 " How so ? " demanded Brereton, taking his position before 
 the fire. 
 
 " You see, man," explained the presbyter, " it occurred to me 
 that, on so wet a night, 't would be almost impossible for the 
 troops to keep their cartridges dry, since scarce a one in ten 
 has a proper cartouch-box ; so I set to making some new ones, 
 and, having, no paper, I'm e'en using the leaves of my own 
 copy of Watts' Hymns." 
 
 " A good thought," said Brereton ; " and if you will give them 
 to me I will see to it that they be kept dry and ready for use. 
 Not that they will need much care; there is small danger that 
 Watts will ever be anything but dry.'' 
 
 " Tut, tut, man," reproved the clergyman. " Dry or not dry, 
 he has done God's work in the past, and, with the aid of 
 Heaven, he '11 do it again to-night." 
 
 The rumble of artillery at this point warned the aide that the 
 embarkation was actually beginning, and, hastily catching up 
 the cartridges already made, he unbuttoned the flannel shirt he 
 
 16 
 
242 Janice Meredith 
 
 wore and stuffed them in. Throwing his cloak about him, he 
 hurried out. 
 
 The ice had finally been removed, and a hay barge dragged 
 up to the pier. Without delay two 12-pounders were rolled 
 upon it, with their complement of men and horses ; and, leaving 
 further superintendence of the embarkation to Greene and 
 Knox, Washington and his staff took their places between the 
 guns. Two row galleys having been made fast to the front, the 
 men in them bent to their oars, and the barge moved slowly 
 from the shore, its start being the signal to all the other craft to 
 put off. 
 
 The instant the shelter of the land was lost, the struggle with 
 the elements began. The wind, blowing savagely from the 
 northeast, swept upon them, and, churning the river into foam, 
 drove the bitterly cold spray against man and beast. Masses 
 of ice, impelled by the current and blast, were only kept from 
 colliding with the boat by the artillerymen, who, with the ram- 
 mers and sponges of the guns, thrust them back, while the 
 bowsmen in the tractive boats had much ado to keep a space 
 clear for the oars to swing. To make the stress the greater, 
 before a fifty yards had been compassed the air was filled with 
 snow, sweeping now one way and now another, quite shutting 
 out all sight of the shores, and making the rushing current of 
 the black, sullen river the sole means by which direction could 
 be judged. 
 
 "Damn this weather!" swore Brereton, as an especially 
 biting sweep of wind and water made him crouch the lower 
 behind his shivering horse. 
 
 " Nothing short of that would serve to put warmth into it," 
 asserted Colonel Webb. " You 're not like to obtain your wish. 
 Jack, though your cursing may put you where you '11 long for a 
 touch of it." 
 
 " Thou canst not fright me with threat of hell-fire damnation 
 on such a night as this, Sam," retorted Brereton. 
 
 "Gentlemen," interposed Washington, drily, "let me call 
 your attention to the General Order of last August, relative to 
 profane language." 
 
 " Can your Excellency suggest any more moderate terms to 
 apply to such a night?" asked Brereton, with ^ laugh. 
 
Another Christmas Party 243 
 
 " Be thankful you 've something between you and the river, 
 my boy. Twenty-four years ago this very week I was returning 
 from a mission to the Ohio, and to cross a river we made a raft 
 of logs. The ice surged against us so forcibly that I set out my 
 pole to prevent our being swept down the stream; but the 
 rapidity of the current threw the raft with so much violence 
 against the pole that it jerked me out into ten feet of water, and 
 I was like to have drowned. This wind and sleet seem warm 
 when I remember that ; and had Gates and Cadwallader been 
 there, the storm and ice of to-night would not have seemed to 
 them such obstacles. 'T was my first public service," he added 
 after a slight pause. " Who knows that to-niglit may not be my 
 last?" 
 
 " 'T is ever a possibility," spoke up Webb, " since your Excel- 
 lency is so reckless in exposing yourself to the enemy's fire." 
 
 Washington shrugged his shoulders. " I am in more danger 
 from the rear than from the enemy," he said equably. 
 
 " Ay," agreed Jack, " but we fight both to-night. Give us 
 
 victory at Trenton, and we need not spend thought on Baltimore." 
 
 " Congress is too frightened itself — " began Baylor, but a 
 
 touch on his arm from the commander-in-chief checked the 
 
 indiscreet speech. 
 
 Departure had been taken from the Pennsylvania shore before 
 ten J but ice, wind, and current made the crossing so laborious 
 and slow that a landing of the first detachment was not effected 
 till nearly twelve. Then the boats were sent back for their 
 second load, the advance meanwhile huddling together wherever 
 there was the slightest shelter from the blast and the hail that 
 was now cutting mercilessly. Not till three o'clock did the 
 second division land, and another hour was lost in the formation 
 of the column. At last, however, the order to march could be 
 given, and the twenty-four hundred weary, besoaked, and well- 
 nigh frozen men set off through the blinding storm on the nine- 
 mile march to Trenton. 
 
 At Yardley's Ferry the force divided, Sullivan's division 
 keeping to the river turnpike, intending to enter Trenton from 
 the south, while the main division took the cross-road, so as to 
 come out to the north of the town, the plan being to place the 
 enemy thus betwixt two fires. 
 
244 Janice Meredith 
 
 Owing to the delay in crossing the river, it was daylight when 
 the outskirts of the town were reached, but the falling snow 
 veiled the advance, and here the column was halted temporarily 
 to permit of a reconnoissance. While the troops stood at ease 
 an aide from Sullivan's detachment reported that it had arrived 
 on the other side of the village, and was ready for the attack, 
 save that their cartridges were too damp to use. 
 
 " Very well, sir," ordered Washington. " Return and tell 
 General Sullivan he must rely on the bayonet." 
 
 " Your Excellency," said Colonel Hand, stepping up, " my 
 : regiment is in the same plight, and our rifles carry no bayonets." 
 
 " We kin club both them and the Hessians all the same," 
 spoke up a voice from the ranks. 
 
 " Here are some dry cartridges," broke in Brereton. 
 
 " Let your men draw their charges and reload. Colonel Hand," 
 commanded Washington. 
 
 In a moment the order to advance was issued, and the column 
 debouched upon the post road leading toward Princeton. The 
 first sign of life was a man in a front yard, engaged in cutting 
 wood ; the commander-in-chief, who was leading the advance, 
 called to him : — 
 
 " Which way is the Hessian picket ? " 
 
 " Find out for yourself," retorted the chopper. 
 ' Speak out, man," roared Webb, hotly, " this 's General 
 Washington." 
 
 " God bless and prosper you, sir ! " shouted the man. " Fol- 
 low me, and I '11 show you," he added, starting down the road 
 at a run. As he came to the house, without a pause, he swung 
 his axe and burst open the door with a single blow. " Come 
 on," he shrieked, and darted in, followed by some of the 
 riflemen. 
 
 Leaving them to secure the picket, the regiments went for- 
 ward, just as a desultory firing from the front showed that 
 the alarm had been given by Sullivan's attack. Pushing on, 
 a sight of the enemy was gained, — a confused mass of men 
 some three hundred yards away, but in front of them two guns 
 were already being wheeled into position by artillerists, with 
 the obvious purpose of checking the advance till the regiments 
 had time to form. 
 
Another Christmas Party 245 
 
 " Capture the battery ! " came the stern voice of th» 
 commander. 
 
 " Forward, double quick ! " shouted Colonel Hand. 
 
 Brereton, putting spurs to his horse, joined in the rush of 
 men as the regiment broke into a run. " Look out, Hand ! " 
 he yelled. " They Ml be ready to fire before we can get there, 
 and in this narrow road we '11 be cut to pieces. Give them a 
 dose of Watts." 
 
 " Halt ! " roared Hand, and then in quick succession came 
 the orders, " Deploy ! Take aim ! Fire ! " 
 
 " Hurrah for the Hymns ! " cheered Brereton, as a number of 
 the gunners and matross men dropped, and the remainder, desert- 
 ing the cannon, fell back on the infantry. " Come on ! " he 
 roared, as the Virginia light horse, taking advantage of the 
 open order, raced the riflemen to the guns. Barely were 
 they reached, when a mounted officer rode up to the Hessian 
 regiments and cried : " Forwarts ! " waving his sword toward 
 the cannon. 
 
 " We can't hold the guns against them ! " yelled Brereton. 
 " Over with them, men ! " 
 
 In an instant the soldiers with rifles and the cavalry with 
 the rammers that had been dropped were clustered about the 
 cannon, some prying, some lifting, some pulling, and before 
 the foe could reach them the two pieces of artillery were tipped 
 over and rolled into the side ditches, the Americans scattering 
 the moment the guns were made useless to the British. 
 
 This gave the Continental infantry in the rear their opportunity, 
 and they poured in a scathing volley, quickly followed by th& 
 roar of Colonel Forrest's battery, which unlimbered and opened 
 fire. A wild confusion followed, the enemy advancing, until 
 the American regiments charged them in face of their volleys. 
 Upon this they broke, and falling back in disorder, endeavoured 
 to escape to the east road through an orchard. Checking dje 
 charge, Washington threw Stevens' brigade and Hand's ri^- 
 men, now re-formed, out through the fields, heading them 
 ofT. Flight in this direction made impossible, the enemy re- 
 treated toward the town, but the column under Sullivan now 
 blocked this outlet. Forrest's fieldpieces were pushed forward, 
 Washington riding with them, utterly unheeding of both the 
 
246 Janice Meredith 
 
 enemy's fire, though the bullets were burying themselves in 
 the snow all about him, and of the expostulations of his staff. 
 Indicating the new position for the guns, he ordered them 
 loaded with canister. 
 
 Colonel Forrest himself stooped to sight one of the 12- 
 pounders, then cried ; " Sir, they have struck." 
 
 " Struck 1 " exclaimed Washington. 
 
 " Yes," averred Forrest, exultingly. " Their colours are 
 down, and they have grounded their arms." 
 
 Washington cantered toward the enemy. 
 
 " Your Excellency," shouted Baylor, who with the infantry 
 had been well forward, " the Hessians have surrendered. Here 
 is Colonel Rahl." 
 
 Washington rode to where, supported by two sergeants, the 
 officer stood, his brilliant uniform already darkened by the 
 blood flowing from two wounds, and took from his hand the 
 sword the Hessian commander, with bowed head, due to both 
 shame and faintness, held out to him. 
 
 " Let his wounds receive instant attention," the general or- 
 dered. Wheeling his horse, he looked at the three regiments 
 of Hessians. " 'T is a glorious day for our country, Baylor ! " 
 he said; the personal triumph already forgotten in the greater 
 
XXXIV 
 HOLIDAY WEEK AT TRENTON 
 
 THE Christmas revel of the Hessians had held far 
 into morning hours; and though the ladies so 
 prudently retired, it was not to sleep, as it proved, 
 for the uproar put that out of the question. At 
 last, however, the merry-making ceased by degrees, as man 
 after man staggered off to his quarters, or succumbing to 
 drink, merely took a horizontal position in the room of the 
 festivity, and quiet, quickly succeeded by slumber, descended 
 upon the household. 
 
 To the women it seemed as if the turmoil had but just 
 ended, ere it began anew. The first alarm was a thundering 
 on the front door, so violent that the intent seemed to be to 
 break it down rather than to gain admission from the inside. 
 Then came a rush of heavy boots pounding upstairs, followed 
 by a renewal of the ponderous blows on every door, accom- 
 panied now by the stentorian shouting of hasty sentences in 
 German. 
 
 As if the din were not suflScient, Miss Drinker, in her frigh* 
 at the assault directed against the barrier to which she had 
 pinned her own reliance of safety, promptly gave vent to a 
 series of shrieks, intermixed, when breath failed, with gasping 
 predictions to the girb as to the fate that awaited them, 
 scaring the maidens most direfuUy. Their terror was not 
 lessened by the growing volume of shouts outside the house, 
 and by the rub-a-dub-dub of the drums, and the tantara of 
 the bugles, as the « To arms " was sounded along the village 
 street. Barely had they heard Rahl and the other officers go 
 plunging downstairs, when the scattering crack of muskets 
 began to be heard, swelling quickly into volleys and then into 
 the unmistakable platoon firing, which bespoke an attack is 
 
248 Janice Meredith 
 
 force. Finally, and as a last touch to their alarm, came the 
 roar of artillery, as Forrest's and Knox's batteries opened fire. 
 
 The whole conflict took not over thirty-five minutes, but to 
 the three bedfellows it seemed to last for hours. The silence 
 that then fell so suddenly proved even more awful, however, and 
 became quickly so insupportable that Janice was for getting 
 out of bed to learn its cause, a project that Miss Drinker pro- 
 hibited. " I know not what is transpiring," she avowed, " but 
 whatever the disturbance, our danger is yet to come." 
 
 The event verified her opinion, for presently heavy and hur- 
 ried footsteps of many men sounded below stairs, terminating 
 the brief silence. With little delay the tramp of boots came 
 upstairs, and a loud rap on the door drew a stifled cry from 
 the spinster as she buried her head under the bedclothes, and 
 made the two girls clutch each other with fright. 
 
 " Open ! " called a commanding voice. " Open, I say 1 " it 
 repeated, as no answer came. " Batter it in, then ! " and at 
 the order the stocks of two muskets shattered the door panels ; 
 the bureau was tipped over on its face with a crash, and 
 Brereton, sword in hand, jumped through the breach. 
 
 It was an apparently empty room into which the aide 
 entered, but a mound under the bedclothes told a different tale. 
 
 "Here are other Hessian pigs who've drunk more than 
 they've bled," he sneered, as he tossed back the counter- 
 pane and blankets with his sword-point, thus uncovering 
 three becapped heads, from each of which issued a scream, 
 while three pairs of hands wildly clutched the covering. 
 
 The nightcaps so effectually disguised the faces that not a 
 one did the officer recognise in his first hasty glance. 
 
 "Ho!" he jeered. "Small wonder the fellow lay abed. 
 Come, up with you, my Don Juan," he added, prodding Miss 
 Drinker through the bedclothes with his sword. "'Tis no 
 time for bearded men to lie abed." 
 
 "Help, help!" shrieked Janice, and "'Tis my aunt!" 
 cried Tabitha, in unison, but the spinster's fear was quite 
 forgot in the insulting allusion to the somewhat noticeable 
 hirsute adornment on her face ; sitting up in bed, she pointed 
 at the door, and sternly ordered, " Cease from insulting gentle- 
 women, brute, and leave this chamber ! " 
 
Holiday Week at Trenton 249 
 
 " Zounds ! " burst out Jack, in his amazement ; then he 
 turned and roared to the gaping and snickering soldiers, 
 
 " Get out of here, every doodle of you, and be to 
 
 you ! " Keeping his back to the bed, he said, " I pray your 
 pardon, ma'am, for disturbing you ; our spies assured us that 
 only Hessian officers slept here." 
 
 " Go ! " commanded the offended and unrelenting old 
 maid. 
 
 The officer took a step toward the door, halted, and re- 
 marked savagely, "Our positions are somewhat reversed. 
 Miss Meredith. 'T is poetic justice, indeed, which threatens 
 you a taste of the captivity you schemed in my behalf; ' he 
 cries best who cries last.' " 
 
 " I had naught to do with thy captivation ! " protested 
 Janice, indignantly, "though thou wouldst not believe me; 
 and but for me thou 'dst still be a prisoner.'' 
 
 " A well-dressed-up tale, but told too late to gain credence," 
 sneered the officer. " You made a cully of me once. I defy 
 you to ever again." 
 
 " A man who thinks such vile thoughts is welcome to them," 
 retorted the girl, proudly. 
 
 " Dost intend to put a finish to thy intrusion upon the pri- 
 vacy of females?" objurgated Miss Drinker; and at the ques- 
 tion Brereton flung out of the room without more words. 
 
 The ladies made a hasty toilet, and descended to the 
 kitchen, to find the maids deep in the preparation of break- 
 fast, while standing near the fire was a coloured man in a. 
 brown livery who ducked low to Janice as he grinned a 
 recognition. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the girl, and then, " How 's Blueskin? " 
 
 " Lor' bless de chile, she doan forget ole Willium nor dat 
 horse," chuckled the darkey. " Dat steed, miss, hardly git a 
 good feed now once a week, but he knows dat he carries his 
 Excellency, an' dat de army's watchin' him, an' he make 
 believe he chock full of oats all de time. He jus' went offen 
 his head when Ku'nel Forrest's guns wuz a-bustin' de Hessians 
 all to pieces dis momin', an' de way he dun arch his neck 
 an' swish his tail when Gin'l Howe give up his sword made de 
 enemy stare." 
 
250 Janice Meredith 
 
 " You 11 purvey my compliments to his Highness, Mr. Lee," 
 requested the cook, " an' 'spress to him de mortification we 
 •speriences at being necessitated to tender him his tea outen 
 de elegantest ob best Japan. 'Splain to him dat we 'se a real 
 quality family, an' regularly accustomed to de finest ob plate, 
 till de Hessians depredated it." 
 
 " Is this for General Washington?" questioned Janice, with 
 sudden interest in the tray upon which the cook had placed a 
 china tea-service, some hot corn bread, and a rasher of bacon. 
 
 " Yes, miss," explained William. " His Excellency 's in de 
 parlour, a-lookin' over de papers of de dead gin'l, an' he say 
 see if I kian't git him some breakfast." 
 
 "Oh," begged the girl, eagerly, "may n't I take it to 
 him?" 
 
 " Dat yo' may, honey," acceded the black, yielding to the 
 spell of the lass. " Massa alius radder see a pooty face dan 
 black ole Billy's. Jus' yo' run along with it, chile, an' s'prise 
 him." 
 
 Catching up the waiter, the maiden carried it to the parlour, 
 which she entered after knocking, in response to Washington's 
 behest. The general looked up from the paper he was con- 
 ning and instantly smiled a recognition to the girl. 
 
 "You are not rid of us yet, you see, Miss Janice," he 
 said. 
 
 " Nor wish to be, your Excellency," vouched the girl, as she 
 set the tray on the table. 
 
 " I remember thy wish for our cause when last we met," 
 went on the commander," and who knows but it has served 
 us in good stead this very morning? I had the vanity that 
 day to think thy interest was for the general, but I have just 
 unravelled it to its true source." 
 
 "Indeed," protested Janice, sorely puzzled by his words, 
 " 't was only thy — " 
 
 "Nay, nay, my dear," chided Washington, smiling pleas- 
 antly ; " 'i is nothing to be ashamed of, and I ought to have 
 suspected that thy interest was due to some newer and brighter 
 blade than an old one like myself. He is a lucky fellow to 
 have won so charming a maid, and one brave enough to take 
 such risk for him." 
 
Holiday Week at Trenton 251 
 
 '■ La, your Excellency," stammered the girl, completely 
 mystified, " I know not what you mean ! " 
 
 Still smiling, Washington set down the tea he was now 
 drinking and selected a paper from a pile on the table. " I 
 have just been perusing Colonel Harcourt's report to General 
 Grant, in reference to the traitorous conduct of one Janice 
 Meredith, spinster, and it has informed me of much that 
 Colonel Brereton chose to withhold, though he pretended to 
 make me a full narration. The sly beau said 'twas the cook 
 cut him loose. Miss Janice." 
 
 "Oh, prithee. General Washington," beseeched a very 
 blushing young lady, " wilt please favour me by letting Colo- 
 nel Brereton — who is less than nothing to me — read the 
 report?" 
 
 " Thou takest strange ways to prove thy lack of interest," 
 rejoined the general, his eyes merry at the seeming contra- 
 diction. 
 
 " 'T is indeed not as thou surraisest," protested Janice, 
 redder than ever ; " but Colonel Brereton thought I was con- 
 cerned in his captivation, and would not believe a message I 
 sent to him, and but just since he has cruelly insulted me, and 
 so I want him to learn how shamefully he has misjudged me, 
 so that he shall feel properly mean and low." 
 
 "That he shall," Washington assented, "and every man 
 should be made to feel the same who lacks faith in your face. 
 Miss Janice. The rascal distinguished himself in this morn- 
 ing's affair, so I let him bear my despatches and the Hessian 
 standard to Congress ; however, as soon as he returns he shall 
 smart for his sins, be assured. But, my dear," and here the 
 eyes of the speaker twinkled, " when due punishment has 
 been meted out, remember that forgiveness is one of your 
 sex's greatest excellences." Washington took the hand of 
 the girl and bent over it. " Now leave me, for we have 
 much to attend to before we can set to getting our prisoners 
 across the river, out of the reach of their friends." 
 
 Twenty-four hours later the village which had been so over- 
 burdened with soldiers was stripped as clear of them as if 
 there were not one in the land. It took a day to get the 
 thousand prisoners safely beyond the Delaware, and three 
 
252 Janice Meredith 
 
 more were spent in giving the Continentals a much-needed 
 rest from the terrible exposure and fatigue they had under- 
 gone ; but this done, Washington once more crossed the river 
 and reoccupied Trenton, induced to take the risk by the word 
 brought to him that the militia of New Jersey, driven to des- 
 peration by the British occupation, and heartened by the suc- 
 cess of Trenton, were ready to rise if they had but a fighting 
 point about which to rally. 
 
 The expectation proved erroneous, for the presence of the 
 little force at Trenton was more than offset by the prompt 
 mobilisation of all the British troops in the State at Princeton, 
 and the hurrying of Cornwallis, with reinforcements, from 
 New York, to resume the command. As Washington's army 
 mustered less than five thousand, one-third of whom were raw 
 Pennsylvania militia, while that of the British general when 
 concentrated exceeded eight thousand, the prudent elected to 
 stay safely within doors and await the result of the coming 
 conflict before deciding whether they should forget their re- 
 cently signed oaths of allegiance and cast in their lot with the 
 Continental cause. 
 
 Yet another difficulty, too, beset the commander-in-chief. 
 The terms of the New England regiments expired on the last 
 day of the year, and though the approach of the enemy made 
 a speedy action certain, the men refused to re-enlist, or even 
 to serve for a fortnight longer. Such was the desperate plight 
 of the general that he finally offered them a bounty if they 
 would but remain for six weeks, and, after much persuasion, 
 more than half of them consented to stay the brief time. The 
 army chest being wholly without funds, Washington pledged 
 his personal fortune to the payment of the bounty, though in 
 private he spoke scornfully of the regiments' "noble example " 
 and " extraordinary attachment to their country," the fighting 
 spirit too strong within him to enable him to understand 
 desertion of the cause at such an hour. Quite a number, 
 even, who took the bounty, deserted the moment the money 
 was received. 
 
 Cornwallis lost not a moment, once his troops were gathered, 
 in seeking vengeance for Trenton; and on January 2 spies 
 brought word to Washington that the British were approach- 
 
Holiday Week at Trenton 253 
 
 ing in force by the Princeton post-read. A detachment was 
 at once thrown forward to meet their advance, and for several 
 hours every inch of ground was hotly contested. Then, the 
 main body of the enemy having come up, the Americans fell 
 back on their reserves, and the whole Continental army re- 
 treated through the village and across the bridge over Assan- 
 pink Creek, — a tributary stream emptying into the Delaware 
 just east of Trenton. Here the troops were yanged along the 
 steep banks to renew the contest, the batteries being massed 
 at the bridge and at the two fords, and some desultory firing 
 occurred. But it was now dark, and Cornwallis's troops having 
 marched fifteen miles, the commander postponed the attack 
 till the morrow, and the two armies bivouacked for the night 
 on opposite sides of the brook, within a hundred and fifty 
 yards of each other. 
 
 " My Lord," protested Sir William Erskine, when the order 
 to encamp was given, " may not the enemy escape under 
 cover of the night?" 
 
 "Where to?" demanded Cornwallis. "This time there 
 will be no crossing of the Delaware, for we are too close on 
 their heels ; and if they retreat down the river, we can fight 
 them when we please. A little success has undone Mr. 
 Washington, and the fox is at last run to cover." 
 
 While at supper, the British commander was informed by 
 an orderly that two civilians desired word with him, and 
 without leaving the table he granted an audience. 
 
 "A petticoat, eh?" he muttered, as a man and woman 
 entered the room ; and then as the lady pushed back her 
 calash, he ordered : " A chair for Miss Meredith, sergeant." 
 The girl seated, he went on : " Sir William spoke of you to 
 me just as I was leaving New York, and instructed me, if you 
 were findable, to send you to New York. I' faith, the general 
 had more to say of your coming than he had of my teaching 
 Mr. Washington a lesson. He told me to put you under 
 charge of Lord Clowes without delay." 
 
 " But he was captivated," announced Mr. Drinker. 
 
 "So I learned at Princeton; therefore the matter must 
 await my return." 
 
 " I have come with the young lady, my Lord," spoke up Mr. 
 
254 Janice Meredith 
 
 Drinker, " to ask thy indulgence in behalf of herself and her 
 father." 
 
 " Yes, IjOrd Cornwallis," said Janice, finding her tongue 
 and eager to use it. " We came here to see General Grant, 
 but he was away, and dadda had a slight attack of the gout, 
 from a cold he took, and then he very rashly drank too much 
 at Colonel Rahl's party, and that swelled his foot so that he 's 
 lain abed ever since, till to-day, when we thought to set out 
 for Brunswick ; but the snow having melted, our sleigh could 
 not travel, and every one expecting a battle wanted to get out 
 of town themselves, so we could get no carriage, nor even a 
 cart." Here Miss Meredith paused for breath with which to 
 go on. 
 
 " Friend Meredith," said Mr. Drinker, taking up the ex- 
 planation, "though not able to set foot to the ground, con- 
 ceives that he can travel on horseback by easy riding ; and 
 rather than risk remaining in a town that is like to be the scene 
 of to-morrow's unrighteous slaughter, he hopes thee will grant 
 him permission and a pass to return to Brunswick." 
 
 " There will be no fight in the town to-morrow," asserted 
 Cornwallis ; '■ but there may be some artillery firing before we 
 can carry their position, so 't is no place for non-combatants, 
 much less women. You can't do better than get back to 
 Greenwood, where later I'll arrange to fulfil Sir William's 
 orders. Make out a pass for two, Erskine. When do you 
 wish to start. Miss Meredith?" 
 
 " Dadda said we 'd get away before daylight, so as to be " 
 well out of town before the battle began." 
 
 " Wisely thought. The second brigade lies at Maidenhead 
 and the fourth at Princeton ; and as both have orders to join 
 me, you'll meet them on the road. This paper, however, 
 will make all easy.'' 
 
 "Thank you," said the girl, gratefully, as she took the pass. 
 
 '•Didst see Mr. Washington when he was in town?" 
 inquired the earl of Mr. Drinker. 
 
 " Not I," replied the Quaker ; " but friend Janice had word 
 with him." 
 
 " You seem to play your cards to stand well with both com- 
 "manders. Miss Meredith," intimated the, officer, a little 
 
Holiday Week at I'renton 255 
 
 ironically. " Did the rebel general seem triumphant over his 
 easy victory?" 
 
 " He said naught about it to me," answered Janice. 
 
 " Within a few hours he '11 learn the difference between 
 British regulars and half-drunk Hessians." Cornwallis glanced 
 out of the window to where, a quarter of a mile away, could be 
 seen the camp-fires of the Continental force burning brightly. 
 " He *d best have done bis bragging while be could." 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 THE "STOLE AWAY" 
 
 IT was barely four o'clock the following morning when, 
 after a breakfast by candle-light, the squire and Janice, 
 the former only with much assistance and many groans, 
 mounted Joggles and Brereton's mare. Mr. Drinker 
 rode with them through the village, on his way to join the 
 Misses Drinker, who, two days before, on the first warning of 
 a conflict, had been sent away to a friend's, as would Janice 
 have been also, had she not insisted on staying with her 
 father. At the crossroads, therefore, after a due examina- 
 tion of their passes by the picket, adieux were made, and the 
 guests, with many thanks, turned north on the Princeton post- 
 road, while the host trotted off on the Pennington turnpike. 
 
 It was still dark when, an hour later, the riders reached 
 Maidenhead, to find the second brigade pf the British clus- 
 tered about their camp-fires ; but in the moment's delay, 
 while the officer of the day was scrutinising the safe-conduct, 
 the drums beat the reveille, and the village street was alive 
 with breakfast preparations as father and daughter were per- 
 mitted to resume their journey. It was a clear, cold morning, 
 and as the twilight slowly brightened into sunshine, the whole 
 landscape glistened radiantly with a heavy hoar-frost that for 
 the moment gleamed and shimmered as if the face of the 
 country had been rubbed with some phosphorescent substance, 
 or as if the riders were viewing it through prism glasses. 
 
 "Oh, dadda, isn't it beautiful?" exclaimed Janice, de- 
 lightedly, as they rode down the hill to the bridge over Stony 
 Creek. 
 
 "What? Where?" demanded that worthy, looking about 
 in all directions. 
 
The " Stole Away " 257 
 
 " The fields, and the trees, and — " 
 
 " Can't ye keep your thoughts from gadding off on such 
 nonsense, Jan ? " cavilled her father, fretfully, his gouty foot 
 putting him in anything but a sweet mood. " One would 
 think ye had never seen pasture or woodland be — Ho ! " 
 he ejaculated, interrupting his reproof, " what 's that sound? " 
 
 The words were but spoken when the front files of a regi- 
 ment just topping the hill across the brook came in view and 
 descended the road at quick step to the bridge, their gay 
 scarlet uniforms, flying colours, and shining gun barrels adding 
 still more to the brilliancy. 
 
 "Halt ! " was the order to the troops as they came up to 
 the riders, and the officer took the pass that the squire held 
 out to him. " What hour left you Trenton? " he demanded. 
 
 "Four o'clock." 
 
 "And heard you any firing after leaving?" asked Colonel 
 Mawhood, eagerly. 
 
 " Not a sound." 
 
 " I fear none the less that the fighting will be all over ere 
 the Seventeenth can get there, much more the Fortieth and 
 Fifty-fifth," he grumbled, as he returned the paper. " Atten- 
 tion ! Sections, break off ! Forward — march ! " 
 
 The order, narrowing the column, allowed the squire and 
 Janice to ride on and cross the bridge. On the other side of 
 the stream a by-road joined the turnpike, and as Janice glanced 
 along it, she gave a cry of surprise. " Look, dadda," she 
 prompted, "there are more troops!" 
 
 " Ay," acceded Mr. Meredith, " 't is the rest of the brigade 
 just coming in view." 
 
 "But that leads not from Princeton," observed Janice. 
 « 'T is the roundabout way to Trenton that joins the river road 
 on the other side of Assanpink Creek. And, oh, dadda, look 
 at the uniforms 1 Is 't not the hunting shirt of the Continental 
 riflemen? " 
 
 " Gadsbodikins, if the lass is not right 1 " grunted the squire, 
 when he had got on his glasses. " What the deuce do they 
 
 here?" 
 
 An equal curiosity apparently took possession of the British 
 colonel, for when the Seventeenth had breasted the hill to a 
 
 17 
 
258 Janice Meredith 
 
 point where the American advance could be seen, the regi- 
 ment was hastily halted, and in another moment, reversing 
 direction, returned on its route at double quick, its com- 
 mander supposing the force in sight a mere detachment 
 which he could capture or cut to pieces, and little recking 
 that Washington's whole army, save for a guard to keep their 
 camp-fires burning, had stolen away in the night from the 
 superior force of British at Trenton, with the object of attack- 
 ing the fourth brigade at Princeton. 
 
 " By heavens ! " snorted the squire, in alarm. " Quicken 
 thy pace, Jan. We are out of the frying-pan and into the fire 
 with a vengeance." Then as the horses were put to a trot, 
 he howled with the pain the motion caused his swathed foot. 
 " Spur on to Princeton, Jan. The pace is more than I can 
 bear, and I 'U turn off into this orchard for safety," he 
 moaned, as he indicated a slope to the right of the road. 
 
 "I'll not leave thee, dadda," protested the girl, as she 
 guided the mare over the let-down bars of the fence, through 
 which her father put Joggles, and in a moment both horses 
 were climbing the declivity under the bare apple-trees. 
 
 The squire's knowledge of warfare was never likely to win 
 him honour, for with vast circumspection he had selected the 
 strongest strategic position of the region ; and though his back 
 to the British and the rising land in his front prevented him 
 from realising it, both commanders, with the quick decision 
 of trained officers, put their forces to a run, in the endeavour 
 to occupy the hill. The Continental riflemen, having the ' 
 advantage of light accoutrements and little baggage, were 
 successful ; and just as the two riders reached the crest, it was 
 covered by green and brown shirted men. 
 
 " Get to the rear ! " stormed an officer at the pair; while, 
 without stopping to form, the men poured in a volley at the 
 charging British, who, halting, returned the fire, the bullets 
 hurthng and whistling about the non-combatants in a way 
 that made the squire forget the agonies of his gout in the 
 danger of his position. 
 
 Ere the riflemen could reload, the Seventeenth, with fixed 
 Tiayonets, were upon them, and the two American regiments, 
 Slaving no defensive weapon, broke and fled in every direction! 
 
The " Stole Away " 259 
 
 A mounted of&cer rode forward and attempted to stay the 
 flight of the riflemen, then fell wounded from his horse. As 
 he came to the ground, Janice and her father found them- 
 selves once more on the other side of the conflict, as the 
 charging British swept by them; and the girl screamed as 
 she saw two of the soldiers rush to where the wounded man 
 lay, and repeatedly thrust their bayonets into him, though she 
 was ignorant that it was Washington's old companion in arms, 
 General Mercer. 
 
 As the riflemen fell back down the hill, Washington in person 
 headed two regiments of Pennsylvania mihtia, supported by a 
 couple of pieces of artillery from the right flank to cover the 
 fugitives. Although conscious by now that he had no mere 
 detachment to fight, Colonel Mawhood, with admirable cool- 
 ness, ordered the recall sounded, and re-forming his regiment, 
 led a charge against the new foe. Seeing the Seventeenth 
 advancing at double quick, in the face of the guns, so fear- 
 lessly and steadily, the militia wavered, and were on the point 
 of deserting the battery, when Washington spurred forward, 
 thus placing himself between the two lines of soldiers. His 
 splendid and reckless courage steadied the raw militia ; they 
 gave a cheer and levelled their muskets just as the Seventeenth 
 halted and did the same. Within thirty yards of the enemy, 
 and well in advance of his own men, Washington stood ex- 
 posed to both volleys as the two lines fired, and for a mo- 
 ment he was lost to view in the smoke which, blown about 
 him, united in one dense cloud. Slowly the mass lifted, re- 
 vealing both general and horse unhurt, and at the sight the 
 Pennsylvania regiments cheered once more. 
 
 The time lost by the British in halting and firing proved 
 fatal to the capture of the guns. Hand's riflemen, advancing, 
 threw in a deadly, scattering fire of trained sharpshooters, 
 while two regiments under Hitchcock came forward at a run. 
 One moment the Seventeenth held its ground, then broke and 
 fled toward the road, leaving behind them two brass cannon. 
 For four miles the fugitives were pursued, and many prisoners 
 were taken. 
 
 Musketry on the right showed the day not yet won, however, 
 the Fifty-fifth having pressed forward upon hearing the fusil- 
 
26o Janice Meredith 
 
 lade, and but for the check it met from a New England 
 brigade would have come to the aid of its friends. The flight 
 of the Seventeenth enabled Washington to mass his force 
 against the new arrival; and it was driven in upon the Fortieth, 
 and then both fell back into the town, taking possession of the 
 college building, with the evident hope of finding in its walls 
 protection sufficient to make a successful stand. But when 
 the Continental artillery was brought up and wheeled into 
 position, at the first shot the British abandoned the stronghold 
 and fled in disorder along the road leading to Brunswick, hotly 
 pursued by a force which Washington joined. 
 
 " It 's a fine fox chase, my boys 1 " he shouted to the men, 
 in the excitement of the moment. 
 
 Brereton, who was riding within hearing, called something 
 to a bugler ; and the man, halting in the race, put his trumpet 
 to his lips and blew a fanfare. 
 
 " There are others can sound the ' Stole Away,' your Excel- 
 lency," shouted Jack, triumphantly. " That insult is paid in 
 kind." 
 
 The Continental soldiers were too exhausted by their long 
 night march and their morning fight to follow the fugitives far, 
 the more that the English, by throwing away their guns, knap- 
 sacks, and other accoutrements, and by being far less fatigued, 
 were easily able to outstrip their pursuers. Perceiving this, the 
 general ordered the bugles to sound the recall, and the men 
 fell back on Princeton village. 
 
 " With five hundred fresh troops, or a proper force of light 
 horse, we could have captured every man of them," groaned 
 Brereton, " and probably have seized Brunswick, with all its 
 stores." 
 
 Washington nodded his head in assent. " 'T is idle to re- 
 pine," he said calmly, " because the measure of our success 
 might have been greater. The troops have marched well and 
 fought well." 
 
 "What is more," declared Webb, " a twelve hours ago, the 
 enemy thought us in a cul-de-sac. We have not merely 
 escaped, but turned our flight into a conquest. How they 
 will grit their teeth when they find themselves outgeneralled 1" 
 
 " Less a couple of hundred prisoners to boot," chimed in 
 
The " Stole Away " 261 
 
 Brereton, pointing at the village green, where the captives 
 were being collected. 
 
 " Your Excellency," reported General Greene, as Washington 
 came up to the college building, " we have found a store of 
 shoes and blankets in the college, and all of the papers of the 
 Lord Cornwallis and General Grant." 
 
 " Look to them, Brereton, and report to me at once if there 
 is anything needing instant attention," directed Washington. 
 
 Jack, tossing his reins to a soldier, followed Greene into 
 Nassau Hall, and was quickly running over the bundles of 
 papers which the British, with more prudence than prescience, 
 had for safety left behind. Presently he came upon a great 
 package of signed oaths of allegiance, which he was shoving to 
 one side as of no immediate importance, when the name signed 
 at the bottom of the uppermost one caught his eye. 
 
 "Oh, Joe, Joe!" he laughed, taking up the paper, "is 
 this thy much-vaunted love of freedom ? " Glancing at the 
 second, he added, " And Esquire Hennion ! Well, they de- 
 serve it not ; but I '11 do the pair a harmless service all the 
 same, merely for old-time days," he muttered, as he folded up 
 the two broadsides and stuffed them into his pocket. 
 
 While the aide was thus engaged, Washington rode over to 
 inspect the prisoners. Here it was to discover the squire and 
 Janice, the former having been made a prize of by a more 
 zealous than sagacious militiaman. Giving directions to march 
 the prisoners at once under guard to Morristown, the com- 
 mander turned to the girl. 
 
 " Thou 'rt not content to give us thy good wishes. Miss 
 Janice," he said, motioning to the guard to let the two go free, 
 " but addest the aid of thy presence as well." 
 
 " And were within an ace of getting shot thereby," com- 
 plained the squire, still not entirely over his fright. " Egad, 
 general, we were right between the shooting at one minute, 
 and heard the bullets shrieking all about us." 
 
 " But so was his Excellency, dadda," protested Janice. 
 " Oh, General Washington," she added, " when you rode up 
 so close to 'the British, and I saw them level their guns, I was 
 like to have fell off my horse with fear for you." 
 
 *• Ay," remarked the squire, for once unprecedentedly dip- 
 
262 Janice Meredith 
 
 loraatic. "The lass stood her own peril as steadily as ever I 
 did, but she turned white as a feather when the infantry fired 
 at you, and, woman-Uke, burst into tears the moment the smoke 
 had Ufted enough to show you still unhurt." 
 
 " And now has tears in her eyes because I was not shot, I 
 suppose," Washington responded, with a smiling glance at the 
 maiden. 
 
 " No, your Excellency," denied the girl, in turn smihng 
 through the tears. "But dadda is quite wrong: 'twas not 
 anxiety for you that made me weep, but fear that they might 
 have killed Blueskin ! " 
 
 Washington laughed at the girl's quip. " It seems my 
 vanity is so great that I am doomed ever to mistake the source 
 of your interest. Come," he added, "the last time we met I 
 was beholden to you for a breakfast. Let me repay the kind- 
 ness by giving you a meal. One of my family reports that the 
 lunch of the officers' mess of the Fortieth was just on the table 
 at the provost's house when our movements gave them other 
 occupation. 'Tis fair plunder, and I bid you to share in it." 
 
 During the repast the father and daughter told how they had 
 come to be mixed in the conflict, and the squire grumbled 
 over the prospect before him. 
 
 " I 've no place to go but Greenwood, and now they threat 
 to take my lass to New York over this harebrain scrape 
 she 's got us all into." 
 
 "'T would be gross ingratitude," asserted Washington, "if 
 we let Miss Meredith suffer for her service to us, and 't is a 
 simple matter to save her. Get me pen, ink, and a blank 
 parole, Baylor." 
 
 The paper brought, Washington filled in a few words in his 
 flowing script, and then placed it before the girl. " Sign 
 here," he told her, and when it was done he took back the 
 document. "You are now a prisoner of war, released on 
 parole, Miss Janice," he explained, "and pledged not to go 
 more than ten miles from Greenwood without first applying to 
 me for permission. Furthermore, upon due notice, you are 
 again to render yourself my captive." 
 
 Janice, with a shy glance, which had yet the touch of im- 
 pertinence that was ingrain in her, replied, " I was that the 
 
The "Stole Away" 2O3 
 
 first time I met your Excellency, and have been so ever 
 since." 
 
 An end was put to the almost finished meal at this point by 
 the clatter of hoots, followed by the hurried entrance of 
 Brereton. " General St. Clair sends word, sir, that a column 
 of British is advanced as far as Stony Brook, and is — " 
 There the aide caught sight of Janice, and stopped speaking 
 in his surprise. 
 
 " Go on, sir ! " ordered Washington, sternly. 
 
 " And is driving in our skirmishes. He has report that 't is 
 the first of the whole English army, which is pressing on by 
 forced marches." 
 
 " 'T is time, then, that we were on the wing," asserted the 
 general, rising. " Colonel Webb, tell General St. Clair to hold 
 the enemy in check as long as he can. You, Baylor, direct 
 Colonel Forrest to plant his guns on the green, to cover the 
 rearguard. General Greene, let the army file off on the road 
 to Somerset Court-house." 
 
 The orders given, he turned to make his farewell to Janice. 
 "This time Lord Cornwallis did not cheat us of our meal, 
 though he prevents our lingering long at table. You should 
 know best, sir," he said to the esquire, " what course to pur- 
 sue, but I advise you to start for Greenwood without delay, 
 for there will be some skirmishing through the town, and 
 the British commander is not likely to be in the best of 
 moods." 
 
 "We '11 be off at once," assented Mr. Meredith. 
 
 " Then Miss Janice will allow me the office of mounting 
 her," solicited the general, as they all went to the door. " Is 
 not that Colonel Brereton's mare ? " he continued, as the 
 orderly brought up the horses. 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency," stammered Janice. " 'T was by a 
 strange chance — " 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt — " interrupted Washington, smiling. 
 
 « Belike he wants her back," intimated the squire, glancing 
 anxiously at the aide, who stood, with folded arms, watching 
 
 the scene. 
 
 " I think he '11 not grudge the loan, in consideration of the 
 rider," insinuated Washington, "The more that Congress 
 
264 Janice Meredith 
 
 has just voted him a sword and horse for his conduct at 
 Trenton. How is it, Brereton?" 
 
 With a shrug of the shoulders Jack muttered, "'Tis no 
 time to demand her back, got though she was by a trick," 
 and walked away. 
 
 "You have not shown him the paper?" questioned Janice, 
 as she settled herself in the saddle. 
 
 " No, my child," replied Washington. " He returned from 
 Baltimore only last evening, and there has been no time since. 
 But rest easy, he shall see it. Keep good wishes for us, and 
 fare thee well." , 
 
 Two hours later the British marched into Princeton. But 
 the Continental forces had made good their retreat, and all 
 that was left to their pursuers was to march on wearily to 
 Brunswick to save the broken regiments and the magazines 
 that had been lost in spite of them, had Washington possessed 
 but a few fresh troops. The English general had been out- 
 manceuvred, his best brigade cut to pieces, and the army he 
 had thought to annihilate was safe among the hills of New 
 Jersey. 
 
 " Confound the fox ! " stormed Cornwallis. " Can I never 
 come up with him ? " 
 
 " He 's got safe off twice, my lord ; the third time is pro- 
 verbial, and the odds must turn," urged Erskine. 
 
 " Pray Heaven that some day we may catch him in a cul- 
 de-sac from which there can be no retreat." 
 
XXXVI 
 
 BETWIXT MILLSTONES 
 
 THE reunion of the Merediths was so joyful a one 
 that little thought was taken of the course of public 
 events. Nor were they now in a position easily to 
 learn of them. Philemon and his troop had 
 hastened to rejoin at the first news of the British reverses, 
 the remaining farm servants had one by one taken advantage 
 of the anarchy of the last eight months secretly to desert, or 
 boldly enlist, the squire's gout prevented his going abroad, 
 and the quiet was too great a boon to both Mrs. Meredith and 
 Jataice to make them wish for anything but its continuance. 
 
 If there was peace at Greenwood, it was more than could 
 be said for the rest of the land. The Continental success at 
 Princeton, small though it was in degree, worked as a leaven, 
 and excited a ferment throughout the State. Every Whig 
 whom the British successes had for a moment made faint- 
 hearted, every farmer whose crops or stock had been seized, 
 every householder on whom troops had been quartered, even 
 Joe Bagby and the Invincibles took guns from their hiding- 
 places and, forming themselves into parties, joined Washing- 
 ton's army in the Jersey hills about Morristown, or, acting on 
 their own account, boldly engaged the British detachments 
 and stragglers wherever they were encountered. Withdrawn 
 as the Merediths might be, the principal achievements were 
 too important not to finally reach them, and by infinite filtra- 
 tion they heard of how the Waldeckers had been attacked at 
 Springfield and put to flight, how the British had abandoned 
 Hackensack and Newark without waiting for the assaults, and 
 how at Elizabethtown they had been surprised and captured. 
 Less than a month from the time that the royal army had 
 practically held the Jerseys, it was reduced to the mere pos- 
 
266 Janice Meredith 
 
 session of Brunswick, Amboy, and Paulus Hook, and every 
 picket or foraging party sent out from these points was almost 
 certain of a skirmish. 
 
 It was this state of semi-blockade which gave the Merediths 
 their next taste of \v'ar's alarums. Late in February a company 
 of foot and a half troop of horse, with a few waggons, made 
 their appearance on the river road, and halted opposite the 
 gate of Greenwood. Painful as was the squire's foot, this 
 sight was sufficient to make him bear the agony of putting it 
 to the ground, and bring him limping to the door. 
 
 "How now! For what are ye come?" he shouted at a 
 detachment which was already filing through the gate. 
 
 At the call, two officers who had been seemingly engaged 
 in a discussion, rode toward the porch, and the moment 
 they were within speaking distance one of them began an 
 explanation. 
 
 " I was just a-tellin' Captain Plunkett that we 'd done a 
 mighty bad stroke this mornin', but that this 'ud be a worse 
 one, for — " 
 
 "Why, it's Phil!" cheerfully exclaimed Mr. Meredith. 
 " Welcome, lad, and all the more that I feared 't was another 
 call the thieving Whigs were about to pay my cribs and barn. 
 Where have ye been, lad? But, rather, in with ye and your 
 friend," he said, interrupting his own question, as the other 
 officer approached, " and tell your errand over a botde where 
 there's more warmth." 
 
 " It 's such a mighty sorry errand, squire," replied Philemon, 
 with evident reluctance, and reddening, " that it won't take 
 many words ter tell. We was sent out yestere'en toward 
 Somerset Court-house, a-foragin', and this mornin' as we was 
 retumin', we was set upon by the rebels." 
 
 " Devil burn it ! " muttered the captain, " what do you call 
 such mode of warfare ? At Millstone Ford, where they at- 
 tacked us, they scattered like sheep as we deployed for a 
 charge. But the moment we were on the march in column, 
 ping, ping, ping from every bit of cover, front, flank, and rear, 
 and each bullet with a billet at that, no matter what the dis- 
 tance. Not till we reached Middle Brook did their stinging 
 fire cease." 
 
Betwixt Millstones 267 
 
 " And 'stead of bringin' into Brunswick forty carts of food 
 and forage, and a swipe of cattle," groaned Piiileraon, "we 
 has only four waggon-loads of wounded ter show for our 
 raid." 
 
 " With the post nigh to short commons," went on Plunkett. 
 "Therefore, Mr. Meredith, we are put to the necessity of 
 taking a look at your barn and granaries." 
 
 " What ! " roared the squire, incredulously, yet with a wrath 
 in his voice that went far to show that conviction rather than 
 disbelief was his true state of mind. " 'T is impossible that 
 British regulars will thieve like the rebels." 
 
 Both the officers flushed, and Philemon began a faltering 
 explanation and self-exculpation, but he was cut short by his 
 superior saying sharply : " Tush, sir, such language will not 
 make us deal the more gently with your cribs ; so if you 'd 
 save something, mend your speech." 
 
 "I done my best, squire," groaned Philemon, "ter dis- 
 suade Captain Plunkett, but General Grant's orders was not 
 ter come back without a train." 
 
 "Then at least ye '11 have the grace to pay for what ye 
 take ? Ye '11 be no worse than the I'ebel, that I '11 lay to." 
 
 " Ay, and so we should, could we pay in the same worth- 
 less brown paper. In truth, sir, 'twas General Howe's and 
 the commissary's orders that nothing that we seize was to 
 be paid for, so if thou hast a quarrel 't is with those whom Mr. 
 Hennion says are thy good friends. Here 's a chance, there- 
 fore, to exhibit the loyalty which the lieutenant has been ding- 
 ing into my ears for the last half-mile." 
 
 " Belza burn the lot of ye ! " was the squire's prompt ex- 
 pression of his loyalty. 
 
 Neither protests nor curses served, however, to turn the 
 marauders from their purpose. Once again the outbuildings 
 and store-rooms of Greenwood were ransacked and swept 
 clear of their goodly plenty, and once again, as if to deepen 
 the sense of injury, the stable was made to furnish the means 
 with which the robbery was to be completed. 
 
 While the troops were still scattered and occupied in piling 
 the loot upon the sleighs and sledges, a volley of something 
 more potent than the squire's oaths and objurgations inter- 
 
268 Janice Meredith 
 
 rupted them. From behind the garden hedgerow of box 
 came a discharge of guns, and a dozen of the foraging party, 
 including both the captain and the lieutenant of foot, fell. A 
 moment of wild confusion followed, some of the British rush- 
 ing to where the troopers' steeds were standing, and, throwing 
 themselves into the saddles, found safety in flight, while the 
 rest sought shelter m the big barn. Here Lieutenant Hen- 
 nion succeeded in rallying them into some order, but it was 
 to find that numbers of the infantry had left their muskets, 
 and that many of the light horse were without their sabres, 
 both having been laid aside to expedite the work. 
 
 Not daring offensive operations with such a force, the young 
 officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition 
 possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the 
 fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who 
 had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while 
 the dragoons with drawn swords were grouped about the door, 
 ready to resist an attack. 
 
 The Jersey militia had too often experienced the effective- 
 ness of British bayonets and sabres to care to face them, and 
 so they continued behind the hedge, and coolly reloaded their 
 guns. Yet they, as well as their opponenksj understood that 
 time was fighting against them, and as soon as it became obvi- 
 ous that those in the barn intended no sortie they assumed 
 the initiative. 
 
 The first warning of this to the besieged was another volley, 
 %vhich sent bullets through the windows and the crack in the 
 door, without doing the slightest injury. At the same moment 
 four men trailing their rifles appeared from behind the hedge, 
 and, scattering and dodging as they ran, made for the cow 
 yard. Two of the infantry who guarded the window that over- 
 looked this movement, thrust out their muskets and fired ; but 
 neither of their shots told, for the moment they appeared five 
 flashes came from the hedge, and one of the defenders, as his 
 hand pressed the trigger, was struck in the forehead by a rifle 
 ball, and, staggering sidewise, he clutched his comrade's gun, 
 so that it sent its bullet skyward. Before new men could take 
 their places, the four runners had leaped the low fence and 
 dashed across the yard to the shelter under the barn. 
 
Betwixt Millstones 269 
 
 Knowing that they must be dislodged, the lieutenant com- 
 manded that the manure trap should be raised and a number 
 of the .dragoons drop down it ; but no sooner had one started 
 to swing himself through the opening than a gun cracked be- 
 low, and the man, relaxing his hold, fell lifeless on his face. 
 Another, not pausing to drop, jumped. He landed in a heap, 
 but was on his feet in a flash, only to fall backward with a 
 bullet through his lung. The rest hung back, unwilling to 
 face such certain death, though their officers struck them with 
 the flat of their swords. 
 
 Another moment developed the object of the attack, for 
 through the trap-door suddenly shone a red light, and with it 
 came the sound of crackling faggots. A cry of terror broke 
 from the British, and there was a wild rush for the door, which 
 many hands joined in throwing open. As it rolled back a 
 dozen guns spoke, and the seven exposed men fell in a con- 
 fused heap at the opening, — a lesson sharp enough to turn the 
 rest to right about. 
 
 All pretence of discipline disappeared at once, the men 
 ceasing to pay the slightest heed to their officers ; and one, 
 panic-stricken with fear, threw off his coat and, fairly tearing 
 his shirt from his back, tied it to his bayonet and waved it 
 through the door. Hennion, with an oath, sprang forwards, 
 caught the gun and wrenched it out of the fellow's hands; at 
 the same moment stretching him flat with a blow in the neck ; 
 but as he did so one of the troopers behind him cut the 
 officer down with his sabre. The subaltern of foot who rushed 
 to help his superior was caught and held by two of the men, 
 and the officers thus disposed of, the white flag was once 
 more held through the doorway. 
 
 At the very instant that this was accomplished, the fire 
 below found some crevice in the flooring under the hay, and 
 in a trice the mow burst into spitting and crackling flame. 
 With the holder of the white flag at their head, the men 
 dashed through the doorway, those with arms tossing them 
 away, and most of them throwing themselves flat upon the 
 ground, with the double purpose of signalling their surrender 
 and of escaping the bullets that might greet their exit. 
 
 In a moment they were the centre of a hundred men, who, 
 
7.JO Janice Meredith 
 
 but for their guns, might have been taken for a lot of farmers 
 and field hands. One alone wore a military hat with a 
 cockadfe, and it was he who demanded in a voice of self- 
 importance : — 
 
 " Have you surrendered, and where is your commanding 
 officer?" 
 
 " Yes," shouted a dozen of the British, while the three men 
 still holding the subaltern dragged him forward, without rer 
 leasing their hold on his arms. 
 
 " Give up your sword, then," demanded the wearer of the 
 cockade. 
 
 '' I '11 die first ! " protested the young fellow, — a lad of not 
 over seventeen at most, — still struggling with his soldiers. 
 "You'll not see an officer coerced by his own men, sir," he 
 sobbed, as another of the soldiers caught him by the wrist and 
 twisted his sword from his hand. 
 
 "A mighty good lesson it is for your stinking British 
 pride," was the retort of the militia officer, as he accepted 
 the sword. " I guess you 're the kind of man we 've been 
 looking for to make an example of. We '11 teach you what 
 murdering our generals and plundering our houses come to — 
 eh, men ? " 
 
 "Hooray fer Joe Bagby ! " shouted one of the conquerors. 
 
 " Some of you tie the prisoners, except him, two and two, 
 and start them down the road at double quick," ordered Cap- 
 tain Bagby. "Collect all the guns and sabres and throw 
 them on the sledges. Look alive there, for we 've no time to 
 lose. Well, squire, what do you want ? " he demanded, as he 
 turned and found the latter's hand on his sleeve. 
 
 "I 've to thank ye for arriving in the nick o' time to save 
 me from being plundered," said Mr. Meredith, speaking as if 
 he were taking a dose of medicine. « Now can't ye set to 
 and save my outbuildings from taking fire?" 
 
 "Harkee, squire," replied Joe, dropping his voice to a con- 
 fidential pitch, while at the same time leading his interlocutor 
 aside out of hearing. "The sledges and what they hold is our 
 prize, captivated from the British in a fair fight, yet we Ml get 
 around that if you '11 say the right word." 
 
 " And what's that? " queried the squire. 
 
Betwixt Millstones 271 
 
 "You know as well as I what 'tis. The sledges are yours, 
 and we '11 do our prettiest to prevent the stables and cribs 
 from catching, if you '11 but say what I want said as to Miss 
 Janice." 
 
 " I 'd see her in her grave first." 
 
 " Some of you fellows start those sleighs and sledges up the 
 road ! " shouted Bagby. " Now then, have you got that 
 officer ready? " 
 
 " He ain't ready, but we is, cap," answered one of the 
 little group about the prisoner. 
 
 "Up with him, then ! " ordered Bagby. "See-saw's the 
 word : down goes Mercer, up goes a bloody-back." 
 
 At the command, half a dozen men pulled on a rope which 
 had been passed over the bough of a tree, and the young sub- 
 altern was swung clear of the ground. He struggled so 
 fiercely for a moment that the cords which bound his wrists 
 parted and he was able to clutch the rope above his head in a 
 desperate attempt to save himself. It was useless, for instantly 
 two rifles were levelled arid two bullets sent through him ; his 
 hands relaxing, he hung limply, save for a slight muscular 
 quiver. 
 
 " If your friends, the British, come back, you can tell them 
 that's only the beginning," Bagby told the squire. "And 
 look out for yourself, or it 's what will come to you. Now 
 then, fellows, fall in," he called. " The line of retreat is to 
 Somerset Court-house, and you are to guard the prisoners and 
 the provisions if you can, but scatter if attacked in force. 
 March ! " 
 
 The motley company, without pretence of order, set off on 
 their long, weary night tramp through the snow. Behind 
 them the flame of the bam, now towering sixty feet in the air, 
 made the whole scene bright with colour, save where the swing- 
 ing body of the lad threw a shifting shadow across a stretch of 
 untrampled snow. 
 
XXXVII 
 
 BLUES AND REDS 
 
 AS the squire still stood gloomily staring, now at the 
 departing Whigs, now at the blazing barn, and now 
 at his stable and other buildings, Clarion, who had 
 taken a great interest in the last hour's doings, 
 suddenly pricked up his ears and then ran forward to a snow- 
 drift within a few yards of the burning building. Here he 
 halted and gave vent to a series of loud yelps. Limping for- 
 ward, the squire heard his name called in a faint voice, and the 
 next instant discovered Philemon hidden in the snow. 
 
 " I 'm bad hurt, squire," he groaned ; " but I made out to 
 ( crawl from the barn." 
 
 " Gadsbodikins ! " exclaimed Mr. Meredith. " Why, Phil, I 
 e'en forgot ye for the moment. Here 's a pass, indeed. And 
 none but women and a one-legged man to help ye, now ye 're 
 found." 
 
 It took the -whole household to carry Philemon indoors, 
 and as it was impossible, in the squire's legless and horseless 
 condition, to send for aid, Mrs. Meredith became the surgeon. 
 The wound proved to be a shoulder cut, serious only from the 
 loss of blood it had entailed, and after it was washed and 
 bandaged the patient was put to bed. Daylight had come by 
 the time this had been accomplished, and the squire was a 
 little cheered to find that the snow on the roofs of his farm 
 buildings had prevented the sparks of the bam from igniting 
 them. 
 
 Twenty-four hours elapsed before help came to the house- 
 hold, and then it was in the form of Harcourt's dragoons. 
 From Tarleton it was learned that the fugitives, on their 
 arrival at Brunswick, asserted that Washington's whole army 
 had attacked them, and was in full advance upon the post, — 
 
Blues and Reds 273 
 
 news which had kept the whole force under arms for hours, and 
 prevented any attempt to come to the assistance of the detach- 
 ment. When the major learned that eighty picked troops had 
 been killed or captured by a hundred raw militia, his language 
 was more picturesque than quotable. There was nothing to be 
 done, however; and after they had vowed retaliation for the 
 subaltern, buried the dead, and the surgeon had looked at 
 Phil's wound and approved of Mrs. Meredith's treatment, the 
 squadron rode back to Brunswick. 
 
 This and other like experiences served to teach the English 
 that it was not safe to send out foraging parties, and for a 
 time active warfare practically ceased. The Continental forces, 
 reduced at times to. less than a thousand men, were not strong 
 enough to attack the enemy's posts, and the British, however 
 much they might grumble over a fare of salt food, preferred it 
 to fresher victuals when too highly seasoned with rifle bullets. 
 
 The Merediths were somewhat better provided, Sukey's 
 store-rooms proving to have many an unransacked cupboard, 
 while the farmers in the vicinity, however bare they had 
 apparently been stripped, were able, when money was offered, 
 to supply poultry, eggs, milk, and many other comforts, which 
 through lack of stock and labour Greenwood could no longer 
 furnish. 
 
 His wound was therefore far from an ill to the lieutenant of 
 horse, since it not merely relieved him from the stigma of the 
 surrender, but saved him from the privation of the poor food 
 and cramped quarters his fellow troopers were enduring at 
 Brunswick. Nor did he count as the least advantage the tend- 
 ance that Janice, half by volition and half by compulsion, gave 
 him. When at last he was able to come downstairs, the days 
 were none too long as he sat and watched her nimble fingers 
 sew, or embroider, or work at some other of her tasks. 
 
 One drawback there was to this joy. In spite of strict 
 orders against straggling, many a red-coated officer risked 
 punishment for disobedience, and capture by the enemy, by 
 sneaking through the pickets and spending loug hours at 
 Greenwood. Though Phil's service had given him much more 
 tongue and assurance than of yore, he was still unable to cope 
 with them ; and, conscious that he cut but a poor figure to the 
 
 18 
 
274 Janice Meredith 
 
 girl when they were present, he was at times jealous and 
 quarrelsome. 
 
 Twice he laid his anxieties and desires before the squire 
 and begged for an immediate wedding, but that worthy was by 
 no means as ready as once he had been ; for while convinced 
 of the eventual success of the British, he foresaw unsettled 
 times in the immediate future, and knew that the marriage of 
 his girl to an officer of the English army was a serious if not 
 decisive step. Yet delay was all he wished, being too honest 
 a man to even think of breaking faith with the young- fellow; 
 and finally one evening, when he had become genial over a 
 due, or rather undue, amount of Madeira and punch, he was 
 won over by Philemon's earnest persuasions, and declared that 
 the wedding should take place before the British broke up 
 their winter quarters and marched to Philadelphia. 
 
 The next morning the squire had no remembrance of his 
 evening's pledge, but he did not seek to cry off from it when 
 reminded by Philemon. Mrs. Meredith was called into con- 
 clave, and then Janice was summoned and told of the edict. 
 
 " And now, lass, thou hast got thyself and us into more than 
 one scrape," ended the father, " so come and give thy dad a 
 kiss to show that thou 'rt cured of thy wrong-headedness and 
 will do as thy mother and I wish." 
 
 Without a word Janice went to her father and kissed him ; 
 then she flung her arms about his neck, buried her head in his 
 shoulder, and burst into tears. 
 
 The squire had been quite prepared for the conduct of two 
 years previous and had steeled himself to enforce obedience, 
 but this contrary behaviour took him very much aback. 
 
 " Why, Jan," he expostulated, " this is no way to carry on 
 when a likely young officer bespeaks ye in marriage. Many 's 
 the maid would give her left hand to — " 
 
 " But I don't love him," sobbed the girl. 
 
 " And who asked if thou didst, miss? " inquired her mother, 
 who by dint of nursing Phil had become his strong partisan. 
 "Dost mean to put thy silly whims above thy parents' 
 judgments ? " 
 
 " But you would n't do as your father wished, and married 
 dadda," moaned Janice. 
 
Blues and Reds 275 
 
 "A giddy, perverse child I was," retorted Mrs. Meredith; 
 " and another art thou, to fling the misbehaviour in thy 
 mother's face." 
 
 " Nay, nay, Patty — " began the squire ; but whether he was 
 stepping forward in defence of his wife or his daughter he was 
 not permitted to say, for Mrs. Meredith continued : — 
 
 " We '11 set the wedding for next Thursday, if that suits thee, 
 Philemon?" 
 
 " You can't name a day too soon for me, marm," assented 
 Philemon, eagerly ; " and as I just hearn the sound of hoofs 
 outside, 't is likely some officers has arrived, and I '11 speak ter 
 them so 's ter get word ter the chaplain, and ter my regiment. 
 You need n't be afraid, Miss Janice, that *t won't be done in 
 high style. Like as not, General Grant will put the whole post 
 under arms." In truth, the lover was not at his ease, and was 
 glad enough for an excuse which took him from the room. 
 Nor was he less eager to announce his success to his comrades, 
 hoping it would put an end to their attentions to his bride. 
 
 " Then ye '11 do as I bid ye, Jan? " questioned her father. 
 
 "Yes, dadda," Janice assented dutifully, while striving to 
 stifle her sobs. "I — I 've been a — a — wicked creature, I 
 know, and now I '11 do as you and mommy tell me." 
 
 If Philemon had been made uneasy by the girl's tears, her 
 manner during the balance of the day did not tend to make 
 him happier. Her sudden gravity and silence were so marked 
 that his fellow-officers who had come to supper, and who did 
 not know the true situation, rallied them both on Miss Mere- 
 dith's loss of spirits. 
 
 " I' faith," declared Sir Frederick Mobray, moved perhaps 
 by twinges of the little green monster, " but for the lieutenant's 
 word I 'd take oath 't was a funeral we were to attend, and 
 issue orders for the casing of colours and muffling of drums. 
 In the name of good humour, Mr. Meredith, have in the spirits, 
 and I '11 brew a punch that shall liquidate the gloom." 
 
 After one glass of the steaming drink, the ladies, as was 
 the custom, rose to leave the room. At the door Janice was 
 mtercepted by Peg, with word that Sukey wished to advise 
 with her anent some matter, so the maid did not follow her 
 mother, but turned and entered the kitchen. 
 
276 Janice Meredith 
 
 The cook was not in view ; but as the girl realised the fact, 
 a cloaked man suddenly stepped from behind the chimney 
 breast, and before the scream that rose to Janice's lips could 
 escape, a firm hand was laid on them. Yet, even in the moment 
 of surprise, the girl was conscious that, press as the fingers 
 might, there was still an element of caress in their touch. 
 
 "I seem doomed to fright you, Miss Meredith," said 
 Brereton, "but, indeed, 'tis not intentional. Twice in the 
 last week I 've tried to gain speech of you without success, 
 and so to-night have taken desperate means." He took his 
 hand from li«r mouth. " This time I know myself safe in 
 your hands. Ah, Miss Janice, wilt not forgive me the sus- 
 picion ? for not one easy hour have I had since I knew how I 
 had wronged you. I was sent to eastward with despatches to 
 the New England governors, or nothing would have kept me 
 from earlier seeking you to crave a pardon." 
 
 " Yet thou wouldst not believe me, sir, when I sent thee 
 word." 
 
 "Sent me word, when? " 
 
 « By Ix)rd Clowes." 
 
 "Clowes?" 
 
 " Yes. The morning after you were captivated." 
 
 " Not one word did he speak to me from the moment I 
 was trapped until — until you, like a good angel, as now I 
 know, came to my rescue." He bowed his head and pressed 
 his lips upon the palm of her hand. 
 
 The girl was beginning an explanation when a loud laugh 
 from the dining-room recalled to her the danger. "You 
 must not stay," she protested, as she caught away her hand, 
 which the aide had continued holding. " There are five — " 
 
 " I know it," interrupted Jack ; " and if you 'd not come to 
 me, I 'd have burst in on them rather than have my third 
 ride futile." 
 
 "Oh, go; please go ! " begged the girl, his reckless manner 
 adding yet more to her alarm. 
 
 "Say that you forgive me," pleaded the officer, catching 
 her hands. 
 
 "Yes, yes, anything ; only go ! " besought Janice, as a second 
 laugh from the dining-room warned her anew of the peril. 
 
Blues and Reds 277 
 
 Jack stooped and kissed each hand in turn, but even as he 
 did so one of the officers in the next room bawled : — 
 
 " Here 's a toast to Leftenant Hennion and his bride, — 
 hip, hip, hip, bumpers ! " 
 
 Janice felt herself caught by both shoulders, with all the 
 tenderness gone from the touch. 
 
 "What does that mean?" the aide demanded, his face 
 very close to her own. 
 
 The girl, with bowed head, partly in shame, and partly to 
 escape the blazing eyes which fairly burned her own, replied : 
 " I am to marry Mr. Hennion next Thursday." 
 
 "Willingly?" burst from her questioner, as if the word 
 were shot from a bomb. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then you '11 do nothing of the kind," denied Brereton, 
 with a sudden gaiety of voice. " My horse is hid in the 
 woods by the river ; but say the word, and you shall be under 
 Lady Washington's protection at Morristown before daylight." 
 
 " And what then? " questioned the girl. 
 
 "Then? Why, a marriage with me the moment you'll 
 give me ay." 
 
 " But I care no more for you than I do for Mr. Hennion ; 
 and even — " 
 
 " But I '11 make you care for me," interrupted Jack, ardently. 
 
 "And even if I did," concluded Janice, "you yourself 
 helped to teach me what the world thinks of elopements." 
 
 " Ah, don't let — don't deny — " 
 
 " No, once for all ; and release me, sir, I beg." 
 
 " Not till you swear to me that this accursed wedding is 
 not to take place till Thursday." 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 "And where is it to be?" 
 
 " At the church in Brunswick." 
 
 "And is the looby with his regiment or staying here?" 
 
 " Here." 
 
 Brereton laughed gaily, and more loudly than was prudent. 
 " A bet and a. marvel," he bantered : " a barley-corn to Miss 
 Janice Meredith, that the sweetest, most bewitching creature 
 in the world lacks a groom on her wedding day ! I must not 
 
278 Janice Meredith 
 
 tarry, for 't is thirty miles to Morristown, and three days is 
 none too much time for what I would do. Farewell," Jack 
 ended, once more catching her hands and kissing them. He 
 hurriedly crossed the room, but as he laid hold of the latch 
 he as suddenly turned and strode back to the maid. " Has 
 he ever kissed you?" he demanded, with a savage scowl on 
 his face. 
 
 " Never ! " impulsively cried the girl, while the colour flooded 
 into her cheeks. 
 
 " Bless him for a cold-blooded icicle 1 " joyfully exclaimed 
 the officer ; and before Janice could realise his intention she 
 was caught in his arms and fervently kissed. The next 
 moment a door slammed, and he was gone, leaving the girl 
 leaning for very want of breath against the chimney side, 
 with redder cheeks than ever. 
 
 The colour still lingered the next morning to such an extent 
 that it was commented upon by both her parents, who found 
 in it proof that she was now reconciled tn their wishes. Had 
 they been closer observers, they would have noticed that 
 several times in the course of the day it waxed or waned 
 without apparent reason, that their daughter was singularly 
 restless, and that any sound out of doors caused her to start 
 and listen. Not even the getting ou*; and trying on of her 
 wedding gown seemed to interest her. Yet nothing occurred 
 to break the usual monotony of the life. 
 
 Her state of nervous expectancy on the second day was 
 shown when the inevitable contingent of English officers 
 arrived a litde before dinner ; for as they appeared without 
 previous warning in the parlour door, Janice gave a scream, 
 which startled Philemon, who was relying upon but two legs 
 of his chair, into a pitch over backward, and brought the 
 squire's gouty foot to the floor with a bump and a wail of 
 pain. 
 
 " Body o' me ! " ejaculated one of the new-comers. " Dost 
 take us for Satan himself, that ye greet us so ? " 
 
 "Tush, man!" corrected Mobray. "Miss Meredith could 
 not see under our cloaks, and so, no doubt, thought us rebels. 
 Who wouldn't scream at the prospect of ari attack of the 
 Continental blue devils — eh. Miss Janice? '' 
 
Blues and Reds 279 
 
 " Better the blue devils," retorted Janice, " than a scarlet 
 fever." 
 
 "Hah, hah! " laughed a fellow-officer. "'Twas you got 
 us into that, Sir Frederick. Lieutenant Hennion, your first 
 task after to-morrow's ceremony is plain and clear. 
 
 "Would that I had the suppression of this rebellion! " groaned 
 the baronet, " 'stead of one which fights us with direst cold and 
 hunger, to say nothing of the scurvy and the putrid fever." 
 
 For the next few hours cold and hunger and disease were 
 not in evidence, however; and it took little persuasion from 
 the squire, who dearly loved jovial company, to induce the 
 visitors to stay on to tea, and then to supper. 
 
 While they were enjoying the latter, the interruption Janice 
 had expected came at last. In the midst of the cheer, the 
 hall door was swung back so quietly that no one observed it, 
 and only when he who opened it spoke did those at table 
 realise the new arrival. Then the sight of the blue uniform 
 with buff facings brought every officer to his feet and set 
 them glancing cornerward, to where their side arms were 
 stood. 
 
 " I grieve to intrude upon so mirthful a company," apolo- 
 gised the new arrival, bowing. " But knowing of the unstinted 
 hospitality of Greenwood, I made bold, Mrs. Meredith, to 
 tell a friend that we could scarce fail of a welcome." Brere- 
 ton turned to say, " This way, Harry, after thou 'st disposed 
 thy cloak and hat," and entered the room. 
 
 " Odds my life ! " burst out the baronet, as the second 
 interloper, garbed in Continental dragoon uniform, entered 
 and bowed respectfully to the company. "What's to pay 
 here?" 
 
 " But nay," went on Brereton, " I see your table is already 
 filled, so we '11 not inconvenience you by our intrusion. Per- 
 haps, however. Miss Janice will fill us each a glass from you 
 bowl of punch. 'T is a long ride to Morristown, and a stirrup 
 cup will not be amiss. Yet stay again. Let me first puff off 
 my friend to you. Ladies and gentleman. Captain Henry 
 Lee, better known as Light Horse Harry." 
 
 " May I perish, but this impudence passes belief I " gasped 
 one of the officers. "Dost think thou 'rt not prisoners?" 
 
28o Janice Meredith 
 
 " Ho, Jack ! I told thee thy harebrainedness and love of 
 adventure would get us into the suds yet," spoke up Lee. 
 " Then the ninety light horse whom we left surrounding the 
 house are thy troops?" he questioned laughingly, of the four 
 officers. 
 
 " Devil pick your bones, the two of you ! " swore Mobray. 
 " Wast not enough that we should be so confoundedly gapped, 
 but you must come with the bowl but half emptied. Hast 
 thou no bowels for gentlemen and fellow-officers?" 
 
 "Fooh ! " quizzed Brereton. "Pick up the bowl and down 
 with it at a gulp, man. Never let it be said that an officer of 
 the Welsh Fusileers made bones of a half- full — " There the 
 speaker caught himself short, and suddenly turned his back 
 on the table. 
 
 "Whom have we here?" demanded the baronet. "By 
 Heavens, Charlie, who'd think — Does Sir William know 
 of—?" 
 
 " 'S death ! " cried Jack, facing about, and meeting the 
 questioner eye to eye. "Canst not hold thy tongue, 
 man ? " Then he went on less excitedly : " I am Leften- 
 ant-Colonel John Brereton, aide-de-camp to his Excellency 
 General Washington." 
 
 For a moment Sir Frederick stood speechless, then he held 
 out his hand, saying : " And a good fellow, I doubt not, de- 
 spite a bad trade. Fair lady," he continued after the hand- 
 shake, " since we are doomed for the moment to be captives 
 of some one other than thee, help to cheer us in the exchange 
 by filling us each a parting glass. Come, Charlie, canst give 
 us one of thy old-time toasts?" 
 
 Brereton laughed, as he took a glass from the girl. " 'T is 
 hardly possible, with ladies present, to fit thy taste, Fred. 
 However, here goes : Honour, fame, love, and wealth may 
 desert us, but thirst, is eternal." 
 
 " Even in captivity, thank a kind Providence," ejaculated 
 one of the officers, as he set down his drained tumbler. 
 
 "Now, gentlemen, boots and saddles, an' it please you," 
 suggested Lee, politely. 
 
 "Thee '11 not force a wounded man to take such exposure," 
 protested Mrs. Meredith. " Lieutenant Hennion — " 
 
Blues and Reds 281 
 
 Brereton carried on the speech : " Can drink punch and 
 study divinity. I '11 warrant he 's not so near to death's door 
 but he can bear one-half the ride of our poor starved troopers 
 and beasts." 
 
 "Farewell, Miss Janice," groaned the baronet; "'twas thy 
 beauty baited this trap." 
 
 Jack lingered a moment after Lee and the prisoners had 
 passed into the hallway. 
 
 " Can I have a moment's word with you apart. Miss Mere- 
 dith?" he asked. 
 
 " Most certainly not," spoke up the squire, recovering from 
 the dumbness into which the rapid occurrences of the last 
 three minutes had reduced him. " If ye have aught to say 
 to my lass, out with it here." 
 
 " 'T is — 't is just a word of farewell." 
 
 " I like not thy farewells," answered the girl, colouring. 
 
 " For once we agree, Miss Janice," replied the officer, 
 boldly; "and did it rest with me, there should never be 
 another." He bowed, and went to the door. " Mr. Mere- 
 dith," he said, " 1 've stolen a husband from your daughter. 
 Tis a debt I am ready to pay on demand." 
 
XXXVIII 
 BLACK AND WHITE 
 
 HOW much the squire would have grieved over the 
 capture of his almost son-in-law was never known, 
 for events gave him no opportunity. Spring was 
 now come, and with it the breaking up of winter 
 quarters. The moment the roads were passable, the garrison 
 of Brunswick, under the command of Cornwallis, marched up 
 the Raritan to Middle Brook, driving back into the Jersey hills 
 a detachment of the Continental army. In turn Washington's 
 whole force was moved to the support of his advance, but the 
 British had fallen back once more to their old position. Early 
 in June, Howe himself arrived at Brunswick, bringing with 
 him heavy reinforcements, and first threatened a movement 
 toward the Delaware, hoping to draw Washmgton from his 
 position ; but the latter, surmising that his opponent would 
 never dare to jeopardise his communications, was not to be 
 deceived. Disappointed in this, the British faced about 
 quickly, and tried to surprise the Americans by a quick 
 march upon their encampment, only to find them posted 
 along a strong piece of ground, fully prepared for a conflict. 
 Although the British outnumbered the Continentals almost 
 twice over, the deadly shooting of the latter had been so often 
 experienced that Howe dared not assault their position, and 
 after a few days of futile waiting, his army once more fell back 
 on Brunswick, crossed the Raritan to Amboy, and then was 
 ferried across to Staten Island. Washington, by holding his 
 force in a menacing position, without either marching or 
 attacking, had saved not merely his troops, but Philadelphia 
 as well J and Howe learned that if the capital was to be cap- 
 tured, it could not be by the direct march of his command 
 
Black and White 283 
 
 across the Jerseys, but must be by the far slower way of con- 
 veying it by ships to the southward. 
 
 Before the campaign opened, Mr. Meredith had been loud 
 and frequent in complaints over his lack of stock, and labour 
 with which to cultivate his farm. Had he been better situ- 
 ated, however, it is probable that his groans would have been 
 multiplied fivefold, for he would have seen whatever he did 
 rendered useless by this march and counter-march of belliger- 
 ents. Thrice the tide of war rolled over Greenwood ; and 
 though there was not so much as a skirmish within hearing of 
 the homestead, the effects were almost as serious to him and to 
 his tenantry. When the British finally evacuated the Jerseys, 
 scarce a fence was to be found standing in Middlesex County, 
 having in the two months' manoeuvring been taken for camp- 
 fires, and the frames of many an outbuilding had been used 
 for similar purposes. 
 
 The depleted larders of Greenwood, together with the small 
 prospect of replenishing them from his own farm, drove the 
 squire to the necessity of pressing his tenants for the half- 
 yearly rentals. Whatever his needs, the attempt to collect 
 them was thoroughly unwise ; Mr. Meredith, as a fact, being 
 in better fortune than many of his tenants, for they had seen 
 their young crops ridden over, or used as pasture, by the 
 cavalry of both sides, and were therefore not merely without 
 means of paying rent, but were faced by actual want for their 
 own families. The surliness or threats with which the squire's 
 demands were met should have proven to him their impolicy ; 
 but if to the simple-minded landlord a debt was a debt and 
 only a debt, he was quickly to learn that there are various 
 ways of payment. No sooner had the Continental army fol- 
 lowed Howe across the Raritan, and thus left the country-side 
 to the government, or lack of government, of its own people, 
 than the tenants united in a movement designed to secure 
 what might legally be termed a stay of proceedings, and which 
 possessed the unlegal advantage of being at once speedy and 
 effective. 
 
 One night in July the deep sleep of the master of Green- 
 wood was interrupted by a heavy hand being laid on his 
 shoulder, and ere he could blink himself into effective eye- 
 
284 Janice Meredith 
 
 sight, he was none too politely informed by the spokesman 
 of four masked men who had intruded into his conjugal 
 chamber, that he was wanted below. While still dazed, the 
 squire was pulled, rather than helped, out of bed, and Mrs. 
 Meredith, who tried to help him resist, was knocked senseless 
 on the floor. Down the stairs and out of the house he was 
 dragged, his progress being encouraged by such cheering 
 remarks as, " We '11 teach you what Toryism comes ter." 
 " Where 's them tools of old George you 've been a-feeding, 
 now?" "Want your rents, do you? Well, pay day's 
 come." 
 
 On the lawn were a number of men similarly masked, 
 grouped about a fire over which was already suspended the 
 tell-tale pot. To this the squire was carried, his night-shirt 
 roughly torn from his back ; and while two held him, a coat- 
 ing of the hot tar was generously applied with a broom, amid 
 screams of pain from the unfortunate, echoed in no minor 
 key by Janice and the slave servants, all of whom had been 
 wakened by the hubbub. Meantime, one of the law-breakers 
 had returned to the house, and now reappeared with Mrs. 
 Meredith's best feather-bed, which was hastily slashed open 
 with knives, and the squire ignomiuiously rolled in the feath- 
 ers, transforming that worthy at once to an appearance akin 
 to an ill-plucked fowl of mammoth proportions. 
 
 Although, as already noted, the fences had disappeared 
 from the face of the land, with the same timeliness which 
 had been shown in the production of the mattress, a rail was 
 now introduced upon the scene, and the miserable object 
 having been hoisted thereon, four men lifted it to their 
 shoulders. A slight delay ensued while the squire's ankles 
 were tied together, and then, with the warning to him that, 
 " If yer don't sit right and hold tight, ye '11 enjoy yer ride 
 with yer head down and yer toes up," the men started off at 
 a trot down the road. Sharing the burden by turns, the 
 squire was carried to Brunswick, where, daylight having 
 come, he was borne triumphantly twice round the green, 
 amid hoots and yells from a steadily growing procession, and 
 then was finally ferried across the river and dumped on the 
 opposite bank with the warning from the spokesman that 
 
Black and White 285 
 
 worse would come to him if he so much as dared show his 
 face again within the county. 
 
 Lack of apparel and an endeavour to revive Mrs. Meredith 
 had kept Janice within doors during the actual tarring and 
 feathering ; but so soon as the persecutors set off for Brunswick, 
 the girl left her now conscious though still dizzy mother, hast- 
 ily dressed, and started in pursuit, the alarm for her father quite 
 overcoming her dread of the masked rioters. Try her best, 
 they had too long a start to be overtaken, and when she 
 reached the village, it was to learn from a woman to whom 
 she appealed for information what Mr. Meredith's fate had 
 been. Still suffering the keenest anxiety, the girl went to the 
 ferryman's house, and begged to be rowed across the river, but 
 he shook his head. 
 
 " Cap' Bagby 's assooraed command, ontil we gits resettled, 
 an' his orders wuz thet no one wuz ter be ferried onless they 
 hez a pass ; so, ef yer set on followin' yer dad, it 's him yer 
 must see. I guess he ain't far from the tavern." 
 
 This proved a correct inference, for Joe, glass in hand, was 
 sitting on a bench near the doorway, watching and quizzing 
 the publican as that weather-cock laboured to unscrew the rings 
 which suspended his sign in the air. 
 
 "Who 's name are you going to paint in this time. Si?" he 
 questioned, as the girl came within hearing. 
 
 The tavern-keeper, having freed the sign-bo^rd from the 
 support, descended with it. " This 'ere tavern 's got tew git 
 along without no sign," he said, as he mopped his brow. " I 'm 
 jus' wore out talkin' first on one side o' my mouth, an' next on 
 t' other." 
 
 " You ain't tired, I guess, of lining first one pocket and then 
 the other?" surmised Bagby. 
 
 " 'T ain't fer yer tew throw that in my teeth," retorted the 
 publican. "It's litde money o' yours has got intew my 
 pocket, Joe, often as yer treat yerself an' the rest." 
 
 Janice went up to the captain. " Mr. Bagby, I want to go 
 across the river to my father, and — " so far she spoke steadily, 
 her head held proudly erect; but then, worn out with the 
 anxiety, the fatigue, and the heat, her self-control suddenly 
 deserted her, and she collapsed on the bench and began to sob. 
 
286 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Now, miss," expostulated Bagby, " there is n't any call to 
 take on so." He took the girl's hand in his own. " Here, 
 take some of my swizzle. 'T will set you right up." 
 
 Before the words had passed his lips, Janice had jerked her 
 hand away and was on her feet. " Don't you dare touch me," 
 she said, her eyes flashing. 
 
 " I was only trying to comfort you," asserted Joe, while the 
 tavern loungers gave vent to various degrees of laughter. 
 
 " Then let me go to ray father." 
 
 " Can't for a moment," answered Bagby, angrily. " He 's 
 shown himself inimical to his country, and we must n't on no 
 account allow communications with the enemy. That 's the 
 rule as laid down in the general orders, and in a Congress 
 resolution." 
 
 Bagby's voice, quite as much as his words, told the girl that 
 argument was useless, and without further parley she walked 
 away. She had not gone ten paces when the publican over- 
 took her and asked : — 
 
 " Say, miss, where be yer a-goin' ? " 
 
 " Home," answered Janice. 
 
 " Then come yer back an' rest a bit in the settin'-room, an' 
 I '11 have my boy hitch up an' take yer thar. 'T is a mortal 
 warm day, an' I calkerlate yer 've walked your stent." He 
 put his hand kindly on her arm, and the girl obediently turned 
 about and entered the tavern. 
 
 "You are very kind," she said huskily. 
 
 "That's all right," he replied. "The squire's done me a 
 turn now an' agin, an' then quality 's quality, though 't ain't fer 
 the moment havin' its way." 
 
 While she awaited the harnessing, Bagby came into the 
 room. 
 
 "I wanted to say something to you, miss, but I guessed it 
 might fluster you with all the boys about," he said. "Has the 
 squire ever told you anything concerning a scheme I proposed 
 to him?" 
 
 " No," Janice replied, coldly. 
 
 "Well, perhaps he would have, if he could have seen forward 
 a htde further. It 's being far-seeing that wins, miss." The 
 speaker paused, as if he expected a response, but getting none. 
 
Black and White 287 
 
 he continued, " Would you like to see him home, and every- 
 thing quiet and easy again? " 
 
 " Oil ! " said the girl, starting to her feet. " I 'd gi^e any-' 
 thing if — " 
 
 " Now we 're talking," interjected the captain, quite as 
 eagerly. " Only say that you '11 be Mrs. Bagby, and back he 
 is before sundown, and I '11 see to it that he is n't troubled no 
 more." 
 
 Janice had stepped forward impulsively, but she shrank back 
 at his words as if he had struck her; then without a word she 
 walked from the room, went to where the cart was being got 
 ready, and rested a trembling hand upon it, as if in need of 
 support, while her swift breathing bespoke the intensity of her 
 emotion. 
 
 At Greenwood she found her mother still suffering from the 
 fright and the blow too much to allow the girl to tell her own 
 troubles, or to ask counsel for the future, and the occupation of 
 trying to make the sufferer more comfortable was in fact a 
 good diversion, exhausted though she was with her fruitless 
 journey. 
 
 Before Mrs. Meredith was entirely recovered, or any news of 
 the squire had reached the household, fresh trouble was upon 
 them. Captain Bagby and two other men drove up the third 
 morning after the incursion, and, without going through tht 
 form of knocking, came into the parlour. 
 
 " You '11 get ready straight off to go to Philadelphia," the 
 officer announced. 
 
 "For what? " demanded Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " The Congress's orders is that any one guilty of seeking to 
 communicate with the enemy is to be put under arrest, and 
 sent to Philadelphia to be examined." 
 
 " But we have n't made the slightest attempt, nor so much 
 as thought of it," protested the matron. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " sneered Joe ; " but, all the same, we intercepted 
 a letter last night written to you by your old Tory husband, 
 
 and — " 
 
 " Oh, prithee," broke in Janice, without a thought of any- 
 thing but her father, "was he well, and where is he?" 
 
 " He was smarting a bit when he wrote," Bagby remarked 
 
288 Janice Meredith 
 
 with evident enjoyment, " but he 's got safe to his friends on 
 Staten Island, so we are n't going to let you stay where you can 
 be sneaking news to the British through him. I '11 give you 
 just half an hour to pack, and if you are n't done then, oflf you 
 goes." 
 
 Protests and pleadings were wholly useless, though Joe 
 yielded so far as to suggestively remark in an aside to the girl, 
 that "there was one way that you know of, for fixing this 
 thing." Getting together what they could in the brief time 
 accorded to them, and with vague directions to Peg and Sukey 
 as to the care of all they were forced to leave behind, the two 
 women took their places in the waggon, and with only one man 
 to drive them, set out for their enforced destination. 
 
 How little of public welfare and how much of private spite 
 there was in their arrest was proven upon their arrival the fol- 
 lowing day in the city of brotherly love. The escort, or cap- 
 tor, first took them to the headquarters of the general in com- 
 mand of the Continental forces of the town, only to find that 
 he was inspecting the forts down the Delaware. Leaving the 
 papers, he took his charges to the Indian King Tavern, and 
 after telling them that they 'd hear from the general " like as 
 not to-morrow," he departed on his return to Brunswick. 
 
 Whether the papers were mislaid by the orderly to whom 
 they had been delivered, or were examined and deemed too 
 trivial for attention, or, as is most probable, were prevented 
 consideration by greater events, no word came from headquar- 
 ters the next day, or for many following ones. Nor coiild the 
 initiative come from the captives, for Mrs. Meredith sickened 
 the second day after their arrival, and developed a high fever 
 on the third, which the physician who was called in declared 
 to be what was then termed putrid fever, — a disease to which 
 some three hundred of the English and Hessian soldiery at 
 Brunswick had fallen victims during the winter. Under his 
 advice, and without hindrance from the innkeeper, who took 
 good care to forget that he was to " keep tight hold on the 
 prisoners till the general sends for 'em," she was removed to 
 quieter lodgings on Chestnut Street. 
 
 The nursing, the anxiety, and the isolation all served to 
 make public events of no moment to Janice, though from the 
 
DiacK ana vvnite 289 
 
 doctor or her loquacious landlady she heard of how Burgoyne'g 
 force, advancing from Canada, had captured Ticonderoga, 
 and of how Sir William had put the flower of his army on 
 board of transports and gone to sea, his destination thus 
 becoming a sort of national conundrum affording infinite 
 opportunity for the wiseacres of the taverns. 
 
 Mrs. Meredith, for the sake of the quiet, had been put in 
 the back room, the daughter taking that on the street, and 
 this arrangement, as it proved, was a fortunate one. Late 
 in August, after a hard all-night's tendance of her mother, 
 Janice was relieved, once the sun was up, by the daughter of 
 the lodging-house keeper, and wearily sought her chamber, 
 with nothing but sleep in her thoughts, if thoughts she had 
 at all, for, too exhausted to undress, she threw herself upon 
 the bed. Scarcely was her head resting on the pillow when 
 there came from down the street the riffle of drums and the 
 squeaks of fifes, and half in fright, and half in curiosity, the 
 girl sprang up and pushed open her blinds. 
 
 Toward the river she could see what looked like an 
 approaching mob, but behind them could be distinguished 
 horsemen. As she stood, the rabble ran, or pattered, or, 
 keeping step to the music, marched by, followed by a drum- 
 and-fife corps. After them came the horsemen, and the 
 girl's tired eyes suddenly sparkled and her pale face glowed, 
 as she recognised, pre-eminent among them, the tall, soldierly 
 figure of Washington, sitting Blueskin with such ease, grace, 
 and dignity. He was talking to an odd, foreign-looking 
 officer of extremely youthful appearance — whom, if Janice 
 had been better in touch with the gossip of the day, she would 
 have known to be the Marquis de Lafayette, just appointed 
 by Congress a major-general ; and while the commander-in- 
 chief bowed and removed his hat in response to the cheers 
 of the people, this absorption prevented him from seeing the 
 girl, though she leaned far out of the window in the hope 
 that he would do so. To the lonely, worried maid it seemed 
 as if one glance of the kindly blue eyes, and one sympathetic 
 grasp of the large, firm hand, would have cut her troubles in half. 
 After the group of officers came the rank and file, — lines 
 of men no two of whom were dressed alike, many of them 
 
 10 
 
290 Janice Meredith 
 
 without coats, and some without shoes; old uniforms faded 
 or soiled to a scarcely recognisable point, civilian clothing 
 of all types, but with the hunting-shirt of linen or leather 
 as the predominant garb; and equipped with every kind 
 of gun, from the old Queen Anne musket which had seen 
 service in Marlborough's day to the pea rifle of the frontiers- 
 man. A faint attempt to give an appearance of uniformity 
 had been made by each man sticking a sprig of green leaves 
 in his hat, yet had it not been for the guns, cartouch boxes, 
 powder horns, and an occasional bayonet and canteen, only 
 the regimental order, none too well maintained, differentiated 
 the army from the mob which had preceded them. 
 
 While yet the girl gazed wistfully after the familiar figure, 
 her ears were greeted with a still more familiar voice. 
 
 " Close up there and dress your lines, Captain Balch. If 
 this is your ' Column in parade,' what, in Heaven's name, is 
 your 'March at ease '?" shouted Brereton, cantering along 
 the column from the rear. 
 
 He caught sight of Janice as he rode up, and an exclamation 
 of mingled surprise and pleasure burst from him. Throwing 
 his bridle over a post, he sprang up the three steps, lustily 
 hammered with the knocker, and in another moment was in 
 the girl's presence. 
 
 " This is luck beyond belief," he exclaimed, as he seized 
 her hand. " Your father wrote me from New York, begging 
 that I see or send you word that he was well, and asking that you 
 be permitted to join him. At Brunswick I learned you were 
 here, but, seek you as I might, I could not get wind of your 
 whereabout. And now I cannot bide to aid you, for we are 
 in fall march to meet the British." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "They have landed at the head of the Chesapeake, so we 
 are hastening to get between them and Philadelphia, and only 
 ■diverged from our route to parade through the streets this 
 morning, that the people might have a chance to see us, so 
 't is given out, but in fact to overawe them ; for the city is 
 none too loyal to us, as will be shown in. a few days, when 
 they hear of our defeat." 
 
 " You mean? " questioned the girL 
 
Black and White 291 
 
 " General Washington, generous as he always is, has sent 
 some of his best regiments to Gates, and so we are marching 
 eleven thousand ill-armed and worse officered men, mostly 
 new levies, to face on open ground nineteen thousand picked 
 troops. What can come but defeat in the field? If it 
 depended on us, the cause would be as good as ended, but 
 they are beaten, thanks to their dirty politics, before they 
 even face us.'' 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 "'Tis simple enough when one knows the undercurrents. 
 Germaine was against appointing the Howes, and has always 
 hated them. So he schemes this silly side movement of 
 Burgoyne's from Canada, and plans that the army at New 
 York shall be but an assistant to that enterprise, with no share 
 in its glory. Sir William, however, sloth though he be, saw 
 through it; and, declining to be made a cat's-paw, he gets 
 aboard ship, to seek laurels for himself, leaving Burgoyne to 
 march and fight through his wilderness alone. Mark me, the 
 British may capture Philadelphia, but if we can but keep them 
 busy till it is too late to succour Burgoyne, the winter will see 
 them the losers and not the gainers by the campaign. But 
 there," he added, " I forget that all this can have but small 
 interest to you." 
 
 " Oh," cried Janice, " you would n't say that if you knew 
 how good it is just to hear a friend's voice." And then she 
 poured out the tale of her mother's illness and of her own 
 ordeal. 
 
 " Would that I could tarry here and serve and save you ! " 
 groaned Brereton, when she had ended ; " but perhaps luck 
 will attend us, and I may be able to hurry back. Have you 
 money in plenty? " 
 
 The girl faltered, for in truth, there had been little cash at 
 Greenwood when they were called upon to come away, and 
 much of that little was already parted with for lodgings and 
 medicines. Yet she managed to nod her head. 
 
 Her pretence did not deceive Jack, and in an instant his 
 purse was being forced into her unwilling fingers. "The 
 fall in our paper money gives a leftenant-colonel a lean scrip 
 in these days, but what little I have is yours," he said. 
 
292 Janice Meredith 
 
 " I can't take it," protested Janice, trying to return the 
 wallet. 
 
 Brereton was at the door ere her hand was outstretched. 
 " Thy father's letters to me are in the purse, so thou must 
 keep it," he urged. " It 's a toss whether I ever need 
 money again, but if I weather this campaign, we '11 consider it 
 but a loan, and if I don't, 't is the use of all others to which 
 I should wish it put." This he said seriously, and then more 
 lightly went on : " And besides. Miss Janice, I owe you far more 
 than I can ever pay. We Whigs may forcibly impress, but at 
 least we tender what we can in payment. Keep it, then, as a 
 beggar's poor thanks for the two happiest moments of his life." 
 The aide passed through the doorway, and the next moment 
 a horse's feet clattered in the street. 
 
 Janice stood listening till the sound had died out of hearing, 
 then, overcome by this first kindness after such long weeks 
 of harshness and trial, she kissed the purse. And if Brereton 
 could have seen the flush of emotion that swept over her face 
 with the impulsive act, it is likely that something else would 
 have been kissed as well. 
 
XXXIX 
 
 SHORT COMMONS 
 
 THE moment's cheer that the brief dialogue with 
 Brereton brought Janice was added to by the 
 reading of the two letters from her father to 
 him, which reaffirmed and amplified the little the 
 aide had told her, and ended that source of misery. And, 
 as if his advent in fact marked the turn of the tide, the doctor 
 announced the next day that Mrs. Meredith's typhoid had 
 passed its crisis, and only good nursing was now needed to 
 insure a safe recovery. The girl's prayers suddenly changed 
 from ones of suppKcation to ones of thanksgiving ; and she 
 found herself breaking into song even when at her mother's 
 bedside, quite forgetful of the need for quiet. This she was 
 especially prone to do while she helped the long hours of 
 watching pass by knitting on a silken purse of the most com- 
 plicated pattern. 
 
 The materials for this trifle were purchased on the afternoon 
 following the march of the Continental army, and for some 
 days the progress was very rapid. Public events then inter- 
 fered and checked both song and purse. On September 1 1 
 the low boom of guns was heard, and that very evening word 
 came that the Continental army had been defeated at Brandy- 
 wine. The moment the news reached Philadelphia an exodus 
 of the timid began, which swelled in volume as the probability 
 of the capture of the city grew. The streets were filled with 
 waggons carting away the possessions of the people ; the Con- 
 tinental Congress, which had been urging Washington to fight 
 at all hazard, took to its heels and fled to Lancaster ; and all 
 others who had made themselves prominent in the Whig cause 
 deserted the city. Among those who thought it necessary to 
 go was the lodging-house keeper ; for, her husband being an 
 
294 Janice Meredith 
 
 officer of one of the row galleys in the river, she looked for 
 nothing less than instant death at the hands of the British. 
 With a plea to Janice, therefore, that she would care for the 
 house and do what she could to save it from British plundering, 
 the woman and her daughter departed. Her example was 
 followed by the doctor, not from motives of fear, but from a 
 purpose to join Washington's army as a volunteer. This 
 threw upon the girl's shoulders the entire charge of her 
 mother, and the cooking and providing as well ; the latter by 
 far the most difficult of all, for the farmers about Philadel- 
 phia were as much panic-stricken as the townspeople, and for 
 a time suspended all attempts to bring their produce to 
 market. 
 
 The two weeks of this chaos were succeeded by a third of 
 unwonted calm, and then one morning as she opened the front 
 door on her way to make her daily purchases, Janice's ears 
 were greeted with the sound of military music. Turning up 
 Second Street, curiosity hastening her steps, she became part 
 of the crowd of women and children running toward the 
 market, and arrived there just in time to see' Harcourt's' dra- 
 goons, followed by six battalions of grenadiers, march past to 
 the tune of "God Save the King." Following these came 
 Lord Cornwallis, and then four batteries of heavy artillery ; 
 and the crowd cheered the conquerors as enthusiastically and 
 joyfully as' they had Washington's ragged regiments so short a 
 time before. 
 
 The advent of the British did not lessen the difficulties of 
 Janice, as they not only promptly seized all the provisions of 
 the town, but their main army, camped outside the city at 
 Germantown, intercepted the few fresh supplies which the 
 farmers successfully smuggled through Washington's lines above 
 the city. Fresh beef rose to nine shillings the pound, bread 
 to six shillings the quartern loaf, and everything else in like 
 ratio. Though Brereton's loan furnished her with the where- 
 withal for the moment, each day's purchases made such in- 
 roads into it that the girl could not but worry over the future. 
 
 The stress she had foreseen came far sooner than even she 
 had feared, or had reason to expect. Without warning, the 
 tradespeople united in refusing to sell for Continental money; 
 
Short Commons 295 
 
 and Janice, when she went to make her usual purchases one 
 day, found that she could buy nothing, and had but stinted 
 and pinched herself only to husband what in a moment had 
 become valueless. 
 
 At first the girl's distress was so great that she could think 
 of no means of relief; but after hours of miserable and tearful 
 worrying over her helplessness, her face suddenly brightened, 
 and the cause of the change was revealed by her thrusting her 
 hand into her neckerchief, to draw out the miniature of her- 
 self. With her knitting needle she pried up the glass and, re- 
 moving the slip of ivory, laid it carefully in her housewife, 
 heaving, let it be confessed, a little sigh, for it was hard to 
 part with the one trinket she had ever owned. Unconscious- 
 of how many hours she had been dwelling on her troubles, she 
 caught up her calash, and with the miniature frame in her 
 hand, hurried to the front door ; but the moment she had 
 opened it, she was reminded that it was long after the closing 
 of the markets, and so postponed whatever she had in mind 
 for another day. 
 
 On the following morning she sallied forth, so engrossed in 
 her difficulties, or her project, that she paid no heed to the 
 distant sound of cannon, nor to the groups of townspeople who 
 stood about on corners or stoops, evidently discussing some- 
 thing of interest ; and it was only when she turned into the 
 market-place, and found it empty alike of buyers and sellers 
 that she was made to realise that something unusual was- 
 occurring. 
 
 " Why are all the stands closed this morning?" she asked 
 of an urchin. 
 
 " 'Cause nawthing 's come ter town along of the fightin'." 
 
 "Fighting?" 
 
 " Guess you 're a deefy," contemptuously suggested the 
 youngster. "Don't you hear them guns? The grenadiers 
 went out lickety split this mornin' and folks says they 've got 
 Washington surrounded, an '11 have him captured by night. 
 All the other boys hez gone out on the Gennantown road ter 
 see the fun, but daddy said he 'd lick me if I went, so I did n't 
 dare," he added dejectedly. " Hurrah ! There come Some 
 more wounded ! " he cried, with sudden cheerfulness and break- 
 
296 Janice Meredith 
 
 ing into a ran as an army van came in sight down Second 
 Street. 
 
 The girl turned away and went into one of the few shops 
 which had opened its shutters. 
 
 " You would not take Continental money yesterday," she 
 said to the proprietor; "but perhaps you — you will — I 
 thought — I have no other kind of money, but perhaps you 
 will accept this in payment? " Janice, with a flushed, anxious 
 face, unwrapped from her handkerchief and laid down on the 
 counter the miniature frame. 
 
 The man took it up and eyed it for a moment, then raised 
 it to his mouth and pressed his teeth on the edge ; satisfied 
 by the experiment, he scrutinised the brilliants. " How d' ye 
 come by this?" he demanded suspiciously. 
 
 " Oh, indeed, sir," explained Janice, growing yet redder, " it is 
 mine, I assure you, given me by — that is, he said I might keep it." 
 
 " 'Tain't for me to say it ain't yourn," responded the shop- 
 keeper ; " but the times is bad times and there 's roguery of 
 all sorts going on in the city." He looked it over again, 
 and demanded, "Who does ' W. H. J. B.' mean? " 
 
 " I don't — I never knew," faltered Janice. 
 
 " Then where 's the picture that was in it ? " 
 
 "I — I took it out," explained the girl, " not wishing to 
 part with that." 
 
 "That 's just what ye would have done if ye 'd not come by 
 it by rights, " replied the man. 
 
 "Then I '11 put it back," hastily offered Janice, very muck 
 ilarmed and flustered. "I — I never dreamed that — that 
 :h3 picture would make it worth any more." 
 
 " 'T would have made it look more regular. How mUck 
 d' ye want for it ? " 
 
 " I thought — ; Would five pounds be too much? " 
 
 The shop-keeper laid the frame down on the counter and 
 shoved it toward Janice. " No, I don't want it," he said. 
 
 " Would three pounds — ? " 
 
 "I don't want it at no such price," interrupted the man. 
 
 "Oh," bewailed the girt, "what am I to do? The doctor 
 said she was to have nourishing food ; and I have nothing but 
 a. little corn meal left. Would you give me one pound for it? " 
 
Short Commons 297 
 
 " I tell ye, I won't buy it at any price. And I don't even 
 want it in the shop, so take it away. And if you want to keep 
 out of jail, I would n't be offering it about ; I 've most a 
 mind to call the watch myself, as 'tis." 
 
 The threat was enough to make Janice catch up the bijou 
 and leave the shop almost at a run ; nor did her pace lessen 
 as she hurried homeward, and, safely there, she fast bolted the 
 door. This done, with hands which trembled not a little, she 
 replaced her portrait in the frame, hoping dimly from what 
 the shopkeeper had said, that this would help to prove her 
 ownership. Yet all that day and the succeeding one she 
 stayed within doors, dreading what might come; and any 
 unusual noise outside set her heart beating with fear that it might 
 portend the approach of a danger all the more terrible that 
 it was indefinite. As if her suffering were not great enough, 
 an added horror was the army vans loaded with groaning 
 wounded, which rambled by her door durfng the sleepless 
 night she spent. 
 
 As time lessened her fright, her necessities grew more 
 pressing, and finally became so desperate, that, braving every-' 
 thing, she went boldly to headquarters, and asked for Lord 
 Cornwallis. 
 
 She was referred by the sentry at the stoop to a room on 
 the ground floor, her entrance being accompanied by the maa 
 shouting down the hallway : " Here 's wan more av thim 
 townsfolks, sir." Entering, Janice discovered two men seated 
 at a table, each with a little pile of money at his elbow, passing 
 the time with cards. 
 
 " Well," growled the one with his back to the door, " I 
 suppose 't is the usual tale : No bread, no meat, no firewood ; 
 sick wife, sick baby, sick mother, sick anything that can be 
 whined about. Body o' me, must we not merely die by bullets 
 or starvation, but suffer a thousand deaths meantime with end- 
 less whimpering ! " 
 
 " Slowly, slowly, Mobray," advised he who faced Janice. 
 " This is no nasal-voiced and putty-faced cowardly old Quaker. 
 'T is a damned pretty maid, with eyes and a waist and an ankle 
 fit to be a toast. Ay, and she can mantle divinely, when she 's 
 admired ! " 
 
298 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Ye don't foist that take-in on me, John Andr6 ! I score 
 BIX to my suit, and a quint is twenty-one, and a card played is 
 twenty-two. — Well, graycoat, say your say, and don't stand 
 behind me as a kill-joy." 
 
 "I wish to see Lord Cornwallis, Sir Frederick," faltered 
 Janice, nerved only by thought of her mother, and ready to 
 sink through the floor in her mortification. 
 
 At the sound of a woman's voice the officer turned his head 
 sharply, and with the first glance he was on his feet. " Miss 
 Meredith," he cried, " a thousand pardons ! Who 'd have 
 thought to find you here? How can I serve you?" 
 
 " I wish to see Lord Cornwallis," repeated Janice. 
 
 " 'T is evident you pay little heed to what has been occur- 
 ring," replied Mobray, as he placed a chair for her. " We 
 thought we had all the spirit beat out of Mr. Washington's 
 pack o' ragamuffins; but, egad, day before yesterday, quite 
 contrary to all the rules of polite warfare, and in a most un- 
 gentlemanly manner, they set upon us as we lay encamped at 
 Germantown, and wellnigh gave us a drubbing. Lord Corn- 
 wallis went to Sir William's assistance, running his grenadiers at 
 double quick the whole distance, and he has not yet returned." 
 
 " We deemed rebellion well under our heel when we gained 
 possession of its capital," chimed in Captain Andrd; "but 
 Mr. Washington seems in truth to make a fourth with ' a dog, 
 a woman, and a chestnut-tree, the more they are beat the 
 better they be.' Our very successes are teacliing his nrmy how 
 to fight, and I fear me the day will come when we shall have 
 thrashed them into a victory." 
 
 "But all this is not helping Miss Meredith," spoke up 
 Mobray. " Lord Cornwallis being beyond reach, can I not 
 be of aid?" 
 
 In a few words the girl poured out the tile of her mother's 
 sickness, and then with less glibness, and with reddened 
 oheeks, of her moneyless and foodless condition. 
 
 Before she had well finished, the baronet swept up his pile 
 of money on the table and held out the handful of coins to 
 the girl. 
 
 "Oh, no," cried Janice, shrinking back. "I — Oh, 1 
 tfiank you, but I can't take your — " 
 
Short Commons 299 
 
 "Ah, Miss Meredith," pleaded Sir Frederick, "I was less 
 proud last winter when we were half starving in scurvy-plagued 
 and fever-stricken Brunswick." 
 
 "But food was nothing," exclaimed Janice, " and that is 
 all I want ; just enough for my mother. I thought Lord Corn- 
 wallis might — " 
 
 " In truth. Miss Meredith, you ask for what is far scarcer 
 than guineas in these days," said Andr6. " The rebels hold 
 the forts in the lower Delaware so tenaciously that our supply 
 ships have not yet been able to get up to us, and as Washing- 
 ton's army is between us and the back country, we are as near 
 in a state of siege as nineteen thousand men were ever put 
 by an inferior force." 
 
 " Our men are on quarter rations, and we officers fare but 
 little better," grumbled Mobray. 
 
 " Then what am I to do? " cried Janice, despairingly. 
 
 " Come, Fred," said Andr6, , " can't something be 
 done?" 
 
 Mobray shook his head gloomily. " I did my best yester- 
 day to get the wounded rebels given some soup and wine, or 
 at least beef and biscuit that was n't rotten or full of worms, 
 but 't was not to be done ; there 's too much profit in buying 
 the worst and charging for the best." 
 
 " Damn the commissary ! say I," growled Andrd, " and let 
 his fate be to starve ever after on the stuff he palms on us 
 as fit to eat." 
 
 " Amen," remarked a voice outside, and Lord Clowes 
 stepped into the room. " I '11 take hell and army rations, 
 Captain Andr6, rather than lose the pleasure of your society," 
 he added ironically. 
 
 " Small doubt I shall be found there," retorted Andr^, deri- 
 sively ; " but I fear me we shall be no better friends. Baron 
 Clowes, than we are here. There is a special furnace for 
 paroled prisoners! " 
 
 " Blast thy tongue, but that insult shall cost thee dear ! " 
 returned the commissary, white with rage. " To whom shall I 
 send my friend, sir? " 
 
 " Hold, Andr^," broke in Mobray, " let me answer, not for 
 you, but fjr the army." He faced Clowes and went on. 
 
300 Janice Meredith 
 
 " When you have surrendered yourself into the hands of the 
 rebels, and have been properly exchanged, sir, you may be 
 able to find a British officer to carry a challenge on your 
 behalf; V':i2 then no man of honour would lower himself by 
 /ighting 70u." 
 
 " I make Sir Frederick's answer mine, my Lord," said Andr6, 
 " and I suggest, as a lady is present, that we put a finish to 
 our war of words, which can come to nothing." 
 
 The commissary gave a quick glance about the room, and 
 as he became aware of the presence of Janice, he uttered an 
 exclamation and started forward with outstretched hand. 
 " Miss Meredith ! " he ejaculated. " By all that 's wonderful ! " 
 
 Mobray made an impulsive movement as Clowes stooped 
 and kissed the girl's hand, almost as if intending to strike the 
 baron ; but checking himself, he sarcastically remarked, with a 
 frowning face : " If you enjoy the favour of his Lordship, Miss 
 Meredith, you need not look further for help. We fellows 
 who fight for our country barely get enough to keep life in us, 
 but the commissariat knows not short commons. Mr. Com- 
 missary-General, you have an opportunity to aid Miss Mere- 
 dith that you should not have were it in my power to forestall 
 you." 
 
 " Come to my office, Miss Janice,'' requested Clowes, per- 
 haps glad to get away from the presence of the young officers. 
 He led the way across the hallway to another room, and, after 
 the two were seated, would have taken the girl's hand again 
 had she not avoided his attempt. 
 
 In the fewest possible words Janice retold her plight, broken 
 only by interjections of sympathy from her listener, and by 
 two futile endeavours to gain possession of her hand. 
 
 " Have no fear of any want in the future," he exclaimed 
 heartily. "In truth. Miss Meredith, on our entrance we 
 seized much that was unfit for the troops, while since then the 
 military necessities have compelled the destruction of many of 
 the finest houses about Germantown, and I took good care 
 that what store of delicacies and wines they might hold should 
 not be destroyed along with them. But give me thy number 
 and thy mother shall have all that she needs." Clowes caught 
 the maiden's hand, and though she rose with the action, and 
 
Short Commons 301 
 
 tightly shrank away from him, this time he had his will and 
 kissed it hotly. 
 
 Janice gave the address and thanked him with warm words 
 of gratitude, somewhat neutralised by her trying to free her 
 hand. 
 
 Instead of yielding to her wish, the commissary only tight- 
 ened his grasp. " Ye have owed me something for long," he 
 said, drawing heir toward him in spite of her striving. "Surely 
 I have earned it to-day." 
 
 " Lord Clowes, I beg — " began Janice ; but there she ended 
 the plea, and, throwing her free arm as a shield before her 
 face, she screamed. 
 
 Instantly there was a, sound of a falling chair, and both the 
 card-players burst into the room. 
 
 Quick as they were, Clowes had already dropped his hold, 
 and at a respectful distance was saying : " The wine and food 
 shall reach ye within the hour, Miss Meredith." 
 
 Janice silently curtseyed her thanks, and darted past the 
 young officers, alike anxious to escape explanation to them, or 
 further colloquy with her persecutor. 
 
 In this latter desire the girl secured but a brief postpone- 
 ment, for she was not long returned when the knocker sum- 
 moned her to the front door, and on the steps stood the 
 commissary and two soldiers laden with a basket apiece. 
 
 "Ye see I'm true to my word. Miss Meredith," said Lord 
 Clowes. "Give me the whiskets, and be off with ye," he 
 ordered to the men ; and then to the girl continued : " Where 
 will ye have them bestowed? " 
 
 " Oh, I '11 not trouble thee," protested Janice, blocking the 
 entrance, "just hand them to me." 
 
 " Nay, 't is no trouble," the officer assured her, setting one 
 foot over the sill. " And, besides, I have word of your father 
 to tell ye." 
 
 Reluctantly the maiden gave him passage, and pointed out 
 a place of deposit in the entry for his burden. Then she fell 
 back to the staircase, and went up a few steps. Yet she 
 eagerly questioned : " What of my father? " 
 
 Clowes came to the foot of the ascent. " He is on one of 
 the transports in the lower Delaware, and as soon as we can 
 
302 Janice Meredith 
 
 reduce the rebel works, and break through their cursed chevauM- 
 de-frise, he will come up to Philadelphia." 
 
 " Oh," almost carolled Janice, " what joyous news ! " 
 
 "And does the bringer deserve no reward?" 
 
 "For that, and for the food, I thank you deeply, Lord 
 Clowes," said the girl, warmly. 
 
 "I'm not the man to take my pay in mere lip music," 
 answered the commissary. " Harkee, JVIiss Meredith, there is 
 a limit to my forbearance of thy skittishness. Thou wast ready 
 enough to wed me once, and I have never released thee from 
 the bargain. Henceforth I expect a lover's privileges until 
 they can be made those of a husband." Clowes took two 
 steps, upward. 
 
 " I think, Lord Clowes, that 't is hardly kind of you to re- 
 mind me of my shame," replied Janice, with a gentle dignity 
 very close to tears. " Deceitful I was and disobedient, and 
 no one can blame me more than I have come to blame my- 
 self. But )'ou are not the one to speak of it nor to pretend 
 that my giddy conduct was any pledge." 
 
 " Then am I to understand that I was lover enough' when 
 thy needs required it, but that now I am to be jilted? " de- 
 manded the man, harshly. 
 
 " Your version is a cruel one that I am sure you cannot 
 think just." 
 
 " Ye hold to it that ye are not bound to me ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The commissary fell back to where he had set the baskets. 
 " In your necessity ye felt otherwise, and I advise ye to re- 
 member that ye still require my aid. I am not one of those 
 who lavish favours and expect no return, though a good friend 
 to those who make it worth my while. If I am to have naught 
 from ye, ye shall have naught from me." He picked up the 
 baskets. " Here is milk, bread, meat, jellies, and wines, to be 
 had for a price, and only for a price." 
 
 " Oh, prithee, Lord Clowes," begged Janice, despairingly, 
 "you cannot seek to advantage yourself of my desperate plight. 
 All I had to give my mother this morning was some water 
 gruel, and I have not tasted food myself for a twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
Short Commons 303 
 
 "Your anxiety for your mother cannot be over great. I 
 only ask ye to avow that ye consented to become my wife, and 
 should have done so, had we been left free." 
 
 The girl wavered ; then buried her face in her hands, and 
 in a scarcely audible voice said : "I did intend — for a brief 
 space — did think to — to marry you." 
 
 "And ye 've never given a promise to another man?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 Clowes set down the baskets. " That is all I wished ac- 
 knowledged," he said. " I '11 ask no more till ye have decided 
 whether ye will be true to the troth ye have just confessed, 
 Janice." He opened the front door, and added as he passed 
 out : " When these supplies are exhausted, ye know whew 
 more is to be had." 
 
XL 
 
 THE BATTLE FOR FOOD AND FORAGE 
 
 WHEN Janice came to examine the contents of the 
 baskets, she was somewhat disappointed at the 
 mess of pottage for wJiich she had half bartered 
 herself. Though every article the commissary 
 had enumerated was to be found, it was in meagre quantities, 
 and the girl was shrewd-witted enough to divine the giver's 
 intention, — that she should be quickly forced again to appeal 
 to him. Her mother's requirements and her own hunger, 
 however, prevented dwelling on the future, and scarcely had 
 these been attended to, when Mobray and Andrd appeared, to 
 inquire if her immediate needs were supplied, and with a plan 
 of assistance. 
 
 "Miss Meredith," said Mobray, " Captain Andrd and I have 
 had assigned to us for quarters the Franklin house down on 
 Second Street ; and he and I have agreed that, if Mrs. Mere- 
 dith can be moved, you are to come and share it with us.'' 
 
 " We ask it as a favour, which, if granted, will make us the 
 envy of the army," remarked Andre. "And it will, I trust, 
 not be an entirely one-sided benefit. The old fox's den is 
 more than comfortable, Mobray and I have a couple of rankers 
 as ser\'ants, one of whom has more or less attached to 
 him a woman who cooks well enough to make even the present 
 ration eatable, and, lastly, though our presence may be some- 
 thing of a handicap, yet in such unsettled times one must 
 tolerate the dogs if they but keep out the wolves. Hang and 
 whip as we may, the men will plunder, and some in high ofifice 
 are little better. Alone here, you are scarcely safe, but with us 
 you need have no fear." 
 
 Janice attempted some objections, but her previous help- 
 lessness and loneliness, as well as her recent fright from the 
 commissary, made them faint-hearted, and it needed little 
 
The Battle for Food and Forage 305 
 
 urgence to win her consent to the plan. Her mother ap- 
 proving, a surgeon and an ambulance were secured, and before 
 nightfall the removal was safely accomplished. 
 
 When, after the first good night's sleep she had enjoyed 
 since her mother sickened, the girl was summoned to break- 
 fast, she found that others had been more wakeful. In the 
 middle of the table was a pail of milk, a pile of eggs, four un- 
 plucked fowls, and two sucking pigs, arranged with some 
 pretence of ornament, with two officer's sword-knots to better 
 the attempt at decoration, and the whole surmounted by a 
 placard reading : " Only the brave deserve the fare." 
 
 "Gaze, Miss Meredith!" cried Andr6, jubilantly. "See 
 the results of a valour of which you were the inspiration ! 
 Marathon, Cressy, Fontenoy, and Quebec pale before the march, 
 the conflict, and the retreat of last night, the glories of which 
 would ne'er be credited, even alas ! were it not necessary that 
 they should ne'er be told." 
 
 "We held counsel concerning our larder," Sir Frederick 
 explained, as the girl looked questioningly from man to man, 
 " and agreed that since you had honoured us, we could not dare 
 to starve you and Mrs. Meredith on salt pork and sea biscuit. 
 So, last night, Andre and I, with our two servants, laid hold of 
 a boat, crossed the Delaware, levied tribute on a fat Jersey 
 farm, and returned ere day had come. Item. — To disobey- 
 ing the general orders by stealing through the lines : one hun- 
 dred lashes on the bare back. Item. — For ordering a soldier 
 to break the rules of war : ten days in the guardhouse. Item. 
 — For plundering, contrary to proclamation : death by shoot- 
 ing. Wilt drop a tear o'er my grave, fair lady? " 
 
 "Oh, sirs!" exclaimed Janice, "you should not — to take 
 such risk — " 
 
 " Not since I went birds-nesting in Kent have I had such a 
 night's sport," declared Andre, gleefully. " And the thought 
 that we were checkmating that scoundrel Clowes did not bate 
 the pleasure. If he were fit company for gentlemen we 'd 
 have him to dinner to-day, just to spoil his appetite with sight 
 of our Gates." 
 
 "You do not like — Why do you call Lord Clowea 
 scoundrel ? " asked Janice. 
 
3o6 Janice Meredith 
 
 Mobray shrugged his shoulders as he made answer : " On 
 enough grounds and to boot. But 't is sufficient that he gave 
 his parole to the rebels, and then broke it by escaping to our 
 lines. He is a living daily disgrace to the uniform we all 
 wear, and yet his influence is so powerful with Sir William 
 that we can do nothing against him. Pray Heaven that some 
 day he '11 not be able to keep in the rear, and that the rebels 
 recapture and give him the rope he merits." 
 
 In contrast to the past, the next few days were very happy 
 ones to Janice. Her mother mended steadily, and was soon 
 able to come to meals and to stay downstairs. The servants 
 relieved the girl of all the household drudgery, and spared 
 her from all dwelling on her empty purse. As for the young 
 officers, they could not do enough to entertain her, and, it is 
 to be suspected, themselves. Piquet was quite abandoned, 
 and in place of it nothing would do Andr6 but he must teach 
 Janice to paint. Not to be thrown in the background, 
 Mobray produced his flute, and, thanks to a fine harpsichord 
 Franklin had imported for his daughter, was able to have 
 numberless duets with the maiden. Then they took short 
 rides to the south of the city, where the Delaware and Schuyl- 
 kill safeguarded a restricted territory from rebel intrusion, and 
 daily walks along the river-front or in the State House 
 Gardens, where one of the bands of a few regiments garrison- 
 ing the city played every afternoon for the amusement of the 
 officers and townspeople, and where Janice was made ac- 
 quainted with many a young macaroni officer or feminine 
 toast. Save for the high price of provisions, and the constant 
 war talk, Philadelphia bore little semblance to being in a state 
 of semi-siege, and the prize which two armies were striving to 
 hold or win, not by actual conflict, but by a strategy which 
 aimed to keep closed or to open sources of supplies. 
 
 Late in October Howe's army fell back from Germantown 
 and took position just outside the city, where it was set to 
 work throwing up lines of fortifications. And a startling 
 rumour which seemed to come from nowhere, but which, in 
 spite of denials from headquarters, spread like wildfire, sup- 
 plied a reason for both the retrosjrade movement and the 
 aonstruction of blockhouses and redoubts. 
 
The Battle for Food and Forage 307 
 
 "The rebels have the effrontery to give it out that they 
 have captured General Burgoyne's whole force," sneeringly 
 announced Mobray, as he returned from guard mount. 
 " There seems no limit to the size of their lies." 
 
 " La 1 Sir Frederick," exclaimed Janice, " 't is just what 
 Colonel — what somebody predicted. He said that if Gen- 
 eral Washington could but keep Sir William busy until it would 
 be too late for him to go General Burgoyne's aid, all would be 
 well at the end of the campaign." 
 
 " And having conceived the hope, they seek to bolster their 
 cause by spreading the tale abroad," scoffed the baronet. 
 
 " ' Facile est inventis addere,' " laughed Andrd. " They are 
 merely settling the moot point as to who is the father of 
 invention." 
 
 " What rebel was it bubbled the conceit to you, Miss Mere- 
 dith ? " inquired Mobray. 
 
 "'Twas Colonel Brereton," replied the girl, with a faint 
 hesitation. Then she added, as if a new idea occurred to 
 her, " So you see the American is not the father of invention, 
 Colonel Brereton being an Englishman." Though spoken as 
 an assertion, the statement had a definite question in it. 
 
 " Who is this fellow, who, like Charles Lee, fights against 
 his own country?" asked Andr6. 
 
 " No one you ever knew, John," replied Mobray ; " but I, 
 who do, have it not in my heart to blame him." 
 
 "Wilt not tell i^s his history?" begged Janice, eagerly. 
 " Once he said his great-grandfather was King of England, 
 and since then I 've so longed to know it ! " 
 
 " 'T is truth he spoke, poor fellow, but he was an old-time 
 friend of mine, which would be enough to seal my lips respect- 
 ing his sorry tale, since he wishes oblivion for it. But I amt 
 his debtor as well, for he it was who helped me to a prompt 
 exchange when I was taken prisoner last spring." 
 
 " Of course I would not have thee tell me anything that is 
 secret," remarked Janice. Then, after a moment, she went 
 on, " There is, however, something of which you may be able 
 to inform me? " 
 
 " But name your desire." 
 
 " I must get it," announced the girl, and she left the roons 
 
3o8 Janice Meredith 
 
 and went upstairs. But once in the upper hallway, she did 
 not go to her room, merely pausing long enough to take the 
 miniature from its abiding spot, and then returned. "Wilt 
 tell me if the diamonds are false ? " she requested, placing the 
 ornament in Andre's hand. 
 
 " No, for a certainty," replied the captain. 
 
 " Then is it not worth five pounds? " exclaimed Janice. 
 
 " Five pounds," laughed Andr6, derisively. " 'T is easily 
 worth five hundred ! " 
 
 " Oh, never ! " cried the girl. 
 
 "Ay. Am I not right, Mobray?" 
 
 " Beyond question. And then 't is not worth the portrait it 
 encircles," asserted Mobray, gallantly. 
 
 "And yet I could not get one pound for it," marvelled 
 Janice, and told the two officers how she had sought to 
 barter it. 
 
 " 'T is evident you asked too little. Miss Meredith," sur- 
 mised Andr6, " and so made him suspect your title." 
 
 " Would that you might offer it to me at a hundred times 
 five pounds ! " bemoaned the baronet. " To think of such a 
 pearl being cast before such swine ! " 
 
 "Who painted it. Miss Meredith?" asked Andr6. 
 
 " 'T was Colonel Brereton." 
 
 Mobray looked up quickly at her, then once more at the 
 miniature. He turned it over, and as the initials on the back 
 caught his eye, he frowned, but more with intentness than 
 anger. For a moment he held it, then handed it to Janice 
 with the remark, " Know you the frame's history?" 
 
 " Only that it once held another portrait, and that of a 
 most beautiful girl." 
 
 " Whom he forgot, it appears, once you were seen, for 
 which small blame to him. Miss Meredith," replied Mobray, 
 as he rose and left the room, his face set sternly, as if he were 
 fighting some emotion. 
 
 For two days the young officers continued to get infinite 
 amusement out of the rebel news, but on the third their gibes 
 and flouts ceased, and a sudden gravity ensued, the cause of 
 which was explained to the women that evening when Hie 
 time had come for " good-night." 
 
The Battle for Food and Forage 309 
 
 " LadieSj" said Andr^, "the route is ordered before day- 
 break to-morrow, so wa must say a farewell to you now, and 
 leave you for a time to the sole charge of Mrs. O'Flaherty. 
 She has orders from us, and from her putative spouse, to take 
 the greatest care of you both, and we have endeavoured to 
 arrange that you shall want for nothing during what we fer- 
 vently hope will be but a brief absence." 
 
 "For what are you leaving us? " asked Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " In truth, 't is a sorry business," growled Mobray. " Con- 
 firmation came last night of Burgoyne's capitulation, and this 
 means that General Gates's army will at once effect a juncture 
 with Washington's, and the combined force will give us more 
 than we bargained to fight. Burgoyne's fiasco makes it all 
 the more necessary that we hold Philadelphia, and so, as our 
 one chance, we must, ere the union is effected, capture the 
 forts on the Delaware, that our warships and supplies may 
 come to us, lest, when the moment arrives for our desperate 
 struggle, we be handicapped by short commons and no line 
 of retreat." 
 
 " Wilt pray for our success. Miss Meredith ? " 
 
 " Ay," urged the baronet, " for whatever your sympathies, 
 remember that we fight this time to reunite you with your 
 father." 
 
 And that night Janice made her first plea in behalf of the 
 British arms. 
 
 The absence of Mobray and Andr6 brought the commissary 
 once again to the fore. Previous to their departure he had 
 dropped in upon the Merediths, only to receive a cool greet- 
 ing from Janice, and such cold ones from the two captains as 
 discouraged repetition. Now, relieved of thidr supercilious 
 taunts and affronts, the baron became a daily visitor. He 
 always brought gifts of delicacies, paid open court to Mrs. 
 Meredith, and never once recurred to the words he had wrung 
 from Janice, for the time making himself both useful and en- 
 tertaining. From his calls the ladies learned the course of the 
 war and of what the distant cannonading meant : of the bloody 
 repulse of Donop's Hessians at Red Bank, of the burning of 
 tlie Augusta 64, of the bombardment of the forts on Mud 
 Island, and of the other desperate fighting by which the Brit- 
 
3IO Janice Meredith 
 
 ish struggled to free their jugular vein, the river, from th« 
 clutch of Washington's forces. 
 
 It was Clowes who brought them the best proof of the final 
 triumph of the royal army, for one November morning he 
 broke in upon their breakfast, unannounced, and with him 
 came Mr. Meredith. 
 
 Had the squire ever doubted the affection of his wife and 
 daughter, the next few minutes of inarticulate but ecstatic de- 
 light would have convinced him once for all. Mrs. Meredith, 
 who, since her fever, had been unwontedly gentle and affec- 
 tionate, welcomed him as he had not been greeted in years ; 
 and Janice, shifting from tears to laughter and back again, 
 wellnigh choked him in her delight. Breakfasit was forgotten, 
 while the exile was made to tell all his adventures, and of how 
 finally he had escaped from the ship on which perforce he 
 had been for three months. 
 
 " 'T was desperate fighting on both sides, but we were too 
 many for them, and the river is free at last. The transport 
 'Surrey' was third to come up to the city, and the moment I 
 was ashore I sought out Lord Clowes, hoping to get word of 
 ye, and was not disappointed. Pox me ! but 1 'd begun to 
 think that never again should I see ye ! " 
 
 There was so much to tell and to listen to in the next few 
 days that the reunited family gave little heed to public events, 
 though warm salutations and thanks were lavished on Mobray 
 and Andr6 i pan the return of the regiments which had op- 
 erated against the forts. 
 
 An enforced change speedily brought them back to the 
 present. The mustering of all the royal army, now swelled by 
 reinforcement;, of three thousand troops hurriedly summoned 
 from New York, compelled a rebilleting of the troops, and nine 
 more officers were assigned by the quartermaster-general to 
 the Franklin house, overcrowding it to such an extent as to 
 end the possibility that it should longer shelter the Merediths. 
 The squire went to Sir William Erskine, only to be told that as 
 he was a civilian, the Quartermaster's Department could, or 
 at least would, do nothing for him. An appeal to Clowes re- 
 sulted better, for that officer offered to share his own lodgings 
 with his friends, — a generosity which delighted Mr. Meredith, 
 
The Battle for Food and Forage 311 
 
 but which put an anxious look on his daughter's face and a 
 scowl on that of Mobray. 
 
 " I make no doubt 'twas a well-hatched scheme from the 
 start," he asserted. " Lord Clowes and Erskine are but Tom 
 Tickle and Torn Scratch." 
 
 With the same thought in her own mind, Janice took the 
 first opportunity to beg her father to seek further rather than 
 accept the commissary's hospitality. 
 
 " Nay, lass,'' replied Mr. Meredith. " Beggars cannot be 
 choosers, and that is what we are. Remember that I am 
 without money, and have been so ever since those rascals 
 hounded me from home. Had not Lord Clowes generously 
 stepped forward as he has, we should be put to it to get 
 through the winter without being frozen or starved. And 
 your mother's health is not such as could stand either, that 
 ye know." 
 
 " You are quite right, dadda," assented the girl, as she 
 stooped and kissed him. "I — I had a reason — which now 
 I will not trouble you with — and selfishly forgot both mommy 
 and our poverty." Then flinging her arms about his neck, she 
 hid her head against his shoulder and said : " I am promised 
 — you have given Philemon your word, and you'll not go 
 back on it, will you, dadda? " almost as if she were making a 
 prayer. 
 
 " Odds my life ! what scatter-brains women are born with ! " 
 marvelled Mr. Meredith. " No wonder the adage runs that 
 • a woman's mind and a winter's wind oft change ' ! In the 
 name of evil, Jan, what started ye off on that tangent?" 
 
 " You will keep faith with him, dadda ? " pleaded the daughter, 
 
 " Of course I will," affirmed the squire. " And glad I am, 
 lass, to find that ye 've come to see that I knew not merely 
 what was best for ye, but what would make ye happiest. If the 
 poor lad is ever exchanged, 't will be glad news for him." 
 
 The removal to the commissary's quarters might have 
 been for a time postponed, for barely had the new arrange- 
 ment been achieved when another mancenvre well-nigh 
 emptied the city of the British troops. Massing fourteen 
 thousand soldiers, Howe sallied forth to attack the Continental 
 army in its camp at VVhitemarsh. 
 
312 Janice Meredith 
 
 "We have word," Lord Clowes explained, "that Gates is 
 playing his own game, and, instead of bringing his army to 
 Mr. Washington's aid, he keeps tight hold of it, and has, after 
 needless delay, sent him but a bare four thousand men. So, 
 in place of waiting for an attack. Sir William intends to drive 
 the rebels back into the hills, that we may obtain fresh pro- 
 visions and forage as we need them." 
 
 The movement proved but a march up a hill to march 
 down again, and four days later saw the British troops back in 
 Philadelphia with only a little skirmishing and some badly 
 frosted toes and ears to show for the sally, the young officers 
 tingling and raging with shame at not having been allowed to 
 fight the inferior Continental army. 
 
 The commissary, however, took it philosophically. " Their 
 position was too strong, and they shoot too straight," he told 
 his guests. " It will all turn for the best, since no army can 
 keep the field in such weather, and Washington will be forced 
 to go into winter quarters. He must then fall back on Lan- 
 caster and Reading, out of striking distance, leaving us free to 
 forage on the country at will." 
 
 Once again his prediction was wrong. " That marplot of a 
 sebel general has schemed a new method of troubling us," he 
 grumbled angrily a week later. " Instead of wintering his 
 troops in a town, as any other commander would, our spies 
 bring us word that he has marched them to a strong position 
 on Valley Creek, a bare twenty miles from here, and has them 
 all as busy as beavers throwing up earthworks and building 
 huts. If God does n't kindly freeze the devil's brood, they '11 
 tie us into our lines just as they did last winter, and give us an 
 ounce of lead for every pound of forage we seek. No sooner 
 do we beat them, and take possession of a town, than they 
 close in and put us in a state of siege, just as if they were the 
 superior force. Small wonder that Sir William has written the 
 Ministry that America can't be conquered, and asking his 
 Majesty's permission to resign. A curse on the man who 
 conceived such a mode of warfare!" 
 
XLI 
 
 WINTER QUARTERS 
 
 NO sooner had the British returned from their brief 
 sally than they settled into winter quarters, and 
 gave themselves up to such amusements as the 
 city afforded or they could create. 
 
 The commissary had taken good heed to have one of the 
 finest of the deserted Whig houses in the city assigned to him, 
 and whatever it had once lacked had been supplied. A 
 coach, a chair, and four saddle-horses were at his beck and 
 call ; a dozen servants, some military and some slave, per- 
 formed the household and stable work ; a larder and a cellar, 
 filled to repletion, satisfied every creature need, and their 
 contents were served on plate and china of the richest. 
 
 " I' faith," explained the officer, when Mr. Meredith com- 
 mented on the completeness and elegance of the establishment, 
 " 't is something to be commissary-general in these times ; and 
 since the houses about Germantown were to be destroyed, 'twas 
 contrary to nature not to take from them what would serve to 
 make me comfortable. Their owners, be they friends or foes, 
 are none the poorer, for they think it all perished in the flames, 
 as it would have done but for my forethought." 
 
 However lavish the hospitality of Lord Clowes could be 
 under these circumstances, it was not popular with the army, 
 and such officers as came to eat and drink at his table were 
 more remarkable for their gastronomic abilities than for their 
 wits and manners. In his civilian guests the quality was 
 better, the man being so powerful through his office that the 
 best of the townsfolk only too gladly gathered about his table 
 when they were bidden, — an eagerness at which the commis- 
 sary jeered even while he invited them. 
 
 " They are all to be bought," he sneered. " There is Tom 
 Willing, who made the most part of his money importing 
 
314 Janice Meredith 
 
 Guinea niggers, and now is in a mortal funk lest some of it, 
 like them, shall run away. Two years ago he was a member 
 of the rebel Congress and a partner of that desperate specu- 
 lator Morris, with a hand thrust deep in the Continental 
 treasury rag-bag. Now he has trimmed ship better than any 
 of his slavers ever did, gone about on the opposite tack, and 
 is so loyal to British rule that his greatest ambition is to get 
 his other hand in some government contracts. He and his 
 pretty wife will dine here every time they are asked, and so 
 will all the rest, ye '11 see." 
 
 During . the first days in their new domiciliary, Janice 
 showed the utmost nervousness, seldom leaving her mother's 
 or father's side, and never venturing into the hallways with- 
 out a previous peep to see that they were empty. As the 
 weeks wore on without any attempt on the commissary's part 
 to surprise her into a tite-a-tefe, to recur to the words he had 
 forced her to utter, or to be anything but a polite, entertain- 
 ing, and thoughtful host, the girl gained courage, and little 
 by little took life more equably. She would have been been 
 less easy, though better able to understand his conduct, had 
 she overheard or had repeated to her a conversation between 
 Lord Clowes and her father on the day that they first took up 
 their new abode. 
 
 " A beggar's thanks are lean ones, Clowes," the squire had 
 said, over the wine ; " but if ever the dice cease from throw- 
 ing me blanks, ye shall find that Lambert Meredith has not 
 forgot your loans of home and money." 
 
 "Talk not to me in such strain, Meredith," replied the 
 host, with the frank, hearty manner he could so well com- 
 mand. " I ask no better payment than your company, but 
 'tis in your power to shift the debt onto my shoulders at any 
 time, and by a single word at that." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 "It has scarce slipped thy memory that in a moment's 
 mistrust of thee — which I now concede was both unfriendly 
 and unjustifiable — I sought to run off with thy beautiful maid. 
 She was ready to marry me out of hand ; but give thy consent 
 as well, and I shall be thy debtor for life." 
 
 " Ye know — " began Mr. Meredith. 
 
Winter Quarters 315 
 
 " And what is more," went on the suitor, " though 't is not 
 for me to make boast, I can assure ye that Lord Clovres is no 
 bad match. In the last two years I 've salted down nigh sixty 
 thousand pounds in the funds and bank stock." 
 
 " Adzooks ! " aspirated the squire. " How did ye that? " 
 " Hah, hah ! " laughed the commissary, triumphantly. 
 " That is what it is to play the cards aright. 'T was all from 
 being carried on that cursed silly voyage to the Madeiras 
 which at that moment I deemed the work of the Evil One 
 himself. I could get but a passage to Halifax, and by luck I 
 arrived there just as Sir William put in with the fleet from 
 Boston. We had done a stroke or two of business in former 
 times, and so I was able to gain his ear, and unfold a big 
 scheme to him." 
 
 " And what was that? " 
 
 " Hah ! a great scheme," reiterated Clowes, smacking his 
 lips, after a long swallow of spirits. " Says I, make me com- 
 missary-general, and I '11 make our fortunes. We '11 impress 
 food and forage, and the government shall pay us for every 
 pound of — " 
 
 "'Twas madness," broke in Mr. Meredith. "Dost not 
 know that nothing has so stirred the people as the taking 
 their crops without payment?" 
 
 " Like as not," assented the commissary ; " but 't is also the 
 way to subdue them. They began a war, and they must pay 
 the usual penalty until they are sickened of it. And since the 
 seizures were to be made, 't was too good a chance not to turn 
 an honest penny. Pray Heaven they don't lay down their 
 arms too soon, for I ambition to be wealthier still. Canst 
 hope better for your daughter than that she be made Lady 
 Clowes, and rich to boot?" 
 
 " She 's promised — " began the squire, but once again 
 the suitor cut him off. 
 
 " She herself told me she is pledged to no one but me." 
 " Nay, I 've passed my word to Leftenant Hennion." 
 " Chut ! A subaltern who '11 bless his stars if he ever is 
 allowed to starve on a captain's pay. Thou canst not really 
 mean to do thy daughter such an injury? " 
 
 " My word is passed ; and Lambert Meredith breaks not 
 
316 Janice Meredith 
 
 that. The lad 's a good boy, too, who '11 make her a good 
 husband, with a fine estate, if peace ever comes again in the 
 land." 
 
 The officer thrummed a moment on the table. " Then 't is 
 only thy word to this fellow, and no want of friendliness that 
 leads thee to give me nay? " he asked. 
 
 " Of that ye may be sure," assented Mr. Meredith, eagerly 
 availing himself of the easy escape from the quandary that his 
 host made for him. 
 
 " And but for the promise ye 'd give her to me? " 
 
 The father hesitated and swallowed before he made reply, 
 and when the words came, it was with an observable reluct- 
 ance that he said : " Ye should know that." 
 
 " That is all I ask," cried the commissary. " I knew ye 
 were not the man to eat another's bread and not do what ye 
 could for him. We '11 not hope for harm to the lad, but if 
 the camp fever or small-pox or aught else should come to him, 
 I '11 remind ye of the promise ye 've just spoken, sure that the 
 man who won't break his word to one won't to t' other." 
 
 " That ye may tie to," acceded Mr. Meredith, though with 
 a dubious manner, as if something perplexed him. And in 
 his own room that evening he paused for a moment after 
 removing his wig and remarked to himself: "Promise I sup- 
 pose I did, though I ne'er intended it. Well, let 's hope that 
 Phil gets her; and if some miscarriage prevents, 'tis some- 
 thing that she should be made great and rich, though I wish 
 the money had come in some more honest way to a more 
 honest man." 
 
 As for the commissary, once retired to his own room, he 
 wrote a letter which he superscribed " To David Sproat, Deputy 
 Commissary of Prisoners at New York." But this done, he 
 tore it up, and tossed the fragments into the fire, with the 
 remark : " Why should I put my name to it, when Loring or 
 Cunningham can give the order just as well? I '11 see one or 
 t' other to-morrow, and so prevent all chance of its being 
 traced to me." Then he sat looking for a time at the embers 
 reflectively. " 'T is folly to want her," he said finally, as he 
 rose and began the removal of his coat, " now that ye need 
 not her money ; but she 's enough to tempt any man with 
 
Winter Quarlers 317 
 
 blood in his veins, and I can afford the whim. Keep that 
 blood in check, however, till ye have her fast ; and do not 
 frighten her as ye have done. To think of Lord Clowes, 
 cool enough to match any man, losing his head over a whiffling 
 bit of woman-flesh ! What devil's baits they are ! " 
 
 Put at ease by the commissary's conduct toward her, Janice 
 entered eagerly into the gaiety with which the army beguiled 
 the tedium of winter quarters. Dislike of Clowes precluded 
 Andr6 and Mobray from coming to the house, but they saw 
 much of the maiden elsewhere. She and Peggy Chew had 
 been made known to each other by Andr6 early in the 
 British occupation, and they promptly established the warm 
 friendship that girls of their age so easily form, and spent 
 many hours together. The two captains were quick to dis- 
 cover that the Chew house was a pleasant one, and became 
 almost as constant visitors there as Janice herself. At Andre's 
 suggestion the painting lessons were resumed, with Miss Chew 
 as an additional pupil, and he undertook to teach them French 
 as well; the music, too, was revived for Mobray's benefit, 
 though now more often as a trio or quartette ; and many other 
 pleasures were shared in common. Both young officers were 
 deeply concerned in the series of plays for which the theatre 
 was being made ready; and the girls not merely heard them 
 rehearse their respective parts, but with scissors and needles 
 helped to make costumes for the amateur actors. 
 
 "Oh!" sighed Janice one day, after hearing Mobray 
 through his lines in " The Deuce is in Him," " I 'd give a 
 finger but to see it played." 
 
 « See it ! " exclaimed the baronet. " Of course you '11 
 see it." 
 
 "They say there 's a great demand for places," demurred 
 
 Peggy. 
 
 " Have no fear as to that," said Andr6. « Do you think 
 I 've risked my neck painting the curtain and scenery, and 
 worked myself thin over it generally, not to get what I deserve 
 in return. My name was next down after Sir William's for a 
 box, and in it such beauty shall be exhibited that 't is likely 
 we poor Thespians will get not so much as a look from the 
 exquisites of the pit." 
 
jiS Janice Meredith 
 
 " Lack-a-day 1 " grieved Janice, " mommy will never hear of 
 my going to see a play. I 've not so much as dared to tell 
 her that I 'm helping you." 
 
 " Devil seize me, but you shall attend, if it takes a provost 
 guard to do it," predicted Mobray. 
 
 Neither the protests nor prayers of the baronet, however, 
 served to gain Mrs. Meredith's consent that her daughter 
 should enter what she called " The Devil's Pit," but what he 
 could not bring to pass the commissary did. 
 
 " I have bespoke a box for the first performance at the 
 theatre," Lord Clowes announced at dinner one evening, 
 "and bid ye all as my guests." 
 
 " 'T is a sinful place, to which I will never lend my coun- 
 tenance," said Mrs. Meredith, with such promptness as to 
 suggest a forestalling of her husband and daughter. 
 
 The commissary bowed his head in apparent acquiescence, 
 but when he and the squire were left to their wine he recurred 
 to the matter. 
 
 "I look to ye, Meredith," he said, "to overcome your 
 wife's absurd whimsey." 
 
 " 'T is useless to argue with Matilda when her mind 's made 
 up," answered the husband, dejectedly. " That I have learned 
 time and again." 
 
 " And so 't is with all women, if a man 's so foolish as to 
 argue. Didst ever hear of ignorance paying heed to reason? 
 There 's but one way to deal with the sex : ' Do this, do that; 
 ye shall, ye sha'n't,' is all the vocabulary a man needs to make ^ 
 matrimony agreeable. Put your foot down, and, mark me, 
 she '11 come to heel like a spaniel. But go ye must, for Sir 
 William makes it a positive point that all of prominence at- 
 tend the theatre and assembly, that the public may learn that 
 the gentry are with us." 
 
 " They brought no clothes for such occasions," objected the 
 squire, falling back on a new line of defence. 
 
 " Take fifty pounds more from me ; 't will be money well 
 spent.'' 
 
 " I like not to increase my borrowings, and especially for 
 female fallals and furbelows." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ; don't shy at a few hundred pounds. Ye 
 
Winter Quarters 319 
 
 know one year of order and rents will pay all ye owe me twice 
 over. Ye must not displeasure Sir William for such a sum." 
 
 So it came to pass that the squire, when they rejoined the 
 ladies, emboldened by his wine, promptly let fall the obser- 
 vation that he had decided they were all to go to the 
 theatre. 
 
 " Thou heardst me say that I am principled against it," 
 dissented Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Tush, Matilda ! I gave in to your Presbyterian swaddling 
 clothes and lacing-strings at Greenwood, but now ye must do 
 as I say. So get ye to a mercer's to-morrow, and set to on 
 proper clothes." 
 
 " Dost wish to see thy wife and daughter damned, 
 Lambert?" 
 
 " Ay, if that 's to be my fate, and so should ye. Go I shall 
 to the theatre, and so shall Janice. If ye prefer salvation to 
 our company, stay at home." 
 
 " Oh, mornmy, please, please go," eagerly implored Janice. 
 " Captain Andr6 assures me that 't is not in the least evil." 
 
 With tears in her eyes, Mrs. Meredith rose. " 'T is not 
 right ; but if sin thou must, I too will eat of the fruit, rather 
 than be parted from thee." She kissed both Mr. Meredith 
 and Janice with an almost savage tenderness, and passed 
 hurriedly from the room, leaving a very astounded husband 
 and a very delighted daughter. 
 
 The girl's delight was not lessened the next day when they 
 went a-shopping, and with the purchases a sudden end was 
 put to her help of the theatricals, and even, temporarily, to 
 the French and painting lessons. If ever maid was grateful 
 for the weary hours of training in fine sewing and embroidery, 
 Janice was, as she toiled, with cheeks made hectic by excite- 
 ment, over the frock in which her waking thoughts were 
 centred. When finally the day came for the trying on, and it 
 fulfilled her highest expectation, her ecstasy, unable to contain 
 itself, was forced to find expression, and she poured the rap- 
 ture out in a letter to Tabitha, though knowing full well that 
 only by the luckiest chance could it ever be sent. 
 
 " Only to think of it, Tibbie ! " she wrote. " We are to have 
 plays given by the officers, and weekly dancing assemblies, and 
 
320 Janice Meredith 
 
 darlmg dadda says I am to go to both; and all my gowns being 
 monstrous nugging and frumpish, he told mommy to see that I 
 had a new one, though where the money came from {for though 
 I did every stitch myself, it cost a pretty penny — no less than 
 seventeen pounds and eight shillings, Tibbie !) I have puzzled 
 not a little to fancy. I fear me I cannot describe it justly to 
 you, but I will do my endeavour. 'Tis a black velvet, with pink 
 satin sleeves and stomacher, and a pink satin petticoat, over 
 which is a fall of white crape; the sides open in front, spotted 
 all over with gray embroidery, and the edge of the coat and 
 skirt trimmed with gray fur. Oh, Tibbie, 'tis the most elegant 
 and dashy robing that ever was / Pray Heaven I don't dirt it, 
 for it is to serve for the whole winter ! Peggy has three new 
 frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest, 
 and by tight lacing {though no tighter than theirs) I make my 
 waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob 
 of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such 
 a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it 
 but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if V would 
 be citified and a la mode to keep it on for a little while after 
 entering the box by the plea that the playhouse is cold. T'he 
 high mode now is to dress the hair enormous tall — a good 
 eight inches, Tibbie — over a steel frame, powdered mighty 
 white, and to stick a mouchet or two on tlie face. It seems to 
 me I cannot wait for the night, yet my teeth rattle and my hands 
 tremble and I am all in a shake tvhenever I think of it; if I 
 can but keep from being mute as a stockfish, and gawkish,for 
 J am all alive with fear that I shall be both, and shame us all I 
 Peggy has taught me the minuet glide and curtsey and languish, 
 and I am to step it at the first Assembly with Captain Andr'e, — 
 such a pretty, engaging fellow, Tibbie, who will never swing for 
 ■want of tongue ; and Lord Rawdon has bespoke my hand for 
 the quadrilU^ — a stern, frowning man, who frights me greatly, 
 but '' tis a monstrous distinction I need scarce say to be asked 
 by one who will some day be an earl, Tibbie — and I dance the 
 Sir Roger de Coverley with Sir Frederick Mobray, who is de- 
 lightsome, too, by his rallying, performs most entrancingly on 
 the flute, and is one of the best bowlers in the weekly cricket 
 matches, but who is said to play very deep at Pharaoh in the 
 
Winter Quarters 321 
 
 dub the officers have established, and to keep a great number 
 of fighting cocks on which he wagers vast sums — if rumour 
 speaks true, as high as a hundred guineas on a single main, 
 Tibbie — at the cock-pit they have setup. A great crowd as- 
 sembled yesterday to see him and Major Tarleton ride their 
 chargers from Sixth Street to the river on a bet, and he lost 
 because a little girl toddled out from the sidewalk and he pulled 
 up, while the major, who is a wonderful horseman, spurred 
 and leaped over her. But he was blamed for taking the risk, 
 for his horse might not have risen, so Colonel Harcourt told 
 Nancy Bond. 'Twas Major Tarleton, I daresay you recollect, 
 who was at our house when General Lee was captivated, and 
 P. Hennion then told me he was considered the most reckless 
 and dare-devil officer in the cavalry, but a cruel man. ' Mr. 
 Lee,' as they all term him, here, — for they will not give the 
 Whigs any titles, — has just been brought to Philadelphia and 
 is at large on parole, pending an exchange, which has been de- 
 layed because 'tis feared by the British that any convention may 
 be taken as a recognition of the rebels, and be so considered by 
 France and Spain. 
 
 "So much has happened," the letter-writer continued a week 
 later, " J scarce know where to begin, Tibbie, nor how to con- 
 vey to you the wondrous occurrences. Oh, Tibbie, Tibbie, plays 
 are the most amazing and marvellous things in the world I Not 
 a one of the officers could I recognise, so changed they were, and 
 they did us females to the life. 'Twas- so enchanting that at 
 times I found 7tiy self gasping through very forgetfulness to breathe, 
 and I was dreadfully rallied and quizzed because I burst into 
 tears when the poor minor seemed to have lost both his love and his 
 property. But how can I touch off my feelings, when, in the 
 fourth act, the villain was detected, and all ended as it should! 
 And, oh! Tibbie, motnmy enjoyed it nearly as much as I, 
 though the farce at the end vastly shocked her — and, indeed, 
 Tibbie, ' t was most indelicate, and made me blush a scarlet, and 
 all the more that Sir William whispered that he enjoyed the 
 broad parts through my cheeks — and she says if dadda insists, 
 we 'II go again, though not to stay to the farce. We had to sit 
 in Lord Clowes' box — which sadly affronted Captain Andri 
 — and Sir William, who has hitherto kept himself much se- 
 
322 Janice Meredith 
 
 eluded, made his first appearance in public, and, as you will 
 have inferred, visited our box during a part of the performance, 
 drawing all eyes upon us, which agitated me greatly. Dadda 
 told him I was learning to sketch, and nothing would do but 1 
 must give him an example, so on the back of the play-bill 1 
 made a ca?-icature of General Lee, which was extravagantly 
 praised, and was passed from hand to hand all over the house, 
 and excited a titter wherever it went, for the general was in at- 
 tendance ; but judge of my feelings, Tibbie, when an officer 
 passed it to Lee hi?nself/ He fell into a mighty rage, and de- 
 manded aloud to know who had thus insulted him, and but for 
 Lord Clowes and Sir William preventing me, I'd have fled 
 from the place, I was in such a panic. Pray Heaven he never 
 learn t T dare not repeat to thee half the civil things which 
 were said of this ' sweet creature,' as they styled me, for fear 
 ihou' It think me vain. 'As thee is, I doubt not,' I hear thee 
 say. Saucy Tibbie Drinker 1" 
 
 At the very time that this account was being penned, some 
 twenty miles away, a man was also writing, and a paragraph in 
 his letter read : — ■ 
 
 " Our going into winter quarters, instead of keeping the field, 
 can hane been reprobated only by those gentlemen who think 
 soldiers are made of stocks and stones and equally insensible to 
 frost and snow ; and, moreover, who conceived it easily prac- 
 ticable for an inferior 'army, under the disadvantages we are 
 known to labour under, to confine a superior one, in all respects 
 well appointed and provided for a winter's campaign, within 
 the city of Philadelphia, and to cover from depredation and 
 waste the States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes 
 this matter still more extraordinary in my eye is that those very 
 gentlemen — who well know that the path of this army from 
 Whitemarsh to Valley Forge might have been tracked by the 
 blood of footprints, and that not a boot or shoe had since been 
 issued by the commissaries : who are well apprised of the 
 nakedness of the troops from ocular demonstration ; whom I 
 myself informed of the fact that some brigades had been four 
 days without meat, and were unsupplied jvifh the very straw to 
 save them from sleeping on the bare earth floors of the huts, so 
 
winter Quarters 323 
 
 that one-third of this army should be in hospitals, if hospitals 
 there were, and that even the common soldiers had been forced 
 to come to my quarters to make known their wants and suffer- 
 ing — should think a winter's campaign and the covering of 
 these States from the invasion of an enemy so easy and practical 
 a business. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much 
 easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a 
 comfortable room by a good fireside than to keep a cold, bleak 
 hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets. 
 However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked 
 and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and 
 from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my 
 power to relieve nor prevent. 
 
 " It is for these reasons that I dwelt upon the subject to Con- 
 gress ; and it adds not a little to my other difficulties and dis- 
 tress to find that much more is expected of tne than it is possible 
 to perform, the more that upon the ground of safety and policy 
 I am obliged to conceal the true state of this army from public 
 view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny." 
 
 The letter completed, the man took up the tallow dip, and 
 passed from the cramped, chilly room in which he had sat to 
 a still more cold and contracted hallway. Tiptoeing up a 
 stairway, he paused a moment to listen at a door, then 
 entered. 
 
 " I heard your voice, Brereton, so knew you were waking. 
 Well, Billy, how does the patient ? " 
 
 "Pohly, massa, pohly. De doctor say de ku'nel 'ud do 
 fus-class ef he only would n't wherrit so, but he do nothin' 
 but toss an' act rambunctious, an' dat keep de wound fretted 
 an' him feverish." 
 
 " And fret I will," came a voice from the bed, '' till I 've 
 done with this feather-bed coddling and am allowed to take 
 my share of the work and privation." 
 
 " Nay, my boy," said Washington, coming to the bedside 
 and laying his hand kindly on Jack's shoulder; "there is 
 naught I to be done, and you are well out of it. Give the 
 wound its chance to heal." 
 
 Brereton gave a flounce. " Do, in the name of mercy, Billy, 
 
324 Janice Meredith 
 
 get me a glass of water," he begged querulously. Then, after 
 the black had departed, he asked : " What has Congress 
 done?" 
 
 "They have voted Gates president of the Board of War, 
 with almost plenary powers." 
 
 " A fit reward for his holding back until too late the troops 
 that would have put us, and not the British, in Philadelphia 
 this winter. You won't let their ill-treatment force you into a 
 resignation, sir? " 
 
 "I have put my hand to the plough and shall ne'er turn 
 back. If I leave the cause, it will be by their act and not 
 mine." 
 
 " Congress may hamper and slight you, sir, but will not 
 dare to supersede you, for very fear of their own constituents. 
 The people trust you, if the politicians don't." 
 
 " Set your mind on more quieting things, Brereton," ad- 
 vised Washington, taking the young fellow's hand afiection- 
 ately. " May you have a restful night." 
 
 "One favour before you go, your Excellency," exclaimed 
 Jack, as the general turned. "I — Could n't — Does Mc- 
 Lane still get his spies into the city? " 
 " Almost daily." 
 
 " Could he — Wilt ask him — to — to make inquiry — if 
 possible — of one — concerning Miss Janice Meredith, and 
 let me know how she fares?" 
 
 The general pressed the aide's hand, and was opening his 
 lips, when a figure, covered by a negligee night-gown of green 
 silk, appeared at the door. 
 
 "I've heard thee exciting John for the last half-hour, Mr. 
 Washington," she said upbraidingly.' "lam amazed at thy 
 thoughtlessness." 
 
 _ " Nay, Patsy, I but stopped in to ask how he did and to 
 bid him a good-night," replied Washington, gently. 
 
 " A half-hour," reiterated Mrs. Washington, sternly, " and 
 now you still tarry." 
 
 " Only because you block the doorway, my dear," said the 
 husband, equably. "If I delayed at all, 't was because Brere- 
 ton wished to set in train an inquiry concerning his sweet- 
 heart." 
 
Winter Quarters 325 
 
 " His what? " exclaimed tiie dame. " Let me pass in, Mr. 
 Washington. John must tell me all about her this moment." 
 
 " You said he should sleep, Patsy," replied the general, 
 smiling. " Come to our room, my dear, and I '11 tell you 
 somewhat of her." 
 
 But however much may have been told in the privacy of 
 the connubial chamber,, one fact was not stated : That far 
 back in the bottom drawer of the bureau in which Janice 
 kept her clothes lay a half-finished silk purse, to which not 
 a stitch had been added since the day that the muttering 
 of the guns of Brandywine had sounded through the streets 
 of Philadelphia. 
 
XLII 
 
 BARTER AND SALE 
 
 THE first check to Janice's full enjoyment of the 
 novel and delightful world into which she had 
 plunged so eagerly came early in March. 
 
 " I have ill news for thee, my child," Mr. Meredith 
 apprised her, as he entered the room where she was sitting. 
 " I just parted from Mr. Loring, the Commissary of Prisoners, 
 and he asked if Philemon Hennion were not a friend of ours, 
 and then told me that the deputy-commissary at Morristown 
 writ him last week that the lad had died of the putrid fever." 
 
 " I am very sorry," the girl said, with a genuine regret in 
 her voice. " He — I wish — I can't but feel that 't is some- 
 thing for which I am to blame." 
 
 " Nay, don't lay reproach on yeself, Jan," advised the 
 father, little recking of what was in his daughter's mind. " If 
 we go to blaming ourselves for the results of well-considered 
 conduct, there is no end to sorrow. But I fear me his death 
 will bring us a fresh difficulty. We '11 say nothing of the news 
 to Lord Clowes, and trust that he hear not of it ; for once 
 known, he '11 probably begin teasing us to let him wed ye." 
 
 " Dadda ! " cried Janice, "you never would — would give 
 him encouragement? Oh, no, you — you love me too much." 
 
 "Ye know I love ye, Jan, and that whatever I do, I try to 
 do my best for ye. But — " 
 
 "Then don't give him any hope. Oh, dadda, if you knew 
 howl—" 
 
 "He's not the man I'd pick for ye, Jan, that I grant. 
 Clowes is — " 
 
 '■'He beguiled me shamefully — and he broke his parole — 
 and he takes mean advantage whene'er he can — and he 
 crawls half the time and bullies the rest — and when he 's 
 
Barter and Sale 327 
 
 polite he makes me shudder or grow cold — and when 
 he's — " 
 
 " Now, don't fly into a flounce or a ferment till ye 've lis- 
 tened to what I have to say, child. 'T is — " 
 
 " Oh, dadda, no ! Don't — " 
 
 " Hark to me, Janice, and then ye shall have all the speech 
 ye wish. By this time, lass, ye are old enough to know that 
 life is not made up of doing what one wishes, but doing what 
 one can or must. The future for us is far blacker than I 
 have chosen to paint to ye. Many of the British ofificers 
 themselves now concede that the subduing of the rebels will 
 be a matter of years, and that ere it is accomplished, the 
 English people may tire of it ; and though I '11 ne'er believe 
 that our good king will abandon to the rule and vengeance of 
 the Whigs those who have remained loyal to him, yet the out- 
 look for the moment is darkened by the probability that 
 France will come to the assistance of the rebels. The Penn- 
 sylvania Assembly has before it an act of attainder and forfeit- 
 ure which will drive from the colony all those who have held 
 by the king, and take from them their lands ; and as soon as 
 the Jersey Assembly meets, it will no doubt do the same, and 
 vote us into exile and poverty. Even if my having taken no 
 active part should save me from this fate, the future is scarce 
 bettered, for 't will take years for the country to recover from 
 this war, and rents will remain unpaid. Nor is this the depth 
 of our difficulties. Already I am a debtor to the tune of nigh 
 four hundred pounds to Lord Clowes — " 
 
 " Dadda, no ! " cried the giri. " Don't say it ! " 
 
 "Ay. Where didst thou suppose the money came from on 
 which I lived in New York and all of us here ? Didst think 
 thy gown came from heaven ? " 
 
 " I 'd have died sooner than owe it to him," moaned Janice. 
 " How could you let me go to the expense ? " 
 
 "'Twas not to be avoided, Jan. As Sir William's wish 
 was that we should lend our countenance to the festivities, 
 't would not have done to displeasure him, and since I was to 
 be debtor to Lord Clowes, another fifty pounds was not worth 
 balking at. More still I '11 have to ask from him, I fear, ere 
 we are safe out of this wretched coil." 
 
328 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Oh, prithee, dadda," implored the girl, " do not take 
 another shilling. I '11 work my fingers to the bone — do any- 
 thing — rather than be indebted to him ! " 
 
 " 'T is not to be helped, child. Think ye work is to be 
 obtained at such a time, with hundreds in the city out of 
 employment and at the point of starvation? Thank your 
 stars, rather, that we have a friend who not merely gives us a 
 shelter and food, but advances us cash enough to make us 
 easy. Dost think I have not tried for employment myself? 
 I 've been to merchant after merchant to beg even smouting 
 work, and done the same to the quartermaster's and commis- 
 sary's departments, but nothing wage-earning is to be had." 
 
 " 'T is horrible ! " despairingly wailed Janice. 
 
 " That it might be blacker can at least be said, and that ia 
 why I wish thee not to let thy feelings set too strongly against 
 Lord Clowes. Here 's a peer of England, Jan, with wealth as 
 well, eager to wed thee. He is not what I would have him, 
 but it would be a load off my mind and off thy mother's to 
 feel that thy future at least is made safe and — " 
 
 " I 'd die sooner than live such a future," cried the girl. 
 " I could not live with him ! " 
 
 "Yet ye ran off with this man." 
 
 " But then I did not know him as I know him now. You 
 won't force me, will you, dadda?" 
 
 " That I '11 not ; but act not impulsively, lass. Talk with 
 thy mother, and view it from all sides. And meantime, we '11 
 hope he '11 not hear of the poor lad's death." 
 
 Left alone by her father to digest this advice, Janice lapsed 
 into a despondent attitude, while remarking : " 'T is horrible, 
 and never could I bring myself to it. Starvation would be 
 easier." She sat a little time pondering; then, getting her 
 cloak, calash, and pattens, she set forth, the look of thought 
 displaced by one of determination. A hurried walk > of a few 
 squares brought her to the Franklin house, where she asked 
 for Andr6. 
 
 "Miss Meredith," cried the captain, as he appeared at the 
 door, "this is indeed an honour! But why tarry yoa 
 outside ? " 
 
 " I fear me. Captain Andr^, that I am doing a monstrous 
 
Barter and Sale 329 
 
 bold thing, and therefore will not enter, but beg of you instead 
 that you walk with me a little distance, for I am in a real 
 difficulty and would ask your help." 
 
 The officer caught up his hat and sword, and in a moment 
 they were walking down Second Street. Several times Janice 
 •unsuccessfully sought to begin her tale, but Andr6 finally had 
 to come to her assistance. 
 
 " You surely do not fear to trust me, Miss Meredith, and 
 you cannot doubt the surety of assistance, if it be within my 
 power? " 
 
 For a moment the girl's lips trembled ; then she said, " Dost 
 truly think the miniature frame I showed thee is worth as much 
 as five hundred pounds? " 
 
 " I think 'tis, beyond doubt." 
 
 " And dost thou think that thee couldst obtain four hundred 
 pounds for it? " 
 
 " Of that I can scarce give assurance, for 't is a question 
 whether a purchaser can be found for it. Yet I make small 
 doubt, Miss Meredith," he added, " that if you will leave 
 your portrait in it, one man there is in Philadelphia will 
 gladly buy it at that price, though he run in debt to do it. 
 If you desire to sell it, why do you not offer it to Mobray ? " 
 
 The girl had coloured with Andre's first remark, and ere he 
 had completed his speech, her cheeks were all aglow. "I — 
 I could not offer it to him. Surely you can understand that 
 'twould be impossible?" she stammered. 
 
 " I suppose I am dull-witted not to know it," said Andrd, 
 hurriedly, in evident desire to lessen her embarrassment. 
 " However, 'twas but a suggestion, and if you desire to sell, 
 I will gladly undertake to negotiate it for you." 
 
 "Oh, will you?" cried the girl, eagerly. "'Twill so 
 greatly service > me." 
 
 Without more ado, she held out her hand, which contained 
 the miniature, and after a second outburst of thanks, quite 
 unconscious of the fact that she was leaving him abruptly, 
 she hurried away, not homeward, but in a direction which 
 presently brought her to a house before which a sentry paced, 
 where she stopped. 
 
 "Is Sir William within?" she asked of the uniformed 
 
2 30 Janice Meredith 
 
 servant who answered Her knock ; and when told that he was, 
 added : " Wilt say that Miss Meredith begs speech with him ? " 
 
 The servant showed her into the parlour, then passed into 
 the room back of it, and Janice heard the murmur of his 
 words as he delivered her message. 
 
 •' Miss Meredith," cried a woman's voice. " What does 
 that puss want with you, Sir William?" 
 
 The bass of a masculine reply came to the visitor's ears, 
 though pitched too low for her to distinguish words. 
 
 "I know better than to take any man's oath concerning 
 that," retorted the feminine speaker; and on the last word 
 the door was flung wider open, and a woman of full figure and 
 of very pronounced beauty burst into the room where the girl 
 sat, closely followed, if not in fact pursued, by the British 
 commander-in-chief. " What do you want with Sir William? " 
 she demanded. 
 
 Janice had risen, half in fright and half in courtesy; but 
 the cry she uttered, even as the inquiry was put, was significant 
 of something more than either. 
 
 " Well," went on the questioner, " art struck with a syncope 
 that thou dost nothing but gape and stare at me? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon," faltered the girl. " I recognised — 
 that is — I mean, 't was thy painting that — " ' 
 
 " Malapert ! " shrieked the woman. " How dare you say 
 I paint ! Dost have the vanity to think thou 'rt the only one 
 with a red and white skin ? " 
 
 " Oh, indeed, madam," gasped Janice, " I alluded not to 
 thy painting and powdering, but to the miniature that — " 
 
 "Sir William," screamed the dame, too furious even to 
 heed the attempted explanation, " how can you stand there 
 and hear this hussy thus insult me?" 
 
 "Then in Heaven's name get back to the room from which 
 you should ne'er have come," muttered Howe, crossly. 
 
 " And leave you to the me-a-tete you wish with this bold 
 minx." 
 
 " Ay, leave me to learn why Miss Meredith honours me with 
 this visit." 
 
 " You need not my absence, if that is all you wish to know. 
 'T would be highly wrong to leave a miss, however artful, 
 
Barter and Sale 331 
 
 unmatronised. Here I stay till I see cause to change my 
 mind." 
 
 Sir William said something below his breath with a manner 
 suggestive of an oath, shrugged his shoulders, and turned to 
 Janice. " Old friends are not to be controlled, Miss Meredith," 
 he said, " and since we are to have a third for our interview, 
 let me make you known to each other. Mrs. Loring, Miss 
 Meredith." 
 
 " I pray you, madam, to believe," entreated Janice, even as 
 she made her curtsey, " that you entirely misinterpreted — " 
 
 " I care not what you meant," broke in Mrs. Loring, with- 
 out the pretence of returning the obeisance. " Say your say 
 to Sir William, and be gone." 
 
 " Damn you, Jane ! " swore the general, bursting into a 
 rage. " If you cannot behave yourself I will call in the 
 servants and have you put from the room. Please be seated. 
 Miss Meredith, and tell me in what manner I can serve you." 
 
 " I came. Sir William, to beg that you would give my father 
 some position by which he could earn a living. We are 
 totally without money, and getting daily deeper in debt." 
 
 "Your wish is a command," replied Sir William, gallantly, 
 " but are you sure 't is best ? Remember that the moment 
 your father takes position from me he commits himself far 
 more in the cause than he has hitherto, and the rebels are 
 making it plain they intend to punish with the utmost severity 
 all who take sides with us." 
 
 "But even that is better than — than — than living on charity," 
 exclaimed Janice. "I assure you that anything is better — " 
 
 " Enough ! " declared the general, as the girl hesitated. 
 " Your father shall be gazetted one of the wardens of aban- 
 doned property at once. 'T will give him a salary and fees 
 as well." 
 
 "Ah, Sir William, how can I ever thank you enough?" 
 murmured the girl, feeling, indeed, as if an end had come to 
 her troubles. She made a deep curtsey to Mrs. Loring, a 
 second to the general, and then took the hand he oifered her 
 to the front door, " I beg. Sir William," she said at parting, 
 ""that you will assure Mrs. Loring that I really did not — " 
 The general interrupted her with a laugh. " A man with 
 
332 Janice Meredith 
 
 an evil smell takes offence at every wrinkled nose," he asserted, 
 " and you hit upon a subject on which my friend has perhaps 
 cause to be sensitive." 
 
 Janice ran rather than walked the whole way home, and, 
 not stopping when she reached the house to tell her father 
 of her successful mission, or even to remove her cloak and 
 calash, she tripped upstairs to her room, went straight to her 
 bureau, and, pulling open the bottom drawer, took from it the 
 unset miniature, and scrutinised it closely for a moment. 
 "'Tis she beyond question!" the girl ejaculated. "And I 
 always thought of her as a young female, never suspecting it 
 might have been some time painted. Why, she is a good ten 
 years older than Colonel Brereton, or at least eight, let alone 
 that she paints and powders ! If that is the ill-mannered 
 creature he gave his love to, I have little pity for him." 
 
 This decided, the maiden sought out her father and in- 
 formed him of her mission and its successful result. 
 
 "Why, Jan," exclaimed her father, " thou 'rt indeed a 
 wonderful lass to have schemed and carried it through. I 'd 
 have spoken to Sir WilUam myself, but he keeps himself so 
 secluded that never a chance have I had to speak to him 
 save in public. It is for the best, however, for I doubt not 
 he paid more heed to thy young lips than ever he would to 
 mine. Hadst thou told me, however, I would have gone with 
 thee, for it must have been a tax on thy courage to have 
 ventured alone." 
 
 " I did n't even let myself think of it," replied the daughter, 
 " and, indeed, 't was so much easier than the thought of your 
 further increasing your debt to Lord Clowes that 't was 
 nothing." Then, after a slight pause, she asked : " Dadda, 
 who is the Mrs. Loring I found at Sir William's ? " 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted the squire, with obvious annoyance. 
 " 'T is the wife of Joshua Loring, commissary of prisoners." 
 
 "Has she been long married to him?" asked Janice. 
 
 " That I know not ; and the less ye concern yourself, Jan, 
 with her, the better." 
 
 Despite this recommendation, Janice once again repeated 
 her question, this time making it to Andr6 at the Assembly 
 that evening. 
 
Barter and Sale 333 
 
 " I know not," the captain told her, pursing up his lips and 
 raising his eyebrows. Then he called to his opposite in the 
 quadrille : " Cathcart, cr.n you tell me how long Mrs. Loring 
 has rejoiced in that title of honour? " 
 
 The earl laughed as if Andr6 had said something witty, and 
 made reply : " Since ever I can remember, and that is a full 
 five years." 
 
 When later the dancers adjourned to the supper-room, 
 Lord Cathcart tossed a billet across the table to Andr6, and 
 he in turn passed it to Mobray, who was squiring Janice. 
 The baronet held it so that she could see the message as well, 
 and inscribed on the paper were the lines : — 
 
 " Your question don't think me a moment ignoring; 
 ' How long has she honoured the surname of Loring ? ' 
 Wiseacre, first tell, how a man without honour 
 Could ever confer that fair jewel upon her ? " 
 
 Sir Frederick, before handing it back, took Janice's pencil 
 from her dancing-card, and scribbled on the back of the 
 quip : — 
 
 "The answer is plain, for by means of her face, 
 The lady secured him an honourable place. 
 In return for the favour, by clergy and vow, 
 She made sure of her honour, but who Icnows when or Howe ? " 
 
 And from that interchange of epigrams Janice asked no 
 further questions relative to Mrs. Loring, unless it might be 
 of herself. 
 
XLIII 
 A CHOICE OF EVILS 
 
 AT this ball Janice was gladdened by word from 
 Andr6 that he had effected the sale of the miniature, 
 though he maintained absolute silence as to who 
 the purchaser was, nor did she choose to inquire. 
 The next morning brought a packet from him containing 
 a rouleau of guineas, and. so soon as they were counted, the 
 girl hurried to the room on the ground floor which the com- 
 missary had taken as a half office, and, after an apology for 
 the unannounced intrusion, said, — 
 
 " You have been good enough. Lord Clowes, to favour us 
 with sundry loans, for which we can never be grateful enough, 
 but 'tis now in our power to repay them." 
 
 " Pay me ! " cried the baron, incredulously. 
 
 "Yes," replied Janice, laying down the pile of gold on the 
 desk. " Wilt tell me the exact amount? " 
 
 The guineas weje too indisputable for Clowes to question 
 the girl's ability to carry out her intention, but he demanded, 
 " How came you by such a sum of gold?" 
 
 "'Tis — That concerns thee not," replied the girl, with 
 spirit. 
 
 " And does thy father know? " 
 
 "I ask you, Lord Clowes," Janice responded, "to tell me 
 the amount we owe you." 
 
 For a moment the officer sat with a scowl on his face, then 
 suddenly he threw it off", and with a hearty, friendly manner 
 said : " Nay, Miss Meredith, think naught of it. You 're 
 welcome ten times over to the money, and what more ye 
 shall ever need." He rose as he spoke, and held out his 
 hand toward the girl. " Generosity is not the monopoly of 
 razorless youngsters of twenty." 
 
A Choice of Evils 335 
 
 Janice, ignoring the hand, said : " Once again, Lord 
 Clowes, I ask you to inform me of the amount of our debt, 
 which if you will not tell me, you will force me to leave all 
 the money." 
 
 The angry frown returned to the commissary's face, and all 
 the reply he made was to touch a bell. " Tell Mr. Meredith 
 I would have word with him in my office," he said to the 
 ■servant. Then he turned to Janice and remarked, " If ye 
 insist on knowing the amount, 'tis as well that your father 
 give it to ye, since clearly ye trust me in nothing." 
 
 " Oh, Lord Clowes," begged Janice, " wilt thou not let me 
 pay this without calling in dadda ? I — I acted without first 
 speaking to him, and I fear me — " There her words were 
 cut short by the entrance of the squire. 
 
 " I sent for ye, man, to help us unsnarl a coil. Your 
 daughter insists on repaying the money I have loaned ye, and 
 I thought it best ye should be witness to the transaction." 
 As he ended he pointed to the pile of coin. 
 
 " Odds bodikins ! " exclaimed Mr. Meredith, as his eye 
 followed the motion. " And where got ye such a sum, 
 Jan?" 
 
 " Oh, dadda," faltered the girl, "'tis a long story, of which 
 I promise to make you a full narration, Once we are alone, 
 though I fear me you will think that I have done wrong. 
 But, meantime, will you not tell me how much you owe Lord 
 Clowes, and let me pay him? Believe me, the money is 
 honestly come by." 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt," said the commissary, with a rough 
 laugh. " Young macaronis are oft known to give girls hun- 
 dreds of pounds and get nothing in return." 
 
 All the reply Janice made was to go to the door. " When- 
 ever you will come to the parlour, dadda, you shall know all, 
 but I will not stay here to endure such speeches." 
 
 Without thought of the gold, Mr. Meredith was hurrying 
 after his daughter, when Clowes interrupted him. 
 
 « The explanation is simple enough, Meredith," he said, 
 *' and I cannot ,but take it in bad part that your maid should 
 borrow of Mobray in order to repay my loan to you." 
 
 « I cannot believe that that is the explanation, Clowes," 
 
336 Janice Meredith 
 
 protested Mr. Meredith. " But if it is, be assured that the 
 money shall be returned him, and we will still stand your 
 debtors." Then he sought his daughter, and she poured out 
 to him the whole story of the miniature. 
 
 " Wrong I may have been, dadda, to have taken it to begin 
 with, but Colonel Brereton refused to receive it from me, and 
 when he himself placed it about my picture, I could not but 
 feel that it had truly become mine, and that I could dispose 
 of it." 
 
 "But who bought it of ye, Jan? " inquired the parent. 
 
 "That I know not," said the girl, though hesitating and 
 colouring at the question in her own mind whether she were 
 not prevaricating, for Andre's face and her own suspicions had 
 really convinced her who was the nameless buyer. " Captain 
 Andr6 assured me that the frame was fully worth five hundred 
 pounds." 
 
 "That I will not gainsay, lass," replied the squire, "and 
 the only blame I will lay on ye is that ye did not consult me 
 before acting, for I could have negotiated it as well, and should 
 have so managed as not to have offended Clowes. However, I 
 make no doubt he '11 not hold rancour when he knows that 
 the money came by the sale of a piece of jewelry, and was not 
 merely borrowed. Did ye take your picture from the frame?" 
 
 " No, dadda. I did so once before, only to bring suspicion 
 on myself j so this time I let it remain." 
 
 " Ye might as well have removed it," said Mr. Meredith, 
 "for it could have added no money value to it." Yet the 
 squire had once been a lover, and should have known other- 
 wise. This said, he returned to Clowes, and sought to mollify 
 him by a statement of how the money had been obtained. 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted the baron. " She 'd better have brought 
 the trinket to me, for I 'd gladly have been the purchaser, for 
 more even than she got by it." 
 
 " I told the lass she should have left the sale of it to me," 
 answered the squire, " but ye know what women are." 
 
 " Egad, I sometimes think, shallow as the sex is, no man fully 
 knows that. However, we will waste no further parley on the 
 matter. Put the money in your purse, man, for your future 
 needs, and think naught about the debt to me." 
 
A Choice of Evils 337 
 
 " Nay, Clowes. Since the money is here, 't is as well to 
 pay up." And protest and argue as the commissary would, 
 nothing would do the squire but to count out the amount on 
 the spot from the heap of guineas, and to pocket, not without 
 some satisfaction, the small surplus that remained. Then he 
 left the room in great good cheer ; but for some time after he 
 was gone, the baron, leaving the gold piled on the table, paced 
 the room in an evident fit of temper, while muttering to him- 
 self and occasionally shaking his head threateningly. 
 
 The gazetting of Mr. Meredith served only to increase this 
 half-stifled anger, and on the very evening his appointment 
 was announced in the " Pennsylvania Ledger," the commissary 
 recurred to his proposal. 
 
 " I heard by chance to-day that young Hennion had fallen 
 a victim to the camp fever," he told the squire, " and only 
 held my tongue before the ladies through not wishing to be 
 the reporter of bad tidings — though, as I understood it, 
 neither Mrs. Meredith nor Miss Janice really wished the 
 match." 
 
 The father took time over a swallow of Madeira, then said : 
 " 'T is a grievous end for the good lad." 
 
 "Ay, though I am not hypocrite enough to pretend that 
 it affects me save for its freeing of your daughter, and so 
 removing the one objection ye made to my taking her to 
 wife." 
 
 Once more the squire gained a moment's breathing space 
 over his wine before he replied : " Ye know, Clowes, that I 'd 
 willingly give ye the girl, but I find that she will have none 
 of it, and 't is a matter on which I choose not to force her 
 inclination." 
 
 " Well said ; and I am the last man to wish an unwilling 
 spouse," responded the aspirant. " But ye know women's 
 ways enough not to be their dupes. In truth, having no stabil- 
 ity of mind, the sex resemble a ship without a rudder, veering 
 with every shift of the wind, and never sailing two days alike. 
 But put a man at the helm, and they steer as straight a course 
 as could be wished. Janice was hot to wed me once, and 
 though she took affront later becausa she held me responsible 
 for her punishment, yet she herself owned, but a few weeks 
 
338 Janice Meredith 
 
 ago, that she was still bound to me, which shows how little her 
 moods mean. Having your consent secured, it will take me 
 but a brief wooing to gain hers, that ye shall see." 
 
 " Well," rejoined Mr. Meredith, " she 's now old enough to 
 know her own mind, and if ye can win her assent to your suit, 
 mine shall not be lacking. But 't is for ye to do that." 
 
 " Spoken like a true friend, and here 's my hand on it," 
 declared the commissary. " But there is one matter in which 
 I wish ye to put an interfering finger, not so much to aid me 
 as to save the maid from hazard. That fopling Mobray is 
 buzzing about her and pilfering all the sweets that can be had 
 short of matrimony — " 
 
 " Nay, Clowes, he 's no intriguer against my lass, that I am 
 bound to say. 'T was only this morning, the moment he had 
 news of Hennion's death, he came to me like a man, to ask 
 permission to address her." 
 
 " Ho, he 's deeper bitten by her charms than I thought ! " 
 retorted the suitor. " Or, on second thought, more like 't is 
 a last desperate leap to save himself from ruin. Let me warn 
 ye that he has enough paper out to beggar him thrice over, 
 and 't is only a question of time ere his creditors come down 
 on him and force him to sell his commission ; after which he 
 must sink into beggary." 
 
 " I sorrow to hear it. He 's a likely lad, and has kindly 
 stood us in stead more than once." 
 
 " And just because of his taking parts, he is likely to keep 
 your girl's heart in a state of incertitude, for 't is only mor- 
 tal for eighteen to fancy twenty more than forty-four. There- 
 fore, unless ye want a gambling bankrupt for a son-in-law, give 
 him his marching orders." 
 
 " I '11 not do that after his kindness to my wife and child ; 
 but I '11 take good care to warn Janice." 
 
 " Look that ye don't only make him the more interesting to 
 her. Girls of her age think little of where the next meal is to 
 come from, and dote on the young prodigal." 
 
 " Have no fear on that score," replied the father. 
 
 On the morning following this conversation Janice was 
 stopped by the commissary as she was passing his office. 
 " Will ye give me the honour of your presence within for a 
 
A Choice of Evils 339 
 
 moment?" he requested. "I have something of import to 
 say to ye." 
 
 With a little trepidation the girl entered, and took the seat 
 he placed for her. 
 
 Taking a standing position at a respectful distance, Lord 
 Clowes without circumlocution plunged at once into the object 
 of the interview. " That I have long wished ye for my wife. 
 Miss Meredith," he said with frank blufifness, " is scarce worth 
 repeating. That in one or two instances I have given ye 
 cause to blame or doubt me, I am full conscious ; 't is not in 
 man, I fear, to love such beauty, grace, and elegance, and keep 
 his blood ever within bounds. 'T was this led me to suggest 
 our elopement, and to my effort to bind ye to the troth. In 
 both of these I erred, and now crave a pardon. Ye can scarce 
 hold me guilty that my love made me hot for the quickest mar- 
 riage I could compass, or that, believing ye in honour pledged to 
 me, I should seek to assure myself of the plight from your 
 own lips, ungenerous though it was at the moment. It has 
 since been my endeavour to show that I regretted my impulsive 
 persecution, and I trust that my long forbearance and self- 
 effacement have proved to ye that your comfort and happi- 
 ness are the first object of my heart." 
 
 "You have been very good to us all," answered Janice, 
 " and I would that I were able to repay in full measure all we 
 owe to you. But — " 
 
 " Ye can, and by one word," interjected the suitor. 
 " But, Lord Clowes," she continued, with a voice that trem- 
 bled a little, " I cannot yield to thy wish. Censurable I know 
 myself to be — and no one can upbraid me more than I up- 
 braid myself — yet between the two wrongs I must choose, 
 and 'tis better for both of us that I break the implied prom- 
 ise, entered into at a moment when I was scarce myself, than 
 to make a new one which I know to be false from the begin- 
 ning, and impossible to fulfil." 
 
 " Of the old promise we will say naught. Miss Meredith," 
 replied the baron. " If your sense of right and wrong absolve 
 ye, Baron Clowes is not the man to insist upon it. But there 
 is still a future that ye must not overlook. 'T will be years, 
 if ever, ere ye once again enjoy your property, and though 
 
2^0 Janice Meredith 
 
 this appointment — which is like to prove dear-bought — foi 
 the moment enables ye to face the world, it is but a short- 
 lived dependence. To ye I will confide what is as yet known 
 to but a half-dozen : his Majesty has accepted Sir William's 
 resignation, and he leaves us so soon as Sir Henry Clinton 
 arrives. The new commander will have his own set of hungry 
 hangers-on to provide with places, and your father's days will 
 be numbered. In my own help I shall be as unstinting as in the 
 past, but it is quite on the cards that I, too, lose my appoint- 
 ment, in which case I shall return to England. Would not 
 a marriage with me make — " 
 
 " But I love you not," broke in Janice. 
 
 "Ye have fallen in love with that — " 
 
 " I love no one, Lord Clowes ; and indeed begin to fear 
 that I was born without a heart." 
 
 " Then your objection is that of a very young girl who 
 knows nothing of the world. Miss Meredith, the women 
 •who marry for love are rare indeed, and but few of them fail 
 of a bitter disappointment. I cannot hope that my arguments 
 will convince ye of this, but counsel with your parents, and ye '11 
 find they bear me out. On the one side stands eventual penury 
 and perhaps violence for ye all ; on the other, marriage with 
 a man who, whatever his faults, loves ye hotly, who will give ye 
 a title and wealth, and who will see to it that your parents 
 want for nothing. 'T is an alternative that few women would 
 hesitate over, but I ask no answer now, and would rather 
 that ye give none till ye have taken consideration upon it." 
 
 Janice rose. "I — I will talk with dadda and mommy," 
 she said, " and learn their wishes." But even as she spoke 
 the words a slight shiver unsteadied her voice. 
 
XLIV 
 
 A CARTEL OF EXCHANGE 
 
 AFTER Janice left him the commissary-general 
 mounted a horse, and, riding to the Franklin house, 
 asked for Captain Mobray. 
 
 " 1 have called, sir," he announced, as the baronet 
 entered the room, " on two matters — " 
 
 " Have they to do with the service, my Lord ? " interrupted 
 Mobray ; " for otherwise I must decline — " 
 
 " First," the caller went on unheedingly, " a number of past- 
 due bills of you"S have come into my possession in exchange 
 for special victuals or stores, and I wish to learn your inten- 
 tion concerning them." 
 
 "I — In truth — I — " haltingly began Sir Frederick, hia 
 face losing colour as he spoke. " I have had the devil's turn 
 of luck of late, and — and I am not in a position to take them 
 up at the moment. I trust that you '11 give me time, and not 
 press me too harshly." 
 
 With a smile that expressed irony qualified by enjoyment, 
 the creditor replied : " 'T is a pleasure to aid a man to whom 
 I am indebted for so much courtesy." 
 
 Sir Frederick's ashen hue changed to a ruddy one, as he 
 said : " Lord Clowes, 't is a bitter mouthful for a man to eat, 
 but I ask your clemency till my luck changes, for change it 
 must, since cards and dice cannot always run against one. 
 I know I deserve it not at your hands, after what has 
 passed — " 
 
 " Cease your stuttering, man," ordered the commissary. 
 " Had I revenge in my heart I 'd have sent the bailiff, not 
 come myself. The bills shall wait your convenience, and all 
 I ask for the lenience is that ye dine with me and do me one 
 service. Ye did me a bad stroke with Miss Meredith ; now 
 
342 Janice Meredith 
 
 I ask ye to offset it by telling her what my vengeance has 
 been." 
 
 Mobray hesitated. " Lord Clowes, I will do nothing to 
 trick Miss Meredith, desperately placed as I am." 
 
 "Chut! Who talks of trickery? Ye told her the facts of 
 my parole ; therefore ye owe it to me, even though it may not 
 serve your own suit, to tell her as well what is in my favour." 
 
 " And so help you to win her. I cannot do her that wrong, 
 my Lord." 
 
 " Is it worse to tell her only the truth about me than to 
 seek to persuade her into a marriage with a bankrupt ? " 
 
 "You state it unsparingly." 
 
 " Not more so, I doubt not, than ye did the matter of my 
 parole — which some day I shall be able to justify, and the 
 gentlemen of the army will then sing a very altered tune — 
 with this difference, that I say it to your face and ye did 
 not." 
 
 With bowed head Sir Frederick answered : " You are right, 
 my Lord, and I will say what I can in your favour to Miss 
 Meredith." 
 
 " Spoke like an honest man. Fare ye well till next Wednes- 
 day, when I shall look for ye to a three-o'clock dinner." 
 
 Whatever pain and shame the words cost him, honourably 
 the baronet fulfilled his promise by going to the commissary's 
 quarters the following day and telling Janice the facts. The 
 girl listened to his explanation with a face grave almost to 
 sadness. "I — What you have told me. Sir Frederick," 
 she said gently at the end, " is of much importance to me just 
 at this time, and I thank you." 
 
 " I know, I know," groaned the young officer, miserably, 
 "and 'tis only part of my horrible run of luck that I 
 should— -that — ah— Take him. Miss Meredith, and end 
 my torture." 
 
 "Can you advise me to marry Lord Clowes? " 
 
 " After his generosity to me, in honour I must say nothing 
 against him, but 't is asking too much of human nature for me 
 to aid his suit." 
 
 "I — oh, I know not what to do ! " despairingly wailed the 
 girl. " Mommy says 't is for me to decide, and dadda thinks 
 
A Cartel of Exchange 343 
 
 I cannot do better, and to the ear it seems indeed the only 
 thing to do. Yet I shudder every time I think of it, and 
 twice, when I have dreamed that I was his wife, I have waked 
 the whole house with my screams to be saved from him." 
 
 " Miss Meredith," burst out the baronet, " give me the right 
 to save you. You know I love you to desperation; that I 
 would live to make you — " 
 
 "Ah, pray, Sir Frederick," begged Janice, "do not add to 
 my pain and difficulty. What you wish — " 
 
 " I crave a pardon for my words. 'T was a moment's selfish 
 forgetfulness of you and of my own position, that shall not 
 occur again." Mobray stooped and kissed a loose end of the 
 handkerchief the girl held, and hurried from the room. 
 
 As he was catching up his cloak and sabre in the hallway, 
 the door of the office opened. " Come in here a moment. 
 Sir Frederick," requested the commissary. 
 
 " I have done as I promised, and that is all I can do at the 
 moment," almost sobbed the young fellow. " Nor will I dine 
 here Wednesday, though you do your worst." 
 
 " Tush ! Do as ye please as to that, but come in here now, 
 for I have a thing to say that concerns Miss Meredith's 
 'happiness." 
 
 " And what is that ? " demanded the baronet, as he 
 entered. 
 
 " I see by the G. O. that ye are named one of the commis- 
 sioners to arrange a cartel of exchange with the rebels at 
 Germantown to-day." 
 
 "Would to God it were to arrange a battle in which I 
 might fall ! " 
 
 " 'T is likely lists of prisoners will be shown, and should ye 
 chance to see the name of Leftenant Hennion on any of those 
 handed in by the rebels I recommend that ye do not advertise 
 the fact when ye return to Philadelphia." 
 
 " But the fellow 's dead." 
 
 " Ye have been long enough in the service to know that 
 some die whose names never get on any return, and so some 
 are reported dead who decline to be buried. Let us not beat 
 about the bush as to what I mean. We are each doing our 
 best to obtain possession of this lovely creature, but the father 
 
244 Janice Meredith 
 
 holds to his promise to the long-legged noodle, and, if he 
 is alive, our suits are hopeless. So let them continue to 
 suppose him — " 
 
 " Mine is so already," groaned Mobray. " But if 't were 
 not, I would not filch a woman's love by means of a deceit.. 
 
 Nor—" 
 
 " Fudge ! Hear me through. The girl has always hated 
 the match, which was one of her old fool of a father's con- 
 ceiving, and will thank any one who saves her from the fellow. 
 Let her say nay to us both, and it please her, but don't force 
 her to a marriage of compulsion by needless blabbing." 
 
 " I will hold my peace, if that seems best for Miss Meredith ;, 
 not otherwise, my Lord," answered Mobray, flinging from the 
 room. 
 
 The baronet mounted his horse, and, stabbing his spurs into 
 him, galloped madly down Market Street, and then up Second 
 Street to where it forked into two country roads. Here the 
 hnes of British fortifications intersected it, and a picket of 
 cavalry forced the rider to draw rein and show his pass. This 
 done, he rode on, though at a more easy pace, and an hour 
 later entered the village of Germantown. In front of the 
 Roebuck Inn a guidon, from which depended a white flag, 
 had been thrust into the ground, and grouped about the door 
 of the tavern was a small party of Continental light horse. 
 Trotting up to them, Mobray dismounted, and, after an in- 
 quiry and a request to one of them to take his horse, he 
 entered the public room. To its one occupant, who was 
 seated before the fire, he said : " The dragoons outside told 
 me the reb — the Continental commissioners were here. 
 Canst tell me where they are to be found, fellow?" 
 
 The person addressed rose from his seat, revealing clothes 
 so soiled and tattered, and a pair of long boots of such shabby 
 appearance, as to give him the semblance of some runaway 
 prentice or bond-servant, but over his shoulder passed a green 
 ribbon and sword sash which marked their wearer as a field 
 officer ; and as the baronet realised this he removed his hat 
 and bowed. 
 
 " Since when did you' take to calling your superior officers 
 'fellows,' Sir Frederick? " asked the other, laughing. 
 
A Cartel of Exchange 345 
 
 With a cry of recognition, Mobray sprang forward, his hand 
 outstretched. " Charlie ! " he exclaimed. " Heavens, man, 
 we have made a joke in the army of the appearance of thy 
 troops, but I never thought to see the exquisite of the Mall 
 in clothes not fit for a tinker." 
 
 " My name, Fred, is John Brereton," corrected the officer, 
 " which is a change for the better, I think you will own. As 
 for my clothes, I '11 better them, too, if Congress ever gives us 
 enough pay to do more than keep life in us. Owing to de- 
 preciation, a leftenant-colonel is allowed to starve at present 
 on the equivalent of twenty-five dollars, specie, a month." 
 
 " And yet you go on serving such masters," burst out 
 Mobray. " Come over to us, Charl — John. Sir William 
 would give you — " 
 
 " Enough," interrupted Brereton, angrily. " For how long. 
 Sir Frederick, have you deemed me capable of treachery? " 
 
 " 'T is no treachery to leave this unnatural rebellion and 
 take sides with our good king." 
 
 " Such talk is idle, and you should know it, Mobray. A 
 word with you ere Grayson and Boudinot — who have gone 
 to look at that marplot house of Cliveden which frustrated all 
 our hopes four months since — return and interrupt us. I 
 last saw you at the Merediths' ; can you give me word of 
 them?" 
 
 " Only ill ones, alas ! " answered the captain. " Their 
 necessities are such that I fear me they are on the point of 
 giving their daughter to that unutterable scoundrel, Clowes." 
 
 Jack started as if he had been stung. " You cannot mean 
 that, man ! We sent you word he had broke his parole." 
 
 " Ay," replied the baronet, flushing. " And let me tell you, 
 John, that scarce an officer failed to go to Sir William and 
 beg him to send the cur back to you." 
 
 " And you mean that Mr. Meredith can seriously intend to 
 give Miss Janice to such a creature ? " 
 
 " I fear 't is as good as decided. You know the nian, and 
 how he gets his way, curse him ! " 
 
 " I 'd do more than that, could I but get into Philadelphia," 
 declared Jack, hotly. " By heavens, Fred — " 
 
 But here the entrance of other officers interrupted them,, 
 
2^6 Janice Meredith 
 
 and Colonel Brereton was set to introducing Boudinot and 
 Grayson to the British officer. 
 
 Scarcely had they been made known to each other when 
 Mobray's fellow-commissioners. Colonel O'Hara and Colonel 
 Stevens, with a detail of dragoons, came trotting up ; and so 
 soon as credentials were exchanged the six sat down about a 
 table in a private room to discuss the matter which had 
 brought them together. One of the first acts of Mobray was 
 to ask for a look at the Continental lists of prisoners ; and 
 after a hurried glance through them, he turned and said to 
 Brereton in a low voice : " We had word in Philadelphia that 
 Leftenant Hennion died of a fever." 
 
 " 'T is a false rumour," replied Brereton. " If I could I 'd 
 see that he failed of an exchange till the end of the war ; and 
 I would that one of our officers in your hands could be kept 
 by you for an equal term." 
 
 " Who is that ? " asked Mobray. 
 
 "That rascal, Charles Lee," muttered Brereton. "But, 
 though he openly schemed against General Washington, and 
 sought to supersede him, his Excellency is above resentment, 
 and has instructed us to obtain his exchange among the first." 
 
 In the arrangement of details of the cartel Brereton showed 
 himself curiously variable, at times sitting conipletely abstracted 
 from what was being discussed, and then suddenly entering 
 into the discussions, only to compel an entire going over of 
 points already deemed settled, and raising difficulties which 
 involved much waste of time. 
 
 " Confound it ! " said O'Hara presently, after a glance at 
 his watch. " At this rate we shall have to take a second day 
 to it." 
 
 "Beyond question," assented Jack, with a suggestion of 
 eagerness. " Gentlemen, I invite you to dinner, and there 
 are good sleeping-rooms above." 
 
 " 'T is out of the question," replied Stevens. " We officers 
 give a masked ball in the city to-night, and I am one of the 
 managers." 
 
 "Well, then," urged Brereton, "at least stay and dine with 
 me at three, and you shall be free to leave by six. 'T is not 
 much over an hour's ride to the city." 
 
A Cartel of Exchange 347 
 
 "That we '11 do with pleasure," assented O'Hara. 
 
 " Go on with the discussion, then, while I speak to the land- 
 lord," remarked Jack, rising and passing to the kitchen. "We 
 wish a dinner for six," he informed tlie publican, « by three 
 o'clock." , Then in a low voice he continued : " And hark 
 you ! One thing I wish done that is peculiar. Give us such 
 whiskey as we call for of thy best, with lemons and sugar, but 
 in place of hot water in the kettle, see to it that as often as it 
 is replenished, it be filled with thy newest and pilest rum. 
 Understand ? " 
 
 " Jerusalem ! " ejaculated mine host. " You gentlemen of 
 the army must have swingeing strong heads to dilute whiskey 
 with raw rum." 
 
 " I trust not," replied the aide, drily. 
 
 When dinner was announced Brereton drew Grayson aside 
 for a moment and whispered : " 'T is a matter of life and 
 death to me that these fellows be made too drunk to ride. 
 Will, yet to keep sober myself. You 've got the head and 
 stomach of a ditcher j wilt make a sacrifice of yourself for my 
 sake?" 
 
 "And but deem it sport," replied Grayson, with a laugh; 
 and as he took his place at the table he remarked : " Gentle- 
 men, we have tested British valour, we have tested British 
 courtesy, and found them not wanting, but we understand 
 that, though you turn not your backs to either our soldiery or 
 our ladies, there is one thing which can make you tremble, 
 and that is our good corn whiskey." 
 
 "Odds life!" cried O'Hara, "who has so libelled us? 
 Man, we 'd start three glasses ahead of you, and then drink 
 you under the table, on a challenge, but for this ball that we 
 are due at." 
 
 " A pretty brag," scoffed Brereton, " since you have an excuse 
 to avoid its test. But come, we have three good hours ; but 
 drink Grayson even in that time, and I will warrant you '11 
 not be able to sit your horses. Come, fill up your glasses 
 from decanter and kettle, and I will give you a toast to 
 begin, to which you must drink bumpers. Here's to the 
 soldier who fights and loves, and may he never lack for 
 either." 
 
348 Janice Meredith 
 
 Four hours later, when Brereton rose from the table, 
 Stevens and O'Hara were lying on the floor, Boudinot was 
 fallen forward, his head resting among the dishes on the table, 
 fast asleep, and Mobray and Grayson, clasped in each other's 
 arms, were reeling forth different ditties under the impression 
 that they were singing the same song. Tiptoeing from the 
 room, the aide went to the kitchen door and said to the 
 publican, " Order one of the dragoons to make ready Captain 
 Mobray's horse, as he wishes to ride back to Philadelphia." 
 In the passageway he took from the hook the hat, cloak, and 
 sword of the young officer, and, removing his own sash and 
 sabre, donned the three. Stealing back to the scene of the 
 revel, he found Mobray and Grayson now lying on the floor 
 as well, unconscious, though still affectionately holding each 
 other. Kneeling gently, he searched the pockets of the un- 
 conscious man until the passport was lighted upon. Thrust- 
 ing it into his belt, he stole from the room. 
 
 "What are the orders for us, sir? " asked the dragoon who 
 held Mobray's horse, as the aide mounted. 
 
 With an almost perfect imitation of the baronet's voice, 
 Brereton answered, " Colonel O'Hara will issue directions 
 later," and then as he cantered down the road he added 
 gleefully : " Considerably later. What luck that it should be 
 Fred, whose voice I know so well that I can do it to the life 
 whenever I choose ! " Then he laughed with a note of 
 deviltry. " I am popping my head into a noose," he said ; 
 " but whether 't is that of hangman or matrimony, time only 
 will show." 
 
XLV 
 
 IN THE JAWS OF THE LION 
 
 THE ball had been in full progress for an hour wheft 
 a masker, who from his entrance had stood lean- 
 ing against the wall, suddenly left his isolated posi- 
 tion and walked up to one of the ladies. 
 
 " Conceal your face and figure as you will, Miss Meredith, 
 you cannot conceal your grace. Wilt honour me with this 
 quadrille?" 
 
 " La, Sir Frederick ! That you should know me, and I never 
 dream it was you ! " exclaimed the girl, as she gave her hand 
 and let him lead her to where the figures were being formed. 
 " There have been many guesses among the caps as to the 
 identity of him who has held himself so aloof, but not a one 
 suggested you. The disguise makes you look a good three 
 inches taller." 
 
 As they took position a feminine domino came boldly across 
 the room to them. " Is this the way you keep your word. Sir 
 William ? " she demanded in a low voice, made harsh and 
 grating by the fury it expressed. 
 
 " You mistake me, madam," answered the dancer, " though 
 I would such a rapid promotion were a possibility." 
 
 The interloper made a startled step backward. " I have 
 watched you for a quarter hour," she exclaimed, as she turned 
 away, " and would have sworn to your figure." 
 
 "'Tis wonderful," remarked Janice, "how deceiving a 
 domino can be." 
 
 The dance ended, her partner said : " Miss Meredith, I 
 have something to say to you of deepest consequence. Will 
 you not come away from this crowd? " 
 
 "Ah, Sir Frederick," pleaded the girl, " do not recur to it 
 again. Though you importune me for a day, I could but 
 make the same reply." 
 
350 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Sir Frederick passes his word that he will not tease you 
 on that subject to-night ; but speak I must concerning this 
 match with Lord Clowes." 
 
 "'Tis in vain, sir," replied Janice; "for every moment 
 convinces me the more that I must wed him, and so you will 
 but make my duty the harder." 
 
 " I beg you to give me a word apart, for I have a message 
 to you from Coionel Brereton." 
 
 Janice's hand dropped from the officer's arm. " What is 
 it?" she asked. 
 
 " 'Tis not to be given here," urged the man. '^ I pray you 
 to let me order yout equipage and take you away. Another 
 dance will be beginning on the moment, and some one will 
 claim you." 
 
 The girl raised her hand and once more placed it on her 
 partner's arm ; taking the motion as a consent to his wishes, 
 the officer led her to the doorway. 
 
 "Call Miss Meredith's chair," he ordered of the guard 
 grouped about the outer door, and in a moment was able to 
 hand her into the vehicle. 
 
 "Where to?" he asked. "I mean — Home!" he cried, 
 in a far louder voice, as if to drown the slip, at the same 
 moment jumping in and taking his seat beside her. 
 
 As he did so, the girl shrank away from him toward her 
 corner of the gig. " Who are you? " she cried in a frightened 
 voice. 
 
 "Who should I be but John Brereton? " 
 
 " Are you mad," cried the girl, " to thus venture within the 
 lines?" 
 
 "The news which brought me was enough to make me so," 
 answered Jack. " You cannot know what you are doing that 
 you so much as think of marrying that scum. For years he 
 has been nothing but a spy and mackerel, willing to do the 
 dirtiest work, and the scorn of every decent man in 
 London, as here. Are you, are your father and mother, 
 are your friends, all Bedlam-crazed that you even consider 
 it?" 
 
 "'Tis as horrible to me as it is to you," moaned Janice; 
 " but it seems the only thing possible. Oh, Colonel Brereton, 
 
In the Jaws of the Lion 351 
 
 if you but knew our straits, — dependent for all we have, and 
 with a future still more desperate, — you would not blame me 
 for anything I am doing." The girl broke into sobs as she 
 ended, and turning from him leaned her head against the 
 leathern curtain, where she wept, regardless of the fact that 
 the aide possessed himself of her hand, and tried to comfort 
 her, until the chaise drew up at its destination. Lifting rather 
 than helping her from the carriage, Jack supported the maiden 
 up the steps and into the hallway ; but no sooner were they 
 there than she freed herself from his supporting arm and ex- 
 claimed, " You must not stay here. Any instant you might 
 be discovered." 
 
 " Then take me to a room where we can be safe for a 
 moment. I shall not leave you till I have said my say." 
 
 " Ah, please ! " begged the girl. " Some one is like to enter 
 even now." 
 
 Jack's only reply was to turn to the first door and throw it 
 open. Finding that all was dark within, he caught Miss 
 Meredith's fingers, and drew her in after him, saying, as he 
 did so, " Here we are safe, and you can tell me truly of your 
 difficulties." 
 
 With her hand held in both of the aide's, Janice began a 
 disconnected outpouring of the tale of her difficulties inter- 
 mixed by an occasional sob, caused quite as much by the 
 officer's exclamations of sympathy as by the misery of her posi- 
 tion. Before a half of it had been spoken one of the hands 
 grasping hers loosened itself, and she was gently drawn by an 
 encircling arm till her head could find support on his -shoulder; 
 not resenting and indeed, scarcely conscious of the clasp, she 
 rested it there with a strange sense of comfort and security. 
 
 " Alas ! " grieved Brereton, when all had been told, " I am 
 as deep, if not deeper, in poverty than you, and so I can 
 give you no aid in money. Bad as things are, however, there 
 is better possible than selling yourself to that worm, if you 
 will but take it." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "The French have come to our aid at last, and are sending 
 us a fleet. If Howe will but be as slow as usual, and the 
 States but hasten their levies, we shall catch him between the 
 
352 Janice Meredith 
 
 fleet and army and Burgoyne him. Even if he act quickly, 
 he can save himself only by abandoning Philadelphia and con- 
 solidating his forces at New York. They may then fight on, 
 f;^r both the strength and the Vifeakness of the British is a natu- 
 ral stupidity which prevents them from knowing when they are 
 beaten, but all doubt as to the outcome will be over. Once 
 more it will be possible for you to dwell at Greenwood, if you 
 will but — " 
 
 "But dadda says they will take it away and exile us," 
 broke in Janice. 
 
 " I have no doubt the rag-tag politicians, if not too busy 
 scheming how to cripple General Washington, will set to on 
 some such piece of folly, for by their persecutions and acts of 
 outlawry and escheatage they have driven into Toryism enough 
 to almost offset the Whigs the British plundering has made. 
 But from this you can be saved if you will but let me." As 
 the officer ended, the clasp of his arm tightened, though it lost 
 no element of the caress. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I stand well in the cause ; and though I could not, I fear, 
 save your property to you, they would never take it once it 
 were in Whig hands, and so by a marriage to me you can se- 
 cure it. Ah, Miss Meredith, you have said you do not love 
 me, and I stand here to-night a beggar, save for the sword I 
 wear; but I love you as never man loved woman before, and 
 my life shall be given to tenderness and care for you. Surely 
 your own home with me is better than exile with that cur ! 
 And I '11 make you love me ! I '11 woo you till I win you, my 
 sweet, if it take a life to do it." Raising the hand he held, 
 the aide kissed it fondly. " I know I 've given you reason to 
 think me disrespectful and rough ; I know I have the devil's 
 own temper ; but if I 've caused you pain at moments, I 've 
 suffered tenfold in the recollection. Can you not forgive 
 me?" Once again he eagerly caressed her hand; and find- 
 ing that she offered no resistance to the endearments. Jack, 
 with an inarticulate cry of delight, stooped and pressed his 
 lips to her cheek. 
 
 On the instant Janice felt a hand laid on her shoulders, then 
 on her head, as if some one were feeling of her. 
 
In the Jaws of the Lion 353 
 
 "Who is this?" demanded Jack, lifting his head with a 
 start. 
 
 The question was scarce uttered when the sound of a blow 
 came to the girl's ears, and the arm which had been support- 
 ing her relaxed its hold, as the lover sank rather than fell to 
 the floor. With loud screams the girl staggered backward, 
 groping her way blindly in the dark. There came the sound 
 of feet hurrying down the hallway, and the door was thrown 
 open by one of the men servants, revealing, by the shaft of 
 light which came through it, the figure of Jack stretched on 
 the floor, with the commissary kneeUng upon him, engaged in 
 binding his wrists with a handkerchief. 
 
 " Out to the stables, and get me a guard ! " ordered Lord 
 Clowes. " I have a spy captured here. No ; first light those 
 candles from the lamp in the hall. I advise ye, Miss Mere- 
 dith," he said scoffingly, " that next time ye arrange an assigna- 
 tion with a lover that ye take the precaution to assure your- 
 self that the room is unoccupied." 
 
 " Oh, Lord Clowes," implored the girl, " won't you let him 
 go for my sake ? " 
 
 " That plea is the least likely of any to gain your wish," 
 responded the baron, derisively. 
 
 " I will promise that I will never wed him, will never see 
 him again," offered Janice. 
 
 "Of that I can give ye assurance," retorted the commissary, 
 rising and picking up from where he had dropped it the horse 
 pistol with which he had stunned the unconscious man. " A 
 drum-head court-martial will sit not later than to-morrow 
 morning, Miss Meredith, and there will be one less rebel in the 
 world ere nightfall. Your promise is a fairly safe one to 
 make. Here," he continued, as the soldiers came running 
 into the room, " fetch a pail of water and douse it over this 
 fellow, for I want to carry him before Sir William. Ye were 
 wise not to remove your wraps. Miss Meredith, for I shall have 
 to ask your company as well." 
 
 When the aide was sufficiently conscious to be able to stand, 
 he was put between two of the soldiers, and ten minutes later 
 the whole party reached the house of the commander-in-chief. 
 Given entrance, without waiting to have their arrival an- 
 
 23 
 
254 Janice Meredith 
 
 nounced, the commissary led the way through the parlour inta 
 the back room, where, about a supper table, the British com- 
 mander, Mrs. Loring, and two officers were sitting. 
 
 "Ye must pardon this intrusion. Sir William," explained 
 Lord Clowes, as Howe, in surprise, faced about, " but we have 
 just caught a spy red-handed, and an important one at that, 
 being none less than Colonel Brereton, an aide of Mr. Wash- 
 ington. Bring him forward, sergeant." 
 
 As Jack was led into the strong light, Mrs. Loring started 
 to her feet with a. scream, echoed by an exclamation of " By 
 God ! " from one of the officers, while the three or four glasses 
 at Howe's place were noisily swept into a jumble by the im- 
 pulsive swing of the general's arm as he threw himself back- 
 ward and rested against the table. 
 
 " Charlie, Charlie ! " cried Mrs. Loring. " You here ? " 
 
 Standing rigidly erect, the aide said coldly, " My name is 
 John Brereton ; nor have I the honour of your acquaintance." 
 
 "What 's to do here? " ejaculated Lord Clowes. " I know 
 the man to be what he says, and that he has come in disguise 
 within our lines to spy." 
 
 Without looking at the commissary. Jack answered : " I 
 wore no disguise when I passed through your lines, nor have 
 I for a moment laid aside my uniform." 
 
 " Call ye those rags a uniform? " jeered the commissary. 
 
 Howe gave a hearty laugh. "Why, yes, baron," he 
 answered. " Know you not the rebel colours by this 
 time?" 
 
 " And how about the domino he wears over them, and the 
 mask I hold in my hand?" contended Lord Clowes. 
 
 " I procured them this evening at the Franklin house in 
 Second Street, as you will learn by sending some one to 
 inquire, merely to attend the ball." 
 
 A second exclamation broke from Mrs. Loring : " Then 
 'twas you I mistook for — Sir William, I thought 'twas you 
 from his figure." 
 
 Again the general laughed. "Ho, Loring," said he 
 to one of the officers. "What say you to that?" 
 
 " Take and hang me, or send me to the pest hole you kill 
 your prisoners in, but let me get away from here," raged Jack, 
 
In the Jaws of the Lion 355 
 
 white with passion, as he gave a futile wrench in an attempt 
 to free his hands. 
 
 " Art so anxious to be hanged, boy ? " 
 
 " 'T is a fit end to a life begun as mine was ! " answered 
 the aide. 
 
 " Oh, Sir William," spoke up Janice, " he did not come to spy, 
 but only to see me. You will not hang him for that, surely? " 
 
 " Yoicks ! Must you snare, even into the hangman's noose, 
 every one that looks but at you. Miss Janice? If the day 
 ever comes when the innocent no longer swing for the guilty, 
 'tis you will be hung." 
 
 " We lose time over this badinage. Sir William," com- 
 plained the commissary, angrily. " The fellow is a spy with- 
 out question." 
 
 " He is not," cried Mrs. Loring ; " and he shall not even 
 be a prisoner. You will not hold him. Sir William, when he 
 came but to see the maid he loves ? " 
 
 " Come, sir," said the general. " Wilt ask thy life of me ? " 
 
 " No. And be damned to you ! " 
 
 " You see, Jane." 
 
 " I care not what he says ; you shall let him go free." 
 
 " Are ye all mad^" fumed the commissary. 
 
 " He ever had the art of getting the women on his side, 
 Clowes," laughed Sir William, good-naturedly. "How the 
 dear creatures love a man of fire ! Look you, boy, with such 
 a friend as Mrs. Loring — to say nothing of others — no limit 
 can be set to your advancement, if you will but put foolish 
 pride in your pocket, and throw in your lot with us." 
 
 " I 'd sooner starve with Washington than feast with you." 
 
 "That 's easily done.! " remarked Loring, jeeringly. 
 
 " Not so easily as in your prisons," retorted Jack. 
 
 "Don't be foolish and stick to your tantrums, lad," per- 
 suaded Howe. 
 
 " Is a man foolish who elects to stick to the winning side? 
 For you are beaten, Sir William, and none know it better than 
 you." 
 
 " Damn thy tongue ! " roared Howe, springing up. 
 
 "Don't blame him for it, William," cried Mrs. Loring. 
 " How can he be other than a lad of spirit?" 
 
256 Janice Meredith 
 
 Howe fell back into his seat. "There 'tis again. Ah, 
 gentlemen, the sex beat us in the end ! Well, Jane, since 
 thou 't commander-in-chief, please issue thy orders." 
 
 " Set him free at once." 
 . " We can scarce do that, though we '11 not hang him as a 
 spy, lest all the caps go into mourning. Commissary Loring, 
 he is yours; we will hold him as a prisoner of war." 
 
 " Do that and you must answer for it," said Jack. " You 
 can hang me as a spy, if you choose, but yesterday I rode into 
 Germantown under a flag of truce, and on your own pass, as 
 one of the commissioners of exchange. What word will you 
 send to General Washington if you attempt to hold me 
 prisoner ? " 
 
 , "Well done!" exclaimed Howe. "One would almost 
 think it had been prearranged. Release his arms, sergeant. 
 Loring, let the boy have a horse and a pass to Germantown. 
 I rely on your honour, sir, that you take no advantage of what 
 you have seen or heard within our lines." 
 
 Jack bowed assent without a word. 
 
 "And now, sir, that you are free," went on Sir WUliam, 
 "have you no thanks for us?" 
 
 " Not one." 
 
 "Ah, Charlie," begged Mrs. Loring, " just a single word of 
 forgiveness." 
 
 Without a sign to show he heard her. Jack went to Janice 
 and took her hand. " Don't forget my pledge. Save you I 
 can, if you will but let me." He stooped his head slightly 
 and hesitated for a moment, his eyes fixed on her lips, then 
 he kissed her hand. 
 
 And as he did so, Mrs. Loring burst into tears. "You are 
 killing me by your cruelty," she cried. 
 
 "Ah, Colonel Brereton, say something kind to her!" 
 begged the girl, impulsively. 
 
 Wheeling about. Jack strode forward, till he stood beside 
 the woman. " This scoundrel," he began, indicating Clowes 
 with a contemptuous gesture, " is seeking to force Miss Mere- 
 dith into a marriage : save her from that, and the wrong you 
 did me is atoned." 
 
 " I will j I will ! " replied Mrs. Loring, lifting her head 
 
In the Jaws of the Lion 357 
 
 eagerly. "I'll — Ah, Charlie, one kiss — just one to show 
 that I am forgiven — No, not for that," she hurriedly added, 
 as the aide drew back — " to show — for what I will do for 
 her. Everything I can I will — Just one." 
 
 For an instant Brereton hesitated, then bent his head ; and 
 the woman, with a cry of joy, threw her arms about his neck, 
 and kissed him not once, but five or six times, and would 
 have continued but for his removing her hands and stepping 
 backward. 
 
 " Come, sir," said Loring, irritably, " if the whole army is 
 not to have wind of this, follow me. Daybreak is not far 
 away, and you should be in the saddle." 
 
 The aide once more went to Janice, and would have again 
 taken her hand ; but the girl shrank away, and turned her back 
 upon him. 
 
 "One farewell," pleaded Jack. 
 
 "You have had it," replied Janice, without turning. 
 
 " Ay. Be off with you," seconded Howe, and without a 
 a word Brereton followed Loring from the room. 
 
 As the front door banged, and ere any one had spoken, the 
 thunder of a cannon sounded loud and clear, and at short 
 intervals other booms succeeded, as if the first was echoing 
 repeatedly. But the trained ear of the general was not 
 deceived. 
 
 '"Tis the water battery saluting," he said, rising. "So Sir 
 Henry Clinton has evidently arrived. Come, gentlemen, 't is 
 only courteous that we meet him at the landing." 
 
XLVI 
 
 THE FAREWELL TO HOWE 
 
 IN the movement that ensued, Janice shpped into the 
 hallway, and in a moment she was scurrying along 
 the street, so busy with her thoughts that she forgot 
 the satin shppers which had hitherto been so carefully 
 saved from the pavements. She had not gone a square when 
 the sound of footsteps behind her made the girl quicken her 
 pace ; but instantly the pursuer accelerated his, and, really 
 alarmed, Janice broke into a run which ended only as she 
 ^3arted up the steps of her home, where she seized the 
 knocker and banged wildly. Before any one had been roused 
 within, the man stood beside her, and with his first word the 
 fugitive recognised Lord Clowes. 
 
 "I meant not to frighten ye," he said ; " but ye should not 
 have come away alone, for there are pretty desperate knaves 
 stealing about, and had ye encountered the patrol, ye would 
 have been taken to the provost-marshal for carrying no 
 lantern." 
 
 Relieved to know who it was, but too breathless to make 
 reply, Janice leaned against the lintel until a sleepy soldier 
 gave them entrance. There was a further delay while Lord 
 Clowes ignited a dip from the lamp and lighted her to the 
 stairway. Here he handed it to her, but retaining his own 
 hold, so as to prevent her departing, he said : — 
 
 " I lost my temper at hearing that young scamp make such 
 ardent love, and so I spoke harshly to ye. Canst not make 
 allowance for a lover's jealousy?" 
 
 " Please let me have the light." 
 
 " Whether ye pardon me or no, of one thing I am sure," 
 went on Clowes, still holding the candle, " ye are not so love- 
 sick of this rogue as to overlook his seeking the aid of his dis- 
 
The Farewell to Howe 359 
 
 carded mistress in his suit of ye. I noted your look as she 
 kissed him." 
 
 " 'T is not a subject I choose tp discuss with you, nor is it 
 one for any gentlewoman," said Janice, dropping her hold on 
 the candle and starting upstairs. At the top she paused long 
 enough to say, " Nor do I trust your version," and then 
 hurried to her room and bolted the door. 
 
 Here, dark as it was, she went straight to the bureau, and 
 puUing open the bottom drawer fumbled about in, it. Her 
 hands presently encountered the unfinished purse, and for a 
 moment they closed on it, while something resembling a sob 
 escaped her. But with one hand she continued searching; 
 and so soon as her groping put her fingers on the miniature 
 of Mrs. Loring she rose, and feeling the way to a window, she 
 opened it and threw out the slip of ivory. The girl made a 
 motion as if to send the purse after it, but checked the im- 
 pulse, and forgetting to close the window, and without ~a 
 thought of her once treasured gown, she threw herself on the 
 bed, and began to sob miserably. Before many minutes, worn 
 out with excitement, fatigue, and the lateness, she fell asleep, but 
 it was only to dream uneasily over the night's doings, in which 
 all was a confused jumble, save for the eager tones of her 
 lover's; voice as he pleaded his suit, the sight of him as he lay 
 on the floor after the candles had been lighted, and, finally, 
 the look in his eyes as he made his farewell. Yet no sooner 
 ■ did these recur than they were succeeded by that of Mrs. 
 Loring's eager and passionate kissing of Brereton, and each 
 time this served to bring Janice back into a half-awake 
 condition. 
 
 After breakfast the next morning, as she was pretendedly 
 reading Racine's " Iphigdnie," lest her mother should find her 
 doing nothing and order her to some task, a letter was 
 handed her by one of the servants, with word that it had 
 been brought by a soldier ; and breaking the seal, Janice read : 
 
 My deer child 
 
 p/eas doforgiv al i spoke to yu a bout the furst time i see yu 
 for i did not understan it at ali was dredful up set bi last niie 
 and feel miteypukish this mawning, but i hope yu will cum to see 
 
t6o Janice Meredith 
 
 me soon for i want much to tawk with yu a bout how i can help 
 yu and to kiss and hugg yu for yu ar so prity that i shud 
 lov just to tuch yu lik sum one else didyu see how his eys lovd 
 yu when he was going a way he yused to look that zvay at me 
 and i cried mitey hard al nite at his krulty pleas cum soon 
 to unhapy 
 
 Jane Loring. 
 ps. i shalcum to yu ifyu dont cum quick 
 
 " There is no answer," the maiden told the servant ; then, 
 as he went to the door she added, " And should a Mrs. Loring 
 wish to see me, you will refuse me to her.'' 
 
 Left alone, Janice went to the fireplace, in which the 
 advance of spring no longer made a fire necessary, and, taking 
 from its niche the tinder box, she struck flint on steel, and 
 in a moment had a blaze started. Not waiting to let it gain 
 headway, she laid the letter upon the flame, and held it there 
 with the tongs till it ignited. " I knew without your telling 
 me,'' she said, " that he no longer loved you, and great wonder 
 it is, considering your age, that he ever could." 
 
 " Hast turned fire-worshipper?" demanded Andre's voice, 
 merrily, as she still knelt, " for if so, 't will be glad news for 
 the sparks." 
 
 The girl sprang to her feet. "I — I was just burning a 
 — a — some rubbish," she answered. 
 
 " Here I am, not in the lion's den, but in the jackal's, and 
 my stay must be brief. Canst detect that I am big with 
 news?" 
 
 "Of what?'" 
 
 " This morning Sir Henry Clinton arrived, and for the first 
 time the army learns that Sir William has resigned his 
 command, and is leaving us. The field ofiicers wish to mark 
 his departure by a farewell fete in his honour, and as it would 
 be a mockery without the ladies, we are appealing to them to 
 aid us. We plan to have a tourney of knights, each of whom 
 is to have a damsel who shall reward him with a favour at the 
 €nd of the contest. I have bespoken fair Peggy for mine, 
 -and I am sure Mobray, who is not yet returned, will ask you. 
 ^IVilt helpus?" 
 
The Farewell to Howe 361 
 
 "Gladly," assented Janice, eagerly, "if dadda will let me." 
 
 " I met him in High Street on my way here, made my 
 plea, and, though at first he pulled a negative look, when I 
 reminded him he owed Sir William for a good place, he 
 relented and said you could." 
 
 "And what am I to do?" 
 
 " You are to be gowned in a Turkish costume, in the — " 
 
 "Nay, Captain Andr^," replied Janice, shaking her head, 
 "we are too poor to spend any money in such manner." 
 
 " Think you the knights are so lacking in chivalry that we 
 could permit our guests to pay? The subscription is large 
 enough to cover all expenses, the stuffs are already purchased, 
 and all you will have to do is to make them up in the manner 
 of this sketch." 
 
 " Then I accept with pleasure and thanks." 
 
 " 'T is we owe the thanks. And now farewell, for I have 
 much to do." 
 
 " Captain Andr6," said the girl, as he opened the door, " I 
 have a question — Wilt answer me something ? " 
 
 " Need you ask ? " 
 
 " I suppose 't is a peculiar one, and so — Do you — is it 
 generally thought by — Do the gentlemen of the army deem 
 Mrs. Loring beautiful? " 
 
 "Too handsome for the good of our. — of the army." 
 
 " Even though she paints and powders ? " 
 
 "But in London and Paris 'tis the mode." 
 
 " I think 't is a horrid custom." 
 
 " And so would every woman had she but thy cheeks. Ah, 
 Miss Meredith, 't is easy for the maid whose tints are a daily 
 toast at the messes to blame those to whom nature has not 
 given a transparent skin and mantling blood." 
 
 When Mobray returned from Germantown, he at once 
 sought out Janice and confirmed Andrd's action. Though he 
 found her working on the costume, it was with so melancholy 
 a countenance that he demanded the cause. 
 
 " 'T is what you know already," moaned the girl, miserably. 
 " Lord Clowes is pressing me for an answer, and now dadda is 
 urgent that I give him ay." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
362 Janice Meredith 
 
 " He went to see Sir Henry, and had so cold a reception 
 that he thinks 't is certain he is to lose his place, let alone the 
 report that General Clinton was heard to say Sir William's 
 friends were to be got rid of. What can we do?" 
 
 " But Char — Brereton assured me he had spoked the 
 fellow's wheel by securing the aid of — " 
 
 " 'T is naught to rae what he has done, " interrupted Janice, 
 proudly ; " nor did I give him the right to intervene." 
 
 " You must not give yourself to Clowes. 'T is — ah — • 
 rather than see that I '11 speak out." 
 
 " About what ? " 
 
 " Leftenant Hennion is not dead ! 'T was but another of 
 Clowes' hes, and your father shall know it, let him do his 
 worst." Without giving his courage time to cool, the young 
 fellow dashed across the hallway to the office where the com- 
 missary and squire were sitting, and announced : " News, Mr. 
 Meredith. Leftenant Hennion is alive, for his name was on 
 the rebel lists of prisoners to be exchanged." 
 
 " Oddsbodikins ! " ejaculated the squire. " Here 's an upset, 
 Clowes, to all our talk." 
 
 "Ye '11 not be fool enough to let it make any difference," 
 growled the baron, his eyes resting on Mobray with a look that 
 boded no good. " Ye '11 only increase your difficulties by 
 holding to that old folly." 
 
 "Nay, Clowes, Lambert Meredith ne'er broke his word to 
 any man, and, God helping, he never will." 
 
 With a real struggle, the commissary held his anger in check. 
 " I '11 talk of this later," he said, after a pause, " when I can 
 speak less warmly than now I feel. As for ye,, sir," he said, 
 facing Mobray, " I will endeavour — the favour ye have done 
 shall not be forgotten." 
 
 "Take what revenge you please, my Lord," replied Mobray, 
 his voice shaking a little none the less, "I have done what as a 
 gentieman I was compelled to do, and am ready for the con- 
 sequences, be they what they may." 
 
 " A fit return for my lenience," remarked Clowes to the 
 squire after Sir Frederick had made his exit. " He has long 
 owed me money, for which I have never pressed him, yet now 
 he would have it that if I but ask payment, 't is revenge." 
 
The Farewell to Howe 363 
 
 One result of Mobray's outbreak was to give Janice another 
 knight for the pageant. 
 
 '•'Tis a crying shame," Andrd told her; "but poor Fred 
 has gone to the wall at last, and is to be sold up. Therefore he 
 chooses to withdraw from the tourney, and begs me to make 
 his apologies to you, for he is too dumpish to wish to see any 
 one. 'Twill make no diiference to you, save that you will 
 have Brigade Major Tarleton in place of the baronet." 
 
 " Can nothing be done for him ? " asked Janice. 
 
 " Be assured, if anything could be, his fellow-officers would 
 not have allowed the army to lose him, for he is loved by 
 every man in the service ; but he is in for over eight thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 '• 'T is very sad," sighed Janice. " I thought him a man of 
 property," she added aloud, while to herself she said, "Then it 
 could not have been he who bought my miniature." 
 
 ■' Nay, he was sometimes in funds by his winnings, but he 
 long since scattered his patrimony." 
 
 Janice's letter to Tabitha had long before, by its length, be- 
 come in truth a journal, and to its pages were confided an 
 account of the farewell fete to the British general : — 
 
 " ' TJie Mischianza,^ as 'tis styled, Tibbie, began at four 
 e^ clock in the afternoon with a grand regatta, all the galleys and 
 flatboats being covered with awiiings and dressed out with colours 
 and streamers, making a most elegant spectacle. The embarka- 
 tion took place at the upper end of the city, mommy and F enter- 
 ing the ' Hussar ' which bore Sir William Howe. Preceded by 
 the music boats, the full length of the town we were rowed, 
 whilst every ship was decked with fags and ensigns, and the 
 shores were crowded with spectators, who joined in ' God save 
 the King' when the bands played it ; and the '^ Roebuck' frigate 
 fired a royal salute. About six we drew up opposite the Whar- 
 ton house, and landing, made our way between fles of troops and 
 sailors to a triumphal arch that ushered to an amphitheatre 
 which had been erected for the guests, of whom, Tibbie, but four 
 hundred were invited. Behind these seats spectators not to be 
 numbered darked the whole plain around, held in check by a 
 strong guard which controlled their curiosity. The fourteen 
 
364 Janice Meredith 
 
 knights' ladies (selected, Tibbie, so 'twas given but, as the fore- 
 most in youth, beauty, and fashion, and into a fine frenzy it threw 
 those maids who were not asked) wei-e seated in the front, and 
 though V is not for me to say it, we made a most pleasing display. 
 Our costume was fancy, and consisted of gauze turbans, spangled 
 and edged with gold and silver, on the right side of which a veil 
 of the same hung as low as the waist, and the lift side of the 
 turban was enriched with pearls and tassels of gold or silver, 
 crested with a feather. The jacket was of the polonaise kind, of 
 white silk with long sleeves, and sashes worn around the waist 
 tied with a large bow on the left side, hung very low and trimmed, 
 spattgled, and fringed according to the colours of the knight. 
 But, wilt believe it, Tibbie, instead of skirts, 't was loose trousers, 
 gathered at the ankle, we wore, and a fine to-do mommy made at 
 first over the idea, till dadda said I might do as the other girls 
 did; though indeed, Tibbie, His to be confessed I felt monstrous 
 strange, and scarce enjoyed a dance through thought of them. 
 And here let me relate that this was the ostensible reason for Mr. 
 Shippen refusing to allow Margaret and Sarah to take part 
 after they had their gowns made {and weren't they dancing 
 mad at being forbid t), but 'tis more shrewdly suspected that 
 't was because of a rumour {which no thinking person credits) that 
 Philadelphia is to be evacuated, and so, being a man of no opin- 
 ions, he chose not to risk offending the Whigs. 
 
 " Once seated, the combined bands of the army sounded a very 
 loud a?id animated march, which was the sigJial for the begi?i- 
 ning of the ceremony of the carousel. The seven knights of The ^ 
 Blended Rose, most marvellously dressed in a costume of the 
 Henry IV. period of France (which, being so beyond description, 
 T have endeavoured a sketch), on white horses, preceded by a her- 
 ald and three trumpeters, entered the quadrangle, and by procla- 
 mation asserted that the ladies of The Blended Rose excelled in 
 wit, beauty, and accomplishment those of the whole world, and 
 challenged any knight to dispute it. Thereupon appeared the 
 seven knights of The Burning Mountain, and by their herald 
 announced that they would disprove by arms the vainglorious 
 assertions of the knights of The Blended Rose and show that the 
 ladies of The Burning Mountain as far excelled all others in 
 charms as the knights themselves surpassed all others in prowess. 
 
The Farewell to Howe 365 
 
 Upon this a glove of defiance was thrown, the esquires presented 
 their knights with their lances, the signal for the charge was 
 sounded, and the conflict ensued, until on a second signal they fell 
 back, leaving but their chiefs in single combat. These fighting 
 furiously, were presently parted by the judges of the field, with 
 the announcement that they were of equal valour, and their ladies 
 of equal beauty. Forming in single file, they advanced and 
 saluted, and a finish was put to this part of the entertainment. 
 
 " We now retired to the house for tea, where the knights, 
 having dist?toun ted, followed us, and paid homage to their fair 
 ones, from each of 7vhom they received a favour. The ball then 
 succeeded, which lasted till nine, when the company distributed 
 themselves at the windows and doors to view fireworks of mar- 
 vellous beauty, ending with a grand illumination of the arch. 
 More dancing then occupied us, till we were summoned to sup- 
 per, which was served in a saloon one hundred and eighty feet 
 long, gaily painted and decorated, and made brilliant by a great 
 number of lustres hung from the roof, while looking-glasses, 
 chandeliers, atid girandoles decked the walls, the.whole enlivened 
 by garlands of flowers and festoons of silk and ribbons. Here 
 we were waited upon by twenty-four negroes in blue and white 
 turbans and party-coloured clothes and sashes, whilst the most 
 pathetic music was performed by a concealed band. Toasts to 
 the king and queen, the royal family, the army and navy, with 
 their respective commanders, the knights and their ladies, and 
 the ladies in general, were drunk in succession, each followed 
 by a flourish of music, when once again the dancing was re- 
 sumed, and lasted till the orb of day intruded his presence 
 upon us. 
 
 " Sir William left us at noon to-day, regretted by the whole 
 army, atid, as I write this, I can hear a salute of guns in 
 honour of Sir Henry Clinton' s assuming the command. Pray 
 Heaven he does not remove dadda. 
 
 " At last I know, Tibbie, what court life must be like." 
 
 Three days after the departure of Howe, the squire came into 
 dinner, a paper in hand, and with a beaming face. "Fine 
 news ! " he observed. " I am not to be displaced." 
 
 " Good ! " cried the commissary, while Janice clapped her 
 
o66 Janice Meredith 
 
 hands. " I spoke to Sir Henry strongly in your favour, and 
 am joyed to hear that it has borne fruit." 
 
 " How dost tliou know, Lambert ? " asked Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " I have here an order to load the ' Rose ' tender with such 
 rebel property as the commissaries shall designate, and super- 
 intend its removal to New York. They 'd ne'er employ me 
 on so long a job, were I marked to lose my employment, eh, 
 Clowes? " 
 
 " Well reasoned. For 't is not merely a task of time, but one 
 of confidence. But look ye, man, if ye 're indeed to make a 
 voyage to York and back, which will likely take a month, 't is 
 best that we settle this question of marriage ere ye go. I 've 
 given Miss Janice time, I think ye 'II grant, and 't will be an 
 advantage in your absence that she and Mrs. Meredith have 
 one bound to protect them." 
 
 " I 'd say ay in a moment, Clowes, but for my word to 
 Hennion." 
 
 " 'T is a promise thou shouldst ne'er have made, and which 
 it is now thy every interest to be quit of, let alone tjiat 't is se 
 distasteful to thy daughter." 
 
 " A promise is a promise," answered the father, with, an 
 obstinate motion of head. 
 
 " And a fool 's a fool," retorted Clowes, losing his temper. 
 " In counsel and aid I 've done my best for ye ; now go your 
 gait, and see what comes of it." 
 
 A week later, Mr. Meredith bade farewell to wife and 
 daughter. 
 
 " I wish you were n't going, dadda," Janic? moaned. " 'T is 
 so akin to last summer that it frights me." 
 
 " Nay, lass, be grateful that I have the job to do, and that 
 with good winds I shall return within a fortnight. Clowes 
 has passed his word that ye shall want for nothing. I '11 be 
 back ere ye know I 've gone." 
 
 There Was a good cause, however, for the girl's fear of the 
 future, for in less than a week from her father's sailing, on every 
 street corner, in every tavern, and in every drawing-room of 
 the town the news that Philadelphia was to be evacuated was 
 being eagerly and anxiously discussed. 
 
XLVII 
 
 THE EVACUATION 
 
 CONFIRMATION of the rumour, so far as Mrs. Mere- 
 dith and Janice were concerned, was first received 
 through the commissary. 
 
 " Ay," lie told them, when questioned ; " 't was 
 decided at a council of war the very day Howe left us, and 
 that was why we at once began transferring our stores and the 
 seized property to New York, one cargo of which your husband 
 was put in charge. 'T will tax our shipping to the utmost to 
 save it all." 
 
 " But why didst thou not warn us, so that we might have 
 embarked with him ? " asked Mrs. Meredith. 
 " 'T was a military secret to be told to no one." 
 " Can dadda return ere the evacuation begins?" 
 " 'T is scarce possible, even if his orders permit it." 
 " Then what are we to do ? " 
 
 "Thou hadst best apply at once to the deputy quarter- 
 master-general for transports." 
 
 Mrs. Meredith acted on this advice the following day, but 
 without success. 
 
 "Think you the king's ships and transports have naught to 
 do but act as packet-boats for you Americans?" the deputy 
 asked. " Hundreds of applications have been filed already, 
 and not another one will we receive. If you 'd for New York, 
 hire a passage in a private ship." 
 
 This was easier to recommend than to do, for such was the 
 frantic demand for accommodation that the prices had been 
 raised to exorbitant figures, quite beyond their means. So 
 ajipeal was made once more to Clowes. 
 
 "'T is something of a quandary," he remarked; "but there is 
 a simple way out." 
 
368 Janice Meredith 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I'd have saved ye all worry over the matter but that I 
 wished ye to learn the difficulties. I have never made pre- 
 tence to doing favours out of mere kindness of heart, and ye 
 know quite as well as I why I have given ye lodging and other 
 aids. But for that very reason I am getting wearied of doing 
 all and receiving nothing, and have come to the end. Give me 
 Miss Janice, and my wife and mother shall have passage in the 
 ship I sail in." 
 
 " You take a poor way, Lord Clowes, to gain your wish," 
 said Janice. " Generosity — " 
 
 " Has had a six months' trial, and brought me no nearer to 
 a consummation," interrupted the baron. " Small wonder I 
 sicken of it and lose patience." 
 
 " 'T is not to be expected that I would let Janice wed thee 
 when her father has given thee nay." 
 
 " Because he has passed his word to another, and so holds 
 himself bound. He said he 'd consent but for that, and by act- 
 ing in his absence ye can save him a broken oath, yet do the 
 sensible thing. He '11 be glad enough once done ; that I '11 
 tie to." 
 
 " It scarce betters it in a moral sense," replied Mrs. Meredith. 
 " However, we will not answer till we have had a chance to dis- 
 cuss it by ourselves." 
 
 " Janice," said her mother, once they were alone, " thy 
 dread of that man is a just one, and I — " 
 
 " I knovv — I know," broke in the daughter, miserably ; "but 
 I — if I can make us all easy as to money and future — " 
 
 " Those are but worldly benefits, child." 
 
 " But, mommy," said the girl, chokingly, as she knelt at her 
 mother's feet and threw her arms about Mrs. Meredith's waist, 
 " since live we must, what can we do but — but — Oh, would 
 that I had never been born ! " and then the girl buried her 
 head in her mother's lap. 
 
 " 'T is most unseemly, child, to speak so. God has put us here 
 to punish and chasten us for Adam's sin ; and 't is not for us, 
 who sinned in him, to question His infinite wisdom." 
 
 " Then I wish He 'd tell me what it is my duty to do ! " 
 lamented Janice. 
 
The Evacuation 369 
 
 " Thinkest thou he has nothing to do but take thought of thy 
 affairs?" 
 
 " Wouldst have me marry him, mommy ? " asked the girl, 
 chokingly. 
 
 " Let us talk no further now, child, but take a night's thought 
 over it." 
 
 They were engaged in discussing the problem the following 
 afternoon, when Lieutenant Hennion burst in upon them. 
 
 " Why, Phil ! " cried Mrs. Meredith; and Janice, springing 
 from her chair, met him half-way with outstretched hand, while 
 exclaiming, " Oh, Mr. Hennion, 't is indeed good to see an old 
 friend's face." 
 
 " 'T is glad tidings ter me ter hearn you say that," declared 
 Philemon, eagerly. "Yestere'en General Lee and the other 
 rebel prisoners came out from Philadelphia, and we, having 
 been brought from Morristown some days ago, were at once set at 
 liberty ; but 't was too late ter come in, so we waited for daylight. 
 I only reported at quarters, and then, learning where you lodged, 
 I come — I came straight ter — to find how you fared." 
 
 Alternating explanation and commentary, the women told of 
 their difficulties. 
 
 " I can't aid you to get aboard one of the ships, for I 've had 
 ter draw my full pay all the time I was prisoner, the rebels nigh 
 starving us, let alone freezing, so money 's as scarce with me as 
 with you. But I '11 go ter — ■ to my colonel, and see if I can't 
 get permission that you may go with our baggage train. " 
 
 " 'T will be a benefit indeed, if you can do that," exclaimed 
 Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 "Then I 'II not tarry now, but be off about it at once, for 
 there was a rumour at brigade headquarters that three regiments 
 had been ordered across the river this afternoon, and that it 
 meant a quick movement." He picked up his hat as if to go, 
 then paused, and haltingly continued, "I hope, Ja — Ja — 
 Janice, that you 've come ter — to like — not to be so set 
 against what I wants so much. It 's nigh a year since I seen — 
 saw you last, but it 's only made me love you the better." 
 
 The girl, with a look of real contrition, answered, " Oh, Mr. 
 Hennion, do not force — 'T would be wrong to us both if I 
 deceived you." 
 
 24 
 
-^jo _ Janice Meredith 
 
 "You can't love me? " 
 
 "I — oh, I believe I am a giddy, perverse female, for I seem 
 
 able to care for no man." 
 
 " The world I 'd give ter win you, Janice ; but I '11 not tease 
 you now, the more that I can be doing you a service, and that 's 
 joy enough." 
 
 Philemon went toward the door ; but ere he had reached it 
 Janice had overtaken him and seized his hand in both of hers. 
 "You deserve to love a better maid," she said huskily, "and I 
 wish you might ; but perhaps 't will be some comfort to you to 
 know that dadda holds to his promise, and — and that I am 
 less wilful and more obedient, I hope, than once I was." 
 
 As Philemon opened his mouth to make reply, he was cut 
 short by the entrance of the commissary, who halted and 
 frowned as he took in the hand-clasp of the two. 
 
 " Humph ! " he muttered, and then louder remarked, " Yet 
 another ! Ye '11 be pleased to know, sir, that Miss Meredith's 
 favours mean litde. But a month since I caught that fellow 
 Brereton regaling himself with her lips." 
 
 "That's a lie, I know," retorted Philemon, angrily; but as 
 he glanced at the girl and saw her crimson, he exclaimed, 
 "You just said you cared for no man!" 
 
 " It — it was at a moment when I scarce knew what I did," 
 faltered Janice, "and — and — now I would not be kissed by 
 him for anything in the world. I — I am — I was honest in 
 what I said to you, Philemon." 
 
 " I '11 believe anything you say, Janice," impulsively replied 
 the lieutenant, as with unprecedented boldness he raised her 
 hand to his lips. Then facing Clowes he said : " And I advise 
 you ter have a care how you speak of Miss Meredith. I '11 
 not brook hearing her aspersed." With this threat he left the 
 room. 
 
 '■'I regret to have been an intruder on so tender a scene," 
 sneered the commissary ; "but I came with information that was 
 too important to delay. Orders have been issued that all ships 
 make ready to drop down the river with the tide at daybreak 
 to-morrow, and 'tis said that the army will begin its march 
 across the Jerseys but a twenty-four hours later. So there is 
 no time to lose if ye wish to sail with me. The marriage must 
 
The Evacuation 371 
 
 take place by candle-light this evening, and we must embark 
 immediately after." 
 
 " Philemon has promised us his aid, Lord Clowes," replied 
 Mrs. Meredith, " and so we need not trouble thee." 
 
 " Hennion ! But he must go with his regiment." 
 
 " He offers us a place in the baggage train." 
 
 " Evidently he has not seen the general orders. Clinton is 
 too good an officer to so encumber himself; and the orders 
 are strict that only the women of the regiments be permitted 
 to march with the army. I take it ye scarce wish to class 
 yourselves with them, however much it might delight the 
 soldiery." 
 
 "They could scarce treat us worse than thee, Lord Clowes," 
 said Mrs. Meredith, indignantly. " Nor do I believe that even 
 the rank and file would take such advantage of two helpless 
 women as thou art seeking to do." 
 
 " Tush ! I may state it o'er plainly ; but my intention is 
 merely to make clear for your own good that ye have no other 
 option but that I offer ye." 
 
 " Any insults would be easier to bear than yours," declared 
 Janice, indignantly; "and theirs would be for once, while 
 yours are unending." 
 
 " Such folly is enough to make one forswear the whole sex," 
 the commissary angrily replied. " Nor am I the man to put up 
 with such womanish humoursomeness. " I 've stood your caprice 
 till my patience is exhausted ; now I '11 teach ye what — " 
 
 " Heyday ! " exclaimed Andrd, as a servant threw open the 
 door and ushered him in. " What have we here ? I trust I 
 am not mal apropos 1 " 
 
 " Far from it," spoke up Janice. " And thou 'rt welcome." 
 " I come laden with grief and with messages," said Andr^, com- 
 pletely ignoring Clowes' presence. " Mr. Hennion, whom I met 
 at headquarters, asked me to tell you his request was refused, 
 that his regiment was even then embarking to cross the Dela- 
 ware, and that therefore he could not return, whatever his wish. 
 The Twenty-sixth is under orders to follow at daybreak to- 
 morrow, and so we plan an impromptu farewell supper this 
 evening at my quarters. Will you forgive such brief notice 
 and help to cheer our sorrow with your presence?" 
 
372 Janice Meredith 
 
 " With more than pleasure," assented Mrs. Meredith ; " and 
 if 't will not trouble thee, we will avail ourselves of thy escort 
 even now." 
 
 " VVpuld that such trouble were commoner ! " responded 
 Andr6, holding open the door. 
 
 "Then we '11 get our coverings without delay." 
 
 Lord Clowes, with a deepened scowl on his face, intercepted 
 them at the door. " One word in private with these ladies," he 
 said to the captain. Then, as Andr^ with a bow passed out first, 
 he continued, to the women : " I have warned ye that we must 
 be aboard ship ere ten. Refuse me my will, and ye '11 notbeable 
 to rejoin Mr. Meredith. Take my offer, or remain in the city." 
 
 " We shall remain," responded Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " With your husband a warden of the seized property of the 
 rebels, and known to have carried away a ship-load of it? Let 
 me warn ye that the rebels whom we drove out of Philadelphia 
 will be in no sweet mood when they return and find what we 
 have destroyed or carried off. Hast heard how the Bostonians 
 treated Captain Fenton's wife and fifteen year-old daughter? 
 Gentlewomen though they were, the mob pulled them out of 
 their house, stripped them naked in the public streets, smeared 
 them with tar and feathers, and then walked them as a spectacle 
 through the town. And Fenton had done far less to make him- 
 self hated than Mr. Meredith. Consider their fate, and decide 
 if marriage with me is the greater evil." 
 
 " Every word thou hast spoken, Lord Clowes," replied Mrs. 
 Meredith, " has tended to make us think so." 
 
 " Then may you reap the full measure of your folly," raged 
 the commissary. 
 
 " Come, Janice," said her mother ; and the two, without a 
 parting word, left him. Once upstairs, Janice flung her arms 
 about Mrs. Meredith's neck. 
 
 " Oh, mother," she cried, " please, please forgive me I I 
 have ever thought you hard and stern to me, but now I know 
 you are not." 
 
 Strive as those at the supper might, they could not make it a 
 merry meal. The officers, with a sense of defeat at heart, and 
 feeling that they were abandoning those who had shown them 
 only kindness, had double cause to feel depressed, while the 
 
The Evacuation 373 
 
 ladies, without knowledge of what the future might contain, 
 could not but be anxious, try their all. And as if these were 
 not spectres enough at the feast, a question of Mrs. Meredith as 
 to Mobray added one more gloomy shadow. 
 
 "Fred? alas!" one of the officers replied. " He was sold 
 out, and the poor fellow was lodged in the debtors' prison, as 
 you know. As we chose not to have them fall into the hands 
 of the rebels, a general jail delivery was ordered this morning, 
 which set him at large." 
 
 " And what became of him?" asked Janice. 
 
 " Would that I could learn ! " groaned Andrd. " As soon 
 as I was off duty, I sought for him, but he was not to be heard 
 of, go to whom I would. Bah 1 No more of this graveyard 
 talk. Come, Miss Meredith, I '11 give you the subject for a 
 historical painting. I found of Franklin's possessions not a 
 little which took my fancy, and such of it as I chose I carry 
 "with me to New York, as fair spoil of war. Prithee, draw a 
 picture of the old fox as he will appear when he hears of his 
 loss. 'Twill at least give him the opportunity to prove himself 
 the 'philosopher' he is said to be. I have taken his oil por- 
 trait, and when I get fit quarters agam I shall hang it, and 
 nightly pray that I may live long enough to do the same to the 
 original. Heaven save me if ever I be captured, though, for I 
 make little doubt that in his rage he would accord me the very 
 fate I wish for him ! " 
 
 When at last the evening's festivities, if such they might be 
 termed, were over, it was Andrd, preceded by a couple of 
 soldiers with lanterns, who escorted them back to their home, 
 and at Janice's request he ordered the two men to remain in 
 the now deserted house. 
 
 " They must leave jwu before daybreak," the officer warned 
 them ; " but they will assure you a quiet night. I would that 
 you were safe in New York, however, and shall rest uneasy till 
 I welcome you there. Ladies, you have made many an hour 
 happier to John Andr^," ended the young officer, his voice 
 breaking slightly. " Some day, God willing, he will endeavour 
 to repay them." 
 
 "Oh, Captain Andr^," replied Janice, "'tis we are the 
 debtors indeed ! " 
 
374 Janice Meredith 
 
 " We '11 not quarrel over that at parting," said Andr^, forcing 
 a merry note into his voice. " Wlien this wretched rebellion is 
 over, and you are well back at Greenwood, and may that be 
 soon, I will visit you and endeavour to settle debit and credit." 
 
 Just as he finished, the sound of drums was heard. 
 
 " 'T is past tattoo, surely?" Mrs. Meredith questioned with a 
 start. 
 
 "Ay," answered Andr^. " 'Tis the rogue's march they are 
 ruffling for a would-be deserter who was drum-headed this even- 
 ing, and whom they are taking to the State House yard to hang. 
 Brrew ! Was not the gloom of to-night great enough without 
 that as a last touch to ring in our ears ? What a fate for a 
 soldier who might have died in battle ! Farewell, and may it 
 be but a short au revoir" and, turning, the young officer hur- 
 ried away, singing out, in an attempt to be cheery, the soldier's 
 song : — 
 
 " Why, soldiers, why 
 
 Should we be melancholy, boys ? 
 Why, soldiers, why, 
 Whose business 'tis to die? 
 What, sighing ? fie I 
 
 Drown fear, drink on, be jolly, boys. 
 'T is he, you, or 1 1 " 
 
XLVIII 
 
 A TIME OF TERROR 
 
 THE Merediths were awakened the next morning by 
 sounds which told of the movements of troops, and 
 all day long the regiments were marching to the 
 river, and as fast as they could be ferried, were 
 transferred to the Jersey side, the townspeople who, by choice 
 or necessity, were left behind being helpless spectators mean- 
 while. Once again the streets of Philadelphia assumed the 
 appearance of almost absolute desertion ; for as the sun went 
 down the prudent-minded retired within doors, taking good 
 heed to bar shutters and bolt doors, and the precaution was 
 well, for all night long men might be seen prowling about the 
 streets, — jail-birds, British deserters, and other desperadoes, 
 tempted by hope of plunder. 
 
 Fearful for their own safety, Mrs. Meredith and Janice 
 failed not to use every means at hand to guard it, not merely 
 closing and securing, so far as they were able, every pos- 
 sible entrance to the house, but as dark came on, their fear 
 led them to ascend to the garret by a ladder through a trap, 
 and drawing this up, they closed the entrance. Here they sat 
 crouched on the bare boards, holding each other, for what 
 seemed to them immeasurable hours ; and such was the inten- 
 sity of the nervous anxiety of waiting that it was scarcely added 
 to, when, toward daybreak, both thought they detected the 
 tread of stealthy footsteps through the rooms below. Of this 
 they presently had assurance, for when the pound of horses' 
 hoofs was heard outside, the intruders, whoever they might be, 
 were heard to run through the hall and down the stairs with a 
 haste which proved to the miserable women that more than 
 they had cause for fear. 
 
yjt Janice Meredith 
 
 Hardly had this sound died away when a loud banging on 
 the front door reached even their ears, and after several repe- 
 titions new fear was given them by the crashing of wood and 
 splintering of glass, which told that some one had broken in a 
 shutter and window to effect an entrance. Once again foot- 
 steps on the stairs were heard, and a man rushed into the room 
 underneath them and came to a halt. 
 
 " Do you find them ? " he shouted to some companion, 
 whose answer could not be heard. " What ho ! " he went on 
 in stentorian voice. " Is there any one in this house who 
 can give me word of a family of Merediths? " 
 
 Janice reached forward and raised ihe trap, but her mother 
 caught her arm away, and the door fell with a bang. 
 
 " 'T is all right, mommy," the girl protested. " Didst not 
 hear the jingle of his spurs? 'T is surely an officer, and we 
 need not fear any such." 
 
 Even as she spoke the trap was raised by a sabre from be- 
 low. "Who's above?" the man demanded, and as Janice 
 leaned forward and peeked through the opening, he went on, 
 "I seek — " There he uncovered. "Ah, Miss Meredith, 
 dark as it is above, I could pick you from a thousand by Colonel 
 Brereton's description. I was beginning to fear some misfor- 
 tune had overtaken you. I am Captain McLane of the light 
 horse. You can descend without fear." 
 
 With a relief that was not to be measured, the two dropped 
 the ladder into place and descended. 
 
 "Is Colonel Brereton here?" asked Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Not he, or I suspect he 'd never have given me the thricO- 
 repeated charge to make sure of your safety. He is with the 
 main army, now in full pursuit of the Britiish, and we '11 hope 
 to come up with the rats ere they get safely to their old hole. 
 Since you are safe I must not tarry, for there is much to — " 
 
 "Oh, Captain McLane, can't you stay?" beseeched Janice. 
 " Do not leave us unprotected. I can't tell yon what we have 
 suffered through thought of possible violence, and even now — " 
 
 " I will station a trooper at the door," the officer promised ; 
 " but have no fear. Already patrols are established, and within 
 an hour broadsides will be posted about the city warning all 
 plunderers or other law-breakers that they will be shot or hanged 
 
A Time of Terror 377 
 
 on sight. General Arnold, who is given command of the city, 
 intends there shall be no disturbance, and he is not the man 
 to have his orders broke." 
 
 Set at ease as to their safety, the first concern of the women 
 was a hastily improvised breakfast from the scantily supplied 
 larder which Clowes' servants had abandoned to them. In the 
 kitchen, as well as all over the house, they found ample signs 
 that pilferers had been at work, for every receptacle had been 
 thrown open, drawers dragged out, and the floor littered with 
 whatever the despoilers elected not to take. A month before 
 Janice would probably have been moved to tears at the dis- 
 covery that her " elegant and dashy robing," as well as her 
 Mischianza costume, had been stolen, but now she scarcely 
 gave either of them a thought, so grateful was she merely to 
 feel that they were safe from violence and insult. 
 
 In reinstating her own meagre possessions in their proper re- 
 ceptacles, which was the girl's after-breakfast occupation, she 
 came upon an unfinished silk purse, and this served to bring an 
 end for a time to the restoration of order, while she sat upon the 
 floor in a meditative attitude. Presently she laid it on the 
 bureau with a little sigh and returned to her task. Once this 
 was completed, she again took the purse, and seating herself, set 
 about its completion. 
 
 Afraid to stir out of doors, and with little to occupy her, the 
 next three days served to complete the trifle, elaborate and 
 complicated as the pattern was. Meantime, a steady stream ef 
 Whigs flooded into the city, and from Captain McLanc, who 
 twice dropped in to make sure of their well-being, they learned 
 that the Continental Congress was about to resume its sessions 
 in the city. Ocular proof that the rulers of America were as- 
 sembling was very quickly brought home to the two, for one 
 morning Janice, answering a rap of the knocker, opened the 
 door to the Honourable Joseph Bagby. 
 
 " Well, miss, I guess you 're not sorry to see an old friend's 
 face, are you, now that the dandiprat redcoats you've been 
 gallivanting with have shown that they prefer running away to 
 fighting?" was his greeting, as he held out his hand. 
 
 Janice, divided in mind by the recollection of his treatment 
 of them and by her fear of the future, extended her own and 
 
oyS Janice Meredith 
 
 allowed it to be shaken, as the easiest means of escaping the 
 still more difficult verbal response. 
 
 " Are n't you going to ask me in ? " inquired the caller, " for 
 I 've got something to say." 
 
 "I didn't know that you would want to," faltered Janice, 
 making entrance for him. "Mommy will be gla — will be in 
 the parlour," she said, leading the way to that room. 
 
 Without circumlocution, Bagby went at the object of his call 
 the moment the equally embarrassing meeting with Mrs. Meredith 
 was over. 
 
 " I came up to town," he announced, " to 'tend Congress, 
 of which I 'm now a member ; " and here the speaker paused 
 as if to let the new dignity come home to his hearers. " Did n't 
 I tell you I was a rising man ? But I had another object in 
 view in being so prompt, and that was to have a talk with you 
 to see if we can 't arrange things. 'T is n't given to every girl 
 to marry a Congressman, eh, miss?" 
 
 "I — I — suppose not," stammered Janice, frightened, yet 
 with an intense desire to laugh. 
 
 " Before I say anything as to that," went on Bagby, "I want 
 to tell you that I 've been a good friend of yours. Old Hennion, 
 who 's come out hating your dad the worst way, was for intro- 
 ducing a bill in Assembly last session declaring his lands forfeited, 
 but I told him I 'd not have it." 
 
 "'Tis but a duty man owes to prevent evil deeds," said Mrs. 
 Meredith. 
 
 " We are very fateful, Mr. Bagby," Janice thought it was 
 necessary to add, with not a little surprise in her voice. 
 
 "That's what I guessed you'd be," said the legislator. 
 " Says I to myself, ' They 've made a mistake as to the side 
 they took ; but when they see that the British is beat, they '11 do 
 most anything to put themselves right again and save their 
 property.' Now, if Miss Janice will marry me, there isn't any 
 reason why you should n't all come back to Greenwood and live 
 as fine as a fivepence." 
 
 " We should not be willing to give thee our daughter, Mr. 
 Bagby, even were she." 
 
 " But I am — for the compliment you offer, sir, I thank you," 
 interjected Janice. 
 
A Time of Terror 379 
 
 "Now, you just listen to reason," protested Joe. "You 
 must n't think it 's only the property I 'm set on. I 've made a 
 swipe of money in the last year — nigh forty thousand dollars — 
 Continental — so I can afford to marry whom I like ; and though 
 I own that thirty thousand acres is no smouch of land, yet I 'm 
 really soft on Miss Janice, and would marry her even if she 
 had n't money, now that I 've got some of my own." 
 
 " It can make no difference, Mr. Bagby," replied the mother. 
 " Neither her father nor I would consent to her wedding thee, 
 and I know her wishes accord with ours." 
 
 Joe, with a somewhat bewildered face and a decidedly awk- 
 ward movement, picked up his hat. " It don't seem possible," 
 he said, " that you '11 throw away all that property ; for, of 
 course, I 'm not going to stand between you and old Hennion 
 when you show yourselves so unfriendly." 
 
 " 'T is in the hands of One who knows best." 
 
 Bagby went to the door. "The Assembly meets on the 
 twenty-eighth," he remarked, " and I promised some of the 
 members I 'd quit Congress to 'tend the early part of the session, 
 so I 've got to go back to Trenton in three days. If you change 
 your mind before then, let me know." 
 
 " Oh, mommy," groaned the girl the moment the door closed, 
 " I wish there were no such things in the world as lovers ! '' 
 Then she told a yet greater untruth : " Or would that I had 
 been born as plain as Tibbie's aunt ! " 
 
 " 'T is ingratitude to speak thus, child. Hast already forgot 
 the help Philemon tried to give us, and what we owe to 
 Colonel Brereton?" 
 
 The girl made no response for a little, then said hurriedly, 
 " Mommy, dost think dadda, and wouldst thou wish me to wed 
 Colonel Brereton, provided 't would save us our lands and let 
 us live in peace at Greenwood ? " 
 
 " I know not what to say, Janice. It would be a deliverance, 
 indeed, from a future black with doubt and trouble ; but thy 
 father holds to his promise to Philemon, and I question if he 'd 
 ever consent to have a rebel for a son-in-law. Nor do we 
 know that Colonel Brereton was not but speaking in jest when 
 he said what he did at Greenwood." 
 
 " He meant it, mommy," answered the daughter, " for — for 
 
^So Janice Meredith 
 
 at grave risk he stole into Philadelphia last April to see me J 
 and then he vowed he could save us from the Whigs if — if — " 
 
 " And wouldst thou wed him willingly ? " asked the mother, 
 when Janice lapsed into silence with the sentence unfinished. 
 
 With eyes on the floor and cheeks all aflame, the girl an- 
 swered : "I — I scarce know, mommy. At times when I am 
 with him I feel dreadfully excited and frightened — though 
 never in the way I am with Lord Clowes — and want to get 
 away ; but the moment he is gone I — I wish him back, if only 
 he would do but what I 'd have him — and yet I like him for — 
 for having his own way — as he always does — though I know 
 he'd do mine if — if I asked him." 
 
 "Janice, canst thou not speak less lightly and foolishly?" 
 chided Mrs. Meredith. "If thou lovest the man, say so without 
 such silly maunderings, which are most unbefitting of thy years." 
 
 " But I — I don't love Colonel Brereton, mommy," protested 
 the girl ; " and I never could, after his — after knowing that he 
 once gave his love to that — " 
 
 " And art thou so foolish, Janice," demanded her mother, " as 
 to pretend that thou dost not care for him ? " 
 
 " Really it — it would only be for you and dadda, and to save 
 the property, mommy," persisted Janice. 
 
 " Then why didst thou draw back from Lord Clowes and 
 Bagby?" asked the mother, sternly. 
 
 " But I — I could never have — have — Oh, mommy, there 
 is a cart just stopped at the door, and I '11 see what is wanted," — 
 an excuse conveniently present for the flustered maiden to 
 escape an explanation. 
 
 As it proved, the arrival of the cart was of very material 
 moment, for by the time Janice was at the door a lean-visaged 
 woman had been helped from it, and her salutation was any- 
 thing but promising. 
 
 " Who are you, that you are in my house ? " she demanded, 
 and then entered the hall, and, womanlike, would not listen to 
 the explanations that both Janice and her mother sought to 
 make. " Be off with you at once ! " she ordered. * " I '11 not 
 have you here a minute. My son died of fever and starvation 
 in a freezing prison last winter while you made free of his 
 mother's home not a half-mile away. Be thankful I don't have 
 
A Time of Terror 381 
 
 you arrested for the rent, or hound the people into treating you 
 Tory snakes as you deserve. No, you shall not stay to get 
 your clothes ; into the street I '11 bundle them when I have 
 got them together, and there you '11 find them. Out with 
 you ! " 
 
 Janice was for obeying, but Mrs. Meredith refused positively 
 to leave without packing. Hastily their scanty belongings were 
 bestowed in the two little leathern trunks they had brought 
 originally from Greenwood ; these they dragged to the porch, 
 and, sitting upon them, held debate as to their next step. 
 
 Ere they had been able to hit upon some escape from the 
 nonplus, their attention was distracted by a rabble of men, 
 women, and boys, who suddenly swept around a corner and 
 flooded down the street toward them. With a premonition of 
 coming evil, Janice sprang to the knocker, and rapped desper- 
 ately, but their evictor paid no attention to the appeal. In a 
 moment the mob, which numbered not less than a thousand 
 people, reached the steps, hissing, hooting, and caterwauling, 
 and from the din rose such cries as : " Tory, Tory ! " " Turn- 
 coats ! " "Where are the bloody-backs?" "Ain't we draggle- 
 tails now?" 
 
 " Order ! " shouted a man in a cart putted by some of the 
 crowd, for which a way was made by all so that it could be 
 wheeled up to the sidewalk opposite where the two women, 
 holding each other's hands, were despairingly facing the crowd. 
 " Remember, I passed my oath to General Arnold that there 'ud 
 be no violence ; an' if we don't keep it, the troops will be down 
 on us, an' some on you will spend a night in the guard-hoUse." 
 
 " Hooray ! " cheered some one, and the mass echoed the 
 cry. 
 
 The spokesman turned to the Merediths. " We know'd the 
 Fourth o' July ain't no joyous day to you-alls, so we 've done 
 our bestest to keep you from thinkin' of it by bringin' some 
 one to call on you. Ain't you glad to see again your old friend. 
 Miss Shy Anna?" 
 
 As the speaker finished, he stepped to one side, bringing 
 into view of the porch a woman seated upon the head of a 
 barrel ip the cart. A poor army drab, left behind in the evac- 
 uation, had been decked out in what Janice instantly recog- 
 
382 Janice Meredith 
 
 nised as her Mischianza costume ; and with hair dressed so that 
 it stood up not less than two feet above her forehead, splashed 
 over with white paint, a drink-coloured face, doubly red in con- 
 trast, and bare feet, with an expanse of more than ankle in a 
 similar "nakedness below the trousers, she made up in all a 
 figure so droll that under any other circumstances Janice would 
 have laughed. 
 
 " We are escortin' Miss Shy Anna — who ain't really very 
 shy — to see all her friends of The Blended Rose and of 
 The Burning Mountain, an' as we hate airs an' pride, we 
 demands that each give her a kiss. Just make a way for Miss 
 Meredith to come and give her the chaste salute," he ordered 
 of the throng. 
 
 " Thou wilt not insist on such a humiliation for my daugh- 
 ter," appealed Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Insult ! " cried the leader. " Who dares to say 't ain't an 
 honour to kiss one dressed in such clothes ? Give the miss a 
 little help, boys, but gently. Don't do her no harm." 
 
 A dozen men were through the gate before the sentence was 
 finished, but outcries and a surge of the mob at this point gave 
 a new bent to the general attention. A horseman from the 
 direction opposite to that from which the crowd had come was 
 spurring, with little heed, through the mass, and the clamour 
 and movement were due to the commotion he precipitated. 
 
 In twenty seconds the rider, who was well coated with dust, 
 and whose horse was lathered with the sweat of fast riding, had 
 come abreast of the cart, and Janice gave a cry of joy. "Oh, 
 Colonel Brereton," she called, "save us, I beg ! " 
 
 " What are you about ? " demanded the new-comer, sternly, 
 of the crowd. 
 
 " We 're celebratin' independence," explained he in the cart, 
 " and all we wants of this miss is that she buss her friend Miss 
 Shy Anna. They both is British sympathisers." 
 
 "Be off with you, every doodle and rag-tail of you ! " ordered 
 the officer, angrily. 
 
 " And who are you ? " denianded one ; and another, em- 
 boldened by distance, recommended, " Pull him off his 
 horse." 
 
 Twenty hands seized hold of Brereton ; but as they did so, 
 
A Time of Terror 383 
 
 the aide, realising his mistake, retrieved it by a sudden change 
 of manner. " I am an aide of General Washington," he 
 shouted, " and I bring news of a great battle." 
 
 An uproar of questions broke out, drowning every other 
 sound, till, by raising his hand, the aide procured silence. 
 
 " I must carry the despatches to Congress ; but come with 
 me, and I'll give you the tale the moment they are safe 
 delivered." 
 
 With a rush the crowd followed him, as he moved forward, 
 deserting the cart and its occupants, who hastily descended, 
 and hurried after the throng. But Jack was not so forgetful, 
 and turning in his saddle, he called back, " I '11 return as soon 
 as I can." 
 
XLIX 
 
 PLATO vs. CUPID 
 
 THE patience of the two homeless women was 
 heavily taxed before Brereton returned, but finally, 
 after nearly two hours' waiting, he came, almost 
 running along the street. 
 
 " Neither the Congress nor the populace were to be put off, " 
 he began to explain, ere he was within the gate, " and I have 
 had to retail again and again the story of the fight, and tell 
 'how our army swore in Flanders.' But I dared not break 
 away from them through fear they would follow me back and 
 force me to play hare to their hounds once more. 'T is a great 
 relief to know that you are safe," Jack declared, as he shook 
 their hands warmly. 
 
 " Thanks to you," replied Mrs. Meredith. " 'T was indeed 
 a mercy of God that thou cam'st when thou didst." 
 
 " Pray give my mare, who has done her seventy miles since 
 daylight, some share," laughed the officer, heartily. 
 
 " Oh, Colonel Brereton, what do we not owe to you ? " ex- 
 claimed Janice, warmly. 
 
 A few words told their champion of their plight and stirreS 
 him to hot anger. 
 
 " By heavens ! " he growled ; " I would that my general 
 were here to curse the beldame, as he did Lee at Monmouth. 
 Once you are cared for, I '11 return and see that she hear one's 
 man's opinion of her. Follow me, and I '11 soon put you in 
 comfort." Getting a trunk on each shoulder, he set off down 
 the street. 
 
 " Did I understand thee aright in inferring that General Wash- 
 ington so far forgot himself as to use profane language?" asked 
 Mrs. Meredith as they walked. 
 
 " Ay, Laus Deo ! " 
 
Plato vs. Cupid 385 
 
 " I can't think of him as doing that," ejaculated Janice. 
 
 " 'T was glorious to hear him, for he spoke with righteous 
 anger as an angel from heaven might, and his every word was 
 well deserved. Indeed, had I been in command, Lee should 
 have had a file of soldiers before sundown for his conduct." 
 
 "What did he?" 
 
 " Everything that an honourable man should not," answered 
 the aide, warmly. " Finding that Gates had lost favour with 
 Congress, and had failed in his attempt to supplant Washington, 
 he at once resumed his old intriguing. But, worse still, once 
 we were across the Delaware and in full cry after the British, he 
 ' persisted in the Council of War in asserting that 't would be mad- 
 ness to bring on a general engagement, and that we should 
 keep at a comfortable distance and merely annoy them by 
 detachment, — counsel that would have done credit to the most 
 honourable Society of Midwives, and to them only, and which 
 could mean naught but that he did not wish my general to reap 
 the glory of defeating the British. Voted down, my fine gentle- 
 man at first refused the command of the advance ; but once he 
 saw that the attack had promise of success, he asserted his claim 
 as senior ofHcer to command it, only, it would seem, with the 
 object of preventing its success, for at the moment of going 
 into action he predicted to Lafayette that our troops could not 
 stand against the British, and instead of supporting those 
 engaged, he allowed them to be thrown into confusion and was 
 the first to join in the retreat which he himself had brought 
 about. 'T was at this moment, when he was actually heading 
 the rout, that my general cantered up to him and demanded, 
 'By God, sir, what is the meaning of this disorderly retreat? ' 
 Lee began a stuttering explanation that did n't explain, so his 
 Excellency repeated his question. ' You know that the attack 
 was contrary to my advice and opinion,' stammered Lee, and 
 then Washington thundered out, ' Then you should not have 
 insisted on the command. You're a damned poltroon !' And 
 't was what the whole array thought and wanted said." 
 
 "'T is too bad General Washington was beat," sighed Janice. 
 
 "That he was not," answered Brereton, triumphantly. 
 " When we rode up, not a one of us but thought the day lost, 
 but the general, with a quickness and decision I never Wtote 
 
 2i 
 
o86 Janice Meredith 
 
 saw in him, grasped the situation, ralhed the broken regiments, 
 seized on a strong piece of ground, and not merely checked the 
 British advance, but drove them back on their reserves, where, 
 after nightfall, they were glad enough to sneak away, leaving 
 their wounded and dead behind- them. But for Lee's cow- 
 ardice, or treachery, as I believe it to be, they 'd have never 
 reached the protection of their fleet at Sandy Hook. Yet 
 one benefit of his conduct will be that 't will end all talk of 
 making him commander-in-chief. In seeking to injure his 
 Excellency, he has but compassed his own discrediting, and 
 the cabal against my general in Congress will break down for 
 very lack of a possible successor. We did more than beat the 
 English at Monmouth." 
 
 The tale served to bring the trio to the City tavern, where 
 Brereton led the way at once to a room on the second floor, and 
 deposited the two trunks. 
 
 " You '11 have no more than time to freshen yourselves for 
 dinner, and we '11 leave talk till we 've eaten that," he suggested, 
 as he picked up a pair of saddlebags and left the room. 
 
 '•'Oh, mommy," sighed Janice, rejoicefully, "isn't it a re- 
 lief to be told what to do, and not have to worry one's self? 
 He did n't make us think once." 
 
 Their self-chosen guardian was equally decisive as to the 
 future, when the subject was taken up after the meal. " I must 
 stay here two days for some despatches Congress wishes me to 
 bear, and 't is fortunate, for I shall have time to procure a second 
 horse and a pillion, so that you may journey with me." ^ 
 
 "Whither?" 
 
 "To Brunswick." 
 
 " I suppose there is naught else left for us," said Mrs. Mere- 
 dith, doubtingly, "but we have little reason to feel secure 
 there." 
 
 " Do not give yourself a moment's discomposure or dolour. 
 We shall find the army there ; but, better still, I possess a means 
 to secure your safety, whether it remains or no." 
 
 " And what is that?" inquired Mrs. Meredith, eagerly, while 
 Janice, feeling her cheeks begin to burn, suddenly sprang to her 
 feet, with a pretended interest in something to be seen from one 
 of the windows, which enabled her to turn her back to the table. 
 
Plato vs. Cupid 387 
 
 " By good luek I have a hold over both Esquire Hennion 
 and Bagby, and I '11 threat them that unless they let you live at 
 peace I 'U use it." 
 
 Janice came back to the table. " ' T was only the rounds," 
 she remarked with a note of half surprise, half puzzlement, in her 
 voice, which was not lost to her mother's ears. 
 
 "Art thou as sure as thou wert, Janice," Mrs. Meredith 
 asked, once they were in their room again, "that Colonel 
 Brereton wishes to wed thee?" 
 
 "I — I thought — he said he did," replied the girl, hanging 
 her head with mortification; "but he may have changed his 
 mind." 
 
 " I fear me, child, that thy vanity, which has ever led thee to 
 give too much heed to the pretty speeches of men, has misled 
 thee in this instance." 
 
 Janice's doubt grew in the next two days, for by not a word 
 or act did the aide even hint that such a hope was present in 
 his thoughts. Their every need was his care, and all his spare 
 time was passed in their company ; but his manner conveyed 
 only the courtesy of the friend, and never the tenderness of the 
 lover. Even when the maiden presented him with the silk 
 purse to which she had given so many hours of toil, his thanks, 
 though warm, were distinctly platonic. Both piqued and 
 humiliated at his conduct, the girl was glad enough when, on 
 the morning of the third day, they set out on their journey, and 
 she almost welcomed the advent of Bagby, who overtook them 
 as they were taking their noon baiting at Bristol, and who made 
 the afternoon ride with them. 
 
 Another familiar face greeted them, as, toward nightfall, they 
 rode into Trenton and drew rein in front of the Drinkers' house, 
 whither the ladies had asked to be taken ; for ere Janice had 
 been lifted from the horse's back, or Mrs. Meredith had descended 
 from the pillion, they were accosted by Squire Hennion. 
 
 " I hoped ez haow we wuz well quit of yer," he began ; " an' 
 yer needn't 'spect, after all yer goin's on, an' those of yer — • — 
 ole Tory husband, thet ye're goin' ter be allaowed ter come 
 back ter Greenwood. I persume Joe 's told yer thet he an' I 
 is goin' ter git a bill through this Assembly declarin' yer lands 
 escheated." 
 
388 Janice Meredith 
 
 " You have n't any right to talk for me, squire," protested 
 Joe. " I can do my own talking ; and my sympathies is always 
 with the female sex." 
 
 " He, he ! " snickered Hennion. " Ain't we doin' the gallant 
 all of a suddint ! An' ain't we foxy? Joe, here," he continued, 
 turning to the ladies, " come ter me jest afore we left Bruns- 
 wick, with a bill he 'd draw'd ter take yer lands, an' he says ter 
 me he wuz a-goin' ter push it through Assembly. But by the 
 time we gits ter Trenton, word come thet the redcoats wuz a 
 scuttlin' fer York, so Joe he set off like a jifify ter see, I per- 
 sume, if yer wuz ter be faound. Did he offer ter buy yer lands 
 cheap, or did he ask ter be bought off? Or is the sly tyke 
 snoopin' araound arter yer darter ? " 
 
 Bagby had the grace to grow a brick red at this revelation and 
 home thrust, and he began an attempted explanation. But 
 Brereton, who had helped both his charges to the ground, did 
 not let them give ear to it. " I will bide at the tavern, and 
 we '11 start to-morrow as soon after daybreak as we can," he 
 said, as he escorted them to the door, then turned back to the 
 two assemblymen, who were busy expressing frank opinions of 
 each other. " Quarrel as you like," he broke in, " but under- 
 stand one thing now. That bill must never be introduced, or 
 the pair of you shall hear from me. I warn you both that I 
 have in my possession your signed oaths of allegiance to King 
 George, and if you dare to push your persecution of the Mere- 
 diths I '11 ride from one end of Middlesex County to t' other, 
 and prove to your constituents what kind of Whigs you are» 
 over your own hands and seals." He took the two bridles and 
 walked toward the tavern. 
 
 " Thet 'ere is a lie ! " cried Hennion, yet following the 
 officer. 
 
 " It is, if you never signed such a paper," remarked Jack, 
 drily. 
 
 " I defy yer ter show it," challenged Hennion. 
 
 " If you want sight of it, introduce the bill," retorted the 
 aide. 
 
 "Say, colonel," said Bagby, with a decided cringe, "you 
 won't use those documents against your old friends, will you ? " 
 
 " 'T ain't fer a Continental officer ter injure them ez is ginooine 
 
Plato vs. Cupid 389 
 
 Whigs," chimed in Hennion, " an' only swore an oath cuz it 
 seemed bestest jest then." 
 
 " If you don't want those papers known, stop persecuting the 
 Merediths." 
 
 " So thet gal 's caught yer, too, hez she ? Look aout fer 
 them. They '11 use yer ter save theer lands, an' then they 'II 
 send yer ter right-abaout, like they done with my Phil. I warns 
 yer agin 'em, an' ef yer don't listen ter me, the day '11 come 
 when yer '11 rue it." 
 
 Meanwhile the Drinkers had made the new arrivals most 
 welcome ; and the two girls, with so much to tell each other, 
 found it difficult to know where to begin. They had not talked 
 Ibng, however, when Janice became conscious that there was a. 
 rift in the lute. 
 
 " My letter," she said, " would have told you better than ever 
 I now can all about the routs and the plays, and everything; 
 else ; but, alas ! some one broke into our house the night the- 
 British left Philadelphia, and search as I would the next day^ 
 I could not find what I had written you." 
 
 " I should think thee 'd be glad," replied Tibbie j " for surely 
 thou 'rt ashamed of having been so Toryish." 
 
 " Not I," denied Janice. " And why should I be ? " 
 
 " Shame upon thee, Janice Meredith, for liking the enemies 
 of thy country ! " 
 
 " And pray, madam," questioned Janice, " what has caused 
 this sudden fervour of Whigism in you ? " 
 
 " I never was unfaithful to my country, nor smiled on its 
 persecutors. " 
 
 " Humph ! '•' sniffed Janice. " One would think, to hear you 
 talk, that you have given those smiles to some rebel lover." 
 
 "'Better a Whig lover than one of your popinjay British, 
 officers," retorted Tibbie, crimsoning. 
 
 " Gemini ! " burst from the other. " I believe 'tis a hit fronn 
 the way you colour." 
 
 " And if 'twas — which 't is not — 't is naught to feel ashamed 
 of," resentfully answered the accused. 
 
 The two girls had been spatting thus in lowered voices on 
 the sofa, and as Tibbie ended, her disputant's arm was about 
 her waist, and she was squeezed almost to suffocation. 
 
390 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Oh, Tibbie, wilt tell me all about it — and him -^ once Sjsf 
 are in bed to-night?" begged Janice, in the lowest but most 
 eager of whispers. 
 
 Whether this prayer would have been granted was not to 
 be known, for as it was uttered Mr. Drinker interrupted their 
 dialogue. 
 
 " Why, Tabitha," he called from across the room, " here 's a 
 great miscarriage. Mrs. Meredith tells me that Colonel Brere- 
 ton rode with them from Philadelphia, but thinking to o'ercrowd 
 us he has put up at the Sun tavern." 
 
 Had the daughter merely remarked that " 'T was a monstrous 
 pity," or suggested that her father should at once set off to the 
 hostel to insist on his coming to them, Janice would have 
 thought nothing of the incident ; but in place of this Tibbie 
 said, " 'T is well," with a toss of her head, even as she grew 
 redder still, and realising this, she pretended that some supper 
 preparation required her attention, and almost fled from the 
 room. 
 
 " Colonel Brereton," explained Mr. Drinker, '•' stopped with 
 us last summer each time he rode through Trenton on public 
 business, and we came to like him much ; so glad were we 
 when he was well enough from his wound this spring to once 
 more drop in upon us." 
 
 " His wound ! " exclaimed Janice. 
 
 "Ay," said Miss Drinker. "Didst thee not know that he 
 was hit at Whitemarsh, and was weeks abed?" 
 
 Mr. Drinker gave a hearty laugh as the girl shook her head 
 in dissent. " I '11 tell thee a secret, Jan," he said, " and give' 
 thee a fine chance to tease. There was a girl not a hundred 
 miles from this house who was sorely wounded by that same 
 British bullet, and who pilfered every goody she could find 
 from our pantry, and would have it that I should ride myself to 
 Valley Forge with them all, but that I found a less troublesome 
 conveyance." 
 
 " 'T was very good of her," said Janice, gravely. "I — I did 
 not know that he had been wounded." 
 
 " Thou wert hardly in the way of it," replied Mr. Drinker. 
 •" British officers were scarce news sheets of our army." 
 
 However praiseworthy Miss Meredith may have thought her 
 
Plato vs. Cupid 391 
 
 friend's kindness to Breretpn, one action conveyed the contrary 
 import, for when the bed hour came she said to Tabitha : " I 
 think i '11 sleep with mommy, and not with thee, after all." 
 
 " Oh, Jan, and I have so much to tell thee ! " 
 
 " We make so early a start," explained Miss Meredith, " that 
 the sleep is more valuable to me." Then the girl, after a swal- 
 low, said: "And I thank you, Tibbie, for being so good to 
 Colonel Brereton, to whom we owe much kindness ; for even 
 had we known he was injured, we could have done nothing for 
 him." She kissed her friend and followed her mother. 
 
 When Brereton appeared the next morning, Janice mounted 
 the horse which was to bear her while the aide was exchanging 
 greetings with the Drinkers ; and when these quickly changed 
 into farewells, she heeded not Tabitha's protest that they had 
 not kissed each other good-by. 
 
 " I thought to save time by mounting," explained Janice, 
 " and for this once it does not matter." And during the 
 whole morning's ride the aide found her strangely silent and 
 unresponsive. 
 
 Both these qualities disappeared with marvellous suddenness 
 once they were within the Greenwood gate. All along the 
 Raritan the fields were dotted with tents and parks of artillery, 
 and on Greenwood lawn stood a large marquee, from which 
 floated the headquarters' flag, while groups of officers and sol- 
 diers were scattered about in every direction. But all this 
 panoply of war was forgotten by the girl, as Sukey, who was 
 carrying some dish from the house to the tent, dropped it with 
 a crash on the ground, and with a screech of delight rushed 
 forward. Janice slid, rather than alighted, from her horse ; and 
 as if there were no such things as social distinctions, mistress 
 and slave hugged each other, both rendered inarticulate by 
 their sobs of joy. Further to prove that hearts have nothing to 
 do with the colour of the skin, Billy Lee, who had been follow- 
 ing in Sukey's train with another dish, was so melted by the 
 sight that he proceeded to deposit his burden of a large ham 
 on the grass, and began a loud blubbering in sympathy. Their 
 united outcries served to bring two more participants on the 
 scene, for Peg and Clarion came running out of the house and 
 with screams and yelps sought to express their joy. 
 
392 Janice Meredith 
 
 While this spectacle was affording infinite amusement to the 
 ofificers and sentinels, Brereton, after helping Mrs. Meredith 
 alight, went in search of Washington and in a few moments re- 
 turned with him. 
 
 " We have made free with your home, as you see, Mrs. Mere- 
 dith," apologised the commander-in-chief, as he shook her 
 hand, " and I scarce know now whether to bid you welcome, or 
 to ask leave for us to tarry till to-morrow. May we not effect a 
 compromise by your dining and supping with me, and, in 
 return, your favouring me and my family with a night's 
 lodging?" 
 
 ' ' Thou couldst not fail of welcome for far longer. General 
 Washington," said Mrs. Meredith, warmly, " but thou art doubly 
 so if Lady Washington is with thee." 
 
 " Nay ; I meant my miUtary family," explained the general. 
 "Mrs. Washington retreated, ere the campaign opened, to 
 Mount Vernon." Then he turned to the daughter and shook 
 her hand. "Ah, Miss Janice," he said, "sorry reports we 've 
 had of thy goings on, and we greatly feared we had lost thee to 
 the cause." 
 
 " Ah, no, your Excellency," protested the girl. " Though I 
 did once pray that the British should capture Philadelphia, 
 't was not because I wished you beaten, but solely because it 
 ■would bring dadda to us, and — and many a prayer I 've made 
 for you." 
 
 The general smiled. "'Twill be glad news to some," he 
 said, with a sidelong look at Brereton, "that thy sympathies 
 have always been with us. I presume thou hast simply beei! 
 doing the British soldiery all the harm that thou couldst under 
 guise of friendliness. I '11 warrant thou 'st a greater tale of 
 wounded officers than any of Morgan's riflemen, sharpshooters 
 though they be." 
 
 " I would I could say I had been ever faithful, your Excel- 
 lency, but I must own to fickleness." 
 
 "These are times that test loyalty to the full," replied 
 Washington, "and there has been many a waverer in the 
 land." 
 
 " Of that I know full well, your Excellency." 
 
 " Nay, Miss Meredith, thou needest not pretend that thou hast 
 
Plato vs. Cupid 393 
 
 any knowledge of inconstancy. From that particular failing of 
 mankind I '11 agree to hold thee harmless." 
 
 " Your Excellency but compliments me," answered Janice, 
 "in presuming me exempt from forgetfulness." And as she 
 spoke the girl^ave an unconscious glance at Brereton. 
 
D 
 
 ROSES AND HONEYSUCKLE 
 
 INNER, which was actually being placed on the table 
 in the tent at the moment the ladies arrived, cut 
 short further conversation with either Washington 
 or Sukey. Utterly forgetful of her duties to spit 
 and oven, nothing would do the former cook but to follow 
 Janice to her old room, where she summarily ordered Billy to 
 clear out the clothing and accoutrements of its military tenants. 
 
 "Don't you stay, Sukey," said Janice, "if you are needed 
 in the kitchen. His Excellency — " 
 
 "Dat I ain't, chile. Gin'l Washington he trabell wid his 
 own cook, an' Peg an' I 'se only helpin' Mr. Lee set de table 
 and carry de dishes. Now I help ma honey." 
 
 " Oh, Sukey," carolled Janice, " it is so good to be home 
 again ! " 
 
 " Guess Missus Sukey tink dat too," said William, halting in 
 his labours. " She dun talk about nuthin' else but her pooty 
 young missus." 
 
 " And how 's Blueskin, Billy ? " questioned Janice. 
 
 " Lor' bless us, miss, dyar ain't no restrainin' ob dat steed 
 wid de airs he put on since he dun took part at Monmouth an' 
 hear the 'gin'l say what he tink ob dat feller Lee. I tell him if he 
 doan behave better, de next time dyar 's goin' to be a battle, 
 I jus' saddle up Nelson an' leave him behind." 
 
 " Now youse stop a-talkin' an' tote dem men's tings some- 
 whars else. Missy Janice gwine to change her gown, an' we doan 
 want nuttin' ob dat sort in hyar." 
 
 " I '11 only smart myself a little and not change my frock, 
 Sukey, because — " 
 
 " Dat youse must, honey, for 1 dun praise youse so dat I 
 ain't gwine to have dem disappointed in youse. Who 'II be to 
 dinner to-day, Mr. Lee ? " 
 
Roses and Honeysuckle 395 
 
 " Gen'l Greene an' Lord Sterlin', an' de staff, an' de field an' 
 brigades major ob de day." 
 
 " Dere, chile, now doan youse depreciate yourself to all dem. 
 Jus' youse put on de pootiest dress yoiwe hab an' do ole 
 Sukey proud." Then, as she helped Janice to bedeck herself, 
 she poured out the story of their makeshift life, telling how, 
 with what had been left of the poultry, and with the products 
 of the small patch of the garden they had been able to till, 
 the two slaves had managed to live the year through, taking 
 the best care they could of their master's property, and hoping 
 and praying daily for what had at last come to pass. The 
 arraying would have been more speedy with the volunteer 
 abigail out of the room ; but not once did the mistress even 
 suggest it, and, on the contrary, paused several times in the 
 process to give the black a hug. 
 
 Finally, a call from her mother put an end to this frittering 
 and hurried the girl downstairs. Washington gave his hand to 
 Mrs. Meredith, and there was a contest of words among the 
 numerous officers for the privilege of the girl's, till Lord Sterling 
 asserted his prerogative of rank and carried her off. Her 
 presence was indeed a boon to the twenty men who sat down 
 at the table, and, accustomed as Janice was by this time to the 
 attention of officers, she could not but be flattered by the 
 homage and deference paid her, all the more, perhaps, that 
 it was witnessed by Brereton. Nor did this cease with the 
 withdrawal of the ladies, for a number of the younger blades 
 elected for her society rather than for that of the bottle, and 
 made themselves her escort in the tour of inspection which 
 Janice insisted on making about. the place ; and had she needed 
 to be helped or lifted over every fence, or even stone, they 
 encountered, there would have been willing hands to do it. 
 It is true she was teased not a little for her supposed British 
 sympathies, but it was not done ill-naturedly, and the girl was 
 now quick-witted and quick-tongued enough to protect herself. 
 This plurality of swains did not lessen as the afternoon 
 advanced, for not one of the diners departed, and when tea- 
 time had come, their ranks were swelled by a dozen new 
 arrivals, giving both Mrs. Meredith and Janice all they could do 
 to keep the assembly supplied with " dishes " of the cheerful but 
 
396 Janice Meredith 
 
 uninebriating beverage which had been so material a cause in 
 the very embodying of this army. Then the officers idled 
 about the lawn, each perhaps hoping for an invitation to stay 
 on. to the supper which so quickly followed the tea-drinking ; 
 and those who were fortunate enough to attain their wish did 
 not hurry away once the meal was concluded. Only when 
 Mrs. Meredith excused herself and her daughter on the ground 
 of fatigue, did the youngsters recollect that there were camp 
 duties which called them away. 
 
 " I fear me, Miss Janice," said the commander-in-chief, as 
 the good-nights were being said, "that discipline would be 
 maintained with difficulty were we long to remain encamped here. 
 Personally, I cannot but regret that we move northward to- 
 morrow ; but for the good of the service I think 't is fortunate." 
 
 Drum beat and bugle call, sounding reveille, brought Janice 
 back to consciousness the next morning ; and it is to be sus- 
 pected that she took some pains with her morning toilet, for 
 by the time she descended tents were already levelled and regi- 
 ments and artillery were filing past on the road. 
 
 "We have reason to believe that Sir Henry meditates a 
 move up the Hudson against our post of West Point," Wash- 
 ington explained to Janice ; " and so it is our duty to put our- 
 selves within protecting distance, though I myself think he will 
 scarce venture a blow, the more that he is strengthening his 
 lines about New York. 'T is not a little pleasing to us that, 
 after two years' fighting and manoeuvring, both armies are 
 brought back to the very point they set out from, and that; 
 from being the attacking party, the British are now reduced to 
 the use of spade and pick-axe for defence." 
 
 " I wish you were not leaving us, your Excellency," sighed 
 Janice. 
 
 "'Tis one of the penalties of war," replied the general, 
 " that we are doomed to see little of the fair sex, and must be 
 content with an occasional sip of their society. Should we 
 winter near here, as now seems possible, I trust you will honour 
 Mrs. Washington and myself with your company at head- 
 quarters. And one word ere we part, Mrs. Meredith. You 
 must not think that we make free with people's property, as we 
 seem to have done in your case. Finding your home unoccu- 
 
Roses and Honeysuckle 397 
 
 pied, I made bold to take it for my headquarters ; but the 
 quartermaster-general will pay you before we leave for such 
 use as I have made of it." 
 
 " We could not accept anything, your Excellency," protested 
 the hostess. " The obligation is with us, and I beg — " 
 
 "Be off with you to your stations, gentlemen," ordered 
 Washington, as he rose from the table ; arid having cleared the 
 room, he continued : " Nay, Mrs. Meredith, Congress allows 
 me my expenses, and 't is only just that you should be paid. 
 And however well provided you may be, a little ready money 
 will surely not be amiss ? " 
 
 " Your Excellency is more thoughtful of our future than we 
 are ourselves," responded Mrs. Meredith. " For a moment I 
 had forgot our position ; we will gladly accept payment." 
 
 " Would that I could as easily pay you for the pleasure you 
 have given me," said the general, shaking her hand. " Miss 
 Janice, we '11 do our best," he went on, " to tie the British sol- 
 diery into New York ; but, whether we succeed or no, I wish 
 to hear of no more philandering with their officers. 'T is hard 
 enough to fight them in the field, without encountering them 
 in our softer moments ; so see to it that you save your smiles 
 and blushes for us." 
 
 " I will, your Excellency," promised Janice, as she did both. 
 
 " Nay, nay, my child," he corrected, smiling. " I did not 
 mean that thou shouldst blush and smile for me. I am a 
 married man, and old enough to be thy father." 
 
 " 'T is fortunate you are the first, your Excellency," laughed 
 the girl in turn, " or the latter should not protect you." And 
 as the general held out his hand she impulsively hissed it. 
 
 " I shall write Mrs. Washington that 't will never do for her 
 to leave me during another campaign," replied the commander, 
 reciprocating the salute. " Not but she will be very proud to 
 think that so charming a maid honours her husband with such 
 
 favours." 
 
 At the door the staff were already mounted and waiting their 
 chief. Farewells were completed with all save Brereton, who 
 for some reason had withdrawn a little from the group ; and 
 these done, the cavalcade trotted off. 
 
 No sooner was it upon the road than Brereton spurred up 
 
398 Janice Meredith 
 
 alongside of his superior, and, saluting, said in a dropped voice : 
 " Your Excellency, I had something of moment to say to the 
 Merediths, but 't was impossible to get private word, with all the 
 idlers and racketers and Jack-a-dandies of the army running in 
 and out upon them. May I not turn back ? I will overtake 
 you ere many hours." 
 
 "Think you, sir," asked Washington, gravely, " I have no 
 occasion for my aides, that you make such a request? " 
 
 Jack flushed with mortification and temper. " I supposed 
 that, on the march, you could spare — " 
 
 "I can, my boy," interrupted the commander-in-chief, with 
 a change of manner, " and was but putting off a take-in on you. 
 My own courting was done while colonel of the First Virginia regi- 
 ment, and well I remember how galling the military duties were. 
 'T is to be feared I was not wholly candid in the reasons call- 
 ing me from the regiment to Williamsburg, that I alleged to ray 
 superiors, for my business at the capital took few hours, and 
 both going and returning I managed to stay many at ' White 
 House.' May your wooing speed as prosperously," he finished, 
 extending an arm and pressing his junior's hand warmly. 
 "And if by chance you should not overtake us till to-morrow, 
 I '11 think of twenty years ago and spare you a reprimand." 
 
 " God save you, sir ! " exclaimed Jack, in an undertone of 
 gratitude. "I — I love — She is — is so dear to me, that I 
 could not bear the thought of waiting." Wheeling his horse, 
 the rider gave him the spur. 
 
 The moment the general and staff had trotted away, Mrs^ 
 Meredith turned to her daughter and asked, " Hast thou re- 
 fused Colonel Brereton, Janice?" 
 
 " No, mommy," faltered the girl. 
 
 "Then why did he ride off without a word to either of us? " 
 
 "I — 't is — I can only think that — that he has come to 
 care for Tibbie — being in and out of love easily — and so is 
 ashamed of the part he has played." 
 
 " 'T is evident that I was right in my view that thy vanity had 
 misled thee," replied the mother. " But we '11 not discuss its 
 meaning now, for I must find out how we stand. Try to make 
 thyself a task, child." 
 
 Her search for this took the maiden, closely followed by 
 
Roses and Honeysuckle 399 
 
 Clarion, to the garden, where she found that weeds, if nothing 
 else, had thriven, though the perennials still made a goodly 
 show. Before beginning a war on the former, she walked to a 
 great tangle of honeysuckle that clustered about and overtopped 
 a garden seat, to pluck a bunch and stick it in the neckerchief 
 that was folded over her bosom ; then she went to her favourite 
 rose-bush and kissed the one blossom July had left to it. " I '11 
 not pick you," she said, " since you are the only one." 
 
 The sound of galloping caught her attention as she raised 
 her head ; and though she could not see the rider, her ears told 
 her that he turned into Greenwood gate, even before the pace 
 was slackened. Not knowing what it might bode, the girl stood 
 listening, with an anxious look on her face. The cadence of 
 the hoof-beats ended suddenly, and silence ensued for a time ; 
 then as suddenly, quick footsteps, accompanied by a tell-tale 
 jingle and clank, came striding along the path from the kitchen 
 to the port in the hedge. One glance Janice gave at the oppo- 
 site entrance, as if flight were in her thoughts, then, with a hand 
 resting on the back of the seat to steady herself, she awaited 
 the intruder. 
 
 Brereton paused in the opening of the box, as his eyes rested 
 on his love. " Would to . Heaven," he exclaimed, " that I had 
 my colours and the time to paint you as you stand ! " 
 
 Both relieved and yet more frightened, Janice, in an attempt 
 to conceal the latter feeling, remarked, " I thought you had 
 departed, sir." 
 
 " Think you I 'd rest content without farewell, or choose to 
 have one with the whole staff as witnesses ? " answered Jack, as 
 he came forward. " Furthermore, I had some matters of which 
 to speak that were not to be published to the world." 
 
 " Mommy is — " 
 
 "Where I 'd have her," interjected the officer ; " for what I 
 have to say is to you. First : I put the screws on old Hennion 
 and Bagby, and have their word that they will not push their 
 forfeiture bill, or in any other way molest you." 
 
 " We thank you deeply, Colonel Brereton." 
 
 "I rode to Brunswick and saw Parson McClave yesterday 
 afternoon, to bespeak his aid, and he says he is certain you 
 may live at peace here, if you will not seek to be rigorous with 
 
400 Janice Meredith 
 
 your tenants, and that he will do his best to keep the com* 
 munity from persecuting you." 
 
 " 'T is glad news, indeed." 
 
 " Knowing how you were circumstanced, I then rode about 
 your farms and held interview with a number of your tenants 
 and pleaded with them that they pay a part of their arrears 
 in supplies ; and several of the better sort gave me their word 
 that you should not want for food." 
 
 " 'T was most thoughtful of you." 
 
 " Finally, I wrote a letter to your father, and have sent it 
 under a flag that was going to New York, telling him that you 
 were safe arrived at Greenwood." 
 
 " Ah, Colonel Brereton, how can we ever repay your kind- 
 ness?" murmured the girl, her eyes brightened and softened 
 by a mist of unshed tears. 
 
 " 'T was done for my own ease. Think you I could have 
 ridden away, not knowing what risk or privation you might 
 have to suffer in my absence ? " 
 
 '"Tis only the greater cause for gratitude that you make 
 your ease depend on ours." 
 
 " That empties my packet of advices," said the aide ; " and 
 — and — unless you have something to tell me, I '11 — we '11 
 say a farewell and I'll rejoin the army." 
 
 "Would that I could thank you, sir, as you deserve; but 
 words mean so litde that you have rendered me dumb," rephed 
 Janice, feelingly. 
 
 " Can you not — Have you nothing else to say to me ? ", 
 he begged pleadingly. 
 
 "I — Indeed, I can think of nothing, Colonel Brereton," 
 replied the maiden, very much flustered. 
 
 "Then good-by, and may God prosper you," ended Jack, 
 sadly, taking her hand and kissing it gently. He turned with 
 obvious reluctance, and went toward the house, but before he 
 had reached the hedge he quickly retraced his steps. "I — I 
 could not force my suit upon you when I found you in such 
 helplessness — not even when you gave me the purse — though 
 none but I can know what the restraint meant in torture," he 
 burst out ; " and it seems quite as ungenerous to try to advan- 
 tage myself now of your moment's gratefulness. But my passion 
 
Roses and Honeysuckle 401 
 
 hsis its limits of control, and go I cannot without — without — 
 Give me but a word, though it be a sentence of death to 
 my heart's desire." 
 
 Janice, whose eyes had been dropped groundward during 
 most of this colloquy, gave the pleader a come-ar(d-go glance, 
 then said breathlessly, "I — 'T is — Wha — wha — What 
 would you wish me to say?" 
 
 " What you can,'' cried the officer, impetuously. 
 
 "I — I would — 'T is my desire to — to say what you 
 would have me." 
 
 Both her hands were eagerly caught in those of the suppliant. 
 "If you could — If — 'T would be everything on earth — 
 more than life itself to me — could you but give me the faint- 
 est hope that I might win you. Have you such an abhor- 
 rence of me that you cannot give me the smallest guerdon 
 of happiness?" 
 
 "You err in supposing that I dislike you," protested Janice. 
 
 " Then why do you refuse all that is dearest to me ? Why 
 turn from a devotion that would make your happiness its 
 own?" 
 
 "But I haven't," denied the girl, her heart beating wildly 
 and her breath coming quickly. 
 
 As the words passed her lips, she was impulsively yet ten- 
 derly caught in her lover's arms and drawn to him. " What 
 have you done, then ? " he demanded almost fiercely. 
 
 "I — I — oh! I don't know," she gasped. 
 
 "Then, as you have pity in you, grant my prayer?" 
 
 For a moment Janice, with down-bent head, was silent. 
 Then she raised her eyes to Jack's and said, "I will marry 
 you, Colonel Brereton, if dadda will let me." 
 
 36 
 
LI 
 
 A FAREWELL AND A WELCOME 
 
 THERE was little weeding of the garden that fore- 
 noon, unless the brushing off with Jack's gauntlets 
 of some green moss from the garden seat, about 
 which clustered the honeysuckle, can be considered 
 such. Possibly this was done that more sprays of the vine 
 might be plucked, for when Sukey, after repeated calls from 
 the entry, finally came to summon them to dinner, Jack had a 
 bunch of it, and a single rose, thrust in his sword knot. 
 
 There was a pretence of affected unconsciousness at the 
 meal on the part of the three, and even of Peg, though the 
 servant made it difficult to maintain the fiction by several times 
 going off into fits of reasonless giggles not easy for those at 
 table to ignore. The repast eaten, Brereton drew Mrs. Mere- 
 dith aside for a word, and Janice took advantage of the freedom 
 to escape to her room, where she buried her face in the pillow, 
 as if she had some secret to confide to it. 
 
 From this she was presently roused by her mother's entrance, 
 and as the girl, with flushed cheeks and questioning look, met 
 her eyes, Mrs. Meredith said : " I think, my child, thou hast 
 acted for the best, and we will hope thy father will think so." 
 
 " Oh, mommy, dost think he '11 consent ? " 
 
 "I fear not, but that must be as God wills it. Go down 
 now, for Colonel Brereton says he must ride away, and only 
 tarries for a word with thee." 
 
 Janice gave one glance at the mirror, and put her hands 
 to her hair, with a look of concern. '"Tis dreadfully dis- 
 ordered." 
 
 " He will not notice it, that I '11 warrant," prophesied the 
 matron. 
 
A Farewell and a Welcome 403 
 
 With his horse's bridle over his arm, the lover was waiting 
 for her on the front porch. " Will you not walk with me down 
 the road a little way ? " he begged. " 'T is so hard to leave 
 you." 
 
 "I — I think I had better not," urged the girl, showing 
 trepidation. " 'T would surely delay you too — " 
 
 "Ah, Janice," interrupted the lover, "why — what have I 
 done that you should show such fear of me ? " 
 
 " I 'm not afraid of you," denied Janice, hurriedly ; " and of 
 course I'll go, if — if you think it best." 
 
 "Then what is it frightens you, sweetheart?" persisted Jack, 
 as they set off. 
 
 The maiden scrutinised the ground and horizon as if seek- 
 ing an explanation ere she replied shyly, '"Tis — 'tis indeed 
 no fear of you, but you — you never ask permission." 
 
 The officer laughed exultingly. "Then may I put my arm 
 about you ? " he requested. 
 
 " 'T will make walking too difficult." 
 
 " How know you that ? " demanded Jack. 
 
 " 'Tis — 't is easily fancied." 
 
 Brereton's free arm encircled the girl. " Try to fancy it," 
 he entreated. " And never again say that I do not ask per- 
 mission." 
 
 A mile down the road Jack halted. " I '11 not let you go 
 further," he groaned ; " nor must I linger, for reminder of my 
 wound still troubles me if I ride too quick." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me you had been wounded when you 
 took me away from the ball?" asked Janice, reproachfully. 
 
 "'Twas not once in my thoughts that evening, nor was 
 anything else save you." 
 
 " I can make all sorts of preserves and jellies and pickles, 
 and next winter I '11 send you some to camp." 
 
 "That you shall not," asserted the aide; "for the day we 
 go into winter quarters sees me back here to dance at your 
 wedding." 
 
 "Hadst better wait till thou art invited, sir?" suggested 
 Janice, saucily. 
 
 "What? A revolt on my hands already!" exclaimed the 
 officer. 
 
404 Janice Meredith 
 
 "Tis you are the rebel." 
 
 " Then you are my prisoner," retorted Jack, catching her in 
 his arms. 
 
 " You Whigs are a lawless lot ! " 
 
 "Toward avowed Tories, ay — and a good serve-out to 
 them." 
 
 " But I gave my word to his Excellency that from henceforth 
 I 'd be Whiggish, so you 've no right to treat me as one." 
 
 "Then I'll not," agreed the lover. " And since I plundered 
 from you while you were against us, 't is only right that I should 
 return what I took." He kissed her thrice tenderly. " Good- 
 by, my sweet," he said, and, releasing her, mounted. " 'Tis 
 fortunate I depend not on my own legs, for they 'd never con- 
 sent to carry me away from you." He started his horse, but 
 turned in his saddle to call back : " 'T will not be later than 
 the first of November, with or without permission," and throw- 
 ing a last kiss with his hand, spurred away. 
 
 Till Jack passed from view, the girl's eyes followed him ; 
 then, with a look of dreaminess in her eyes, she walked slowly 
 back to Greenwood, so abstracted by her thoughts that she 
 spoke not a word to the attendant hound. 
 
 Whatever might be the inclination of the girl, her mother 
 gave her little chance to dream in the next few days. Not 
 merely was there much about house and garden to be brought 
 into order, but Mrs. Meredith succeeded in bargaining their 
 standing crop of grass in exchange for a milch cow, and to 
 Janice was assigned both its milking and care, while the 
 chickens likewise became her particular charge.- From stores 
 in the attic the mother produced pieces of whole cloth, and 
 Janice was set at work on dresses and underclothes to resupply 
 their depleted wardrobes. Not content with this, Mrs. Mere- 
 dith drew from the same source unspun wool and unhatchelled 
 flax, and the girl was put to spinning both into thread and yarn, 
 that Peg might weave them into cloth, against the need of win- 
 ter. From five in the morning till eight at night there was 
 occupation for all ; and so tired was the maiden that she gladly 
 enough heard her mother's decree that their small supply of 
 candles should not be used, but that they should go to bed 
 with the sun. 
 
A Farewell and a Welcome 405 
 
 They were thus already asleep by ten o'clock one August 
 evening, when there came a gentle knocking on the back door, 
 which, after several repetitions, ceased, but only to be resumed 
 a moment later on the front one. Neither summons receiving 
 any attention, a succession of pebbles were thrown against 
 Janice's window, finally bringing the sleeper back to wakeful- 
 ness. Her first feeling, as she became conscious of the cause, 
 was one of fear, and her instinct was to pay no attention to the 
 outsider. After one or two repetitions, however, of the dis- 
 quieting taps, she stole to the window, and, keeping herself hid- 
 den, peeped out. All she could see was a man standing close' 
 to a shrub, as if to take advantage of its concealment, who 
 occasionally raised an arm and tossed a pebble against the 
 panes. Really alarmed, the girl was on the point of seeking 
 her mother, when her eyes took in the fact that Clarion was 
 standing beside the cause of her fright, and seeking, so far as 
 he could, to win his attention. Reassured, the girl raised the 
 sash, and instantly her father's voice broke upon her ears. 
 
 "Down with ye, Jan," he said, "and let me get under 
 cover." 
 
 Both anxious ai|id delighted, the girl ran downstairs and 
 unbarred the door.! 
 
 " I had begun tctfear me that I had been misinformed and 
 that ye and your mother were not hereabout," the squire be- 
 gan ; " so 't is indeed a joy to find ye safe." And then, after 
 Mrs. Meredith had been roused, he explained his presence. 
 " Though I could not get back to ye in Philadelphia, no worry 
 I felt on your account, making sure that Lord Clowes would 
 look to your safety. An anxious week I had after the army 
 reached New York, till I received Colonel Brereton's letter tell- 
 ing me of your safety, though that only assured me as to the 
 past, and I knew that any moment the rascally Whigs might 
 take to persecuting ye again." 
 
 " Nay, Lambert," said Mrs. Meredith, " not a one has of- 
 fered us the slightest annoyance. On the contrary, some of 
 thy tenants have tendered us food in payment of rent, though I 
 own that they insist upon hard bargains." 
 
 " I would I had as little complaint to make," responded the 
 husband. " No sooner did Clinton reach New York than my 
 
4o6 Janice Meredith 
 
 appointment was taken from me, and but for Phil's kindness I 
 should like to have starved. Though with little money himself, 
 the boy would let me want for nothing, and but for him I 
 should not even have been able to be here to-night." 
 
 " How was that, dadda ? " asked Janice. 
 
 " 'T is not to be whispered outside, Jan, but some of these 
 same rebel Jerseymen — ay, and the Connecticut Yankees — 
 much prefer the ring of British guineas to the brustle of the worth- 
 less paper money of the Whigs, so almost nightly boat-loads of 
 provisions and forage steal out of the Raritan for New York, 
 but for which the British army would be on short commons. 
 Phil, who knew of this traffic, secured me passage on one of 
 the empty boats." 
 
 " Then the villagers know thou hast returned ? " exclaimed 
 Mrs. Meredith, anxiously. 
 
 " Not they, for those in the business are as little anxious to 
 have it known they have been in New York as I am to have it 
 advertised that I am here at Greenwood, and there is little 
 danger that either of us will blab." 
 
 "Had Lord Clowes arrived in New York, Lambert?" in- 
 quired Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 "That he had, and in a mighty dudgeon he was at first 
 against all of us : with ye for what he took offence at in Phila- 
 delphia, and with me because I hold to my promise to Phil. 
 But when he had word that I was coming here, he sought me 
 out in a great turn-over, and said if I brought ye back to New 
 York his house should be at our service, and that we should 
 want for nothing. There is no doubt, lass, that he loves ye 
 prodigious." 
 
 The girl shivered, August night though it was, but merely 
 exclaimed, " You 'd net think of making us go to New York 
 when we are under no necessity?" 
 
 " Not I, now that I know ye to be well off, which I feared ye 
 were not. The nut to crack is to know whether I hadst best 
 find safety by returning to New York, to live like a pauper on 
 Phil, or seek to lie hid here for a three-months." 
 
 " And why three months, Lambert? " asked his wife. 
 
 " 'T is thought that will serve to bring about a peace. Have 
 ye not heard how this much-vaunted alliance with France has 
 
A Farewell and a Welcome 407 
 
 resulted? The French fleet and soldiers, united to a force 
 under Sullivan, attempted to capture the British post at New- 
 port, but oil and vinegar would not mix. The Parley-voos 
 wanted to monopolise all the honour by having the Americans 
 play second fiddle to them, but to this they 'd not consent ; and 
 while the two were quarrelling over it, like dogs over a bone, in 
 steps the British, drubs the two of them, and carries off the 
 prize. That gone, they've set to quarrelling as to whose fault 
 it was. The feeling now is as bitter against the French as 
 't was against the British, and 't is thought that with this end to 
 their hopes from the frog-eaters, they '11 be glad enough to 
 make a peace with us, the more that their paper money, the 
 only thing that has kept them going this long, loses value daily, 
 and they will soon have nothing with which to pay bills and 
 soldiers." 
 
 " Thou hadst best stay here, Lambert," advised Mrs. Mere- 
 dith. " 'T will be more comfortable for thee, and far happier 
 for us." 
 
 " Remember that I run the risk of capture, wife." 
 
 " Thou canst be kept concealed from all but Peg and Sukey, 
 who are as faithful as we." 
 
 '' And I am sure if by chance you were discovered," sug- 
 gested Janice, haltingly, " that Colonel Brereton would — would 
 — save you from ill treatment." 
 
 "Colonel Brereton?" 
 
 " Ay, Lambert," spoke up Mrs. Meredith, as her daughter 
 looked appealingly to her. "There is something yet to be 
 told, which has won us a strong friend who would never permit 
 thee to suffer. Colonel Brereton, to whom we owe all our 
 present safety, has declared his attachment to Janice, and 
 seeks her — " 
 
 " Small doubt he has," derisively interjected the squire. " I 
 make certain that every rebel, seeing the game drawing to a 
 close, is seeking to feather his nest." 
 
 " Nay, Lambert. 'T is obvious he truly loves our — " 
 
 " He may, but it shall not help him to her or her acres," 
 again interrupted the father. "The impudence of these Whigs 
 passes belief. I hope ye sent him off with a bee in his breeches, 
 Matilda." 
 
408 Janice Meredith 
 
 "That we did not," denied Mrs. Meredith. "Nor wouldst 
 thou, hadst thee been with us to realise all his goodness to us." 
 
 " Well, well," grumbled the father, resignedly, " I suppose 
 if the times are such that we must accept favours of the rebels^ 
 we must not resent their insults. But 't is bitter to think of our 
 good land come to such a pass that rogues like this Brereton 
 and Bagby should dare obtrude their suits upon us." 
 
 " Oh, dadda," protested Janice, pleadingly, " 'twas truly no 
 insult he intended, but the — the highest — he spoke as if — as 
 if — There was a tender respect in his every word and action, 
 as if I might have been a queen. And I could not — Oh, 
 mommy, please, please, tell it for me ! " 
 
 "'Tis best thou shouldst know at once, Lambert, that Janice 
 favours his wooing." 
 
 " What ! " roared the squire, looking incredulously from 
 mother to daughter, and then, as the latter nodded her head, 
 he cried, " I '11 not believe it of ye, Jan, however ye may wag 
 your pate. Wed a bondman ! Have ye forgot your old pledge 
 to me? Where's your pride, child, that ye should even let 
 the thought occur to ye ? " 
 
 " But he is well born, dadda, far better than we ourselves, 
 for he told me once that his great-grandfather was King of 
 England," cried the girl, desperately. 
 
 " And ye believed the tale?" 
 
 " He would not lie to me, dadda, I am sure." 
 
 "Why think ye that?'.'. 
 
 "Oh' — he never — loving me, be never — can't you under- 
 stand ? He 'd not deceive me, dadda." 
 
 « Ye 're the very one he would, ye mean, and small wonder 
 he takes advantage of ye if ye talk as foolishly to him as to me. 
 Have done with all thought of the fellow and of his clankers 
 concerning his birth. Whate'er he was, he is to-day a run- 
 away bondservant and — " 
 
 "But, dadda, he is now a lieutenant-colonel and — " 
 
 " Of what? Where's the honour in being in command of the 
 riff-raff of the land? Dost not know that the most of their 
 officers are made out of tapsters and tinkers and the like? Does 
 it make a tavern idler or a bankrupt the less of either, that a 
 pack of dunghills choose to dub him by another title? Once 
 
A Farewell and a Welcome 409 
 
 peace and law are come again, this same scalawag Brereton, or 
 Fownes, or whatever he will then be, must return to my service 
 and fulfil his bond, with a penalty of double time to boot. 
 Proud ye'd be to see your spouse ordered to field or stable 
 work every morning by my overseer ! " 
 
 '"T would grieve me, dadda," replied the girl, gently, "be- 
 cause I know how proud he is, and how it would make him 
 suffer; but 'twould not lessen my respect or — or affection for 
 Wm." 
 
 " What? " snorted Mr. Meredith once more. " Dost mean to 
 tell me that thy heart is in this ? " 
 
 "I — indeed, dadda," stammered Janice, colouring, " until — 
 until this moment I thought 't was only for yours and mommy's 
 sakes — though at times puzzled by — by I know not what 
 — but now — " 
 
 " Well, out with it ! " ordered the squire, as his daughtei' 
 hesitated. 
 
 Janice faltered, then hurried to where her father sat, and, 
 throwing herself on her knees, buried her face in his waistcoat. 
 Something she said, but very sharp ears it needed to resolve the 
 muffled sounds into the words, " Oh, dadda, I 'm afraid that I 
 care for him more than I thought." 
 
 "What !" for a third time demanded Mr. Meredith. '"Tis 
 not possible I hear ye aright, girl. Why, a nine-months ago ye 
 were beseeching me, with your arms about my neck, to fulfil 
 my word to Phil." 
 
 "But that was because I feared Lord Clowes," eagerly ex- 
 plained Janice, with her face withdrawn from its screen ; " and 
 then I did not love — or at least did not dream that I did." 
 
 '' Pox me, but I believe Clowes is right when he says the 
 sex are without stability," growled the squire, irascibly. " Put 
 this fellow out of your thoughts, and remember that ye were 
 promised long since." 
 
 " Oh, dadda, I want to be dutiful, and obedient I promise to 
 be, but you would not have me marry with my heart given else- 
 where. You could not be so cruel or — " 
 
 " Cease such bibble-babble, Jan. 'T is for your own good I 
 am acting. Not merely is this fellow wholly beneath ye in 
 birth and fortune, besides a rebel to our king, but there are facta 
 
41 o Janice Meredith 
 
 about him of which ye have not cognisance that should serve to 
 rouse your pride." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " What say ye to an intimacy twixt this same Brereton and 
 Mrs. Loring?" 
 
 With the question the girl was on her feet, yet with down- 
 hung head. "He — I know he does not care for her," she 
 declared. 
 
 "Ye know nothing of the kind," retorted the squire. "I 
 bear in my pocket a letter from her to him of so private a 
 nature that she would not trust it to a flag, because then it must 
 be read, which Lord Clowes brought to me with the request that 
 I would in some way smuggle it to him." 
 
 "That means little," said Janice. 
 
 "And what say ye to his meeting her in New York, for that 
 is the purpose of her letter to him ? " 
 
 " How know you that?" cried Janice. 
 
 " Because she writ on the outside that the commander at 
 Paulus Hook had been sent orders to pass him to New York." 
 
 " That proves no wrong on his part," answered the girl, her 
 head proudly erect. " Nor will I believe any of him." And 
 without further words she went from the room. But though 
 she went to bed, she tossed restless and wakeful till the sun 
 rose. 
 
LII 
 
 SCANT WELCOME FOR MAN AND BEAST 
 
 THE concealment of the master of Greenwood proved 
 an easy affair, for it was now the harvest season and 
 the neighbouring farmers were far too engaged by 
 their own interests to have thought of anything else, 
 while the four miles was distance sufficient to deter the villagers, 
 from keeping an eye on the daily household life. For their 
 own comfort, a place of concealment was arranged for the 
 squire in the garret behind the big loom ; but thus assured of 
 a retreat, he spent his time on the second floor, his only pre- 
 cautions being to avoid the windows in daylight hours and to 
 keep Clarion at hand to give warning of any interloper. 
 
 In the next few days Mrs. Meredith twice reverted to the 
 subject of their midnight discussion, but each time only to find 
 her husband unyieldingly persistent that Janice was pledged to 
 Philemon, and that if this bar did not exist, he would never 
 countenance Brereton's suit. As for the girl, she shunned all 
 allusion to the matter, taking refuge in a proud silence. 
 
 In September an unexpected event brought the difficulty to 
 a crisis. One evening, after the work of the day was over, as 
 they sat in Mrs. Meredith's room, waiting for the dusk to 
 deepen enough for beds to become welcome, a creak of the 
 stairs set all three to listening, and brought Clarion to his feet. 
 Though no repetition of the sound followed, the dog, after a 
 moment's attention, dashed out of the room and was heard 
 springing and jumping about, with yelps betokening joyful 
 recognition of some one. Reassured by this, yet wishing to 
 know more, Janice hurried into the hall. Coming from the 
 half-Hght, it was too dark for her to distinguish anything, so 
 she was forced to grope her way to the stairs ; but other eyes. 
 
412 Janice Meredith 
 
 were keener, and Janice, without warning, was encompassed by 
 a man's arms, which drew her to him that his hps might press 
 an eager kiss upon hers. 
 
 " Who is it? " whispered the pilferer, after the theft. 
 
 "Oh, Colonel Brcreton ! " exclaimed the girl, in an under- 
 tone ; " I knew at once, but — " 
 
 " Forgive me if I frightened you, sweetheart," begged the 
 officer, softly. " I could not resist the impulse to surprise you, 
 and so tied my horse down the road a bit, that I might steal in 
 upon you unaware." 
 
 " But what brings you? " questioned the girl, anxiously. 
 
 Brereton, with a touch of irritation, answered : " And you can 
 ask? Even my vanity is forced to realise you waste little love 
 on me that you need explanation. Sixty miles and over I 
 have rid to-day solely that I might bide the night here, and 
 not so much as a word of welcome do you give me. But I 
 vow you shall love me some day even as I love you ; that 
 you too shall long for sight of me when I am away, and caress 
 me as fondly when I return." 
 
 " I did not mean that I was not glad to see you," protested 
 the maiden ; " but — I thought — I thought you could not 
 leave the array." 
 
 " Know then, madam," banteringly explained the lover, 
 ■" that the court-martial which has been trying Lee for his con- 
 duct at Monmouth has come to a verdict, which required 
 transmission to Congress, for confirmation, and as I enjoy 
 nothing better than two hundred and forty miles of riding in 
 September heats and dust, I fairly went on my knees to his 
 Excellency for permission to bear it. And now do you ask 
 why I wished it? Do I not deserve something to lighten the 
 journey? Ah, my sweet, if you care for me a little, prove it 
 by once returning me one of my kisses ! " 
 
 " With whom art thou speaking, daughter? " demanded Mrs. 
 Meredith, losing patience at the continuance of the dialogue 
 she could just realise. 
 
 "'Tis I, John Brereton, Mrs. Meredith," spoke up the in- 
 trader, " come in search of a night's lodgings." 
 
 The information was enough to make the squire forget 
 prudence, in the spleen it aroused. "Have done with your 
 
Scant Welcome for Man and Beast 4 1 3 
 
 whispered prittle-prattle, Jan, and let me have sight of this 
 fellow," he called angrily. 
 
 " Mr. Meredith ! you here ? " cried the officer, springing to 
 the doorway, to make sure that his ears did not deceive 
 him. 
 
 " Ay, and no wonder 't is a sad surprise to ye," went on 
 Mr. Meredith, irascibly. "There shall be no more stolen 
 interviews — ay, or kisses — from henceforth, ye Jerry Sneak ! 
 Come out of the hall, Janice, and have done with this courting 
 by stealth." 
 
 "I call Heaven to witness," retorted Jack, hotly, "if once 
 I have acted underhand; and you have no right — " 
 
 " Pooh ! 't is not for a jail-bird and bond-servant and rebel 
 to lay down the right and wrong to Lambert Meredith." 
 
 " Oh, dadda — " expostulatingly began Janice. 
 
 " What is more," continued the father, regardless of her 
 protest, " I '11 have ye know that I take your behind-back 
 wooing of my daughter as an insult, and will none of it." 
 
 " Is it prudent, Lambert, needlessly to offend Colonel 
 Brereton?" deprecated Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " Ay. Let him give me up to the authorities," sneered the 
 husband. " 'T will be all of a piece with his other doings." 
 
 "To such an imputation I refuse to make denial," said 
 Brereton, proudly ; " but be warned, sir, by the trials for 
 treason now going on in Jersey and Pennsylvania, what fate 
 awaits you if you are captured. Even I could not save you, 
 I fear, after your taking office from the king, if you were 
 caught thus." 
 
 " Wait till ye 're asked, and we '11 see who first needs help, 
 ye or I," retorted the squire. " Meantime understand that 
 I '11 not have ye at Greenwood, save as a bond-servant. My 
 girl is promised to a man of property and respectability, and 
 is to be had by no servant who dare not so much as let the 
 world know who were his father and mother ! " 
 
 It was now too dark to distinguish anything, so the others 
 did not see how Brereton's face whitened. For a moment he 
 was silent, then in a voice hoarsely strident he said : " No man 
 but you could speak thus and not pay the full penalty of his 
 words ; and since you take so low an advantage of my position. 
 
414 Janice Meredith 
 
 further relations with you are impossible. Janice, choose be- 
 tween me and your father, for there can be but the one of us 
 in your future life." 
 
 " Oh, Jack," cried the girl, imploringly, " you cannot — if 
 you love me, you cannot ask such a thing of me." 
 
 " He puts it well," asserted Mr. Meredith. " Dost intend 
 to obey me, child, or — " 
 
 " Oh, dadda," chokingly moaned Janice, " you know I have 
 promised obedience, and never will I be undutiful, but — " 
 
 The aide, not giving her time to complete the sentence, 
 
 vehemently exclaimed, " 'T is as I might have expected ! 
 
 Lover good enough I am when you are in peril or want, but 
 
 once saved, I am quickly taught that your favours are granted 
 
 from policy and not from love." 
 
 "'Tis not so," denied the girl, indignantly yet miserably; 
 « J >> 
 
 " Be still, Jan," ordered the father. " Think ye, sir, Lam- 
 bert Meredith's daughter would ever bring herself to wed a no- 
 name and double-name fellow such as ye ? Here is a letter I 
 
 fetched to ye from that Mrs. Loring : take it and go to 
 
 her. She 's the fit company for gentry of youj breed, and not 
 my girl." 
 
 " Beg of me forgiveness on your deathbed, or on mine, and 
 I '11 not pardon you the words you have just spoken," thundered 
 the officer ; " and though you stand on the gallows itself, I will 
 not stir finger to save you. Once for all, Janice, take choice 
 between us." 
 
 " 'T is an option you have no right to force upon me," re- 
 sponded the girl, desperately. 
 
 " Ay, pay no heed to what he says, Jan. Hand him this 
 letter and let him go." 
 
 "If he wants it, he must take it himself," cried Janice. 
 " I '11 not touch her letter." 
 
 The indignant loathing in the tone of the speaker was too 
 clearly expressed not to be understood, and Brereton replied 
 to it rather than to her words. " I tried to speak to you of 
 her — to tell you the whole wretched story, when last I saw 
 you, but I could not bring myself in such hap — at such an 
 hour — the moment was too untimely — and so I did not. 
 
Scant Welcome for Man and Beast 4 1 5 
 
 Little I suspected that you already knew the facts of my 
 connection with her." 
 
 " Despite the proof I myself had, I have ever refused to 
 credit when told by others what you have just owned," de- 
 clared the girl. " Nor will I listen to you. From the first I 
 scorned and hated her, and now wish never to hear of the 
 shameful creature again." 
 
 Without a word the officer passed into the hall, and begat 
 the descent. Before he had reached the foot of the stairs 
 Janice was at its head. 
 
 "You'll not go without a good-by, Jack," she pleaded. 
 "Obey dadda I ought — but — Oh, Jack — I will — if you 
 will but come back — Yes, I will kiss you." 
 
 Brereton halted and clutched the banister, as if to prevent 
 either departure or return, and could the girl have seen the 
 look on his face she would have been in his arms before he 
 had time to conquer himself. But in doubt as to what the 
 pause indicated, she stood waiting, and 'after a moment's 
 Struggle Jack strode through the hallway and was gone. So 
 long as his footsteps could be heard Janice stood listening to 
 them, but when they had died out of hearing she went into 
 her own room, and the parents heard the bolt shot. 
 
 There was something in the girl's eyes the next morning 
 which prevented either father or mother from recurring to the 
 scene, and time did not make it easier; for Janice, with a 
 proudly sad face, did her tasks in an almost absolute silence, 
 which told more clearly than words her misery. Probably the 
 matter would have eventually been reopened, but two days 
 brought a new difficulty which gave both Mr. and Mrs. Mere- 
 dith something else for thought. 
 
 Its first warning was from the hound, who roused his master, 
 as he dozed in an easy-chair one sleepy afternoon, by a growl, 
 and the squire's own ears served to tell him that horsemen 
 were entering the gate. The women on the floor below also 
 heard the sounds, and with a call to make sure that the 
 refugee was seeking his hiding-place, the mother and daugh- 
 ter hurried to the front door to learn what the incursion might 
 portend. 
 
 From the porch they could see a half-dozen riders in uni- 
 
41 6 Janice Meredith 
 
 form, who had drawn rein just inside the gateway, while yet 
 another, accompanied by two dogs, rode up to where they 
 were standing. 
 
 "'Tis General Lee," exclaimed Mrs. Meredith, as he came 
 within recognising distance. " Probably he wishes a night's 
 lodging." 
 
 It was far from what the officer wanted, as it proved ; for 
 when he had come within good speaking distance he called 
 angrily, " Ho ! ye are there, are ye, hussy ? Still busily seek- 
 ing, I suppose, to be a pick-thanks with those in power by 
 casting ridicule on those they are caballing to destroy." 
 
 " I know not the cause for thy extraordinary words, Gen- 
 eral Lee," replied Mrs. Meredith, with much dignity, "and 
 can only conclude that a warm afternoon has tempted thee 
 into a too free use of the bottle." 
 
 " Bah ! " ejaculated Lee. " My bicker is not with ye, but 
 with your girl, who, it seems, has a liking for mischief and 
 slander." 
 
 "I am ignorant to what thee refers, sir, and cannot 
 believe — " began the mother. 
 
 " Deny if you can that she limned the caricature of me 
 which was handed about the theatre, and made me and my 
 dogs the laugh of the town for a week?" interrupted Lee. 
 " Only three days since I had a letter from a friend in Phila- 
 delphia, telling me a journal of hers had been examined by 
 the council, and that therein she confessed it as her work." 
 
 " Indeed, General Lee," said Mrs. Meredith, apologetically, 
 "the child meant no — " 
 
 " I tell you I 'm not to be mollified by any woman's brabble," 
 blustered Lee. " I know 't is part and parcel of an attempt 
 to ruin my character. Even to this silly witling, all are en- 
 deavouring to break me down by one succession of abomi- 
 nable, damnable lies. The very court that has been trying 
 me would not believe that white was white as regards me, or 
 that black was black as regards this G. Washington, whom the 
 army and the people consider as an infallible divinity, when 
 he is but a bladder of emptiness and pride. I am now on 
 my way to get their verdict against me, and in favour of this 
 Great Gargantua, or Lama Babek — for I know not which to 
 
Scant Welcome tor Man and Beast 417 
 
 call him — set aside, and I stopped in passing, to tell you 
 that I — " 
 
 What the general intended was not to be known, for at this 
 point there came that which turned his thoughts. One of his 
 dogs, an English spaniel, neither interested in Janice's carica- 
 ture of Lee, nor in Lee's abuse of Washington, took advan- 
 tage of his master's preoccupation to steal into the house, — 
 a proceeding which Clarion evidently resented, for suddenly 
 from within came loud yaps and growls, which told only too 
 plainly that if there was no protector of the household from 
 the anger of the general, there was one who objected to the 
 intrusion of his dog. Scarcely had the sounds of the fight 
 begun than shrill yelps of pain indicated that one participant 
 was getting very much the worst of it, and which, was quickly 
 shown by the general roaring an oath and a command that 
 they stop the " murder of my Caesar." The din was too great 
 within, however, for Clarion to hear the order that both ladies 
 shouted to him, though it is to be questioned if he would have 
 heeded them if he had ; and with another oath Lee was out en 
 his saddle and into the house, his riding-whip raised to take 
 summary vengeance. 
 
 Just as the general entered the hallway, the spaniel, wrig- 
 gling free from the hound's onslaught, fled upstairs, closely 
 pursued by the other dog, and after the two stamped the 
 officer. On the second floor the fugitive faltered, to cast an 
 agonised glance behind him, but sight of Clarion's open mouth 
 was enough, and up the garret stairs he fled. At the top he 
 once more paused, looking in all directions for a haven of 
 refuge ; and seeing a man in the act of retreating behind the 
 loom in the corner, he fled to him for protection. When Lee 
 entered the garret, only Clarion, every bristle on end, was in 
 view, standing guard over a corner, of the room ; and striding 
 to him, the general lashed him twice with his riding-whip ere 
 the transgressor, with howls of surprised pain, fled. Then 
 Lee peered behind the loom in search of his favourite. 
 
 "Devil seize me 1" he exclaimed. " What have we here? 
 Ho ! a good find," he jeered, as he made out the squire. He 
 rushed to one of the windows, threw it up, and called a sum- 
 mons to the group of horsemen, then came back as the squire 
 
 27 
 
41 8 Janice Meredith 
 
 crawled from his retreat. " Little did I reck," gloated Lee, 
 " when I read at the tavern this very day the governor's proc- 
 lamation attainting you, that ye 'd come to be my prize. And 
 poetic justice it is that I should have the chance to avenge in 
 you the insult of your daughter." 
 
LIII 
 
 UNDER SHADOW OF THE GALLOWS 
 
 NO prayer the women could make served to sway 
 Lee from his purpose, and without delay the 
 prisoner was mounted behind one of the escort,, 
 taken to Brunswick, and handed over to the 
 authorities. When Mrs. Meredith and Janice, who followed 
 on foot, reached the town, it was to find that the squire was, 
 to be carried to Trenton the next morning. A plea was made 
 that they should be permitted to accompany him, but it was 
 refused, and a bargain was finally made with the publican 
 to carry them. 
 
 The following evening saw them all in Trenton, Mr. Mere^ 
 dith in jail, and the ladies once more at the Drinkers'. I« 
 was too late for anything to be attempted that night ; but early 
 the next day Mrs. Meredith, with Mr. Drinker, called on 
 Governor Livingston to plead for mercy. 
 
 " Had he come in and delivered himself up, there might 
 have been some excuse for special lenience," the Governor 
 argued ; " but captured as he was, there can be none. The 
 people have suffered so horribly in the last two years that they 
 wish a striking example made of some prominent Tory, and 
 will not brook a reasonless pardon. He must stand his trial 
 under the statute and proclamation, and of that there can 
 be but one outcome." 
 
 When the suppliants returned with this gloomy prediction, 
 Janice, who held herself accountable for the calamity, primarily 
 by having secured the appointment of her father, and still 
 more by drawing the caricature which had brought such disaster, 
 was so overcome that for a time the mother's anxieties were 
 transferred to her. Realising this, after the first wild out- 
 burst of grief and horror were over, Janice struggled des- 
 perately to regain self-control ; and when the two had gone 
 
420 Janice Meredith 
 
 to bed, she successfully resisted her longing to give way once 
 more to tears, though no sleep came to her the night through. 
 Yet, if she brought pale cheeks and tired eyes to the break- 
 fast table, there was determination rather than despair in her 
 face and manner, as if in her long vigil she had thought out 
 some deliverance. 
 
 In what this consisted was shown by her whispered request 
 to Mr. Drinker, the moment the meal had been despatched, 
 to learn for her if Joe Bagby was in town, and to arrange 
 for an interview. Within the hour her emissary returned with 
 the member of Assembly. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard, Mr. Bagby, of my father's 
 capture," she said, without even the preliminary of a greeting. 
 "Yes, miss," said Bagby, awkwardly and shamefacedly; 
 "'tis news that didn't stop travelling, and 'twas all over 
 Trenton before he 'd been an hour in town. One way or 
 another, he and I have n't got on well, but I did n't wish him 
 or you any such bad luck, and I 'm real sorry it 's come about." 
 "I wished to see you to ask — to beg," went on the girl, 
 " that you would persuade the Governor to set him free." 
 
 " But he 'd not have the right to do that," replied Joe. 
 " He only can pardon the squire after the trial. And right 
 now I want to say that if you have n't settled on any lawyer, 
 I will take the case and do my best for your dad, and let you 
 take your own time as to paying me." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Bagby," pleaded Janice, " Mr. Drinker is sure 
 that he will be convicted of treason. Can you not do some- 
 thing to stop it?" 
 
 " I am afraid he is right, miss. About his only chance will 
 be for the Governor to pardon him." 
 
 " But only yesterday he said he should not," wailed Janice. 
 " Can you not persuade him ? " 
 
 " Guess 't would be only be a waste of my time," answered Joe. 
 " He and I have disagreed over some appointments, and we 
 are n't much of friends in consequence. But aside from that, 
 he 's a great trimmer for popularity, and the people just now 
 are desperate set on having the Tories punished." 
 
 "Don't say that," besought the girl. "Surely, if if— 
 
 if I promise to marry you, cannot you save him?" 
 
Under Shadow of the Gallows 421 
 
 " If 'twas a bridge to be built, or a contract for uniforms, 
 or something of that sort, I 'd have real influence in the 
 Assembly; but I am afraid I can't fix this matter. The 
 Governor 's a consarned obstinate man most times, and I don't 
 believe he '11 listen to any one in this. What I can do, though, 
 if you '11 just do what you offered, miss, will be to save your 
 property from all risk of being taken from you." 
 
 " Don't speak of it to me," cried Janice, wildly. " Do you 
 think we could care for such a thing now ? " 
 
 " Property 's property," said Joe, " and 'tis n't a good thing 
 to forget, no matter what happens. However, that can wait. 
 Now, about my being your lawyer? " 
 
 " I will speak to my mother," replied the girl, sadly, " and 
 let you know her wishes." And the words were so evidently 
 a dismissal that Bagby took his departure. 
 
 Without pausing to mourn over the failure, Janice procured 
 paper and pen, and set about a letter ; but it was long in the 
 writing, for again and again the pages were torn up. Finally, 
 in desperation, she let her quill run on, regardless of form, 
 grammar, erasures, or the blurs caused by her own tears, until 
 three sheets had been filled with incoherent prayers and prom- 
 ises. " If only you can save him," one read, " nothing you 
 ask of me, even to disobeying him, even to running off with 
 you, will I refuse. I will be your very slave." If ever a proud 
 girl humbled herself, Janice did so in this appeal. 
 
 The reading of the missive was begun the next day by an 
 officer seated in the "public " of the City Tavern of Phila- 
 delphia, but after a very few lines he rose and carried it to 
 his own room, and there completed it. Then folding it up, 
 he thrust it into his pocket, once more descended the stairs, 
 and inquired of the tavern-keeper : " 'T was reported that 
 General Lee came to town yesterday ; dost know where he 
 lodges?" 
 
 " I hearn he was at the Indian King." 
 
 "Thanks," responded the questioner, and then asked: 
 " One thing more. Hast a stout riding-whip you can lend me 
 for a few minuted? " 
 
 " Ay, Colonel Brereton. Take any that suits you from the 
 rack." 
 
422 Janice Meredith 
 
 The implement secured, the ofiScer set out down the street, 
 with a look that boded ill for somebody. 
 
 Five minutes later, with one hand held behind his back, he 
 stood in the doorway of the public room of another ordinary, 
 arriving just in time to hear a man proclaim in stentorian 
 tones : — 
 
 " I tell ye, any other general in the world than General 
 Howe would have beat General Washingion ; and any other 
 general in the world than General Washington would have 
 beat General Howe." 
 
 " Hush ! " said a man. " Here is one of his aides." 
 
 " Think ye I care? " roared Lee. " Colonel Brereton and 
 all others of his staff know too well the truth of what I say to 
 dare resent it. The more that hear me, the better." 
 
 Brereton strode forward to within three feet of Lee. " You 
 owe your immunity," he said, struggling to speak quietly, 
 "" to the very man you are abusing, for not one of his family 
 but would have challenged you after your insulting letters to 
 iiim, had not General Washington commanded us all to refrain, 
 lest, if any of his staff called you out, it should seem like his per- 
 sonal persecution. Your conduct to him was outrage enough 
 to make me wish to kill you, but now you have given me a 
 stronger reason, and this time there is no high-minded man 
 to save you from my vengeance, you cur ! " There was a 
 quick motion of Jack's arm, a swishing sound, and the whip 
 was furiously lashed full across the general's face. 
 
 Lee, white with rage, save where a broad red welt stretchedji 
 from ear to chin, staggered to his feet, pulling at his sword as 
 he rose, but his three companions united to restrain him. 
 
 "Take your satisfaction like a gentleman, sir," insisted one, 
 ■" and not like a tavern broiler." 
 
 " I shall see Major Franks within the hour," remarked Brere- 
 ton, " and have no doubt he will represent me. But if you 
 wish a meeting, you must act promptly, for I shall not remain 
 in the city later than noon to-morrow." 
 
 It was just after dawn the next morning that five horsemen 
 turned off from the Frankford road into a meadow, and 
 struck across it to a piece of timber on the other side. One 
 of them was left with the horses, and the remainder took 
 
Under Shadow of the Gallows 423 
 
 their way to an open spot, where the trees had been felled. 
 Here the four paired off, and the couples held a brief 
 consultation. 
 
 " I care not what the terms be," Brereton ended, " so long 
 as you secure the privilege of advancing, for one of us goes not 
 off the field unhurt." 
 
 The seconds held a conference, and then separated. Each 
 gave his principal a pistol, and stationed him so that they 
 stood some twenty paces apart. 
 
 " Gentlemen, with your weapons pointed groundward, on 
 the word, you will walk toward each other, and fire when it 
 pleases you," ordered Major Edwards. "Are you ready? 
 Go!" 
 
 The duellists, with their pistol hands dropped, walked stead- 
 ily forward, one, two, three, four, five strides. 
 
 " 'T is murder, not satisfaction, they seek ! " ejaculated 
 Franks, below his breath. 
 
 Another and yet another step each took, until there was 
 not twenty feet between the two ; then Lee halted and coolly 
 raised his arm ; one more step Brereton took as he did so, 
 and not pausing to steady his body, his pistol was swung up- 
 ward so quickly that it flashed first. Lee's went off a second 
 later, and both men stood facing each other, the smoking 
 barrels dropped, and each striving to see through the smoke 
 of his own discharge. Thus they remained for a moment, 
 then Lee dropped his weapon, staggered, and with the words, 
 " I am hit," went on one knee, and then sank to the ground. 
 
 Brereton walked back to his original position, and stood 
 calmly waiting the report of his second, who, with Edwards, 
 rushed to the wounded man's assistance. 
 
 " He is .struck in the groin," Franks presently informed 
 him ; " and while not dangerous, 't will be a month before he 's. 
 good for anything." 
 
 " You mean good for nothing," replied Jack. " I meant 
 to make it worse, but must rest content. As I told you, I 
 ride north without delay, so will not even return to the city. 
 Thank you, David, for helping me, and good-by." 
 
 Five hours later, Lee was lying in the Pennsylvania hospital, 
 and Brereton was riding into Trenton. Without the loss of a 
 
424 Janice Meredith 
 
 moment, the aide sought an interview with the Governor, 
 clearly with unsatisfactory results; for when he left that 
 official his face was anxious, and not even tarrying to give 
 his mare rest, he mounted and spurred northward, spending 
 the whole night in the saddle. Pausing at Newark only to 
 breakfast, he secured a fresh horse, and reached Fredericks- 
 burg a little before nightfall. Seeking out the commander-in- 
 chief, he delivered certain papers he carried ; but before the 
 general could open them, he said : — 
 
 " Your Excellency, I wish speech with you on a matter of 
 life and death. To no other man in the world would I show 
 this letter, but I beg of you to read it, sir, and do what you 
 can for my sake and for theirs." 
 
 Washington took the sheets held out to him and slowly 
 read them from beginning to end. " 'T is a sad tale the poor 
 girl tells," he said when he had finished ; " but, my boy, 
 however much I may pity and wish to aid them, my duty to 
 the cause to which I have dedicated my life — " 
 
 " Ah, your Excellency," burst out Jack, " in just this one 
 instance 't will surely not matter. A word from you to Gov- 
 ernor Livingston — " 
 
 Washington shook his head. " I have ever refrained from 
 interfering in the civil line,'' he said, " and one breaking of 
 the rule would destroy the fabric I have reared with so much 
 pains. If I have gained influence with the people, with the 
 army, and with the State officials, it is because I have ever 
 refused to allow personal considerations to shape my conduct f 
 and that reputation it is my duty to maintain at all hazards, 
 that what I advise and urge shall never be open to the slight- 
 est suspicion of any other motive than that of the public 
 good. It is a necessity which has caused me pain in the 
 past, and which grieves me at this moment, but I hold a 
 trust. Do not make its performance harder than it need be." 
 
 "Do I not deserve something at your hands, sir? Faith- 
 fully I have served you to my uttermost ability." 
 
 "You ask what cannot be granted, Brereton; and from 
 this refusal I must not recede. Now leave me, my boy, to 
 read the despatches you have brought." 
 
 There was that in the general's manner which made im- 
 
Under Shadow of the Gallows 425 
 
 possible further entreaty, and the aide obeyed his behest. 
 Yet such was the depth of his concern that he made a second 
 appeal, two days later, when he brought a bunch of circular 
 letters to the State governors, concerning quotas of provisions, 
 which he had written, to his chief for signature. 
 
 " Will you not, sir," he implored, " relent and add a post- 
 script to Governor Livingston in favour of mercy for Mr. 
 Meredith?" 
 
 " I have given you my reasons, Brereton, why I must not, 
 and all further petitions can but pain us both.'' Washington 
 signed the series, and taking the sand-box, sprinkled the wet 
 ink on each in turn. " Seal them, and see that they fail not 
 to get into the post," he ordered calmly. Yet as he rose to 
 leave the room, he laid his hand affectionately on Jack's 
 shoulder, and said : " I grieve not to do it, my boy, for your 
 sake and for hers." 
 
 The aide took the chair the general had vacated, and 
 began mechanically the closing of the letters ; but when that 
 to the Governor of New Jersey was reached, he paused in the 
 process. After a little, he took from his pocket Janice's 
 ifrantic supplication, and reread it, his face displaying his re- 
 sponse to her suffering. " And ten words would save him," 
 he groaned. His eye sought once more the unsealed letter, 
 and stared at it fixedly. " At worst it will be my life, and 
 that is worth little to me and nothing to any one else ! " He 
 snatched a pen hastily, dipped it in the ink, but as he set the 
 tip to the paper, paused, his brow clouded. " To trick him 
 after all his generosity ! " For a trice Jack hesitated. " He 
 stands too high to be injured by it," he exclaimed. "It 
 hurts not the cause, while 'twill kill her if they hang him." 
 Again he set pen to the paper, and wrote a postscript of four 
 lines below Washington's name. " 'T is the devil's work, or 
 her good angel's, that I had the writing of the letters, so the 
 penmanship agrees," he muttered, as he folded and sealed it. 
 Gathering up the batch, he gave a reckless laugh. " I said 
 I 'd not lift finger to save him from the rope, and here I am 
 taking his place on the gallows. Well, 't is everything to do 
 it for her, scorn and insult me as they may, and to die with the 
 memory that my arms have held and my lips caressed her." 
 
LIV 
 A GAIN AND A LOSS 
 
 IT was two days of miserable doubt which Janice spent 
 after-despatching her letter to Brereton. Then some- 
 thing Mr. Drinker told his daughter brought some 
 cheer to the girl. 
 
 " Friend Penrhyn informed me that Colonel Brereton rode 
 into town this afternoon, Tabitha," he said, at the supper 
 table ; " yet, though I went to the tavern to bespeak his com- 
 pany here this evening, I could not get word pf him. 'Tis 
 neglectful treatment, indeed, of his old friends, that three times 
 in succession he should pass through without dropping in upon 
 us." 
 
 " He may still come, father," suggested Tabitha; and more 
 than she spent the evening in a state of expectancy. But 
 bedtime arrived ; and the morrow came and went without 
 further news of him who had now become Janice's sole hope, 
 and then she learned that he had ridden northward. 
 
 " I knew his temper was hot," she sobbed in her own room, 
 " but never did I believe he could be so cruel as to come and 
 go without word or sign." 
 
 From the trial, which occurred but three days after this crush- 
 ing disappointment, the public were excluded, not even Mrs. 
 Meredith and Janice being permitted to attend. The result, 
 therefore, was first brought them by Bagby, who, though his 
 services had been refused by Mr. Meredith, had succeeded in 
 being present. 
 
 " The squire's lawyer," he told them, " was n't up to a trick 
 or two that I ha^ thought out, and which might have done 
 something ; but he made a pretty good case, if he could n't 
 save him. Morris's charge was enough to convict, but every 
 juryman was ready to vote ' Guilty ' before the Chief Justice 
 had so much as opened his mouth." 
 
A Gain and a Loss 427 
 
 " Is there nothing to do? " cried Mrs. Meredith. 
 
 " I '11 see the Governor, and I '11 get my friends to see him," 
 promised Bagby ; " but don't you go to raising your hopes, 
 for there isn't one chance in a hundred now." 
 
 Once again Mrs. Meredith sought interview with Livingston, 
 but the Governor refused to even see her; and both Mr. 
 Drinker's and Bagby's attempts succeeded little better, for 
 they could only report that he declined to further discuss 
 the matter, and that the execution was set for the following 
 Friday. 
 
 Abandoning all hope, therefore, Mrs. Meredith wrote a let- 
 ter, merely begging that they might spend the last night with 
 Mr. Meredith in the jail ; and when the next morning she 
 received a call from the Governor, she only inferred that it was 
 in relation to her plea. 
 
 " It has been far from my wish, Mrs. Meredith," Livingston 
 said, " to bring suffering to you more than to any one else, 
 and the position I have taken as regards your husband was 
 only that which I deemed most for the good of the State, and 
 most in accord with public opinion. The vipers of our own 
 fireside require punishment ; your husband had made himself 
 one of the most conspicuous and unpopular of these by the 
 office he held under the king, and no reason could I discover 
 ■why he should not reap the punishment he fitly deserved. 
 But this morning a potent one was furnished me, for I re- 
 ceived a letter from General Washington, speaking in high 
 terms of Mr. Meredith, and expressing a hope that we will not 
 push his punishment to the extreme of the law. It is the first 
 time his Excellency has ever ventured an opinion in a matter 
 outside of his own concern, and I conclude that he believes 
 stringent justice in this case will injure more than aid our 
 cause ; and as the use of his name furnishes me with an ex- 
 planation that will satisfy the Assembly and people of this 
 State, I can be less rigorous. That you should not endure 
 one hour more of anxiety than need be, I have hurried to you, 
 to tell you that I shall commute his sentence to imprisonment 
 with the other political prisoners in Virginia." 
 
 The scei|e of gratitude and joy that ensued was not describ- 
 able, and*|iome hours passed before either mother or daughter 
 
428 Janice Meredith 
 
 became sufficiently composed to take thought of the future. 
 Then, by permission of the jailer, they saw Mr. Meredith and 
 discussed the problem before them. Neither wife nor daughter 
 could bear the thought of again being separated from the 
 squire, and begged so earnestly to be allowed to share the 
 half-captivity, half-exile, that had been decreed him, that he 
 could not deny them, the more that his own heart-strings in 
 reality drew the same way, and only his better judgment was 
 opposed to it. 
 
 "'Twill be a hard journey, wife," he urged, "and little 
 comfort we 're like to find at the end of it. For me there can 
 be no escape, but 't is not necessary that ye should bear it, for 
 'tis to be hoped ye can live on at Greenwood, as ye have 
 already." 
 
 " We should suffer more, Lambert, in being separated from 
 thee." 
 
 " Oh, dadda, nothing could be worse than that," cried 
 Janice, her arms about his neck. 
 
 " Have your way, then," finally acceded their lord and 
 master. 
 
 This settled, they set about such preparations as were pos- 
 sible. From Mr. Drinker a loan of five thousand dollars — 
 equal to a hundred pounds, gold — was secured, and a bargain 
 struck with a farmer to bring from Greenwood such supplies 
 of clothes as Mrs. Meredith wrote to Sukey to pack and send. 
 To most the prospect would not have been a cheering one, 
 but efter the last few days it seemed truly halcyon, and Janice 
 was scarcely able to contain her happiness. She poured her 
 warmest gratitude and thanks out in a letter to Washington, 
 which would have surprised him not a little had he ever re- 
 ceived it, but the mail in which it went was captured, and 
 it was a British officer in New York who ultimately read it. 
 Nor did this effusion satisfy her. 
 
 " Oh, mommy," she joyfully bubbled, as they were prepar- 
 ing for bed, " was there ever a greater or nobler or kinder 
 man than General Washington?" 
 
 And though the first frost of the season was forming crystals 
 on the panes, she knelt down in her short night-rail on a 
 lamb's wool rug, so small that her little feet rested on the cold 
 
A Gain and a Loss 429 
 
 boards, and prayed for the general as he had probably never 
 been prayed for, — prayed until she was shivering so that her 
 mother interfered and ordered her to come to bed. 
 
 Her prayers were far more needed by some one else. 
 From the commission of his wrong, Brereton made it a point 
 to meet the post-rider as he trotted up to headquarters each 
 afternoon, and on the third day after the action of the Govern- 
 or, he found in the mail a letter which told him of the success 
 of his trick. While he was still reading, Colonel Hamilton 
 came to him with a message that Washington desired his 
 presence and, squaring his shoulders and setting his mouth as 
 if in preparation for an ordeal. Jack hastened to obey, though, 
 as he came to the closed doorway he hesitated for a moment 
 before he knocked, much as if his courage failed him. 
 
 Upon entrance, he found his superior striding up and down 
 the room, a newspaper in his hand, and without preliminary 
 word the general gave expression to his obvious anger. 
 
 "I would have you know. Colonel Brereton," sternly he 
 began, " that I am not the man to overlook disobedience of 
 my orders, nor pass over, without a rebuke, such disrespect as 
 you have shown me." 
 
 " I do not deny that your Excellency has cause for com- 
 plaint," replied Jack, steadily ; " and in acting as I did I was 
 fully prepared for whatever results might flow from it, even the 
 penalty of life itself; but, believe me, sir, my chief grief will 
 ever be the having deceived you, and my real punishment can 
 be inflicted by no court-martial you may order, but will be in 
 the loss of your trust and esteem." 
 
 " You speak in riddles, sir," responded Washington, halting 
 in his walk. " Cause for anger I have richly, for, as I told my 
 whole family, any challenge they might send General Lee 
 would, by the public, be ascribed to persecution. But you 
 know as well as I that your duel with him is no offence to 
 submit to a court-martial, and that you should pretend that I 
 have any such recourse is adding insincerity to the original 
 fault. You have — " 
 
 " That, sir, is a charge I indignantly deny," interrapted 
 Jack, warmly, " and I was referring — " 
 
 " No denial can justify your conduct, sir," broke in Wash- 
 
430 Janice Meredith 
 
 ington, wrathfully. "You have exposed me to the criticism 
 and misapprehension of the public. By your disregard of my 
 orders and my wishes, you have deservedly forfeited all right 
 to my favour or my affection." 
 
 " Your Excellency forgets -7- " 
 
 "I forget nothing," thundered the general. "'Tis you 
 have forgotten the respect and obedience due me from all my 
 family and — " 
 
 " Think you an aide is but a slave," retorted Brereton, hotly, 
 "and that he possesses no right of independent action? Nor 
 did I conceive that your Excellency would ever judge me 
 unheard. I did — " 
 
 " The case is too palpable for — " 
 
 " Yet misjudge me you have, for I did not challenge Lee 
 because he had insulted you, but because he was shamefully 
 persecuting the woman I love." 
 
 Washington, who had resumed his angry pacing of the room, 
 once again halted. " Explain your meaning, sir." 
 
 " In your heat, your Excellency has clearly forgot the tale' 
 Miss Meredith's letter told of General Lee's conduct as re- 
 gards herself and her father. With the feeling I bear for 
 her, human nature could not brook such behaviour, and it 
 was that for which I challenged him." 
 
 The general stood silent for a moment, then said, " I have 
 been too hasty in my action, Brereton, and have drawn a con- 
 clusion that was not justified. I owe you an apology for my 
 words, and trust that this acknowledgment will end the misun;- 
 derstanding." He offered his hand, as he ended, to the aide. 
 
 " I thank your Excellency," answered Jack, " for your 
 prompt reparation, but before accepting it and taking your 
 hand, sir, it is my painful necessity to tell you thkt I have fully 
 merited all the anger you have expressed. Guiltless as I am 
 of fault as regards General Lee, I have committed a far greater 
 offence against you, — a wrong, sir, which, done with however 
 much deliberation, has caused me unending pain and remorse." 
 
 " Explain yourself, my boy/' said Washington, kindly. 
 
 "Despite your decision, sir, I added a postscript in your 
 letter to Governor Livingston touching upon the case of Mr. 
 Meredith, and made you express a good opinion of him andj 
 
A Gain and a Loss 431 
 
 recommendation that he be dealt with leniently. I now hold 
 in my hand a letter from a Trenton friend informing me that 
 this recommendation induced the Governor to commute the 
 death sentence into imprisonment. It is but the news I 
 awaited before informing your Excellency of my breach of trust, 
 and I should have made full confession to you within the hour, 
 had you not sent for me, as I supposed, to charge me with 
 this very treachery. And 't was this of which I was thinking 
 when 1 spoke expectingly of a court-martial." 
 
 During the whole explanation, Washington had stood fixedly, 
 his brows knit, and when the aide paused, he said nothing for 
 a minute ; then he asked : — 
 
 " Has there been aught in the past, sir, to have made me 
 merit from you such a stab ? " 
 
 "None, sir," answered Jack, gravely. "And whatever rea- 
 son I can find for the action in my own heart, there is nothing 
 I can offer in its defence to you." 
 
 Washington sat down at his desk and leaned his head on 
 his hand. "Is it not enough," he said, "that Congress is 
 filled with my enemies, that the generals on whom I must 
 depend are scheming my ruin and their own advancement, 
 but that even within my own family I cannot find those who will 
 be faithful to me? My God ! is there no one I can trust? " 
 
 " Your Excellency's every word," said Jack, with tears in 
 his eyes, " cuts me to the heart, the more that nothing you can 
 say can increase the blame I put upon myself. I beg of you, 
 sir, to believe me when I say that, be your grief what it may, it 
 can never equal mine. And I beg that if my past relations to 
 you plead ever so little for a merciful judgment of my conduct, 
 you will remember that my betrayal was committed from no 
 want of affection for you, but because one there was, and but 
 one alone, whom I loved better." 
 
 Washington rose and faced Brereton, his self-control re- 
 gained. " Your lapse of duty to the cause we are engaged in, 
 sir, and my sense of it, make it out of the question that I 
 should ever again trust you ; it is therefore impossible for me 
 longer to retain you upon my staff. But your loyalty and past 
 service speak loudly in your favour, and I shall not, therefore, 
 push your public punishment further than to demand your 
 
432 Janice Meredith 
 
 resignation trom my family, and so soon as there is a vacancy 
 among the officers of the line you will take your place accord- 
 ing to the date of your commission. The wrong you have 
 done me personally is of a different nature, and ends from this 
 moment the affection I have borne you and such friendship as 
 has existed between us." 
 
LV 
 
 PRISONERS OF WAR 
 
 THE Governor had warned the Merediths that the re- 
 moval to Charlottesville must await the chance of an 
 empty army transport, or other means of convey- 
 ance, and for more than a month they waited, not 
 knowing at what hour the order would come. 
 
 Finally they were told to be ready the following morning ; 
 and at daybreak the three, with a guard, were packed into a 
 hay cart, the larger part of the townsfolk collecting to view 
 their departure. Nor did Mr. Bagby, who had made a num- 
 ber of calls upon them in the interval, fail to appear for a 
 good-by, 
 
 "Just you remember, miss," he urged, " that my arguments 
 and General Washington's was what saved your dad, and that 
 I can still do a lot to save your property. Don't forget either 
 that I 'm going to go on rising. Only think it over well, and 
 you '11 see which side your bread is buttered on, for, if you are 
 mighty good-looking, you 're no fool." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Bagby, for everything you have done or 
 tried to do," replied the girl ; and the squire, who had heard 
 the whole speech, said nothing, though the effort to remain 
 silent was clearly a severe one. 
 
 "Whither do we go first?" asked Mrs. Meredith of the 
 driver, after the ferry-boat had left the Jersey shore and the 
 spectators both behind. 
 
 " Our orders is to take you to Reading, an' hand you over 
 to the ofificer in charge of the Convention snogers, pervided 
 the last detachment hev n't left theer ; if they hev, we are to 
 Jick up till we overtake them." 
 
 "What regiment is that? " questioned Janice. 
 
 28 
 
434 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Guess ye 're a bit green on what 's goin' on," chuckled 
 one of the guard. " Them 's poppy-cock, hifalutin, by-the. 
 ^ grace-of-God an' King Georgie, come-in-an'-surrender-afore- 
 we-extirpate-yer, Johnny Burgoyne's army, as did a little capit- 
 ulatin' themselves. We 've kep' 'em about Boston till we 've 
 got tired of teamin' pork an' wheat to 'em, an' now we 're 
 takin' 'em to where the pigs an' wheat grows, to save us money, 
 an' to show 'em the size of the country they calkerlated to 
 overrun. I guess they '11 write hum that that job 's a good 
 one to sub-let, after they've hoofed it from Cambridge to 
 Charlottesville." 
 
 The departure had been well timed, for when they drove 
 into Reading, about five, long lines of men, garbed in green or 
 red uniforms, were answering the roll-call as a preliminary to 
 having quarters for the night assigned to them in the court- 
 house, churches, and school. After much search, the officer in 
 command was found, and the prisoner turned over to him, to 
 his evident displeasure. 
 
 " Heavens ! " he complained, " is it not bad enough to move 
 two thousand troops, a third of whom no man can understand 
 the gibberish of, to say nothing of General de Riedesel's wife and 
 children, but I must have other women to look out for ? I wish 
 that Governor Livingston would pardon less and hang more ! " 
 
 Unpromising as this beginning was, it proved a case of growl 
 and not of bite, for the colonel speedily secured a night's lodg- 
 ing for them in a private house, and the next morning made a 
 place for the two women beside the driver of one of the carts 
 of the baggage train, the squire being ordered to march on 
 foot with the column. 
 
 The journey proved a most trying one. The November 
 rains, which wellnigh turned the roads from aids into obstacles, 
 so impeded them that frequently they were not able to com- 
 pass more than six or seven miles in a day, and it sometimes 
 happened, therefore, that they were not able to reach the vil- 
 lage or town on which they had been billeted, aiid were com- 
 pelled to spend the night in the open fields, often with scanty 
 supplies of provisions as an additional discomfort. From the 
 inhabitants of the villages and farms, too, they met with more 
 kicks than ha'pence. Again and again the people refused to 
 
Prisoners of War 435 
 
 sell anything to those whom they considered their enemies, 
 and some even dpnied them the common courtesy of a drink 
 of water. The chief amusement of the children along the 
 route was to shout opprobrious or derisive epithets as they 
 passed, not infrequently accompanied with stones, rotten 
 apples, and now and then the still more objectionable egg. 
 The squire's opinion of Whiggism went to an even lower pitch, 
 but his womenkind bore it unflinchingly and uncomplainingly, 
 happy merely in the escape from greater suffering. 
 
 As for Janice, she took what came with such merriness and 
 good cheer that she was soon friends not merely with a number 
 of their fellow-companions in misery, the British and Brunswick 
 ofScers, but with the officers of their escort of Continental 
 troops, and they were all quickly vying to do the little they 
 could to add to the Merediths' comfort and ease. Of the 
 miserable lodgings, whether in town or field, they were sure to 
 be given the least poor; no matter how short were the 
 commons, their needs were supplied ; at every halting-place 
 they received the first firewood cut ; and time and again some 
 one of the officers dismounted that Mr. Meredith might take 
 his place in the saddle for an hour. 
 
 The girl made a yet more fortunate acquaintance on a night 
 of especial discomfort and privation, after they had crossed the 
 Pennsylvania boundary and were well into the semi-wilderness 
 of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A washed away bridge so 
 delayed their morning progress that they had advanced only 
 a little over five miles, and were still four miles from theil 
 appointed camping ground, when the first snowstorm of the 
 season set in, and compelled them to bivouac along the road- 
 side. The ration issued to each prisoner on that particular 
 afternoon consisted of only a half-pound of salt pork and a 
 handful of beans; and as she had frequently done before, 
 Janice set out to make a tour of the straggling farms of the 
 neighbourhood, in the hope of purchasing milk, eggs, or other 
 supplies to eke the scanty fare. At the first log cabin she 
 came to she made her request, and for a moment was hopeful, 
 for the woman replied : — 
 
 " Yes. I have eggs and milk and chickens, and vegetables 
 in a great plenty, but — " 
 
436 Janice Meredith 
 
 " And what are your prices? " 
 
 « _ But not a morsel of anything do you get. You come 
 to our land to kill us and to waste our homes. Now it is our 
 turn to torment you. I feed no royalists." 
 
 Her second application drew forth an even sterner rebuff, 
 for the housewife, before Janice had said half of her speech, 
 cried, " Be off with you, you Tory ! think you I would give 
 help to such nasty dogs? " 
 
 The third attempt was equally futile, for she was told: 
 " Not for a thousand dollars would I give you anything, and'if 
 you would all die of hunger, 't would be so much the better.'' 
 
 The maiden was long since too accustomed to this treatment 
 to let it discourage her, and in her fourth essay she was more 
 fortunate. While the woman was refusing, the farmer himself 
 appeared upon the scene, and moved by pity, or perhaps by the 
 youth and beauty of the petitioner, vetoed his wife's decision, 
 and not merely filled her pail with milk, but added a small 
 basket of eggs and apples, declining to accept the one hun- 
 dred dollars in Continental bills she tendered. 
 
 Her quest had taken Janice nearly two miles away from her 
 quarters, and in returning with this wealth she was compelled 
 to pass the length of the encampment. This brought her 
 presently to a large tent, from which issued the sobs of a child, 
 intermixed with complaints in French of cold and hunger, with 
 all of which a woman's voice was blended, seeking to comfort 
 the weeper. 
 
 On impulse, the girl turned aside and looked through the 
 half-closed flap. Within she saw a woman of something over 
 thirty years of age, with a decidedly charming face, sitting on a 
 camp-stool with a child of about three years old in her arms 
 and two slightly older children at her feet, from one of whom 
 came the wails. 
 
 "We do not know each other, Madame de Riedesel," Janice 
 apologised in the best French she could frame, " but Captain 
 Geismar and others have told me so much about you that I — 
 I — " There Janice came to a halt, and then in EngUsh, 
 colouring as she spoke, she went on, " 'T is mortifying, but 
 though I thought I had become quite a rattler in French, the 
 moment I need it, I lose courage." 
 
Prisoners ot War 437 
 
 " Ach ! " cried Madame de Riedesel. " Nevair think. I 
 speak ze Anglais parfaitement. Continuez." 
 
 " I was passing," explained Janice, mightily relieved, " and 
 hearing what your little girl was saying, I made bold to in- 
 trude, in the hope that you will let me share my milk and eggs 
 with the children." As she spoke, Janice held out to each of 
 the three a rosy-cheeked apple, and the sobs had ended ere 
 her explanation had. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the woman, " zees must be ze Mees Meredeez 
 whom zay told me was weez ze waggons in ze rear, and who, 
 zay assure me, was a saint. Zat must you be, to offer your 
 leettle store to divide with me. Too well haf I learned how 
 difficile it ees to get anyzing from zeese barbarians," 
 
 "They are hard, madame," explained Janice, " because 
 they deem us foes." 
 
 " But women cannot be zare enemies, and yet ze women ze 
 worst are. Ma foi ! Weez ze army I kept through ze wilder- 
 ness, ze bois, from Canada, and not one unkind or insult did 
 I receef, till I came to where zere were zose of my own sex. 
 Would you beleef it, in Boston ze femme zay even spat at me 
 when I passed zem on ze street. And since from Cambridge 
 we started, when I haf wished for anyzing, my one prayer zat 
 it shall be a man and not a woman I must ask it has been. 
 Ze women, I say it weez shame, are ze brutes, and ze men, zay 
 seek to be gentle, mais, h^las ! zay are born of ze women ! " 
 
 Janice, pouring half her milk into an empty bowl that was 
 on the table, and dividing her eggs, smiled archly as she said, 
 " I fear, then, that my call is not a welcome one, since, h^las I 
 I am a woman." 
 
 The baroness spilled the little girl from lap to floor as she 
 sprang to her feet and clasped the caller in her arms. " You 
 are une ange," she cried, " and I geef you my lofe, not for now, 
 but for ze all time for efer." 
 
 The acquaintance thus begun ripened rapidly. In her 
 gratitude for the kindness, Madame de Riedesel, who had a 
 roomy calash and a light baggage waggon, insisted that Janice 
 and Mrs. Meredith should quit the springless army van in the 
 rear and travel henceforth with the advance in one or the 
 other of her vehicles, giving thetn far greater ease and comfort 
 
438 Janice Meredith 
 
 Sometimes the children were sent with the baggage, and the 
 three ladies used the calash, but more often Janice and 
 Madame de Riedesel rode in it, with a child on each lap, 
 and one sandwiched in between them, and the squire took 
 the empty seat beside Mrs. Meredith in the waggon. 
 
 A second generosity of the new friend was her quickly offer- 
 ing to share with them the large officer's marquee that her 
 husband's rank had secured for her, with the comfortable beds 
 that formed a part of her camp equipment ; and as they had 
 hitherto been cramped into a small field tent, with only 
 blankets and dead leaves laid on the frozen ground to sleep 
 upon, the invitation was a still greater boon. Close packing 
 it was, but the weather was now so cold that what was lost in 
 space was made up for in warmth. 
 
 It was early in January that they finally reached their des- 
 tination, — an improvised village of log huts, some two miles 
 from Charlottesville, named Saratoga, from the capitulation 
 that had served to bring it into being; but so far as the 
 Merediths were concerned, it meant a change rather than a 
 lessening of the privation. The cabin to which' they were 
 assigned consisted of one windowless room, and was without 
 a chimney. They were necessarily without furniture, their 
 sole stock beyond their own clothing being a few blankets and 
 cooking utensils, which they had brought with them. Nor 
 were they able to purchase much that they needed at the 
 neighbouring town, for their cash had been seriously depleted 
 by what they had bought in Trenton, and by the expenses of 
 the march, while what was left had shrunk in value in the two 
 months' march from fifty dollars to seventy-five dollars, paper, 
 for one in gold. 
 
 Seeking to make the best of it, the three set to work dili- 
 gently. From a neighbouring mill slabs were procured, which, 
 being cut the right length and laid on logs, were made to do 
 for beds, and others served to make an equally rough table. 
 Sections of logs were utilised for chairs, and the squire built 
 a crude fireplace a few feet from the doorway. At best, how- 
 ever, the discomfort was really very great. Even with the 
 door closed, the cabin was cold almost beyond the point of 
 endurance, and if it was not left open, the only light that came 
 
Prisoners of War 439 
 
 to them was through the -chinks of the logs. Yet their suffering 
 was far less than that of the troops, for many of the huts were 
 unfinished when they arrived, and with three feet of snow on 
 the ground, most of them were compelled to roof their own 
 quarters and even in some cases entirely build them, as a first 
 step to protection. 
 
 General de Riedesel, who had gone before his wife with the 
 first detachment, that he might arrange a home in advance, 
 had rented " CoUe," the large house of Philip Mazzei, close to 
 the log barracks. Madame de Riedesel was therefore at once 
 in possession of comfortable quarters, and upon hearing from 
 Janice how they were living, she offered her a home with them. 
 
 " Come to us, liebling," she begged. " Ze children zay 
 lofe you so zat almost jealous I am ; alreaty my goot husband 
 he says ze Mees Meredeez ees charmant, and I — ah, I neet 
 not tell it, for it tells itself." 
 
 " If it were right I would, Frederica, and I cannot thank 
 you enough for wanting me ; but ever since mommy had the 
 fever she has not been really strong, and both she and dadda 
 need me. Perhaps though, if you and the children — whom 
 I dearly love — truly like me, you will help me in another 
 way?" 
 
 "And how?" 
 
 " I heard you complaining to Baron de Riedesel yesterday 
 of not being able to get a nurse. Will you not give me the 
 place, and let my pay be for us all to live in your garret? 
 We will make as little trouble — " 
 
 " Ach ! Why deet I not it think before? " cried the baron- 
 ess, boxing her own ear. " Cochon ! Brute ! You come, 
 ma pauvre ! Mais not as bonne, non, non." 
 
 "Indeed, Frederica, 'tis the only way that we can. We 
 could not live upon you without in some way making a return, 
 and the paper money with which we furnished ourselves has 
 gone on falling till now 't is worth but a threepence in the 
 pound, so that we could not hope to pay for — " 
 
 " Bah ! Who asks ? You come as our guests ; when you 
 had ze plenty of milk and eggs you shared it weez us, and so 
 now we share our plenty weez you. You, a proud girl, to be 
 a nurse, indeet ! " 
 
440 Janice Meredith 
 
 " 'T is that pride which asks it, my dear. Ah, if you only 
 would let me ! Mommy suffers so with the cold, and has 
 such a frightful cough, that every day I fear to see it become 
 a pneumonia, and — " 
 
 " Stop ! I was ze wrong. Come as you please, a I'instant. 
 Ah, ze leettle ones, zay will go craze for joy ; ze baron he will 
 geef no more eyes to ze wife who is losing her shape, and all 
 ze officairs, zay will say, ' Gott ! How I lofe children ! ' 
 Mais, I will not angree be, but kiss you so, and so, and so. 
 And to all will I say, ' Voili, deet efer woman haf such a 
 frent for herself and such a second mutter for her children? ' " 
 
LVI 
 
 A LIFE OF CAPTIVITY 
 
 THE removal to CoUe was made the same day, and 
 Janice assumed her new charge. It was, as it 
 proved, not a very onerous one, for the children 
 were well mannered for their years, and, young as 
 they were, in the German method they were kept pretty 
 steadily at tasks, while an old servant of the general, a German 
 Yager, was only too delighted at any time to assume care of 
 them. Janice herself slept in the nursery, and at first Mr. and 
 Mrs. Meredith were given, as suggested, accommodation in the 
 garret. But the baron, not content with the space at his com- 
 mand, as soon as the weather permitted, had built a large 
 dining-room and salon, separate from the house, and this 
 supplied so much more space that the parents were given a 
 good room on a lower floor. 
 
 The new arrangement not merely brought them comfort, 
 but also pleasure. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were treated as 
 guests ; and Madame de Riedesel made Janice quite as much 
 her own companion as an attendant on the children. With 
 her, once her nervousness was conquered, Janice talked 
 French entirely; and more for amusement than for improve- 
 ment, she began the study of German, with her friend as 
 instructor; and, having as well the aid of every Brunswick 
 officer, who only too gladly frequented the house, she was 
 soon able to both read and speak it, to the delight of the 
 baron, who preferred his native tongue ; though his wife, Ger- 
 man-born as she was, could not understand how any one who 
 could talk French would for a moment willingly use any other 
 tongue. Furthermore, they taught each other the various 
 stitches in embroidery and crocheting each knew; and the 
 German, who was an excellent housewife, not merely made 
 
442 Janice Mereditli 
 
 Janice her assistant in the household cares, but, after express- 
 ing horror that the girl knew nothing of accounts, spent many 
 hours inducting her into the mysteries by which she knew to 
 a farthing how her money was expended. 
 
 Although these were all pastimes rather than labours to 
 Janice, there were lighter hours in which she made a fourth 
 at whist, learned chess from the general, and played on the 
 harpsichord or sang to him. ,Once a week there was a 
 musicale, at which all who could play on any instrument con- 
 tributed a share, and dances and dinners were frequently 
 given by the Riedesels and by General Phillips, the major- 
 general in command of the British part of the Convention 
 prisoners. Horses in plenty were in the stable, and the two 
 ladies, well escorted by officers, took almost daily rideSj the 
 baroness making herself a figure of remark to the natives by 
 liding astride her horse in a short skirt and long boots. 
 
 With the advent of summer, their pleasures became more 
 pastoral. So soon as the weather permitted, the gentry of 
 the neighbourhood came to call upon their foes, and this led 
 to much dining about. Then, too, there were out-of-door 
 Jetes and picnics, oftentimes at long distances from the can- 
 tonment; so that ere many weeks the Riedesels and the 
 Merediths had come to know both the people and the region 
 intimately. 
 
 A sudden end came to these amusements by an untoward 
 event. Janice and General de Riedesel had made the flower- 
 garden at Colle their particular charge, working there, despite 
 the heat, for hours each day, till early in August, when one 
 day the baron was found lying in a pathway unconscious, his 
 face blue, his hands white, and his eyes staring. He was 
 hurriedly carried into the house, and when the army surgeon 
 arrived, it was found to be a case of sunstroke. Though he 
 was bled copiously, the sufferer improved but slowly, and before 
 he was convalescent developed the " river " or " breakbone 
 fever." Finally he was -ordered over the mountains to the 
 Warm Springs, to see whether their waters might not benefit 
 him; and, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Meredith in charge, the 
 baroness and Janice went with him, half as companions and 
 half as nurses. 
 
A Life of Captivity 443 
 
 Upon their arrival there, they found the Springs so crowded 
 that all the log cabins, which, by custom, fell to the first comers, 
 were already occupied. Declining an offer from one of these 
 to share lodgings, they set to work in a proper spot to make 
 themselves comfortable ; for, having foreseen this very possi- 
 bility, they had come amply supplied with tents. Before they 
 had well begun on their encampment, two negroes in white 
 and red livery appeared, and the spokesman, executing a bow 
 that would have done honour to a lord chamberlain, handed 
 Madame de Riedesel a letter which read as follows : — 
 
 "Mrs. Washington preasents her most respectful complements 
 io the Barones de Reedaysell, and her sattisfacshon at being in- 
 formed of her arival at the Springs. She beggs that if the 
 barers of this can be of aney a sistance to the Barones in set- 
 ling, that she will yuse them as long as they may be of sarvis to 
 her. 
 
 " Mrs. Washington likewise bespeeks the honer of the Baron- 
 eses party to dinner today and beggs that if it will be aney con- 
 veenence to her, that she will sup as well." 
 
 Both offers Madame de Riedesel was only too glad to ac- 
 cept ; and at the dinner hour, guided by the darkies, they made 
 their way to Lady Washington's lodgings, to find a plump, 
 smiling, little lady, who received them with much dignity, 
 properly qualified with affability. The meal was spread 
 underneath the trees, and they were quickly seated about 
 the table and chatting genially over it. 
 
 Once the newness was taken off the acquaintance, the 
 baroness made an appeal to the hostess for a favour. " Ah, 
 Laty Washington," she begged, " ze surgeons, zay declare my 
 goot husband he cannot recovair ze fevair in ze so hot climate, 
 and zat ze one goot for him'will be zat he to New York restores 
 himself. I haf written ze prediction to Sir Henry Clinton, 
 applicating zat he secure ze exchange of ze baron immediate- 
 ment, mais, will you not also write to ze General Washington 
 and ask him, also, zees zing to accomplish? " 
 
 "I would in a moment, gladly, baroness," replied Mrs. 
 Washington, *' but I assure you that the general would highly 
 disapprove of my interfering in a public matter. Do not 
 
444 Janice Meredith 
 
 hesitate, however, to write yourself, for I can assure you he 
 will do everything in his power to spare you anxiety or 
 discomfort." 
 
 " Zen you zink he will my prayer grant? " 
 
 " I am sure he will, if it is possible, for, aside from his gen- 
 erous treatment of every one, let me whisper to you that 't is 
 not a quality in his composition to say ' No ' to a pretty 
 woman." 
 
 "Oh, no, Frederika," broke in Janice; "you need not 
 have the slightest fear of his Excellency. He is everything 
 that is kind and great and generous ! " 
 
 "What ! " exclaimed Mrs. Washington. " You know the 
 general, then?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," cried Janice, rapturously ; " and if you but knew, 
 Lady Washington, how we stand indebted to him at this very 
 moment ! " 
 
 The hostess smiled in response to the girl's enthusiasm. 
 " 'T is certain he refused you nothing. Miss Meredith," she 
 said. 
 
 " Indeed, but he did," answered Janice, merrily. " Wouldst 
 beUeve it, Lady Washington, though perhaps 't is monstrous 
 bold of me to tell it, 't is he that has had to keep me at a 
 distance, for I have courted him most outrageously ! " 
 
 "'Tis fortunate," replied the matron, "that he is a loyal 
 husband, and that I am not a jealous wife, for 't is a way all 
 women have with him. What think you a Virginian female, 
 who happened to be passing through camp, had the forwards 
 ness to say to me but t' other day? 'When General Washing- 
 ton,' she writ, ' throws off the hero and takes up the chatty, 
 agreeable companion, he can be downright impudent some- 
 times, Martha, — such impudence as you and I, and every 
 woman, always like.' " 
 
 "Ah," asserted Madame de Riedesel, " ze goot men, zay 
 all lofe us dearly. Eh, Janice?" 
 
 " What ! " demanded the hostess. " Is your name Janice? 
 Surely this is not my nice boy Jack's Miss Meredith?" 
 
 The girl reddened and then paled. " I beg, Lady Wash- 
 ington — " she began ; but the baroness, who had noted her 
 change of colour, cut her off. 
 
A Life of Captivity 445 
 
 " You haf a lofer," she cried, " and nevair one word to me 
 told? Ach, ingrate ! And your lofe I zought it was mine." 
 
 " Miss Meredith is very different, then, from a certain gen- 
 tleman," remarked Mrs. Washington, laughingly. " I first 
 gained his confidence when he lay wounded at headquarters 
 winter before last ; but once his secret was unbosomed, I could 
 not so much as stop to ask how he did but he must begin and 
 talk of nothing but her till he became so excited and feverish 
 that I had to check or leave him for his own good." 
 
 "Indeed, Lady Washington," protested the girl, her lip 
 trembling in her endeavour to keep back the tears, " once 
 Colonel Brereton may have thought he cared for me, but, I 
 assure you, 't was but a half-hearted regard, which long since 
 died." 
 
 " 'T is thy cruelty killed it, then," asserted Mrs. Washington, 
 " for, unless my eyes and ears deceived me, never was there 
 more eager lover than — " 
 
 " 'T is not so ; on the contrary, he won my heart and then 
 broke it with his cruelty," denied the girl, the tears coming in 
 spite of herself. " I pray you forgive my silly tears, and do 
 not speak more of this matter," she ended. 
 
 " I cannot believe it of him," responded Lady Washington. 
 "But 'twas far from my thought to distress you, and it shall 
 never be spoke of more." 
 
 The subject was instantly dropped ; and though Janice saw 
 much of Lady Washington during their three weeks' stay at 
 the Springs, and a mutual liking sprang up between the two, 
 never again was it broached save at the moment that they 
 set out on their return to CoUe, when her new friend, along 
 with her farewell kiss, said, " I, too, shall soon leave the Springs, 
 my dear, and journey ere long to join the general at head- 
 quarters for the winter. Have you any message for him ? " 
 
 " Indeed, but I have," eagerly cried Janice. " Wilt take 
 him my deepest thanks ? " 
 
 .<* And no more? " 
 
 " If your ladyship were wilUng," said Janice, archly, " I 
 would ask you to take him my love and a kiss." 
 
 " He shall have them, though I doubt not he would prefer 
 such gifts without a proxy," promised Mrs. Washington, smU- 
 
446 Janice Meredith 
 
 ing. Then she whispered, " And can I not carry the same to 
 some one else ? " 
 
 " Never ! " replied the girl, grave on the instant. " Once I 
 cared for him, but such feeling as I had has long since died, 
 and nothing can ever restore it." 
 
 Keenly desirous as the Merediths were for the well-being 
 of the Riedesels, it was impossible for them not to feel a pang 
 of regret when, one morning, the baroness broke the news to 
 them that Washington had yielded to her prayer, that her 
 husband and General Phillips had at last been exchanged, and 
 that they were to set out within the week for New York. Yet, 
 even in the departure, their benefactors continued their kind- 
 ness; for, having rented CoUe for two years, they placed 
 the house at their disposal for the balance of the lease ; and 
 when, after tearful good-byes had been made and they were 
 well started on their northern journey, Janice went to her 
 room, she found a purse containing twenty guineas in gold as 
 a parting gift from the general, a breastpin of price from the 
 baroness, and a ring from Gustava, with a note attached to it 
 in the English print which Janice had taught her, declaring her 
 undying affection and her intention to ask God to change her 
 to a boy that when she grew up she might return and wed her. 
 
 The months that drifted by after this departure were lean 
 ones of incident. Succeeding as they did to the ample garden, 
 poultry, pigs, and two cows which the baron had donated to 
 them, they were quite at ease as to food. The junior officers 
 who still remained in charge of the troops saw to it that they^ 
 did not want for military servants, thus relieving them of all 
 severe labour; and while they deeply felt the loss of the 
 Riedesels, there was no lack of company. 
 
 The void the departure of the baroness and children made 
 in Janice's life was partly filled by an acquaintance already 
 made which now grew into a friendship. Soon after their settle- 
 ment at Colle, Mrs. Jefferson, wife of the Governor, who lived 
 but a few miles away at Monticello, had come to call on them, 
 a visit which she was unable to repeat, owing to her breaking 
 health, but this very invalidism, as it turned, tended to foster 
 the intimacy. Her husband being compelled by public events 
 to be at the capital, she was much alone, and often sent ovei 
 
A Life of Captivity 447 
 
 an invitation to Janice to come and spend a few days with 
 her. As a liking for the girl ripened, it induced an attempt 
 to serve them. 
 
 " I have spoke to Thomas of your hard lot," she told Janice, 
 " and repeated to him enough of the tale you told me to 
 convince him that your father was not the active Tory he is 
 reputed to be, and have at last persuaded him to write to 
 Governor Livingston bespeaking a permission for you to return 
 to your own home, if your father will but give his parole to 
 take no part in public affairs." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Jefferson, how can we ever thank you ? " 
 
 " I do not deserve it, believe me, Janice, for I long post- 
 poned what I knew I ought to do, through regret at the 
 thought of losing your visits." 
 
 " That but deepens our thanks. If you — " 
 
 " I '11 not listen to thern now," replied the friend, " for who 
 can say that they will come to aught ? 'T will be time enough 
 when it has really accomplished something." 
 
 Distant as they were from the active operations of the war, 
 the inmates of Colle were kept pretty well informed of its 
 progress, for it was a constant theme of conversation, and the 
 movements were closely followed on the military maps of the 
 officers who frequented the house. From them Janice heard 
 how Clinton, despairing of conquering the Northern colonies 
 by force of arms, had resorted to bribery, but only to win the 
 services of an officer he did not Vish, and not the desired post 
 of West Point ; and with tears in her eyes she listened to the 
 news that Andr^, setting ambition above honour, had paid for 
 the lapse with his life. Then, as the tide of war shifted, it 
 was explained to her why the British general, keeping tight 
 hold on New York as a base for operations, transferred a mate- 
 rial part of his forces to the South, where, in succession, he 
 captured Savannah and Charleston, and almost without resist- 
 ance overran the States of Georgia and the two Carolinas. 
 
 " You see, Miss Meredith," she was told, " the yeomanry of 
 the Northern States are so well armed that we have found it 
 impossible to hold the country against their militia; but in 
 the Southern States, aside from the difference between the 
 energetic Northerners and thr. more indolent Southrons, the 
 
448 Janice Meredith 
 
 long distances between the plantations, and the fact that the 
 gentry don't dare to trust their slaves with weapons, make 
 them practically defenceless. The plan now seems to be, 
 therefore, to wear the Northern colonies out by our fleet and 
 by occasional descents upon the towns of the coast, while we 
 meantime conquer the Southern States. Had it been adopted 
 from the first, the strength would have been sapped out of 
 the rebellion and it would have been ended two years ago ; 
 but the new strategy cannot fail, even at this late date, to 
 bring them to their knees in time." 
 
 An evidence of the truth of this surmise, and an abrupt end-' 
 ing to the peaceful life at Saratoga, came to the little settle- 
 ment in the first week of the year i78r, when a post ridei 
 spurred into Charlottesville with a despatch to the County 
 Lieutenant of Albemarle announcing that a British fleet had 
 entered the Capes of the Chesapeake and seized the town of 
 Portsmouth, and summoning the militia to embody, for Vir- 
 ginia was threatened with the fate which had already befallen 
 her sister States to the southward. 
 
LVII 
 A PAPER MONEY AND MILITIA WAR 
 
 THE alarm of the British invasion was sufficient to 
 throw the whole of Virginia into a panic, but es- 
 pecially the neighbourhood about Charlottesville, for 
 it was inferred that one purpose of their coming 
 was to attempt to liberate the Convention prisoners. The can- 
 tonment, therefore, was hastily broken up, and all the troops 
 were marched over the mountains to Winchester, or northward 
 into Pennsylvania, scarcely time for them to pack their few 
 possessions being accorded to them. From this deportation 
 the Merediths were excepted, for as political prisoners, no 
 mention of them was made in the orders issued by Washington 
 and the Virginia Council ; and so Colonel Bland left them un- 
 molested, the sole residents of the once overcrowded village 
 of huts. The removal of the prisoners proved a needless pre- 
 caution, for, after remaining but a few days, the British fleet 
 retired, having effected little save to frighten badly the people, 
 but the apprehension subsided as quickly as it had come. 
 
 The hope of quiet was a false one, for in a few months a 
 second expedition, under the command of Arnold, sailed up 
 the James River and captured and burned Richmond. To 
 face this new enemy, to which the militia of the State were 
 deemed inadequate, Washington detached a brigade under the 
 command of Lafayette from the Northern army, supposing 
 the movement, like the previous one, a mere predatory ex- 
 pedition, which could be held in check by this number of 
 troops ; and upon news that General Phillips, with reinforce- 
 ments, had joined Arnold, he further despatched a second 
 brigade under Wayne. 
 
 Meantime, the force under Cornwallis, after overrunning 
 North Carolina, now suddenly swung northward and effected a 
 
 29 » 
 
45° Janice Meredith 
 
 juncture with the British force in Virginia, raising it to such 
 strength that Lafayette dared not risk a battle, and was left no 
 option, as the British advanced inland, but to fall back rapidly 
 toward the mountains. 
 
 These latter events succeeded one another with such rapidity 
 that the people of Charlottesville first heard of some of them 
 by the arrival of Governor Jefferson and the members of the 
 Assembly, to which place they had voted an adjournment just 
 previous to their being forced to abandon the capital. Sessions 
 had scarcely been begun, however, when word was brought 
 that the enemy was within a few miles of the town, and once 
 again they took to their heels and fled over the mountains into 
 the Shenandoah valley, escaping none too soon, as it proved, 
 for Tarleton's cavalry rode into the streets of Charlottesville so 
 close upon what was left of the government of Virginia that 
 some of the members were captured. 
 
 The Merediths, two miles away at Saratoga, first heard the 
 news of these latter events from a captain of militia, who, ac- 
 companied by six sullen-looking companions, rode up early on 
 the morning of the raid and sharply ordered the three to mount 
 the led horses he brought with kim. 
 
 " I 'm ridin'," he explained, "to collect the horses and alarm 
 the hundreds towards Boswell's, and the county lieutenant 
 ordered me to take you away from here. No, I can 't wait 
 to have you pack." 
 
 "'Tis surely not necessary that we should be treated so," 
 pleaded Mr. Meredith. " My wife has not the strength to bear 
 a long — " 
 
 " Can 't help that. Like as not the British horse ha'n't had 
 word that the Convention troops have been sent away, and will 
 ride this far, and we reckon we can't have you givin' them no 
 information," answered the man. "I don't want no talk. 
 Into the saddle with you." 
 
 Protests and prayers were absolutely unavailing, and the 
 whole party hurriedly set off at the best pace the horses were 
 able to go. As they journeyed, a halt was made at each cabin 
 and each plantation, and every white man found was summarily 
 ordered by the captain to get his gun and join the party ; while 
 at each place all the horses were impressed, not merely to 
 
A Paper Money and Militia War 451 
 
 cany those unprovided with one, but to prevent their faUing 
 into the hands of the foe. Nor did the captain pay more heed 
 to the expostulations and grumblings of the men, at being 
 called away from their crops at the busiest farming season, nor 
 of the women, at being deprived of their protectors in times of 
 such danger, than he had to the weaker ones of the Merediths. 
 
 " The invasion law just passed by the 'sembly calls out every 
 man as can fight, and declares every one as won't a traitor, so 
 you can take your choice of shootin' at the British or bein' shot 
 by us," was the captain's unvarying formula, be the complaints 
 what they might. 
 
 As if to make the ill feeling the greater, too, he told the 
 whole party at one point of the route, " If you-alls had been 
 patriots and 'listed* four weeks ago, you 'd every one of you 've 
 got a bounty of five hundred dollars of the money my saddle- 
 bags is filled with ; but you had n't spunk, so it serves you-alk 
 good and handsome that now you 've got to fight for 'nary a 
 shillin'." 
 
 " We would n't have been a tinker's damn the richer if we 
 had," snarled one of the unwilling conscripts. " I 'd rather 
 have a pound of hay than the same weight in cursed state 
 money, for you can feed the hay to a hoss, but I 'm consamed 
 if t' other 's good for anythin'." 
 
 "Say, cap," asked a second, "has you ralely got them, 
 saddle-bags o' youm filled with the stuff ? " 
 
 " Ay. The presses were at Charlottesville busy strikin' it, 
 and I was told to help save what was already printed 
 from capture." 
 
 " Lord ! the British would n't have seized that, with all the 
 cord wood there is in Charlottesville, to say nothin' of grind- 
 stones and ploughs and chimbleys built of brick and other 
 things of value," asserted the original speaker. 
 
 " Might come handy along of all the terbacker they 've took 
 down to Petersburg. Do to light a pipe vidth, I reckon," sug- 
 gested another. 
 
 "Say, cap," again spoke up the second speaker, "the 
 raison as why I asked that there question is that we '11 be 
 gettin' to Hunker's ordinary at the four corners right smart 
 of DOW, and I was calculatin' if you had enough of the rags 
 
452 Janice Meredith 
 
 •with you to set us up a drink all round ? 'T won't cost more 'n 
 ten thousand dollars if Hunkers ain't in an avaricious mood." 
 
 The officer had been absolutely inattentive to the com- 
 plaints and growls, but the quizzing made him lose his 
 temper. " You-alls shut your jaws, the lot of you, or when 
 we reach the roundyvous this evenin' I '11 report you to 
 the kurnel and you '11 get the guard-house or worse," he 
 threatened. "I'm danged if I don't believe every one of 
 you-alls is a Tory at heart." 
 
 "A little more o' this '11 make me one," muttered a man 
 who hitherto had been silent, but he spoke so low as to be 
 heard by his fellow unfortunates only, and not by the captain. 
 
 " Don 't talk to me of the tyranny of Britain after this ! " 
 responded his immediate neighbour. 
 
 The militia officer would have done better to let the dis- 
 satisfaction find its vent in jokes ; for, deprived of this out- 
 let, the malcontents took to whispering among themselves in 
 a manner that boded ill for something or somebody. But 
 he was too busy securing each new recruit and each horse 
 to give attention to the signs that might have warned him. 
 
 A rude awakening came to the captain when the motley 
 cavalcade drew up at the ordinary at the cross-roads, for as 
 he was in the act of dismounting, two of the party, who had 
 been more expeditious in their movements, caught him by the 
 leg as he swung it clear of the saddle, and brought him vip- 
 lently to the ground. He was held in that position while his 
 hands and feet were tied with his own bridle, as many of ^he 
 men as could get about him assisting in the operation, while 
 the remainder, the Merediths excepted, kept up a chorus of 
 approving remarks, or of gibing and mocking comments on 
 the officer's half-smothered menaces and oaths. Once se- 
 cured, he was dragged to the guide-post, and with his stirrup 
 straps was fastened to it securely. This done, his saddle-bags 
 were pulled off his horse and the paper money was emptied 
 out and heaped about his feet. Meantime, and as an evi- 
 dence of how carefully every detail of their revenge had been 
 planned, one of the ring-leaders had disappeared into the 
 tavern, and now returned with a lighted brand. 
 
 " You can threat and cuss all you hanker," he chuckled. 
 
A Paper Money and Militia War 453 
 
 " If we ain't to have no bounty, we '11 give you some of ourn," 
 he added malignantly, as he stooped and set fire to the pile 
 of bills. 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " screamed Janice. " Dadda, stop them i " 
 
 " For shame ! " echoed Mr. Meredith, swinging out of his 
 saddle, in which hitherto he had remained a passive spec- 
 tator. 
 
 " Hands off," warned the torch-bearer, " if you don't want 
 to be tied alongside of him." 
 
 There was nothing to do, and the ladies were only able to 
 turn their backs on the sight ; but they could not thus escape 
 the howls of terror and pain that the miserable victim uttered, 
 though the squire sought to save them from this by taking 
 hold of the two bridles and leading their horses away. 
 
 This movement served to attract their attention to some- 
 thing hitherto not observed, and which the absorption of the 
 militia in their revenge still prevented them from noting. On. 
 the road by which they had come arose a thick cloud of dust, 
 out of which horsemen seemed to be riding, but, though they 
 came on at a hand gallop, the screen, swept onward by the 
 breeze, kept pace with the riders, and even at times hid now one, 
 now all, from view, causing the squire, who first caught sight 
 of the phenomenon, to rub his eyes, that he might have assur- 
 ance that it was not a phantasm of his brain. Of this another 
 sense furnished quick evidence, for even" above the jeers of the 
 torturers and the shrieks of the tortured sounded the clatter of 
 hoofs. At the first warning, cries of alarm escaped from many 
 mouths, and with the fright of guilt, there was a wild stampede 
 for the horses ; before the half of them were in the saddle, 
 the thunder of a column of horse was close upon them, and 
 as, mounted and unmounted, they scattered, there came a rush 
 of red-coated troopers in amongst them. Loud above the 
 tumult and uproar came the sharp order, — 
 
 "Capture what men you can, but don't let a horse 
 escape ! " 
 
 Mr. Meredith, the moment the militia had deserted the fire, 
 rushed forward, and with three kicks scattered the flaming 
 currency from about the man's legs, — - a proceeding which 
 attracted the attention of the officer who gave the order. 
 
454 Janice Meredith 
 
 "What is the meaning of this? " he demanded, but all the 
 reply he received was a startled exclamation which burst from 
 the squire. 
 
 "What!" he ejaculated. "Why, this passes very belief] 
 Pox me, if 't is not Phil Hennion." 
 
LVIII 
 FROM BLUE RIDGE TO TIDE WATER 
 
 FOR a few moments the mingled exclamations, greetings, 
 and questions were too broken and mixed to tell any 
 of them much, but the first surprise over, the Mere- 
 diths explained their presence. 
 
 "I knew from the baroness that you were at CoUe, and 
 bitter was the disappointment when I found you gone this 
 morning. But my grief then makes me but the happier now." 
 
 " But how came ye here, lad ? " questioned the squire. 
 
 " We were sent on a raid to Charlottesville, with orders 
 to rejoin the main army at Point of Fork, and I was detached 
 by Colonel Tarleton this morning to take this route, hoping 
 to get more information concerning Lafayette's whereabouts 
 and movements." 
 
 "I heard this fellow," said Mr. Meredith, indicating the 
 still captive and moaning man, " who is a captain of militia, 
 tell the men he was draughting that they were to march, as 
 soon as embodied, to join the rebel army at Raccoon Ford." 
 
 " Hah ! the junction with Wayne's force emboldens him 
 to show us something more than his back at last. 'T is all 
 I wish to learn, and we can now take the shortest road to 
 rejoin Lord Comwallis. Strap me ! but 't was a heaven-sent 
 chance tjiat we should come just in the nick o' time to rescue 
 you. There shall be no more captivity, that I can promise 
 you." He turned to the now reassembled squadron, and 
 ordered, "Parole your prisoners, Captain Cameron, and let 
 them go. You, Lieutenant Beatty, bring up the best extra 
 mount you have, and arrange as comfortable a place as 
 possible for the ladies in one of the baggage- waggons." 
 
 " A suggestion, major," spoke up another officer. " Ser- 
 geant McDonald reports that there is a chaise in the tavern 
 bam, and — " 
 
456 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Put horse to it, and have it out before you set fire to the 
 buildings," interrupted Hennion. 
 
 "What!" ejaculated Mr. Meredith. "Art thou a major, 
 Phil?" 
 
 " Ay, squire. I 've fought my way up two grades since last 
 we met." 
 
 There was a greater change in the officer than of rank, for 
 his once long and ungainly frame had broadened and filled 
 out into that of a well-formed, powerful man. His face, too, 
 had lost its lankness, to its great improvement, for the 
 features were strong, and, with the deep tan which the 
 Southern campaigns had given it, had become, from being 
 one of positive homeliness, one of decided distinction. But 
 the most marked alteration was in his speech and bearing, for 
 all trace of the awkward had disappeared from both; he 
 spoke with facility and authority, and he sat his horse with 
 soldierly erectness and ease. 
 
 The ladies were soon bestowed in the chaise, the bugle 
 sounded, and the flying column resumed its movement. Little 
 they saw of the commander all day, for he rode now with the 
 foremost troop, and now with the rear one, keenly alert to all 
 that was taking place, asking questions at each farmhouse as to 
 roads, bridges, rivers, distances, the people, and everything 
 which could be of value. Only when the heat of the day 
 came, and they halted for a few hours' rest at a plantation, did 
 he come to them, and then only for a brief word as to their 
 accommodation. He offered Mrs. Meredith and Janice tjie 
 best the house afforded, but, with keen recollections of their 
 own sufferings, they refused to dispossess the women occupants 
 from their home, and would accept in food and lodgings only 
 what they had to spare. Indeed, though as far as possible it 
 had been kept from their sight, the march had brought a 
 realising sense to them, almost for the first time, of the full 
 horror of the war, and made them appreciate that their own 
 experience, however bad they had deemed it, was but that of 
 hundreds. The day had been one long scene of rapine and 
 destruction. At each plantation they had seen all serviceable 
 horses seized, and the rest of the stock, young or old, slaugh- 
 tered, all provisions of use to the army made prize of, and the 
 
From Blue Ridge to Tide Water 457 
 
 remainder, with the buildings that held it, put to the torch, and 
 the young crops of wheat, corn, and tobacco, so far as time 
 allowed, destroyed. Under cover of all this, too, there was 
 looting by the dragoons, which the officers could not prevent, 
 try their best. 
 
 There was a still worse terror, of which, fortunately, the 
 Merediths saw nothing. Large numbers of the negroes took 
 advantage of the incursion, and indeed were encouraged by 
 the cavalry, to escape from slavery by following in the rear of 
 the column ; and as the white men were either with the Vir- 
 ginia militia, or were in hiding away from the houses, the 
 women were powerless to prevent the blacks from plundering, 
 or from any other excess it pleased them to commit. The Old 
 Dominion, the last State of the thirteen to be swept over by the 
 foe, was harried as the Jerseys had been, but by troops made 
 less merciful by many a fierce conflict, and by its own servitors, 
 debased by slavery to but one degree above the brute. Only 
 with death did the people forget the enormities of those few 
 months, when Cornwallis's army cut a double swath from tide 
 water almost to the mountains, and Tarleton's and Simcoe's 
 cavalry rode whither they pleased; and the hatred of the 
 British and the fear of their own slaves outlasted even the 
 passing away of the generation which had suffered. 
 
 It was on the afternoon of the following day that the detach- 
 ment effected a juncture with the main army, and so soon as 
 Major Hennion had reported, Lord Comwallis, who was quar- 
 tered at Elk Hill, an estate of Jefferson's, sent word that he 
 wished to see Mr. Meredith at once, and extended an invita- 
 tion to them all to share the house. He questioned the squire 
 for nearly an hour as to the whereabouts of the Convention 
 prisoners, the condition of the State, and the feeling of the 
 people. 
 
 " All you tell me tallies with such information as I have pro- 
 cured elsewhere," he ended ; " and had I but a free hand I 
 make certain I could destroy Lafayette and completely subju- 
 gate the State in one campaign." 
 
 " Surely, my Lord, you could not better serve the king. Vir- 
 ginia has been the great hot-bed of sedition, and if she were 
 once smothered, the fire would quickly die out." 
 
458 Janice ivieredith 
 
 "Almost the very words I writ to Sir Henry, but he declares 
 it out of the question to leave me the troops with which to ef- 
 fect it. As you no doubt are aware, a French force has been 
 landed at Rhode Island, and is even now on its march to join 
 Mr. Washington ; and, by a fortunate interception of some of 
 his despatches to Congress, we have full information that the 
 united force intend an attack oh New York. So I am ordered 
 to fall down to a good defensive post on the Chesapeake and 
 to send a material part of my army to his aid." 
 
 When finally the interview was ended, and Mr. Meredith 
 asked one of the aides to take him to his room, it was ex- 
 plained that Mrs. Meredith and her daughter had been put in 
 one and that he was to have a share of another. 
 
 "You'd have had the floor or a tent, sir," his guide told 
 him, as he threw open the door, " but for Lord Clowes saying 
 he 'd take you in." 
 
 Surely enough, it was the commissary who warmly grasped 
 the squire's hand as he entered, and who cried, " Welcome to 
 ye, friend Meredith ! I heard of your strange arrival from 
 nowhere, and glad I was to be assured ye were still in the 
 flesh and once more among friends." 
 
 " Ye 've clear surprised my breath out of my windpipe," 
 returned the squire. "Who 'd have thought to find ye here? " 
 
 " And where else should I be, but where there 's an army to 
 be fed, and crops to feed them ? I' faith, never was there a 
 richer harvest field for one who knows how to garner it. 
 Why, man, aside from the captures of tobacco, now worth a 
 great price, and other gains, over six thousand pounds I 've 
 made in the last two years, by shipping niggers, who think 
 they are escaping to freedom, to our West India islands, and 
 selling them to the planters there. This war is a perfect gold 
 mine." 
 
 " Little of that it 's been to me," lamented his listener. 
 
 " Ye can make it such, an' it please ye. She perceived me 
 not, but I saw your daughter as ye rode up, and though I 
 thought myself well cured of the infatuation, poof ! one gloat 
 was enough to set my blood afire, as if I were but a boy of 
 eighteen again. Lord Clowes, with a cool ninety thousand, is 
 ready to make her fortune and yours." 
 
From Blue Ridge to Tide Water 459 
 
 " Nay, Clowes, ye know I 've gassed my word to Hennion, 
 and—" 
 
 " Who '11 not outlive the war, ye may make sure. The 
 fellow 's made himself known through the army by the way he 
 puts himself forward in every engagement. Some one of 
 these devilish straight-shooting riflemen will release that 
 promise for ye." 
 
 " I trust not ; but if it so falls, there 'd still be a bar to your 
 wish. The girl dislikes ye very — " 
 
 " Dost not know that is no bad beginning ? Nay, man, see 
 if I bring her not round, once I have a clear field. I 've 
 thought it out even now while I 've waited for ye. We '11 sail 
 for New York on one of the ships that carries Lord Com- 
 wallis's reinforcements to Clinton, and as 't will be some years 
 still ere the country is entirely subdued, out of the questio* 
 't will be that ye go to Greenwood. I will resign my post, be- 
 ing now rich enough, and we '11 all go to London, where I 'H 
 take a big house, and ye shall be my guests. Once let the 
 girl taste of high life, with its frocks and jewels and carriages, 
 and all that tempts the sex, and she '11 quickly see their pro- 
 vider in a new light." 
 
 " 'T is little ye know of my lass, Clowes." 
 
 " Tush ! I know women to the very bottom ; and is she 
 more than a woman?" 
 
 ■ Their conference was ended by the call to supper, and ia 
 the hallway the baron attempted as hearty a greeting with the 
 ladies as he had with the squire. Though taken by surprise, a 
 distant curtsey was all he gained from them, and do his best, 
 he could get little of their conversation during the meal. 
 
 On rising, Philemon, who had been a guest at table, drew 
 the squire to one side. " The legion is ordered on a foray to 
 destroy the military stores at Albemarle Court-house, and in 
 this hot weather we try to do our riding at night, to spare our 
 cattle, so we shall start away about eleven o'clock. His Lord- 
 ship tells me that the army will begin to fall down to the coast 
 in a day or two, so it may be a some time before I see you 
 again. Have you money? " 
 
 " A bare trifle, but I '11 not further rob ye, lad, till I get to 
 the end of my purse." 
 
460 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Do not fear to take from me, sir. A major's pay is very 
 different from a cornet's. 'T will make me feel easier, and, in 
 fact, 't will be safer with you than with me," Phil said, as he 
 forced a rouleau of coin into the squire's palm. Then, not 
 waiting for Mr. Meredith's protests or thanks, he crossed to 
 where Janice was talking with three of the staff, and broke in 
 upon their conversation : " Janice, a soldier goes or stays not 
 as he pleases, but as the bugle orders, and there is more work 
 cut out for us, but this evening I am free. Wilt come and 
 stroll along the river-bank for an hour? " 
 
 " Dash your impudence, Hennion ! " protested one of the 
 group. " Do you think you fellows of the cavalry can plunder 
 everything? Pay no heed to him. Miss Meredith, I beg ol 
 you." 
 
 "Ay," echoed another, " 'tis the artillery the majoi should 
 belong to, for he 'd do to repair the brass cannon." 
 
 The girl stood irresolute for a breath, then, though she 
 coloured, she said steadily, "Certainly, if you wish it, 
 Philemon." 
 
 While they were passing the rows of camp-fires and tents, 
 the major was silent, but once these were behind them he 
 said : — 
 
 " 'T would be idle, Janice, to make any pretence of why I 
 wished to see you apart. You must know it as well as I." 
 
 " I suppose I do, Philemon," assented the girl, quietly. 
 
 " A long time we 've been parted, but not once has my love 
 for you lessened, and — and in Philadelphia you held out a 
 little hope that I 've lived on ever since. You said that the 
 squire held to his promise, and that — did you — do you still 
 think as you — " 
 
 " Have you spoken to dadda? " 
 
 " No. For — for I was afraid he 'd force you against your 
 will. Once I was eager to take you even so, but I hope you 
 won't judge me for that. I was an unthinking boy then." 
 
 " We all make mistakes, Philemon, and would that I could 
 outlive mine as well as you have yours," Janice answered 
 gently. 
 
 « Then — then — you will ? " 
 
 " If dadda still — Before I answer — I — something must 
 
From Blue Ridge to Tide Water 461 
 
 be told that I wish — oh, how I wish, for your sake and for 
 mine ! — had never been. I gave — I tried to be truthful to 
 you, Philemon, but, unknown to myself, some love I gave to 
 — to one I need not name, and though I — though he quickly 
 killed it, 't is but fair that you should know that the little 
 heart — for I — I fear me I am cold by nature — I had to 
 give was wasted on another. But if, after this confession, 
 you still would have me for a wife, and dadda and mommy 
 wish it, I will wed you, and try my best to be dutiful and 
 loving." 
 
 " 'T is all I ask," eagerly exclaimed Philemon, as he caught 
 her hand, and drew her toward him. " Ah, Janice, if you but 
 knew how I love — " 
 
 " Ho ! there ye are," came the Voice of the commissary not 
 five paces away. " I saw ye go toward the river, and fol- 
 lowed." 
 
 " My Lord, Miss Meredith and I are engaged in a private 
 conversation, and cannot but take your intrusion amiss." 
 
 " Fudge, man, is not the night hot enough but ye must 
 blaze up so ? Nor is the river-bank your monopoly.'.' 
 
 " Keep it all, then, and a good riddance to the society, you 
 enjoy it with. Come, Janice, we '11 back to the house." 
 
 At the doorway Philemon held out his hand. " We ride 
 away while you will be sleeping, but 't is a joyous heart you 
 let me carry." 
 
 "I am glad if I — if you are happy," responded the girl, 
 as she let him press her fingers. Then, regardless of the 
 sentry, she laid her free hand on Phil's arm impulsively and 
 imploringly, as she added, "Oh., Philemon, please — what- 
 ever else you are, please don't be hard and cruel to me." 
 
 " I '11 try my best not to be, though 't is difficult for a 
 soldier to be otherwise ; but, come what may, I '11 never pain 
 or deny you knowingly, Janice." 
 
 " 'T is all I beg. But be kind and generous, and I '11 love 
 you in time." 
 
 Rub-a-dub went the drums, sounding tattoo, and the beat- 
 ing brought several officers scurrying out of the house. Phil- 
 emon kissed the girl's hand, and hurried away to his squadron. 
 
 Two days the army remained encamped at the Fork, then 
 
462 Janice iviereaitii 
 
 by easy marches it followed the river down to Richmond, 
 where a rest was taken. Once again getting in motion, it fell 
 back on Williamsburg and halted, for it was now the height 
 of summer, and the heat so intense that the troops were 
 easily exhausted. Finally, the British f etired across the James 
 River, and took up a position at Portsmouth. 
 
 In the month thus spent, not once was Major Hennion able 
 to get a word with Janice, for Lafayette followed closely upon 
 the heels of the invaders until they were safe over the James, 
 and there was constant skirmishing between the van g.nd rear 
 and two sharp encounters, which kept Tarleton's and Simcoe's 
 caralry, when they had rejoined, fully occupied in covering 
 the retreat, while the Merediths and other loyalists who had 
 joined the army travelled with the baggage in the advance. 
 
 The occupation of Portsmouth was brief, for upon the 
 engineers reporting that the site was not one which could be 
 fortified, the British general put his troops on board of such 
 shipping as he could gather and transferred them bodily to 
 Yorktown. Here he set the army, and the three thousand 
 negroes who had followed them, leisurely to laying out lines 
 of earthworks, that he might hold the post with the reduced 
 number which would be left him after he detached the rein- 
 forcements needed at New York, and despatched a sloop-of- 
 war to Clinton, with word that he but awaited the arrival of 
 transports to send him whatever regiments he should direct. 
 
 If Hennion, by his constant service at the front, was help- 
 less to assist his friends, Clowes, who was always with the 
 baggage train, was unending in his favours. He secured them 
 a stock of clothing, and assigned to them two admirable 
 servants from the horde of runaway slaves ; he promptly pro- 
 cured for them a more comfortable traveUing carriage, and he 
 made their lodgings a matter of daily concern, so that they 
 always fared with the best, while his gifts of wine and other 
 delicacies were almost embarrassingly frequent. At Yorktown, 
 too, where the village of about sixty houses supplied but the 
 poorest and scantiest accommodations for both man and beast, 
 he managed to have the custom-house assigned for his own use, 
 :and then placed all the rooms the Merediths needed at theii 
 I disposal. If Janice's preferences had been spoken and re- 
 
rrom ±51ue Kidge to Tide Water 463 
 
 garded, everything he did in their behalf would have been de- 
 clined ; but her mother's real need of the comforts of life, and 
 her father's love of them, were arguments too strong for her 
 own wishes, and by placing them under constant obligation to 
 the baron made it impossible for her not to treat him with 
 outward courtesy whenever he sought their company, which 
 was with every opportunity. Yet it was in vain that the com- 
 missary plied her with his old-time arts of manner and tongue. 
 Even the slow mind of the squire took note that he gained no 
 ground with his daughter. 
 
 " 'T is a tougher task ye 've undertaken even than ye 
 counted upon," he said, one evening over the wine, as Janice 
 left the table at the earliest possible instant. 
 
 " Tut ! give me time. I '11 bring her around yet." 
 
 " I warned ye the maid had ye deep in her bad books." 
 
 " What 's a month? If a woman yields in that time, a man 
 may save himself the parson's fee, and it please him." 
 
 " Still, though she is a good lass in most things, I must own 
 to ye that she hath a strange vein of obstinacy in her, which 
 she comes by from her mother." 
 
 " Then I '11 use that same obstinacy to win her. Dost not 
 know that every quality in a female is but a means by which 
 to ensnare her ? Let me once know a woman's virtues and frail- 
 ties, and I '11 make each one of them serve my suit." 
 
 " 'T is more than a month ye 've been striving to win her 
 regard." 
 
 " Ay ; but for some reason, in Philadelphia I could ne'er 
 keep my head when with her, and as often went back as 
 forward, curse it ! ' Better slip with foot than ^ith tongue,' 
 runs the old saying, and I did both with her. I 've learned 
 my lesson now, and once give me a clear field and ye shall 
 see how 't will be." 
 
 The squire shook his head. " She 's promised to Major 
 Hennion, and after much folly and womanishness at last 
 she 's found her mind, and tells me she will cheerfully wed 
 him." y 
 
 "And how will the lot of ye live, man?" asked Clowes, 
 crossly. " Hast not had word that Jersey has enacted a gen- 
 eral act of forfeiture and escheatage 'gainst all Royalists?" 
 
464 Janice Meredith 
 
 "That I 'd not," answered the squire, pulling a long face. 
 "I suppose that has taken Greenwood from us?" 
 
 "Ay, for I saw the very advertisement of the sale, and 
 have not told ye before merely to spare you distress. And 
 't will strip Hennion of his acres as well, I take it. Wilt de- 
 liberately marry her to a penniless man? " 
 
 " Boxely never was his, and I doubt not his scamp of a 
 father will find some way to save it to him. I '11 not tarry 
 longer, for 't is ill news ye have just broke to me, and I must 
 carry it to Matilda. It gives us but a black future to which to 
 look forward." 
 
 Mr. Meredith gone from the room, the commissary took 
 from his pocket a copy of Gaines' " New York Gazette and 
 Weekly Mercury," which had come to him but that morning, 
 and re-read an account it contained, taken from the " New 
 Jersey Gazette," of the sale of Greenwood to Esquire Hen- 
 nion. " 'T is my devil's ill luck that he, of all men, should 
 buy it,'' he muttered. " However, if I can but get them to 
 New York, away from this dashing dragoon, and then persuade 
 them to cross the Atlantic, 'twill matter not who owns it." 
 He rose, stretched himself, and as he did so, he repeated the 
 words : — 
 
 " L and chance, against any two ; 
 Time and I against chance and you.'' 
 
LIX 
 
 TRAITORS IN THE REAR 
 
 ON a broiling August day in the year 1 781, an officer 
 rode along the Raritan between Middle-Brook and 
 Brunswick. As he approached the entrance of 
 Greenwood, he slowed his horse, and after a mo- 
 ment's apparent hesitation, finally turned him through the gate- 
 way. Once at the porch he drew rein and looked for a time at 
 the paintless clap-boards, broken window-panes, and tangle of 
 vines and weeds, all of which told so plainly the story of 
 neglect and desertion. Starting his steed, he passed around 
 to the kitchen door, and rapped thrice with the butt of a 
 pistol without gaining any reply. Wheeling about, he was 
 returning to the road when an idea seemed to come to him, 
 for, altering direction, he pulled on his bridle, and turned his 
 horse into the garden, now one dense overgrowth. Guiding 
 him along one of the scarcely discernible paths, he checked 
 him at a garden seat, and leaning in his saddle plucked half 
 a dozen sprays of honeysuckle from the vine which surmounted 
 it. He touched them to his lips, and gave his horse t! e spur. 
 He held the sprays in his hand as he rode, occasionally rais- 
 ing them to his face until he was on the edge of Brunswick 
 village, then he slipped them into his sword sash. 
 
 Giving his horse into the hands of the publican at the 
 tavern, he crossed* the green to the parsonage and knocked. 
 " Is Parson McClave within? " he inquired of the hired girl. 
 
 " Come in, come in. Colonel Brereton," called a voice from 
 the sitting-room ; " and all the more welcome are you that I 
 did not know you were in these parts." 
 
 " My regiment was ordered across the river to Chatham last 
 week, to build ovens for the coming attack on New York, and 
 I took a few hours off to look up old friends," Brereton an- 
 
 30 
 
466 Janice Meredith 
 
 swered in a loud voice. "Where can we safely talk?" he 
 whispered. 
 
 "I '11 leave my sermon even as it is," said the presbyter, 
 " and it being hot here, let us into the meeting-house yard, 
 where we '11 get what breeze comes up the river. Eager I 
 am to learn of what the army is about." 
 
 Once they were seated among the gravestones, the colonel 
 said : " I need not tell you that five times in the last two months 
 the continental post-riders have been waylaid 'twixt Brunswick 
 and Princeton by scoundrels in the pay of the British. Only 
 once, fortunately, was there information of the slightest impor- 
 tance, but 't is something that must be stopped ; and General 
 Washington, knowing of my familiarity with this neighbourhood, 
 directed me to discover and bring the wretches to punish- 
 ment. Because I can trust you, I come to ask if you have any 
 information or even inkling that can be of service? " 
 
 "Surely, man, you do not suspect any one in my parish?" 
 replied the clergyman. 
 
 Brereton smiled slightly. " There is little doubt that the 
 secret Tories of Monmouth County are concerned ; but there is 
 some confederate in Brunswick, who, whether he takes an 
 active share, supplies them with information concerning the 
 routes, days, and hours of the posts. I see, however, you have 
 no light to shed on the matter." 
 
 " 'T is all news to me," answered the minister, shaking his head. 
 " I knew that there was some illicit trading with New York, but 
 that we had real traitors amongst us I never dreamed." 
 
 " Trap them I will, before many weeks," asserted the 
 officer. "If in no other way, I'll — " 
 
 The sentence was interrupted by the clang of the church 
 bell above them. 
 
 "Bless me ! " pried McClave, springing to his feet. "Your 
 call has made me forget the auction, which, as justice of the 
 peace, I must attend." 
 
 " What auction?" 
 
 " For the sale of Greenwood under the statute." 
 
 The officer frowned. "I feared it when I read of the 
 passing of a general act of forfeiture and escheatage,'" he 
 muttered, "though I still hoped 'twould not extend to them." 
 
Traitors in the Rear 467 
 
 Together the two men crossed the green to the town hall, 
 where now a crowd, consisting of almost every inhabitant 
 of the village and of the outlying farms, was assembled. The 
 officer, a scowl on his face, paused in the doorway and glanced 
 about, then threaded his way to where two negresses stood 
 weeping, and began talking to them. Meanwhile, the clergy- 
 man, pushing on through the throng, joined Esquire Hennion 
 and Bagby, who for some reason were suspiciously eying each 
 other on the platform. 
 
 " I intend to bid on the property, McClave," announced 
 the Honourable Joseph, " so 't is best that the squire takes 
 charge of the sale." 
 
 "Thet 'ere is jes what I'm a-calkerlatin' ter do, likewise," 
 responded Hennion, with an ugly glance at Joe, " so I guess 
 yer '11 hev ter assoom the runnin' of the perseedins yerself, 
 paason." 
 
 There was a moment's consultation, and then Justice 
 McClave stepped forward and read in succession the text 
 of an act of the New Jersey Assembly, a proclamation of the 
 Governor, and an advertisement from the " New Jersey 
 Gazette " by which documents, and by innumerable whereases 
 and therefores, it was set forth that a state of war existed with 
 Great Britain ; that sundry inhabitants of the State, forgetful 
 of their just duty and allegiance, had aided and abetted the com- 
 mon enemy ; that by these acts they placed themselves outside 
 of the laws of the commonwealth, their property became for- 
 feited, and was ordered sold for the benefit of the State ; that the 
 property of one Lambert Meredith, who had been attainted, both 
 by proclamation and by trial, of high treason, was therefore within 
 the act ; and, finally, that there would be sold to the highest 
 bidder, at the court-house of the town of Brunswick, on the 
 sixteenth day of August next ensuing, the said property of the 
 said Lambert Meredith; namely, "Two likely negro women, 
 who can cook and spin," and thirty thousand acres of choice 
 arable farm and wood lands under cultivation lease, with one 
 house, one stable, and corn-cribs and other outbuildings 
 thereto appertaining. 
 
 It took not five minutes to sell the sobbing slaves, the 
 tavern-keeper buying Sukey for the sum of forty-one pounds, 
 
468 Janice Meredith 
 
 and the clergyman announcing himself at the end of the 
 bidding as the purchaser of Peg for thirty-nine pounds, six. 
 
 Then amidst a silence which told of the interest of the 
 crowd, the auctioneer read out a description of the bounds 
 and acreage of Greenwood, and asked for bids. 
 
 "Nine thousand pounds," instantly offered Bagby. 
 
 " Five hunded more," rejoined Hennion. 
 
 "Ten thousand," snapped Joe. 
 
 " Five hunded more," snarled his rival bidder. 
 
 " Eleven thousand," came Joe's counter bid. 
 
 "Thirteen thousand." 
 
 "And five hundred." 
 
 " Fifteen thousand." 
 
 Bagby hesitated, scowling, then said, " Sixteen thousand." 
 
 "Seventeen." 
 
 " Seventeen, five." 
 
 "Yer might ez waal quit, Joe," interjected Squire Hennion. 
 " I hez more 'n' yer hev, an' I intends ter buy it. Nineteen 's 
 my bid, pa'son." 
 
 "Twenty," burst out Joe, malignantly. 
 
 " Twenty-one." 
 
 " Twenty-five." 
 
 Hennion's face in turn grew red with anger, and he half 
 rose, his fist clinched, but recollecting himself he resumed his 
 seat. 
 
 " Going at twenty-five," announced McClave. "Will any 
 one give more ? " 
 
 A breathless pause came, while Bagby's countenance assumed 
 a look of sudden anxiety. " I did n't say twenty-five," he 
 quickly denied; "I said twenty-two." 
 
 A wave of contradiction swept through the hall. 
 
 Nothing daunted, the honourable Joseph repeated his 
 assertion. 
 
 "He, he, he ! " chuckled Hennion, " thet comes of biddin' 
 more money than yers hev." 
 
 " We '11 call it twenty-two thousand," said McClave, " since 
 Mr. Bagby persists. Will you give any more? " 
 
 " One hunded more," said Hennion ; and nobody offering 
 above him, it was knocked down at that price. 
 
Traitors in the Rear 469 
 
 'As the sale was declared completed, Bagby rose. "At 
 least, I made you pay double for it," he growled spitefully to 
 his competitor. 
 
 " Yer did, consarn yer," was Hennion's reply ; but then a 
 smile succeeded the angry look on the shrewd face. " I did n't 
 pay more 'n a third of what 't is wuth, then." 
 
 " T will be a dear buy, that I warn you," retorted Joseph, 
 angrily. " I '11 pay you off yet for bidding me out of it." 
 
 " Yer be keerful what yer do, or I '11 do some payin' off my- 
 self," warned Hennion. 
 
 Brereton, who had stayed through the sale, with a contempt- 
 ous shrug of the shoulders, walked over to the ordinary. Here 
 he ate a silent supper, and then mounting his horse set off on 
 his evening ride back to his regiment. 
 
 Half-way between Brunswick and Greenwood, while his 
 thoughts were dwelling on the day's doings, and on what effect it 
 would have on those far away in the mountains of Virginia, he 
 was brought back to the present by hearing his name called 
 in a low voice from behind a wall. 
 
 " Who 's that ? " he demanded, halting his horse. 
 
 "Are you alone?" 
 
 " Yes," replied the officer, as he drew out a pistol from the 
 holster. 
 
 " No occasion for that, colonel,'.' said Joe Bagby's unmis- 
 takable accents, as the man climbed over the stones and came 
 forward. " It 's me," he announced. "Just walk your horse 
 slow, so I can keep beside you, for I 've something to tell you, 
 and I don't want to stand still here in the road." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" questioned Brereton, as he started his 
 horse walking. 
 
 " I rather guess you came to town on business, did n't you ? " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Might be something to do with the sale of Greenwood." 
 
 " Possibly." 
 
 " But more likely 't was something to do with public 
 matters ? " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " What would you give to catch them as was concerned in 
 the killing of the post-riders?" 
 
47° Janice Meredith 
 
 Not a motion or sound did Jack give to betray himself. 
 "That lies outside of my work," he said. " 'T is the business 
 of the secret service." 
 
 " Do you mean that, if I can put you in the way of laying 
 hands on the whole gang, you won't do it? " 
 
 " If you choose to tell me what ybu know, I '11 report it, for 
 what it 's worth, to headquarters, and General Washington will 
 take such actions as he judges fit." 
 
 " There won't be time for that," asserted Joe. " It 's to- 
 morrow the thing 's to be played." 
 
 "What thing?" 
 
 " The robbing of the mail." 
 
 "How know you that? " 
 
 " Well, being in politics, colonel, I make it my business to 
 know most things that is happening in the county. Now, 
 I 've been ferreting for some time to get at this post-riding 
 business, and at last I 've found out how it 's done. And 
 they 're going to do it again to-morrow night just this side 
 of Rocky Hill." 
 
 ' For a moment Brereton was silent. " How is it done ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "It's this way. One of Moody's gang is working with 
 Squire Hennion as hired man ; and when Hennion knows that 
 a rider is due, he drops into the ordinary, and, casual like, 
 finds out all he can as to when he rides on, and by what road. 
 Then he hurries off home and tells his man, and he goes 
 and tells Moody, who gets his men together and does t^e 
 business." 
 
 " I see. And how can we know where they set the ambush, 
 so as to set a counter one? " 
 
 " It 's easy as can be. When they have the mail, it 's to 
 Hennion's barn they all goes, where they cut it open and takes 
 out everything as Clinton will pay for, and sends it off at once 
 on one of the boats of provisions as old Hennion is stealing 
 into New York two or three times a week." 
 
 " Ah, that 's where he 's got the money to buy Greenwood, 
 is it?" 
 
 " Yes ; I tell you he 's a traitor if there ever was one, colonel. 
 But I guess he '11 be nabbed now. All you 've got to do is to 
 
iraitors in the Rear 471 
 
 hide your men in the barn to-morrow night, and you '11 take 
 the whole lot red-handed." 
 
 " And I suppose you tell me this to get your revenge for 
 this afternoon." 
 
 " Just a little, colonel ; but don't forget I 'm a patriot, who 's 
 always trying to serve his country. Now I '11 tell you how 
 we '11 do it. You bring your men down t' other side of the 
 river to Meegan's place; and as soon as it's dark, I '11 come 
 across the river in a sloop I own and will bring you right over 
 to Hennion's wharf, from which it will be easy to steal into 
 his barn without no one seeing us." 
 
 Brereton made no answer for a minute, then said, "Very 
 well ; I '11 adopt your plan." 
 
 " I suppose there '11 be some reward coming to me, 
 colonel?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," replied Jack, but with a twitch of con- 
 tempt. "Is that all?" 
 
 "That 's enough to do the business, I guess," rejoined Joe. 
 " About nine clock I '11 allow to be at Meegan's," he said. 
 
 Without a word of assent. Jack quickened his pace. When 
 he had gone fifty feet he looked back, but already the in- 
 former had disappeared. " What dirty work every man must 
 do on occasion ! " he muttered. " I 'd suspect the scoundrel 
 but for what I heard this afternoon, and he has it all so pat 
 that he 's probably been in it himself more or less. However, 
 it promises well ; and 't will be a service of the utmost im- 
 portance if we can but break up the murdering gang and 
 bring them to justice, for 't is no time to have Clinton reading 
 all our secrets." 
 
 It was midnight when Brereton trotted into Chatham and 
 dismounting from his horse walked wearily into his tent. 
 
 His servant, sleeping on the floor, waked, and hastily rose. 
 " A despatch, sir, from headquarters," he said, taking a paper 
 from his pocket. 
 
 "When did it arrive?" demanded Jack, as he examined the 
 seal, to make sure that it had not been tampered with, and 
 then broke the letter open. 
 
 " Four hours ago, sir, by special courier." 
 
 What Brereton read was this : — 
 
472 Janice Mereaitn 
 
 Headquarters, August 16, 1781. 
 Sir, — Should you have already taken steps looking to the 
 discovery and seizure of those concerned in the late robbing of the 
 7nails,you will hold all such proceedings in abeyance until further 
 orders. For military reasons it is even desired that the post-bag 
 which will be sent through to-morrow should fall into the hands 
 of the enemy, and you will act accordingly. I have the honour 
 to be, 
 
 Yr. Obed[ hble Seri/, 
 
 Go. Washington. 
 To Colonel Brereton, 
 
 Commanding the yd. New Jersey Regt., 
 Stationed at Chatham. 
 
 Jack whistled softly, then smiled, " Joe will have a long 
 wait," he chuckled. " I wonder what 's up." 
 
 He knew three days later, for orders came to him to put his. 
 regiment in motion and march for Philadelphia, and the 
 bearer of the despatch added that the united forces of Wash- 
 ington and Rochambeau were already across the Hudson and 
 would follow close upon his heels. 
 
 " We 've made Sir Henry Clinton buy the information 
 that we intend to attack New York," the aide told him, "and 
 now we are off to trap Cornwallis in Virginia." 
 
LX 
 
 THE SPINNING OF THE WEB 
 
 OWING to the impossibility of the horses of Tarleton's 
 and Simcoe's legions being ferried on the small 
 boats which transported the foot troops from Ports- 
 mouth to Yorktown, they had been left behind the 
 rest of the army, with directions to put themselves on board 
 the frigate and sloops of war and effect a landing at Hampton 
 or thereabouts. This gave the commissary still more time 
 free from the presence of Major Hennion, but he had little 
 reason to think it of advantage to him. At meal hours, since 
 they had but one table, Janice could not avoid his company, 
 but otherwise she very successfully eluded him. Much of each 
 day she spent with her mother, who was ailing, and kept her 
 room, and she made this an excuse for never remaining in those 
 shared by all in common. When she went out of doors, which, 
 owing to the August heats, was usually towards evening, she 
 always took pains that the baron should not be in a position to 
 join her, or even to know of her having sallied forth. With 
 the same object, she generally, as soon as she left the house, 
 hurried through the little village and past the rows of tents of 
 the encampment on the outskirts and the lines of earthworks 
 upon which the soldiery and negroes were working, until she 
 reached the high point of land to the east, which opened on 
 Chesapeake Bay, where, feeling secure, she could enjoy her- 
 self in the orchard of the Moore house, in the woods to the 
 southward, or with sewing or a book, merely sit on the ex- 
 treme point gazing off at the broad expanse of water. 
 
 She was thus engaged on the afternoon of the 28th of 
 Aagust, when the rustle of footsteps made her look up from 
 her book, only to find that her precautions for once were 
 
474 Janice Meredith 
 
 futile, as it was the commissary who was hastening toward 
 her. 
 
 "I needed this," he began, "to prove to me that you were 
 not a witch, as well as a bewitcher, for, verily, I had begun to 
 think that by some black art ye flew out of your window at 
 will. Nay," he protested, as Janice, closing her book, rose, 
 "call ye this fair treatment, Miss Meredith? Surely, if ye 
 have no gratitude yourself, ye should at least remember what 
 I am doing for your father and mother, and not seek to shun 
 me as if I were the plague, rather than a man nigh mad with 
 love for ye." 
 
 " 'T is that very fact. Lord Clowes," replied Janice, gravely, 
 " which has forced avoidance of you upon me. Surely you 
 must understand that, promised now as I am to another, both 
 by my father's word and by my own, your suit cannot fail to 
 distress me ? " 
 
 " Is 't possible that, to please others, thee intends, then, to 
 force thyself to marry this long-legged dragoon?" protested 
 Clowes. " Hast thy father not told thee of thy own loss of 
 Greenwood and of his undoubted loss of Boxely? " 
 
 " Our loss of property, my Lord, but makes it all the more 
 important that we save our good natne ; and if our change of 
 circumstance does not alter Major Hennion's wishes, as I am 
 certain it will not, we shall keep faith with him." 
 
 " Even though Lord Clowes offers ye position, wealth, and 
 a home for your parents, not a one of which he can give ? " 
 
 " Were I not promised, Lord Clowes, nothing could induce 
 me to marry you." 
 
 "'Why not?" questioned the baron, warmly. 
 
 " Methinks, if you but search the past, sir, you cannot for 
 an instant be in doubt. Obligations you have heaped upon 
 us at moments, for every one of which I thank you, but never 
 could I bring myself to feel respect, far less affection for 
 you." 
 
 The commissary, with knitted brows, started to speak, but 
 checked himself and took half a dozen strides. Returning, 
 he said : — 
 
 " Miss Meredith, 't is not just to judge the future by the 
 past. Can ye not understand that what I did in Philadelphia, 
 
The Spinning of the Web 475 
 
 ay, every act of mine at which ye could take offence in our 
 whole acquaintance, has been done on heated impulse? If 
 ye but knew a man's feelings when he loves as I love, and 
 finds no response to his passion in the object of it, ye would 
 pardon my every act." 
 
 " 'T is not alone your conduct to us. Lord Clowes, but as 
 well that to others which has confirmed me in my convic- 
 tion." 
 
 " Ye would charge me with — " 
 
 " T is not I alone, my Lord, that you have deceived or 
 injured, and you cannot plead for those the excuse you plead 
 to me." 
 
 " 'T is the circumstances of my parole of which ye speak? " 
 demanded the baron. 
 
 " Of that and other things which have come to my knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 Again the suitor hesitated before saying, with a suggestion 
 of glibness : " Miss Meredith, every ounce of blame ye put 
 upon my conduct I accept honestly and regretfully, but did ye 
 but know all, I think ye would pity rather than judge me in 
 that heart which seems open to every one but me. From the 
 day my father died in the debtor's prison and I was thrown 
 a penniless boy of twelve upon the world, it has been one 
 long fight to keep head above water, till I got this appoint- 
 ment. The gentlemen of the army have told ye that I was a 
 government spy, I doubt not. I wonder what they would 
 have been in my straits ! Think ye any man is spy by choice ? 
 Am I worse than the men who hired me to do the work, and 
 who gained praise and rewards, even to the blue ribbon, by 
 the information I had got for them, while only scorn and 
 shame was my portion ? Think ye a life given to indirection 
 and worming, to prying and scheming, is one of self-choice? 
 Hitherto I have done the dirty work of ministers, — ay, of 
 kings ; but from the day I leave this country, that is over and 
 done with for ever, and their once tool, now rich, will take his 
 place among the very best of England's peers, for money will 
 buy a man anything in London nowadays. 'T is not alone 
 that I love ye nigh to desperation that I beg your love ; 't is 
 that your love will help to make me the honest-living man 
 
476 Janice Meredith 
 
 I ambition to be. But grant the longing of my life, and I '11 
 pledge ye happiness. Ye shall write your own marriage set- 
 tlement, a house, carriages, jewels — " 
 
 " Indeed, Lord Clowes, even were my feelings less strong, 
 you ask for what is now impossible." 
 
 "Because your father, with a short-sightedness that is well- 
 nigh criminal, has tied ye to this fellow ! Can't ye perceive 
 that the greatest service ye can render him will be to relieve 
 him of the promise he has not the courage to end ? In a six- 
 months he '11 bless ye for the deed, if ye will but do it." 
 
 Almost as if he had come to protect his rights, the voice of 
 Major Hennion broke in upon them. " Everywhere have I 
 sought you for upwards of an hour," he said, as he hurried 
 toward them, " and began to fear that some evil had befallen 
 you." He caught Janice's hand eagerly and kissed it. ' 
 
 " But when did you arrive?" exclaimed the girl. 
 
 " The legions were landed at Hampton Road this morning 
 and reached camp an hour gone," explained the major. Still 
 retaining her hand, he turned to Clowes and said, " If I 
 understood you aright, my Lord, you told me you knew not 
 where Miss Meredith was to be found?" 
 
 "And Miss Meredith will bear me out in the statement, 
 sir, though I am quite willing that my word should stand by 
 itself," retorted the commissary, tartly. " Nor am I in the 
 habit of having it questioned by colonial striplings," he added 
 insultingly. 
 
 "Nor am I — "began Philemon, heatedly; but Janiqe 
 checked him by laying her free hand on his arm. 
 
 " 'Tis naught to take umbrage at, Phil," she said dissuad- 
 ingly, " and do not by quarrelling over a foolish nothing spoil 
 my pleasure in seeing you." 
 
 " That I '11 not," acceded the major, heartily. " Ah, 
 Janice," he cried, unable to contain himself even before the 
 baron, " if you knew the thrill your words give me. Are 
 you truly glad to see me?" 
 
 "Yes, Phil, or I would not say so," answered the girl, 
 ingenuously. 
 
 Lord Clowes, a scowl on his face, turned from the two, to 
 avoid sight of Hennion's look of gladness. This brought him 
 
The Spinning of the Web 477 
 
 gazing seaward, and he gave an exclamation. " Ho ! Wiiat 's 
 here?" 
 
 The two faced about at his question, to see, just appearing 
 from behind the curve of the land to the southward, a full- 
 rigged ship, one mass of canvas from deck to spintle-heads, 
 and with a single row of ports which bespoke the man-of-war. 
 
 " 'T is a frigate," announced Clowes, " and no doubt sent 
 to convoy the transports we have been awaiting. Yes ; there 
 comes another. 'T is the fleet, beyond question," he con- 
 tinued, as the first vessel having opened from the land, the 
 bowsprit of a second began to appear. 
 
 The three stood silent as the two ships towering pyramids of 
 sails, making them marvels of beauty, swept onward with slow 
 dignity across the mouth of the York River, at this point 
 nearly three miles wide, toward the Gloucester shore. Before 
 they had gone a quarter of a mile, a third and larger vessel 
 came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her 
 to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land 
 when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, 
 and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels 
 were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails 
 with machine-like precision were clewed up and furled, and 
 each ship, stripped of all but its topsails, rounded to, with its 
 head to the wind. 
 
 "That is a strange manoeuvre," remarked Philemon. "Why 
 stop they outside, instead of sailing up the river? " 
 
 " They 've hove to, no doubt, to wait a pilot, being strangers 
 to the waters," surmised Clowes, wheeling and looking up the 
 river townwards. " Ay, there goes some signal from the ' Cha- 
 ron's ' truck," he went on, as the British frigate anchored off the 
 town displayed three flags at her masthead. 
 
 Janice, thankful for the diversion the arrivals had caused, 
 said something to Philemon in a low voice, and they set out 
 toward the town. Not noticing the obvious attempt to escape 
 from his society, or to outward appearance perturbed, the 
 baron put himself alongside the two, and walked with them 
 until the custom-house was reached. 
 
 " Will you come in, Philemon, and see dadda and mommy? " 
 questioned the girl, as the three halted at the doorway. 
 
478 Janice Meredith 
 
 As she spoke, an orderly, who a moment before had come 
 out of headquarters, made towards the major, and, saluting, 
 said, " Colonel Tarleton directs that you report at headquarters 
 without delay, sir." 
 
 " My answer is made for me, Janice," sighed Phile- 
 mon. " I fear me 't is some vidette duty, and that once 
 again we are doomed to part, just as I thought my hour had 
 come. Many more of such disappointments will turn me 
 from a soldier into a Quaker. However, 't is possible his 
 Lordship wants but to put some questions, and, if so, I '11 be 
 with you shortly." He crossed the street and entered the 
 Nelson house. 
 
 Shown by the orderly to the room where Cornwallis was, he 
 found with him his colonel and a man in the uniform of a 
 naval officer. 
 
 "Ah, here he is,'' said the British general. "Major Hen- 
 nion, the three ships which have taken station at the mouth 
 of the river pay no heed to the ' Charon's ' signals, nor are theirs 
 to be read by our book, so 't is feared that they are French 
 ships. As 't is impossible to believe they would thus boldly 
 venture into the bay if alone, we wish to know if there are 
 others below. Furnish Lieutenant Foley with a mount, and, 
 with an escort of a troop, guide him over the road you came 
 to-day to some spot where a view of the roadstead at Old 
 Point Comfort is to be commanded." Speaking to the naval 
 officer, he enjoined, " You will carefully observe any shipping 
 there may be, sir, and of what force, and report to me witlt 
 the least possible delay." 
 
 It was a little after ten o'clock on the following day when a 
 troop of hot and weary- looking horses and men clattered 
 along the main street of the town and drew up in front of 
 headquarters. Throwing himself from the saddle. Major 
 Hennion hurried into the house. The moment he was in the 
 presence of Cornwallis, he said: " 'T is as you surmised, 
 general. Between thirty and forty sail stretch from Lynnhaven 
 Bay to the mouth of the James, and though 't was difficult to 
 exactly estimate their force, they are mostly men of war, and 
 some even three-deckers." 
 
 "Beyond question 'tis the French West India fleet," burst 
 
The Spinning of the Web 479 
 
 from Cornwallis. For a moment he was silent, then sternly 
 demanded, "Where is Lieutenant Foley?" 
 
 " The gentlemen of the navy, sir, are more used to oak than 
 to leather, and we set him such a pace that twelve miles back 
 he could no longer sit his saddle, and we left him leading his 
 horse, thinking this information could not be brought you too 
 soon." 
 
 " It but proves the old saying that ' 111 news has wings,' " 
 replied the earl, steadily, as he walked to the window and 
 looked out into the garden. Here he stood silently for so 
 long that finally Hennion spoke. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, general," he said, "but am I 
 dismissed ? " 
 
 All the reply Cornwallis made him was to ask, " When you 
 first came amongst us, major, you spoke with the barbaric pro- 
 vincialism and nasal twang of your countrymen, but in your 
 years with us you have lost them. Could you upon occasion 
 resume both ? " 
 
 " Indeed, my Lord," replied the officer, smiling, " 't is even 
 yet a constant struggle to keep from it." 
 
 " The word you bring must be got to Clinton without ques- 
 tion of fail and with the least possible delay. Are you willing 
 to volunteer for a service of very great risk? " 
 
 " Does your Lordship for a moment question it? " 
 
 " Not I. To-night we will try to steal a small sloop out of 
 the river with a despatch for Clinton ; but we must not place 
 our whole dependence on this means, and a second must be 
 sent him overland. Get you a meal, sir, and a fresh horse, 
 and from some civilian or negro procure such clothes as are 
 fitting for a travelling peddler. I will order you a pack and a 
 stock of such things as are appropriate from the public stores, 
 and you shall at once be rowed across the river and must 
 make your way as best you can northward to New York. 
 Dost understand ? " 
 
 " Ay, my Lord," replied Major Hennion, his hand already 
 on the door-latch. 
 
 Left alone, Cornwallis stood for a moment, his lips pressed 
 together, then summoning an aide, he gave him certain 
 directions, after which, going to his writing-desk, he pulled 
 
480 Janice Meredith 
 
 out a drawer and from it took quite a batch of Continental 
 and State currency. Seating himself at his desk, he laid one 
 of the notes upon it, and taking his penknife he very neatly 
 and dexterously split the bill through half its length. Taking 
 from his pocket a wallet, he drew from it a sheet of paper 
 covered with numbers and syllables, which was indorsed, 
 "Cipher No. i." Writing on a scrap of paper a few words, 
 he then alternately looked at what he had penned and at the 
 cipher, taking down on one of the inner surfaces of the bill a 
 series of numbers. Scarcely had he done his task when a 
 knock came at the door, and in response to his summons a 
 negress entered. 
 
 " 'Scuse me, your Lordship," she said with a bob. " De 
 captain, he say youse done want a leetle flour gum." 
 
 "Yes. Give it to me and' leave the room," answered the 
 earl. 
 
 Touching his finger in the saucer she had brought, Corn- 
 wallis rubbed it inside the split along the three edges, and 
 then laying the bill on his desk, he patted the edges where 
 they had been split, together, wiping them clean with his 
 handkerchief. Running over the pile of currency, he sorted 
 out some fifty notes, then taking a sheet of paper, he began a 
 letter. 
 
 Before the earl had finished what he was writing, he was 
 again interrupted, and the new-comer proved to be Major 
 Hennion, clothed in an old suit of butternut-colpured linen. 
 And as if in laying aside his red coat, shorts, and boots he had, 
 as well laid aside military rank, he seemed to have already 
 reverted to his old slouch. 
 
 " Good," exclaimed Comwallis, as he rose. " Are your 
 other preparations all made ? " 
 
 " Every one, general j and my horse and pack are already 
 at the river-side." 
 
 The earl took the pile of sorted bills from his desk and 
 handed them to Hennion. " There is the money to pay your 
 way," he said, " all Continental Ix)an office or Virginia cur- 
 rency, save one of North Carolina for forty shillings, which on 
 no account are you to part with, even if any one in the States 
 to the northward will accept it, for I have split it open and 
 
The Spinning of the Web 481 
 
 written within it to Sir Henry Clinton the news I have to tell. 
 Say to him that a few moments in water will serve to part the 
 edges where they have been gummed together. I give you 
 the note, that if you are caught, you may still find some means 
 to send it on. But lest by mischance it should be lost or 
 taken from you, and you should yet be able to reach New 
 York, I have here the words I have written in cipher within 
 the bill. Have you a good memory?" 
 " For facts, if not for words, my Lord." 
 The general took up from his desk the little memorandum 
 he had written before using his cipher and read out : " An 
 enemy's fleet within the Capes. Between thirty and forty 
 ships of war, mostly large." "Spare not your speed, sir, yet 
 take no unnecessary risk," ended the earl, as he held out his 
 hand. 
 
 As Hennion took it, he said : " I will endeavour not to fail 
 your Lordship in either respect ; in going, however, I have one 
 favour to crave of you. I leave behind me my promised 
 bride, Miss Meredith ; and I beg of you that she shall not 
 want for any service that your Lordship can render her, or that 
 I could do were I but here." 
 
 "'Tis given," promised the earl, an4 on the word Hennion 
 hurried from the room. Crossing the street, he knocked at 
 the custom-house, and of the servant inquired, " Is Miss 
 Meredith within?" 
 
 " No, sir," replied the soldier. 
 " Where is she?" 
 
 " I know not, sir. She left the house an hour ago." 
 With something suspiciously like an oath, the major turned 
 away and, hurrying along the street, descended that which 
 sloped down the bluff to the river. Here stood an officer, 
 while in the water lay a flatboat which already held, besides 
 two rowers, a horse and a pair of fat saddle-bags. Without a 
 word Phil jumped in and the rowers struck their oars into the 
 water. 
 
 At the same time that Major Hennion's party had been 
 despatched to gain news of the fleet, other troops of Tarleton's 
 and Simcoe's cavalry had been thrown out on scouting parties 
 across the peninsula to the JSHues, and the following day they 
 
 31 
 
482 Janice Meredith 
 
 brought word that the French were busily engaged in landing 
 troops from their ships at Jamestown, with the obvious inten- 
 tion of effecting a junction with Lafayette's brigades, which were 
 at Williamsburg. A council of war was held that evening to 
 debate- whether the British force should not march out and 
 attack them ; but it was recognised that even if they completely 
 crushed the French and Americans, they had themselves made 
 escape southward impossible by the care with which they had 
 destroyed the bridges and ferries in their march into Virginia, 
 while if they fled northward, they would certainly have to 
 fight Washington's army long before they could reach New 
 York. It was therefore unanimously voted that the least hazard- 
 ous course was to remain passive in their present position. 
 
 Five days after this decision, a deserter from Lafayette's 
 camp came into the British lines, bringing with him the news 
 that it was openly talked in Williamsburg that Washington 
 and Rochambeau, with their armies, were coming to join the 
 troops already in Virginia. Nor were the British long able to 
 continue their doubting of his assertions, for a Tory brought in 
 the same tale, and with it a copy of the " Baltimore Journal," 
 which printed the positive statement that the Northern army 
 was on the march southward and was already arrived at Wil- 
 mington. A second council of war was therefore summoned 
 to debate once again their difficulties ; but ere the general and 
 field officers had met, a schooner, eluding the French vessels 
 which blockaded the mouth of the river, arrived from New 
 York, bringing a despatch from Sir Henry Clinton, in whicjj 
 he assured the encircled general that the British fleet would 
 quickly sail to relieve him, and that he himself, with four 
 thousand men, would follow close upon its heels. The order 
 for the council was therefore recalled ; and Cornwallis turned 
 the -whole energies of the force under his command to 
 strengthening his lines and in other ways making ready to 
 resist the gathering storm. 
 
LXI 
 
 IN THE TOILS 
 
 ON the morning of the 6th of October,, twelve thou- 
 sand American and French soldiers lay encamped 
 in the form of a broad semi-circle almost a mile 
 from the British earthworks about Yorktown. Still 
 nearer, in a deep ravine, above which were some outworks 
 that had been abandoned by the British on the approach of 
 the allies, were the outposts ; and these, lacking tents, had 
 hutted themselves with bougiis. Intermittently came the roar 
 of a cannon from the British lines, and those in the hollow 
 could occasionally see and hear a shell as it screeched past 
 them overhead; but they gave not one-tenth the heed to 
 it that they gave to the breakfast they were despatching. 
 Indeed, their sole grumblings were at the meagreness of the 
 ration which had been dealt out to them the night before ere 
 they had been marched forward into their present position ; 
 and as a field officer, coming from the American camp, 
 descended into the ravine, these found open expression. 
 
 " 'T is mighty fine fer the pjinral ter say in the ginral orders 
 that he wants us if attacked ter rely on the bagonet," spoke 
 up one of the murmurers loud enough to make it evident that 
 he intended the officer to overhear him ; " but no troops kin 
 fight on a shred o' salt pork and a mouthful of collards." 
 
 The officer halted, and speaking more to all those within 
 hearing than to the man, said : " You got as good as any of 
 the Continental regiments, boys, and better than some." 
 
 " That may be, kun'l," answered the complainant, " but 
 how about the dandies ? " 
 
 "Yes," assented the officer. "We sent the French regi- 
 ments all the flour and fresh meat the commissaries could lay 
 
484 Janice Meredith 
 
 hands on, I grant you. Is there one of you who would have 
 kept it from them for his own benefit ? " 
 
 " P'raps not," acknowledged another, " but that don't make 
 it any the less unfairsome." 
 
 " Remember they come to help us, and are really our 
 guests. Nor are they accustomed to the privation we know 
 too well. General Washington has surety that you can fight 
 on an empty stomach, for you 've done it many a time, but he 
 is not so certain of the French." 
 
 The remark was greeted with a general laugh, which seemed 
 to dissipate the grievance. 
 
 "Lord ! " exclaimed a corporal; "them fine birds do need 
 careful tending." 
 
 " 'T ain't ter be wondered at thet the Frenchies is so keer- 
 ful ter bring their tents with 'em," remarked a third, " What- 
 ever would happen ter one o' them Soissonnais fellers, with his 
 rose-coloured facings an' his white an' rose feathers, if he 
 had ter sleep in a bowery along o' us ? Some on 'em looks so 
 pretty, thet it don't seem right ter even trust 'em out in a heavy 
 dew." As he ended, the speaker looked down at his own 
 linen overalls. " T ain't no shakes they laughs a bit at us an' 
 won't believe we are really snogers." 
 
 " 'T is for us to make them laugh the other way before 
 we 've done Cornwallis's business," remarked the officer. 
 " But make up your minds to one thing, boys, if their caps 
 are full of feathers and their uniforms more fit for a ball-room 
 than for service, these same fine-plumaged birds can fight ; and 
 there must be no lagging if we are to prove ourselves their 
 betters, or even their equals." 
 
 " We '11 show 'em what the Jarsey game-cocks kin do, an' 
 don't you be afeared, kun'l." 
 
 As the assertion was made, a group of officers appeared on 
 the brow of the ravine, and the colonel turned and went for- 
 ward to meet them as they descended. 
 
 " How far in advance are your pickets. Colonel Brereton? " 
 one of them asked. 
 
 " About three hundred paces, your Excellency." 
 
 "And is the ground open?" demanded a second of the 
 party, with a markedly French accent. 
 
In the Toils 485 
 
 " There is some timber cover, General du Portail, but 't is 
 chiefly open and rolling." 
 
 " We wish, sir, to advance as far as can be safely effected," 
 said Washington, " and shall rely on you for guidance." 
 
 " This way, sir," answered Erereton j and the whole party 
 ascended out of the hollow through a side ravine which 
 brought them into a clump of poplars occupied by a party of 
 skirmishers, and which commanded a view of the British 
 earthworks. Halting at the edge of the timber, glasses were 
 levelled, and each man began a study of the enemy's lines. 
 Scarcely had they taken position when a puff of smoke rose 
 from one of the redoubts, and a shell came screeching towards, 
 them, passing high enough to cut the branches of the trees over 
 their heads, and bringing them falling among the group. A 
 minute later a solid shot struck directly in their front, causing 
 all except the commander-in-chief to fall back out of sight 
 among the trees ; but he, apparently unmoved by the danger, 
 calmly continued observing the enemies' works, and though 
 directly in their view, for some reason they did not fire again. 
 When Washington finally turned about and rejoined the 
 group, he said to Erereton : " Keep your men, sir, as they are 
 at present disposed, out of sight of the batteries, till evening ; 
 then push your pickets forward as close to the town as they 
 can venture, with orders to fall back, unless attacked, only with 
 daylight. Last night the British put outside their lines a num- 
 ber of blacks stricken with the small-pox ; you will order your 
 skirmishers, therefore, to fire on them if they endeavour to repeat 
 the attempt, for even the dictates of humanity cannot allow us 
 to jeopardise the health of our army. Hold your regiment in 
 readiness to move out at nightfall in support of the pioneers 
 who will begin breaking ground this evening. Further and 
 specific orders will reach you later through the regular 
 channels." 
 
 It was already dark when Erereton, guiding General du 
 Portail and the engineers, once more came out upon the plain. 
 Following after them were a corps of sappers and miners, tegi- 
 ments detailed as pioneers, carrying intrenching tools, regi- 
 ments armed as usual, to support them if attacked, and carts 
 loaded with bags of sand, empty barrels, fascines, and gabions. 
 
486 Janice Meredith 
 
 Advancing cautiously, each man keeping touch with the one 
 in front of him, they went forward until within six hundred 
 yards of the British position. Without delay, by means of 
 lanterns which were screened from the foe by being carried in 
 half-barrels, the engineering tapes were laid down, and with 
 pick and shovel the fatigue party went to work, the eagerness 
 of the men being such that, despite of orders, the men from 
 the supporting regiments, leaving their muskets in charge of 
 their fellow-soldiers, would join in the toil. Nor did their 
 colonels reprove them for this ; but, on the contrary, Brereton, 
 finding six men from one company engaged in rolling a large 
 rock out of the ditch and to the top of the rapidly waxing pile 
 of earth in its rear, said approvingly : " Well done, boys. 
 I 've a wager with the Marquis de Chastellux that an American 
 battery fires the first shot, and I see you intend that I shall 
 win the bet." 
 
 "Arrah, 'tis in yez pocket aready, colonel," cried one of 
 the sappers. " Sure, how kin a Frinchman expect to bate us 
 whin nary ground-hog nor baver, the aither av thim, is theer in 
 his counthry to tache him how to work wid earth an' timber? " 
 
 So well was the night spent that when morning dawned the 
 British found a long line of new earthworks stretched along 
 their front ; and though instantly their guns began cannonad- 
 ing them, the men were now protected and could dig on, 
 unheeding of the fire. Indeed, such was the enthusiasm that 
 when at six o'clock the order came for the regiments to fall 
 in, and it was found that they were to be replaced by fresh 
 troops, there was open grumbling. '"Tis we did the work," 
 complained a sergeant, " and now them- fellows who slept all 
 night will steal the glory." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, boys," denied Brereton, as he was passing 
 down the lines preparatory to giving the order of march. 
 " There are still redoubts to be made and the guns are not up 
 yet. 'T will come our turn in the trenches again before they 
 are." 
 
 Their commander spoke wittingly, for two days it took to 
 get the trenches, and the redoubts thrown out in advance of 
 them, completed, and the heavy siege-guns were not moved 
 forward until after dark on the 8th. All night long and the 
 
In the Toils 487 
 
 most of the following morning the men toiled, placing them in 
 position, paying no attention to the unceasing thunder of the 
 British guns, unless to stop momentarily and gaze with admira- 
 tion at the shells, each with its tail of fire, as they curved 
 through the air, or to crack a joke over some one which flew 
 especially near. 
 
 " Bark away," laughed one, as he affectionately patted a 
 twenty-four pounder just moved into its position, while shaking 
 his other fist toward Yorktown. " Scold while ye kin, for 't is 
 yer last chance. Like men, we 've sat silent for nine days, an' let 
 ye, like women, do the talkin', but it 's to-morrow mornin' ye 'U 
 find that, if we 've kept still, it 's not been for want of a tongue." 
 
 It was noon when Brereton came hurrying into the battery 
 to find the men sleeping among the guns, where they had 
 dropped after their hard labour. 
 
 "How is it. Jack? " questioned the officer in command. 
 
 " General du Portail has reported the battery completed, and 
 he tells me we 've beat the French by at least two hours." 
 
 ^ A wild yell of joy broke from one of the apparently un- 
 conscious men, bringing most of the sleepers scrambling to 
 their feet and grasping for their weapons. " I said they could 
 never dig in them clothes ! " he cried. 
 
 " 'T is however to be another ' Gentlemen of the guards, 
 fire first,' " went on Brereton. " General Washington, as a 
 compliment to the French, has decided that their guns shall 
 fire the first shot." 
 
 A growl came from the captain of the nearest cannon. " I 
 promised the old gal," he muttered discontentedly, his hand 
 on his thirty-two pounder, "that she should begin it, an' 
 she 's sighted to knock over that twelve pounder that 's been 
 teasin' us, or may I never fire gun agin." 
 
 "She '11 do it just as well on the second shot," said Colonel 
 Lamb, " and who cares which fires first, since we 've beat them." 
 
 It was three o'clock when Washington and Rochambeau, 
 accompanied by their staffs, came out of the covert-way which 
 permitted entrance and egress to a French redoubt, from the 
 trenches in its rear, and infantry and gunners came to the 
 " present." 
 
 " Votre Excellence," said Colonel d'Aboville, saluting, " mes 
 
488 Janice Meredith 
 
 cannoniers vous implorent de leur donner I'honneur itnmortel 
 en mettant feu au premier coup de cannon." 
 
 Washington, realizing that the speech was addressed to him, 
 turned to Rochambeau with a helpless and questioning look. 
 
 " Zay desire zat your Excellency does zem ze honneur to 
 fire ze first gun," explained the French general. 
 
 Washington removed his hat and bowed. " Try as we will, 
 count," he said, " we cannot equal your nation in politeness." 
 In silence he stepped forward to the gun the colonel indicated, 
 and the captain of the piece handed him the loggerhead with 
 a salute and then fell back respectfully. 
 
 Washington touched the red-hot iron to the port fire; 
 there was a puff of smoke, a deafening crash ; and the great 
 gun gave a little jump, as if for joy. A thousand pairs of eyes 
 strained after the solid shot as it flew, then as it disappeared 
 over the British earthworks and was heard to go tearing its 
 way through some wall a great shout went up from one end of 
 the lines of the allies, to the other. 
 
 Instantly came the roar of the other five cannon, and two 
 ten-inch mortars echoed their thunder by sending ten-inch 
 shells curving high in the air. Ere they descended one of the 
 guns peeping from a British redoubt rose on end and dis- 
 appeared ; raising another cheer. At last the siege was 
 begun. 
 
 As if to prove that the foe was nothing daunted, a solid 
 shot, just topping the redoubt, tore through the middle of the 
 group of generals, scattering sand and pebbles over them. 
 Colonel Cobb, who stood nearest Washington, turning im- 
 pulsively, said, "Sir, you are too much exposed here. Had 
 you not better step back a little?" 
 
 " If you are afraid. Colonel Cobb," quietly answered Wash- 
 ington, " you have liberty to step back." 
 
 By dark three batteries were firing, and all through the 
 night the guns on both sides rained shot and shell at each 
 other. Two more batteries of thirty-two pounders opened fire 
 on the loth, and by hot shot set fire that evening to the 
 ■" Charon " frigate, making a sight of marvellous grandeur, for 
 the ship became one mass of fire from the water's edge to 
 her spintle-heads, all her ports belching flame and each spar 
 
In the Toils 489 
 
 and every rope ablaze at the same moment. The morning 
 of the nth found fifty-two pieces of artillery mounted and 
 hurling a storm of projectiles into the British lines ; and that 
 evening, a second parallel was opened, bringing the guns of 
 the besiegers less than three hundred yards from their earth- 
 works, and putting all parts of the town within range. After 
 this was completed, the defensive fire slackened, for every gun 
 with which the garrison sought to make reply was dismounted 
 the moment it was advanced into the embrasure, compelling 
 their withdrawal during daylight hours ; and though each night 
 as soon as dark screened them from the accurate gunnery of 
 the Americans, they were restored and the firing renewed, it 
 was done with a feebleness that bespoke discouragement and 
 exhaustion. For two days shot and shell splintered and tore 
 through abattis and fraising, and levelled parapet and ditch, 
 almost unanswered. 
 
 To the right of the new parallel, and almost enfilading it 
 by their fire, were two detached redoubts of the British, well 
 in advance of their main lines. To end their destructive 
 cross fire, as well as to complete the investiture, it was 
 determined to carry them by assault ; and as dark settled 
 down on the evening of the 14th, two storming parties, one of 
 French grenadiers and chasseurs, drawn from the brigade of 
 the Baron de Viomenil and under the command of the Comte 
 de Deuxponts, and the second, of American light infantry, 
 taken from the division of the Marquis de Lafayette and 
 commanded by Alexander Hamilton, were moved out of the 
 trenches, and, followed by strong supporting battalions, were 
 advanced as far as was prudent. 
 
 It was while the American forlorn hope was standing at ease, 
 awaiting the signal, that Colonel Brereton came hurrying up to 
 where Hamilton and Laurens were whispering final details. 
 
 " I could n't keep out of this," he explained ; " and the 
 marquis was good enough to say I might serve as a volunteer." 
 
 "The more the merrier," responded Laurens. "Come 
 along with me. Jack. We are to take the fort in the rear, 
 and you shall have your stomach full of fighting, I '11 warrant 
 you. Here, put this paper in your hat, if you don't want to 
 be stuck by our own men." 
 
490 Janice Meredith 
 
 Hamilton, turning from the two, addressed the three bat- 
 talions. " Light infantry," he said, " when the council of war 
 reached the decision to carry the works in our front, Baron de 
 Viomenil argued that both should be left to his troops, as the 
 American soldiery could not be depended upon for an assault. 
 The commander-in-chief would not disgrace us by yielding 
 to his claim, and 't is for us to prove that he was right. We 
 have shown the French artillerists that we can serve our guns 
 quicker and more accurately ; now let us see if we cannot 
 prove ourselves the swifter and steadier at this work. Let 
 the sergeants see to it that each man in his file has a piece 
 of paper in his hat, and that each has removed the flint from 
 his gun. I want you to carry the redoubt without a shot, by 
 the bayonet alone." 
 
 A murmur of assent and applause passed along the lines, 
 and then all stood listening for the signal. It was a night of 
 intense darkness, and now, after ten days of unending bom- 
 bardment, the cannonading had entirely ceased, giving place 
 to a stillness which to ears so long accustomed to the uproar 
 seemed to have a menacing quality in it. 
 
 Suddenly a gun boomed loud and clear ; and as its echo 
 reverberated out over the river, every man clutched his 
 musket more firmly. Boom ! went a second close upon the 
 first, and each soldier drew a deep breath as if to prepare for 
 some exertion. Boom ! went a third, and a restless undulation 
 swept along the lines. Boom ! for a fourth time roared a 
 cannon, and some of the men laughed nervously. Boom ! 
 rolled out yet a fifth, and the ranks stood tense and rigid, 
 every ear, every sense, straining. 
 
 Boom ! crashed the sixth gun, and not a man needed the 
 " Forward, light infantry ! " of the commander, every one 
 of them being in motion before the order was given. Steadily 
 they advanced in silence, save only for muttered grumbles 
 here and there over the slowness of the pace. 
 
 Without warning, out of the blackness came a challenge, 
 " Who goes there ? " 
 
 Making no answer, the stormers broke into a run and swept 
 forward with a rush. 
 
 " Bang ! " went a single musket ; and had it been fired into 
 
In the Toils 491 
 
 a mine, the tremendous uproar that ensued could not have 
 come more mstantaneously, for twenty cannon thundered, 
 and the redoubts fairly seemed to spit fire as the defenders' 
 muskets flashed. High in the air rose rockets, which lit up 
 the whole scene, and for the time they lasted fairly turned 
 the pight into day. 
 
 As the main and flanking parties swept up to the redoubt, the 
 sappers and miners, who formed the first rank, attacked the 
 abattis with their axes ; but the troops, mad with long waiting 
 and fretted by the galling fire of the foe, would not wait, 
 and, pushing them aside, clambering, boosting, and tumbling 
 went over the obstruction. Not pausing to form in the 
 ditch, they scrambled up the parapet and went surging over 
 the crest, pell-mell, upon the British. 
 
 Brereton, swoi:d in hand, had half sprung, half been tossed 
 upon the row of barrels filled with earth which topped the 
 breastworks, only to face a bayonet which one of the garrison 
 lunged up at him. A sharp prick he felt in his chest ; but as 
 in the quick thought of danger he realised his death moment, 
 the weapon, instead of being driven home, was jerked back, 
 and the soldier who had thrust with it cried : — 
 
 « Charlie ! " 
 
 " Fred J " exclaimed Jack, and the two men caught each 
 other by the hand and stood still while the invaders poured 
 past them over the barrels. 
 
 It was Mobray who spoke first. " Oh, Charlie ! " he almost 
 sobbed, " one misery at least has been saved me ! My God 1 
 You bleed." 
 
 " A pin-prick only, Fred. But what does this inean? You 1 
 and in the ranks." 
 
 " Ay, and for three years desperately seeking a death which 
 will not come ! " 
 
 "And the Fusileers?" 
 
 "Hold this redoubt. Oh, Charlie, to think that your 
 sword should ever be raised against the old regiment ! " 
 
 As Mobray spoke, came a cry from the garrison, "We 
 yield ! " and the clatter of their weapons could be heard as 
 they were grounded, or were thrown to the earth. 
 
 " Quick ! " cried Brereton, fairly hauling Sir Frederick to 
 
492 Janice Meredith 
 
 where he stood. " Run, Fred ! At least, you shall be no 
 prisoner." Jack gave him a last squeeze of the hand and a 
 shove, which sent his friend fairly staggering down into the 
 ditch. 
 
 Mobray sprang through a break in the abattis, but had not 
 run ten feet when he turned and shouted back something 
 which the thundering of the artillery prevented Brereton from 
 entirely hearing, but the words he distinguished were sufficient 
 to make him catch at the barrels for support, for they were : — 
 
 "Janice Meredith . . . Yorktown . . . point of death 
 . . , small-pox." 
 
 For a moment Brereton stood in a kind of daze ; but as the 
 full horror of Mobray's words came home to him, he groaned. 
 Turning, he plunged down into the fortress with a look of a 
 man bereft, and striding to the commander cried, " For God's 
 sake, Hamilton, give me something to do ! " 
 
 "The very man I wanted," replied the little colonel. 
 " Carry word to the marquis that the redoubt is ours, and that 
 the supports may advance." 
 
 Dashing out of the now open sally port. Jack ran at his 
 top speed, and within two minutes delivered the report to 
 General de Lafayette. 
 
 "Ah, mes braves," ejaculated the marquis, triumphantly. 
 " My own countreemen they thought they would not it do, 
 and now my boys, they have the fort before Deuxponts has 
 his," he went on, as he pointed into the darkness, out of 
 which could be seen the flash of muskets. " Ah, we will teach 
 the baron a lesson. Colonel Barber," he ordered, turning to 
 his aide, " ride at your best quickness to General Viomenil ; 
 tell him, with my compliments, that our fort, it is ours, and 
 that we can give him the assistance, if he needs it.'' 
 
 The help was not needed, for in five minutes the second 
 outpost was also in the possession of the allies. Working 
 parties were at once thrown forward, and before morning the 
 two captured positions were connected with and made part of 
 the already established parallel. 
 
 The fall of these two redoubts in turn opened an enfilading 
 fire on the British, and in desperation, just before dawn on the 
 15th a sortie was made, and the French were driven out of one 
 
In the Toils 493 
 
 of the batteries, and the guns spiked ; but the advantage could 
 not be held against the reserves that came up at the first 
 alarm, and they were in turn forced out at the point of the 
 bayonet. 
 
 On the morning of the i6th almost a hundred heavy guns 
 and mortars were in position ; and for twenty-four hours the 
 whole peninsula trembled, as they poured a torrent of de- 
 structive, direct, and raking fire, at the closest range, into the 
 weakened defences and crumbling town, with scarcely pretence 
 of resistance from the hemmed in and exhausted British, 
 every shot which especially told being greeted with cheers from 
 the trenches of the allies. 
 
 One there was in the uniform of a field officer, who never 
 cheered, yet who, standing in a recklessly exposed position, 
 staringly followed each solid shot as it buried itself in the 
 earthworks, or, passing over them, was heard to strike in the 
 town, and each shell, as it curved upwards and downwards in 
 its great arc. Sometimes the explosion of the latter would 
 throw fragments of what it destroyed in the air, — earth, 
 shingles, bricks, and even human limbs, — raising a cry of 
 triumph from those who served the piece, but he only pressed 
 hij lips the more tightly together, as if enduring some torture. 
 •Mor could he be persuaded to leave his place for food Of 
 sleep, urge . who would, but with careworn face and haggard 
 eyes never left it for thirty hours. Occasionally, when for a 
 minute or two there would come an accidental break in the 
 firing, his lips could be seen to move as if he were speaking to 
 himself. Not one knew why he stood there following each shot 
 so anxiously, or little recked that, when there was not one to 
 fasten his attention, he saw instead a pair of dark eyes shad- 
 owed by long lashes, delicately pencilled eyebrows, a low fore- 
 head surmounted by a wealth of darkest brown hair, a little 
 straight nose, cheeks scarcely ever two minutes the same tint, 
 and lips that, whether they spoke or no, wooed as never 
 words yet did. And as each time the vision flashed out before 
 him, he would half mutter, half sob a prayer : — 
 
 " Oh, God, rob her of her beauty if you will, but do not let 
 disease or shot kill her." 
 
 It was he, watching as no other man in all those lines 
 
494 Janice Meredith 
 
 watched, who suddenly, a Httle after ten o'clock on the morn- 
 ing of the 17th, shouted: — 
 
 " Cease firing ! " 
 
 Every man within hearing turned to him, and then looked 
 to where his finger pointed. 
 
 On the top of a British redoubt stood a red-coated drum- 
 mer, to the eye beating his instrument, but the sound of it was 
 drowned in the roar of the guns. As the order passed from 
 battery to battery, the thunder gradually ceased, and all that 
 could be heard was the distant riffle of the single drum, 
 sounding " The Parley." Once the cessation of the firing was 
 complete, an officer, whose uniform and accoutrements flashed 
 out brilliantly as the eastern sun shone on them, mounted the 
 works, and standing beside the drummer slowly waved a white 
 flag. 
 
LXII 
 
 WITHIN THE LINES 
 
 ONE there was in Yorktown whose suffering was to 
 the eye as great as he who had watched from the 
 outside. A sudden change came over Clowes with 
 the realisation of their danger. He turned white 
 on the confirmation of the arrival of the French fleet; and 
 when the news spread through the town that a deserter had 
 arrived from the American camp with word of Washington's 
 approach, he fell on the street in a fit, out of which he came 
 only when he had been cupped, and sixty ounces of blood 
 taken from him. Not once after that did he seek out Janice, 
 or even come to the custom-house for food or sleep, but pale, 
 and talking much to himself, he wandered restlessly about 
 the town, or still more commonly stood for hours on the 
 highest point of land which opened a view of the bay, gazing 
 anxiously eastwaid for the promised English fleet. 
 
 Janice was too occupied, however, with her mother even to 
 note this exemption. The exposure and fatigue of the long, 
 hot march to Yorktown had proved too great a tax upon 
 Mrs. Meredith's strength, and almost with their arrival she 
 took to her bed and slowly developed a low tidal fever, not 
 dangerous in its character, but unyielding to the doctor's 
 ministrations. 
 
 It was on the day that the videttes fell back on the town, 
 bringing word that the allies were advancing, that the girl 
 noticed so marked a change in her mother that she sent for 
 the army surgeon, and that she had done wisely was shown 
 by his gravity after a very cursory examination. 
 
 " Miss Meredith," he said, " this nursing is like to be of 
 longer duration than at first seemed probable, and will over- 
 tax your strength. 'T is best, therefore, that you let us move 
 
496 Janice Meredith 
 
 Mrs. Meredith into the army hospital, where she can be 
 properly tended, and you saved from the strain." 
 
 " I could not but stay with her, doctor," answered Janice ; 
 "but if you think it best for her that she be moved, I can as 
 well attend her there." 
 
 The surgeon bit his lip, then told her, " I '11 try to secure 
 you permission, if your father think it best." He went 
 downstairs, and finding the squire said : " Mr. Meredith, I 
 have very ill news for you. It has been kept from the army, 
 but there has been for some days an outbreak of small-pox 
 among the negroes, and now your wife is attacked by it." 
 
 " Don't say it, man ! " implored the squire. 
 
 " 'T is, alas ! but too true. It is necessary that she be at 
 once removed on board the hospital ship, and I shall return 
 as quickly as possible with my assistants and move her. The 
 more promptly you call your daughter from her bedside, the 
 better, for 't will just so much lessen the chance of contagion." 
 
 Before the father had well broken the news to Janice, or 
 could persuade her to leave the invalid, the surgeon was 
 returned, and, regardless of the girl's prayers and tears, her 
 mother was placed upon a stretcher, carried to the river-side, 
 and then transferred to the pest-ship, which was anchored in 
 mid-stream. Against his better judgment, but unable to resist 
 his daughter's appeals, the squire sought out Cornwallis with 
 the request that she might be allowed to attend Mrs. Mere- 
 dith on the ship, but the British general refused. 
 
 " Not only would it be contrary to necessary rules, sir, bu^ it 
 would merely expose her needlessly. Fear not that Mrs. 
 Meredith will lack the best of care, for I will give especial 
 directions to the surgeons. My intention was to send a flag, 
 as soon as the enemy approached, with a request that I might 
 pass you all through the lines, out of danger ; and this is a sad 
 derangement to the wish, for General Washington would cer- 
 tainly refuse passage to any one sick of this disease, and all 
 must justify him in the refusal. I still think that 't would be 
 best to let me apply for leave for you and Miss Meredith to go 
 out, but — " 
 
 " Neither the lass nor I would consider it for a moment, 
 th©ugh grateful to your Lordship for the offer." 
 
Within the Lines 497 
 
 " Then I will see that you have room in one of the bomb- 
 proofs, but 't will be a time of horror, that I warn you." 
 
 He spoke only too truly, and the misery of the next twenty 
 days are impossible to picture. The moment the bombardment 
 began, father and daughter were forced to seek the protection 
 of one of the caves that had been dug in the side of the bluff; 
 and here, in damp, airless, almost dark, and fearfully over- 
 crowded quarters, they were compelled to remain day and 
 night during the siege. Almost from the first, scarcity of 
 wood produced an entire abandonment of cooked food, every 
 one subsisting on raw pork or raw salt beef, or, as Janice chose, 
 eating only ship biscuit and unground coffee berries. Once 
 the fire of the allies began to tell, each hour supplied a fresh 
 tale of wounded, and these were brought into the bomb-proofs 
 for the surgeons to tend, their presence and moans adding to the 
 nightmare ; yet but for them it seemed to Janice she would have 
 gone mad in those weeks, for she devoted herself to nursing 
 and feeding them, as an escape from dwelling on her mother's 
 danger and their own helplessness. Even news from the pest- 
 ship had its torture, for when her father twice each day 
 descended the bluff to get the word from the doctor's boat, as it 
 came ashore, she stood in the low doorway of the cave, and at 
 every shot that was heard shrieking through the air, and at 
 every shell which exploded with a crash, she held her breath, 
 full of dread of what it might have done, and in anguish till her 
 father was safe returned with the unvarying and uncheering 
 bulletin the surgeons gave him of Mrs. Meredith's condition. 
 
 Vet those in the bomb-proofs escaped the direst of the 
 horrors. Above them were enacted scenes which turned even 
 the stoutest hearts sick with fear and loathing. The least of 
 these was the slaughter of the horses, baggage, cavalry, and 
 artillery, which want of forage rendered necessary, one whole 
 day being made hideous by the screams of the poor beasts, as 
 one by one they were led to a spot where the putrefying of 
 their carcasses would least endanger the health of the soldiery, 
 and their throats cut. All pretence of care of the negroes 
 disappeared with the demand on the officers and Soldiers to 
 man the redoubts, and on the surgeons to care for the sick 
 and wounded soldiers, who soon numbered upwards of two 
 
 32 
 
498 Janice Meredith 
 
 thousand. Naked and half starving, they who had dreamed 
 of freedom were left for the small-pox and putrid fever and 
 for shot and shell to work their will among them. In the aban- 
 doned houses and even in the streets, they lay, sick, dismem- 
 bered, dying, and dead, with not so much as one to aid or 
 bury them. 
 
 On the morning of the 17th a fresh number of wounded 
 men were brought into the already overcrowded cave; and 
 though Janice was faint with the long days of anxiety, fright, 
 bad air, poor food, and hard work, she went from man to 
 man, doing what could be done to ease their torments and 
 lessen their groans. The last brought in was in a faint, with 
 the lower part of his face and shoulder horribly torn and shat- 
 tered by the fragments of a shell, but a little brandy revived 
 him, and he moaned for water. Hurriedly she stooped over 
 him, to drop a little from a spoon between the open lips. 
 
 " Janice ! " he startled her by crying. 
 
 "Who are — ? Oh, Sir Frederick !" she exclaimed. "You! 
 How came you here ? " 
 
 " They let me out of the prison Clowes me put in," Mo- 
 bray gasped; "and having nothing better, I enlisted in the 
 ranks under another name." There he choked with blood. 
 
 " Doctor," called Janice, " come quickly ! " 
 
 " Humph ! " growled the surgeon, after one glance. « You 
 should not summon me to waste time on him. Can't you see 
 'tis hopeless?" 
 
 "Oh, don't — " began Janice. 
 
 " Nay, he speaks the truth," said Mobray ; " and I thank 
 God 't is so. Don't cry. I am glad to go ; and though I have 
 wasted my life, 't is a happier death than poor John Andre's." 
 
 For a moment only the sobs of the girl could be heard, 
 then the dying man gaspingly resumed : " A comrade I once 
 had whom I loved best in this world till I knew you. By a 
 strange chance we loved the same girl ; I wish I might die 
 with the knowledge that he is to have the happiness that was 
 denied to me." 
 
 " Oh, Sir Frederick, you must not ask it ! He " 
 
 " His was so bitter a story that he deserves a love such as 
 yours would be to make it up to him. I can remember him 
 
Within the Lines 499 
 
 the merriest of us all, loved by every man in the regiment, 
 from batman to colonel." 
 
 " And what changed him ? " Janice could not help asking. 
 " 'T was one evening at the mess of the Fusileers, when 
 Powel, too deep in drink to know what he was saying, blurted 
 out something concerning Mrs. Loring's relations with Sir 
 William. Poor Charlie was the one man in the force who 
 knew not why such favouritism had been shown in his being put 
 so young into Howe's regiment. But that we were eight to 
 one, he 'd have killed Powel then and there. Prevented in 
 that, he set off to slay his colonel, never dreaming he was his 
 own father. He burst in on me late that night, crazed with 
 grief, and told me how he had found him at his mother's, and 
 how she had robbed him of his vengeance by a word. The 
 next day he disappeared, and never news had I of him until 
 that encounter at Greenwood. Does he not deserve something 
 to sweeten his life? " 
 
 " I feel for him deeply," replied the girl, sadly, " the more 
 that I did him a grave wrong in my thoughts, and by some 
 words I spoke must have cut him to the quick and added pain 
 to pain." 
 
 "Then you will make him happy? " 
 
 " No, Sir Frederick, that I cannot." 
 
 " Don't punish him for what was not his fault." 
 
 " 'T is not for that," she explained. " Once I loved him, 1 
 own. But in a moment of direst need, when I appealed to 
 him, he failed me ; and though now I better understand his 
 resentment against my father and myself, I could never bring 
 myself to forgive his cruelty, even were my love not dead." 
 
 " I will not believe it of him. Hot and impulsive he is by 
 nature, but never cruel or resentful." 
 
 "'Tis, alas ! but too true," grieved Janice. 
 
 Once again the baronet choked with blood and struggled 
 for a moment convulsively. Then more faintly he sajd : " Wilt 
 give him my love and a good-by? " 
 
 " I will," sobbed the girl. 
 
 Nothing more was said for some time, then Mobray asked 
 faintly : " Is it that I am losing consciousness, or has the firing 
 ceased?" 
 
joo Janice Meredith 
 
 Janice raised her head with a start. " Why, it has stopped," 
 she exclaimed. " What can it mean? " 
 
 " That courage and tenacity have done their all, and now 
 must yield. Poor Cornwallis ! I make no doubt he 'd gladly 
 change places with me at this instant." 
 
 Here Mr. Meredith's voice broke in upon them, as stand- 
 ing in the mouth of the cave he called : " Come, Janice. The 
 firing has ceased, to permit an exchange of flags with the 
 rebels. Up with ye, and get the fresh air while ye can." 
 
 " I will stay here, father," replied the girl, " and care for — " 
 
 " Nonsense, lass ! Ye shall not kill yourself. I order ye to 
 come away." 
 
 "Go, Miss Meredith," begged Mobray. "You can do 
 aaught for me, and — and — I would have — Do as he says." 
 His hand blindly groped until Janice placed hers within it, 
 when he gave it a weak pressure as he said, " 'T is many a 
 long march and many a sleepless night that the memory of 
 you has sweetened. Thank you, and good-by." 
 
 Reluctantly Janice came out of the bomb-proof, blinking 
 and gasping with the. novelty of sunlight and sea breeze, after 
 the darkness and stench of the last weeks ; and her father, partly 
 supporting, led her up the bluff. It was a strange transforma- 
 tion that greeted her eyes, — ploughed-up streets and ruins of 
 buildings dismantled by shot or left heaps of ashes by the 
 shell, everywhere telling of the fury of the siege. 
 
 "Keep your eyes closed, lass," suggested the squire, "for 
 there are sights of horror. In a moment I '11 have ye at 
 headquarters, where things have been kept more tidy. There, 
 now ye can look ; sit down here and fill your lungs with this 
 good air." 
 
 Silently the two seated themselves on the steps of the 
 Nelson house, now pierced in every direction by the shot of 
 the allies, though less damaged than many others. Presently 
 Janice's attention was caught by the sound of shuffling foot- 
 steps, as of one with only partial use of his legs, and glancing 
 up she gave a slight cry of fear. And well she might, for 
 there stood the commissary, with his face like one risen from 
 the dead, it was so white and staring. 
 
 " Meredith," he whispered, as if his larynx were parched 
 
Within the Lines 501 
 
 beyond the ability to speak aloud, while with one hand he held 
 his throat in a vain attempt to make his speech less weak and 
 raucous, "they say 'The Parley' has been beat and a flag 
 sent out, and that the post is to be surrendered. Tell me 
 that Cornwallis will never do that. He 's a brave man. Tell 
 me it isn't so." 
 
 " Nothing else is there for him to do, Clowes. He 's made 
 a splendid defence, but now scarce a gun is left mounted and 
 powder and shot are both exhausted ; to persist longer would 
 be useless murder." 
 
 " No, no ! Let him hold out a few days longer. Clinton 
 will relieve us yet. He must n't give up. God 1 Meredith, 
 they '11 hang me ! He must n't surrender. I can't die just as 
 life is worth something. No, no ! I can't die now. I 'm 
 rich. Ninety thousand pounds I 've made. To be caught 
 like a rat ! He must n't surrender the post." And muttering 
 to himself, the miserable man shambled away, to repeat the 
 same hopes and expostulations to the next' one he found. 
 
 " He had another fit last night," remarked the squire ; " and 
 no one has seen him eat or sleep in four days, nor can he be 
 persuaded to either, but goes wandering unceasingly about the 
 town, quite unminding of shot and shell. Ho ! what 's here ? " 
 he ended, pointing up the street. 
 
 Three officers were coming towards them, arm in arm, the 
 two outsiders in red coats, and the middle one in a blue 
 one, with buff facings. Occasionally as they advanced, he 
 in the blue uniform swerved or stumbled slightly, as if he 
 might be wounded or drunk. But one look at his face wai 
 sufficient to show the cause, for across his eyes was tied a 
 broad white band. 
 
 "Oh, dadda," murmured Janice, suddenly paling, "'tis 
 Colonel Brereton they have captured ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, Jan ! 't is impossible to know any man, so covered." 
 
 The girl attempted no reassertion, and as the three officers 
 marched up to the headquarters, the two hastily rose from 
 the steps. 
 
 " Ha ! " exclaimed one of the British officers. " Here 
 stands Miss Meredith now, Colonel Brereton, as if to end youi 
 doubting of my assurances of her being alive." 
 
502 Janice Mereditn 
 
 The blindfolded man, with a quick motion, withdrew the 
 hand passed through the arm of his guide and raised it 
 impulsively to the bandage. 
 
 " Hold," warningly said the British ofiScer, as he caught the 
 hand. " Small wonder the handkerchief becomes intolerable, 
 with her to look at, but stay on it must till you are within 
 doors." 
 
 Jack's hand clutched the officer's arm. " God ! man, you 
 are not deceiving me?" 
 
 "Speak up, Miss Meredith, and convince the sceptic 
 that General O'H^ra, though Irish, is yet a truth-teller on 
 occasion." 
 
 " Oh, Colonel Brereton," said Janice, " I have just left Sir 
 Frederick, who is at the point of death, and he gave me a 
 message of farewell to you. Can you not go to him for a 
 moment? 'T would be everything to him." 
 
 Jack hesitated. " My mission is so important — General 
 O'Hara, wilt deliver this letter with a proper explanation to 
 his Lordship, while I see this friend ? " 
 
 " Certainly. If Miss Meredith will guide you and Lord 
 Chewton to where he lies, I '11 see that Lord Cornwallis gets 
 the letter." 
 
 In the briefest possible time Brereton stood beside Mobray. 
 Yet when the officer in charge of him untied the handkerchief 
 and stepped back out of hearing. Jack's eyes did not seek his 
 friend, but turned instead to the face of the girl standing be- 
 side him. For a moment they lingered in a gaze so steadfast, 
 so devouring, that, try as she would not to look at him, Janice's 
 eyes were drawn to his, despite herself. With a long breath, 
 as if relieved of some dread, Jack finally turned away and 
 knelt beside his friend. " Fred, old comrade," he said, as he 
 took his hand. 
 
 "Charlie!" gasped Mobray, weakly, as his eyes opened. 
 "Is 't really you, or am I wandering?" 
 
 " 'T is I, Fred, come into town with a flag." 
 
 " You 've beat old Britain, after all, have n't you ? " 
 
 " No, dear lad," replied Jack, gently. " 'T is the old spirit 
 of England that has conquered, as it ever will, when fighting 
 ibr its rights against those who would rob it of them." 
 
Within the Lines 503 
 
 " True. We forgot 't was our own whelps, grown strong, we 
 sought tc subjugate. And you had the better man to lead 
 you, Jack." 
 
 " Ay, and so we ever shall, so long as Britain makes men 
 generals because they are king's bastards." 
 
 " Nay, Charlie, don't let the sore rankle through life. 'T is 
 not from whence you came that counts; 'tis what you are. 
 1 'd take your shame of birth, if I could rid myself of mine. 
 Fortune, position, and opportunity I 've wasted, while you have 
 won rank and glory." 
 
 " And now have not one thing to make life worth the while." 
 
 " Don't say it, Charlie. There 's something for you to live 
 for still. Put your hand into my shirt — yes — to the left — 
 now you have it." 
 
 Brereton drew forth a miniature set with brilliants ; and as 
 his eyes lit upon it, he gave an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 " 'T is the one thing I concealed from my creditors," 
 moaned Sir Frederick, " and now I leave it to you. Watch 
 over and care for her for the sake of your love and of mine, 
 Charlie." 
 
 Brereton leaned down and kissed Mobray on the cheek, as 
 he whispered, " I will." 
 
 " Is — is Miss Meredith here, Charlie ? " asked the dying 
 baronet. 
 
 " Yes, Sir Frederick," replied Janice, with a choke. 
 
 « I — I — I fear I am a ghastly object," he went on, " but 
 could you bring yourself — Am I too horrible for one kiss of 
 farewell from you? Charlie will not grudge it to me." 
 
 The girl knelt beside Brereton, and stooping tenderly kissed 
 the dying man on the same spot that Jack had kissed. 
 Mobray's left hand feebly took hers, and, consciously or un- 
 consciously, brought the one which still held Jack's to it. 
 Holding the two har Is within his own so that they touched, 
 he said chokingly : — 
 
 " Heaven bless you, and try to forgive him. Good-by both. 
 I have served my term, and at last am released from the 
 bigger jail." A little shudder, a twitch, and he was dead. 
 
 For a minute the two remained kneeling, then Breretoa 
 said sadly : — 
 
C04 Janice Meredith 
 
 «'He was the only friend left me in the world, and I 
 know not why he is taken and I am left." He withdrew his 
 hand from contact with the girl's, and rose. " I cannot stay, 
 for my mission is not to be slighted, but I will speak to 
 O'Hara, and see that he gets a funeral befitting his rank." 
 Brereton squared his shoulders and raised his voice, to say : 
 "Lord Chewton, I am — " 
 
 With a quick motion, the girl rose to her feet and said : " I 
 have no right to detain you. Colonel Brereton, but — but I 
 want you to know that neither dadda nor I knew the truth con- 
 cerning Mrs. Loring when we said what we did on that fatal 
 night. We both thought — thought — Your confession to 
 me that once you loved her, and her looking too young to be 
 your mother, led me into a misconception." 
 
 " Then you forgive me ? " he cried eagerly. 
 
 " For the words you spoke then I do not even blame you, 
 sir. But what was, can never be again." 
 
 " Ay," said the officer, bitterly. " You need not say it. You 
 cannot scorn me more than I scorn myself." 
 
 Not giving her time to reply, he crossed to where the 
 officer with the bandage stood waiting him, and once again was 
 blindfolded, and led to headquarters. 
 
 "This way," directed General O'Hara, leading him into a 
 room where stood Cornwallis. 
 
 " Are you familiar, sir, with the contents of General Wash- 
 ington's letter?" asked the earl. 
 
 " No, my Lord ; I was its bearer only because I beggeA the 
 Marquis de Lafayette to secure me the service." 
 
 " He grants a suspension of hostilities for two hours from 
 the delivery of this, for me to put my proposals in writing. 
 Did he say aught to you, sir, of the terms he would grant? " 
 
 " I api no longer on General Washington's staff," answered 
 Brereton, " so I know not his expectations." 
 
 " From all I hear of him," said the general, " he is not a 
 man to use a triumph ungenerously. He fought bravely under 
 the British standards, and surely will not now seek to bring 
 unnecessary shame on them." Seating himself at the table, he 
 wrote a few lines, which he folded and sealed. " Will you B«t, 
 -or, use your influeace with him t« grant us the customary 
 
Within the Lines 505 
 
 honours, and spare the officers from the disgrace of giving up 
 their side arms?" 
 
 " I no longer possess influence with or the confidence of 
 his Excellency,'' rephed Brereton, gravely; "but he is a gen- 
 erous man, and I predict will not push his advantage merely 
 for your humiliation." 
 
 " Will he not forbear making our surrender a spectacle ? " 
 
 " If the talk of the camp be of value, my Lord, 't is said 
 you are to be granted the exact terms you allowed to Gen- 
 eral Lincoln at Savannah ; and you yourself cannot but ac- 
 knowledge the justice of such treatment." 
 
 " 'T was not I who dictated the terms of that surrender." 
 
 "Your observation, 'my Lord, forces the reply that 'tis, a 
 nation, not an individual, we are fighting." 
 
 The proud face of the British general worked for a moment 
 in the intensity of his emotion. " We have no right to com- 
 plain that we receive measure for measure," he said ; "and yet 
 sir, though the lex talionis may be justified, it makes it none 
 the less bitter." 
 
 Colonel Brereton took the letter, his eyes were blindfolded 
 again, and he was led back beyond the lines. 
 
 With the expiration of the two hours, the firing was not 
 resumed ; and all that day and the next flags were passing 
 and repassing between the lines, with the result that on the 
 afternoon of the latter, commissioners met at the Moore 
 house and drew up the terms of capitulation, which were 
 signed that evening. 
 
 At twelve o'clock on the 19th, the English colours were 
 struck on the redoubts, and the American were hoisted in their 
 stead. Two hours later the armies of the allies took up 
 position opposite each other on the level ground outside 
 the town, and the British troops, with shouldered arms, 
 cased colours, and bands playing, as stipulated, an Enghsh air, 
 " The World Turned Upside Down," came marching out of 
 their lines. As they advanced, Washington turned to an 
 officer behind him and ordered, " Let the word be passed 
 that the troops are not to cheer. They have fought too well 
 for us to triumph over them." In consequence not a sound 
 came from the American ranks as the British regiments 
 
506 
 
 Janice iviereaitn 
 
 marched up and with tears in many a brave man's eyes" 
 grounded their arms and colours. But the officers, through 
 Washington's generosity, were allowed to retain their swords, 
 sparing Cornwallis the mortification of having to be present 
 in person ; and it was General O'Hara who spoke the formal 
 words of surrender, and who led the disarmed and flagless 
 regiments back into the town, once the formalities had been 
 completed. By nightfall twenty- four standards and over eight 
 thousand prisoners were in the possession of the allied forces. 
 
 But one had escaped them, for in a cellar, hidden behind a 
 heap of refuse and boxes, his body already stripped of its 
 clothes by pilfering negroes, his face horribly distorted, and 
 with froth yet on his lips, lay the commissary, dead. 
 
 And at the very moment the next day that two companies, 
 one of British Fusileers, and one of New Jersey Continentals, 
 were iiring a volley over a new-made grave, in which, wrapped 
 in the flag of his country, and buried with every military 
 honor, had been deposited the body of him who had been 
 Sir Frederick Mobray, a fatigue party were rolling into a trench, 
 and carelessly covering with earth from the battered redoubts, 
 along with the bodies of negroes and horses, and of barrels of 
 spoiled pork and beef, the naked corpse of him who had been 
 ]ohn Ombrey, Baron Clowes. 
 
LXIII 
 
 ON BRUNSWICK GREEN 
 
 ON a pleasant June afternoon in the year 1782, the 
 loungers about the Continental Tavern in the village 
 of Brunswick were discussing the recent proclama- 
 tions of the governor and commander-in-chief for- 
 bidding illicit trading with New York, both of which called 
 forth general condemnation, well voiced by Bagby, when he 
 remarked : — 
 
 " A man with half an eye can see what they are working 
 for, and that their objections to our supplying the Yorkers is 
 only a blind. What they really wants is that we patriots, who 
 don't spend our days idling about in camp all winter at Rocky- 
 Hill and now at Middle-Brook, doing nothing except eat the 
 people's food, and spend the people's money, but who earn a 
 living by hard work, sha' n't have no market but the conti- 
 nental commissaries, and so will have to take whatever they 
 allow to offer us for our crops." 
 
 " 'T aint the proclamations ez duz the rale iujoory," 
 asserted Squire Hennion ; " fer printed orders duz n't hurt 
 nobody, but when the gin'ral sends a hull brigade of sogers 
 ter pervent us sellin' our craps then I consarned ef it aint 
 tyranny ez every freeman is baound ter resist, jest ez we did 
 in '65 an' '74." 
 
 Bagby, with a sour look at Hennion, said : " That 's one of 
 the biggest grievances, but not the way some pretended friends 
 of the people would have us think. What do your fellows say 
 to officers having been fixed, so that pickets are only put 
 where they '11 stop us from sending boats to New York, while 
 there 's one right here is allowed to send cargoes just when he 
 likes?" 
 
 "Does yer mean that, Joe? " demanded a farmer. 
 
508 Janice Meredith 
 
 "That I does," asserted Bagby, looking meaningly at 
 Hennion. " I was told as a chance was given to the army to 
 catch the man deepest in the business — and in worse — red 
 handed. But what 's done ? Instead of laying a trap, and 
 catching him, they don't stir a finger, but wait ten months 
 and then sends the very officer who did n't do nothing to put 
 a stop to it. For weeks that high cock-a-lorum Brereton's 
 been smelling about this town, and lining the river at night 
 with his pickets, when all the time he could have come here 
 any afternoon, and arrested the traitor." 
 
 " Thet 'eres lucky fer yer," snarled Hennion viciously. 
 " yer ain't the only one ez kin tell tales, I warns yer." 
 
 " I have n't done no bribing, and it was n't me as the in- 
 formation was lodged against," retorted Joe, rancourously. 
 
 " You can't mean as General Brereton 's winking at the trade, 
 when scarce a boat 's got out of the river since his brigade 
 camped there," demanded one of the loungers, indicating 
 with his thumb Brunswick Green, whitened by rows of tents. 
 
 " I mean as Brereton could lay hands any time he pleased 
 on one traitor, and why he has n't done so is what I want to 
 know. What 's more, I 'd like to know, why Washington 
 does n't take any notice of the charges that I 've been told 
 was preferred against Brereton nigh six months ago for this 
 very matter. I tell you, fellows, that money 's being used, and 
 that some of those who hold themselves highest, is taking it." 
 
 " Don't seem like his Excellency 'ud do anythin' ez sneaky 
 ez that," observed the publican, glancing upwards with pride 
 at his signboard, now restored to its former position. " Folks 
 says he 's a 'nation fine man." 
 
 " I 'm just sick of all this getting on the knees to a man," 
 grumbled Joseph, "just because he went and captivated 
 Cornwallis. Washington is n't a bit better than some of us 
 right here and it won't be long before you '11 find it out.'' 
 
 " How do you make that, Joe ? " 
 
 " Is n't he trying to bully Congress into paying the army, 
 just as if he was king, as I suppose he hopes to be some day. 
 You wait till he gets his way, and I guess the tax collectors 
 wiJl make the people sing a different tune about him. If 
 I 'm elected to the Assembly this spring, I calculate to make 
 
On Brunswick Green 509 
 
 some ears buzz and tingle a bit, once the legislature meets. 
 I'll teach some of these swaggering military chaps — who 
 were n't nothing but bond-servants once yet who some of you 
 fellows is fools enough now to talk of sending to Congress — 
 that this is a nation of freemen, and that now that the British 
 is licked, we don't have no more use for them, and — " 
 
 " Waal, I declare, if thet don't favour Squire Meredith, an' 
 his darter," interjected a farmer, suddenly, pointing with his 
 pipe to where an army waggon was approaching on the 
 Princeton post-road. 
 
 " Swan, ef yer ain't right," cried Hennion. " I did hope we 
 wuz quit of them fer good an' all." 
 
 "Wonder what the gal 's in black fer? " observed a lounger. 
 
 " My nigger cook Sukey," said the landlord, " told me that 
 Gin'ral Brereton told her the ole lady wuz mortal sick o' the 
 small-pox an' that when he went aboard the pest-ship, she 
 wuz so weak it did n't seem like she could be moved, but he 
 an' the doctor got her safe ashore, an' when he last hearn, 
 'bout the first o' the year, she wuz gainin'." 
 
 The publican rose and went forward as the van stopped 
 in front of his door. " Glad tew see yer, squire," he said, 
 " an' yer, too. Miss Janice. Seems most like ole times. 
 Hope nuthin 's wrong with Miss Meredith ? " 
 
 The squire slowly and heavily got down from the box seat. 
 " We have her body in the waggon," he said wearily and sadly. 
 
 " I vum, but that 's too bad ! " exclaimed the landlord, and, 
 for want of words of comfort, he hesitatingly held out his 
 hand, but recollecting himself, he was drawing it back, when 
 Mr. Meredith, forgetful of rank, caught and squeezed it. 
 
 "She never really rallied," went on the squire, with tears in 
 his eyes, " and though she lived on through the winter, she 
 didn't have the strength to mend. She died three weeks 
 ago, and we have come back here to bury her." 
 
 "Naow yer an' Miss 'Janice come right intew my place, an* 
 I '11 fix yer both ez comfortable ezl kin," invited the publican, 
 warmly, once again forgetting himself so far as to pat Mr. 
 Meredith on the back. Then as he helped Janice down, he 
 shouted, " Abram, mix a noggin o' sling, from the bestest, an' tell 
 Sukey that she 's wanted right off, no matter what she 's doin'." 
 
5IO Janice Meredith 
 
 The last direction was needless, for the slave, in some way 
 informed of the arrival, had Janice in her arms ere the land- 
 lord well completed his speech, and was carrying more than 
 leading her into the hotel and up the stairs to the room re- 
 served for people of quality only, where she lifted her on to 
 the bed and with her arms still clasped about the girl wept 
 over her, half, in misery, and half in an almost savage joy, 
 while repeating again and again, " Oh, my missy, my Missy 
 Janice, my young missy, my pooty young missy, come back 
 to ole Sukey." 
 
 " Oh, Sukey," sobbed Janice, " but mommy is dead." 
 
 " Doan young missy pine," begged the slave. " De Lord 
 he know best, an' he bring my chile, dat I dun take care ob 
 from de day he dun gib her, back to ole black Sukey." 
 
 Meantime, the squire, after a question as to where the 
 coffin could be temporarily placed, and a direction to the 
 driver of the wagon, asked the publican : " We had word in 
 Virginia that Greenwood was sold by the state; is 't so? " 
 
 " Yes, squire, it wuz auctioned last August an' wuz bought 
 by ole squire Hennion, an' jes naow his Excellency 's usin' it 
 fer headquarters, till the army moves north'ard." 
 
 A sadder look came on Mr. Meredith's face. " That 's worse 
 news yet," he grieved, with a shake of his head ; " but per- 
 haps he '11 not carry his hatred into this." He walked over 
 to where the all-attentive loungers were sitting, and going up 
 to Hennion, said humbly : " We were once friends, Hennion, 
 and I trust that such ill feeling as ye bear for me will not lead 
 ye to refuse a request I have to make." 
 
 "An' what 'ere is thet? " inquired Hennion, suspiciously. 
 
 " 'T was Matilda's — 't was my wife's dying prayer that we 
 should bring her back here, and lay her beside her four babies, 
 and to let her die happy I gave her my word it should be 
 done. Ye '11 not refuse me leave, I 'm sure, man, to bury her 
 in the private plot at Greenwood." 
 
 " Yer need n't ' expect ter fool me by no sich a story. I 
 ain't goin' ter let yer weaken my title by no sich a trick ! " 
 
 " For shame ! " cried Joseph, and a number of others 
 echoed his words. 
 
 " Yelp away," snarled Hennion, rising ; " If 't 't wuz yer 
 
On Brunswick Green 511 
 
 bull ez wuz ter be gored yer 'd whine t' other side of yer 
 teeth." With which remark he shuffled away. 
 
 Not stopping to listen to the expressions of sympathy and 
 disgust that the idlers began upon, Mr. Meredith entered the 
 public of the tavern. 
 
 "Here yer be, squire, jus' mixed from my very bestest 
 liquor, an' it '11 set yer right up," declared the landlord, offer- 
 ing him a pewter pot. 
 
 The squire made a motion of dissent, but seeing the publi- 
 can's look of disappointment, he took the cup and drained it. 
 "Ye've not lost your skill, Simon," he remarked kindly, as 
 he returned it. " Canst tell me if 't is possible for me to get 
 a letter into New York quickly? " 
 
 "'Taint ez easy ez it wuz afore the soldiers come here 
 fer they pervent the secret trade, but if yer apply tew Gin'ral 
 Brereton, ez lodges with the paason, I calkerlate he kin send 
 it in with a flag if he hez a mind tew." 
 
 Mr, Meredith shook his head in discouragement. " It 
 seems as if all I ask must be begged of enemies. However, 
 't is small grief, after what has passed. Wilt give me pen and 
 ink, man ? " 
 
 While he was writing, Bagby came into the public, and 
 interrupted him. 
 
 "I didn't offer to shake hands, squire," he said, "seeing 
 as you were in trouble, and took up with other things, but I 'm 
 glad to see you and Miss Janice back, and there 's my hand to 
 prove it." 
 
 Mr. Meredith laid down his pen, and took the proffered 
 handshake. " Thank ye, Mr. Bagby," he said, meekly. 
 
 " I would n't stop what you 're at now," went on Joseph, sit- 
 ting down at the table, " if I had n't something in nfy mind 
 as I think '11 interest you big, and may make some things 
 easier that you want." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " If I put you on to this, I guess you '11 be so grateful that 
 I don't need to make no terms beforehand. You 'd give me 
 about what I asked, would n't you, if I can get you Green- 
 wood back again? " 
 
 " How could ye e'er do that? " 
 
512 Janice Meredith, 
 
 " It 's this way. That general act was n't drawn very care- 
 ful, and when old Hennion bid the place in, I looked it over 
 sharp, and I concluded there was a fighting chance to break 
 the sale. You see, the act declares certain persons traitors, 
 and that their property is forfeited to the state. Now what we 
 must do is to make out that Greenwood was Mrs. Meredith's 
 and that as she was n't named in the act, of course the sale 
 wasn't valid and is void." 
 
 The squire wagged his head despondingly. " By the colony 
 law it became mine the moment she inherited it." 
 
 " You see if I can't make a case of it,'' urged Bagby. " I 've 
 come out a great hand at tieing the facts up in such a snarl as 
 no judge or jury can get them straight again, and this time 
 the jury will be with us before we begin. You see old 
 Hennion 's been putting the screws on his tenants tight as he 
 can twist them, and glad enough they 'd be if they could only 
 have you again, 'stead of him. The whole country 's so down 
 on him that I 've been planning to prevent his being re-elected 
 to Assembly this spring. Now, you know, as well as I, what 
 I wpuld like, and I guess you won't be so set against it now, 
 for I 've got nigh to twenty thousand pounds specie, laid out 
 in all sorts of ventures, so even if we don't get Greenwood, 
 I '11 be all the better match, but we won't say nothing about 
 all that till we 've seen what comes." 
 
 " Nay, Mr. Bagby, I '11 not gain your aid by a deceitful 
 silence. I owe ye an apology for the way I treated your 
 overture before, but I must tell you that both my own, tmd 
 my girl's word is given to Major Hennion, and so — " 
 
 " But he 's been attainted, an' '11 never be able to come back 
 here." 
 
 " A^e, and we too expect to accept exile with him. When 
 we left Williamsburg, we planned once we had buried our 
 dead, to go to New York, where the two will marry, and then 
 I shall follow them to wherever his regiment is ordered." 
 
 "But you don't need to go, now that General Brereton's 
 persuaded the governor to pardon you," protested Joseph, 
 ^' and you — " 
 
 " Was it Brereton did that? " demanded Mr. Meredith. 
 
 " Between you and me, squire, I 'd been at Livingston ever 
 
On Brunswick Green 513 
 
 since you was sent away, and had about won him over, when 
 Brereton got back from Virginia and went to see him." 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear he 's willing to do me a kindness, for 
 not once at Yorktown did he come nigh us, and so I feared 
 me he would refuse a favour I must shortly ask of him." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " I 'm writing to Phil Hennion, begging him to intercede 
 with his father and get me permission to bury my wife at 
 Greenwood." 
 
 " You would n't need to do no asking if you 'd only let me 
 get the property back." 
 
 " You 're right, man, and if it does nothing more, we '11 
 perhaps frighten him into yielding us that much." 
 
 " 'T will take time, you understand, squire, and it can't be 
 done if you go to York or out of the country." 
 
 " We '11 stay here as long as there 's nothing better to do." 
 
 " That 's the talk. And don't you wherrit about your 
 lodgings, if you 're short of cash. I '11 fix it with Si, and chance 
 my getting paid somehow. I '11 see him right off, and fix it 
 so you and Miss Janice has the best there is." He started 
 to go ; then asked, " I hope — there is n't any danger — I 
 suppose — she '11 keep, eh, squire ? " 
 
 The husband winced. " Yes," he replied huskily. " The 
 Marquis de Lafayette, quite unasked, ordered the commis- 
 saries to give us all we needed of a pipe of rum." 
 
 " That was mighty generous,'' said Bagby, " for I suppose 
 he had to pay for it. Even a major-general, I take it, can't 
 draw no such a quantity gratis." 
 
 " I writ him, asking that I might know the cost, but he 
 answered that 't was nothing. 'T is impossible to say what we 
 owe to him. 'T was he, so Doctor Craik told me, who asked 
 him to bring Mrs, Meredith off the pest-ship, and 't was he 
 who furnished us with the army-van in which we 've journeyed 
 from Virginia. Had we been kinsmen, he could not have 
 been kinder." 
 
 " Now that only shows how a man tries to take credit for 
 what he has n't had a' finger in. Brereton, who, since he was 
 made a general and got So thick with the governor, has put 
 on airs enough to kill a cat, told your Sukey, as now is cook 
 
514 Janice Meredith 
 
 here, that 't was he went aboard the pest-ship with the doctor, 
 and brought her off." 
 
 " 'T is the first I 've heard of it," averred Mr. Meredith, 
 incredulously yet thoughtfully. 
 
 " I tell you that Brereton is a sly, sneaky fellow, as needs 
 watching in more than one matter. Nigh ten months ago I 
 showed him how he could nab old Hennion, so that like as 
 not he 'd have gone to the gallows, but he did n't stir a 
 finger, durn him 1 Oh, here 's Si, now. Say, I want you to 
 treat Mr. Meredith and Miss Janice real handsome, and don't 
 trouble them with no bills, but leave me to square it," he said 
 to the landlord, who had come bustling in. 
 
 " Lor, Joe, yer duz n't think I wuz goin' tew make no 
 charge fer this? Why, the squire lent me the money ez 
 started me, an' I calkerlate he kin stay on here jus' about ez 
 long ez he elects tew." Then the publican laughed. " Like 
 ez not there won't be no supper tew-night, squire. That 'ere 
 Sukey hez got yer gal tucked in my best tester bed, an' is 
 croonin' her tew sleep jes' like she wuz a baby ag'in. She 
 most bit my head off when I went in tew tell her supper-time 
 wuz comin'. 'Stonishin' haow like white folks niggers kin feel 
 sometimes, ain't it ? " 
 
 " I bought her when our first baby was coming, and she 
 saw four born and buried, and nigh broke her heart over 
 each one in turn," said the squire, huskily; "so when Janice 
 came, 't was as if she was her own child." He rose, his letter 
 completed, and with a word to explain his movements, waited 
 across the green to the parsonage, where his knock brought 
 Peg to the door, and resulted in a series of wild greetings and 
 exclamations. At last, however, the old-time master was per- 
 mitted to make known the object of his call, and was ushered 
 into a room where Brereton was sitting writing. 
 
 " Mr. Meredith ! " exclaimed Jack, starting to his feet. 
 "How are you all — that — how is Miss Meredith?" 
 
 " She 's stood the grief and — I know not if ye have heard 
 of Mrs. Meredith's death? " 
 
 " Yes ; a friend in Virginia wrote me." 
 
 " She 's borne up under that and under the hard journey 
 wonderfully, and has been braver and more cheerful, I fear, 
 
On Brunswick Green 515 
 
 than I myself. I 've come to ye, General Brereton, to ask if 
 ye could send a letter for me, under flag, to New York?" 
 
 " Certainly, if 't is of a character that makes it allowable." 
 
 " I 've not sealed it, that you might read it," answered the 
 squire, holding out his letter. 
 
 Brereton read it slowly, as if he was thinking between the 
 words. " It shall be sent in at once," he promised, his lips 
 set as if to conceal some emotion. Then he asked, " You 
 write to Colonel Hennion as if — are he and — you intend to 
 give Miss Meredith to him ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Jack wheeled and looked out of a window for an instant ; 
 without turning he said, " Is she — does she — she is 
 willing?" 
 
 "Ay, the lass has at last found she loves him, and is as 
 ready now as I ever was.'' 
 
 Again Brereton was silent for a breathing space. " When 
 will they wed ? " he questioned finally. 
 
 " Once we can get to York." 
 
 " And that will be ? " 
 
 " The burial of Mrs. Meredith and other matters will keep 
 us in Brunswick for an uncertain length of time." 
 
 " And you will lodge where ? " 
 
 " At the tavern." 
 
 " 'Tis no place for Miss Meredith." 
 
 " Beggars cannot be choosers, sir." 
 
 For a moment Brereton said nothing ; then remarked as he 
 faced about, " If I can serve you in any other way, Mr. 
 Meredith, hesitate to ask nothing of me." 
 
 " My thanks to ye, general," answered Mr. Meredith, grate- 
 fully. " I fear me I little merit courtesy at your hands." 
 
 " 'T is a peace-making time," replied Jack, " and we '11 put 
 the ill feeling away, as 'tis to be hoped Great Britain and 
 our country will do, once the treaty is negotiated and 
 ratified." 
 
 " 'T is no country I have," rejoined the squire, sadly. " One 
 word, sir, and I will be gone. I was but just told that 't was 
 ye who got Mrs. Meredith off the pest-ship; and if — " 
 
 Brereton held up his hand. " 'T was the Marquis who gave 
 
5i6 Janice Meredith 
 
 the order, Mr. Meredith, and the Surgeon-General who 
 superintended the removal." 
 
 " So I was told at the time, but I feared that I might have 
 been misinformed. None the less, general, I am your present 
 debtor ; " with which words the squire bowed himself out. 
 
 Left alone, Brereton stood like a stone for some minutes 
 ere he resumed his seat. He glanced down at the sheet, on 
 which was written : — 
 
 Brunswick, June 13th, 1782. 
 " Sir, — After three months' test, J can assure your Excel- 
 lency that it is possible to very materially if not entirely check 
 the illicit trade with New York, but only by the constant em- 
 ployment of a considerable force of men in a service at once 
 fatiguing to them and irritating to the neighbourhood. I would 
 therefore suggest, in place of these purely repressive measures, 
 that others which will at once bring to justice those most deeply 
 concerned in the trade, and terrify by example those who are 
 only occasionally guilty, be employed, and therefore beg to submit 
 for your consideration the following plan of action. 
 
 Shoving the paper to one side, Brereton took a fresh sheet, 
 and wrote a hurried letter, which, when sealed, he addressed 
 to " Lady Washington, Headquarters at Greenwood Manor." 
 This done, he finished his official letter, and going to the rows 
 of tents on the green, he delivered the two into the hands of 
 an officer, with an order to ride with them at once. 
 
 On the following day a coach drew up in front of the Con- 
 tinental Tavern, and with much dignity a negro in livery alighted 
 from the seat beside the driver. 
 
 " You will deliber Lady Washington's an' my deferential 
 complimen's to Miss Janice Meredith ; likewise dis letter from 
 his Excellency," he said grandly to the tavern-keeper. 
 
 " Waal, of all airs fer a nigger ! " snorted mine host. " Duz 
 his Excellency run yer jobs fer yer ter hum ? Guess yer ain't 
 so fat, be yer, that yer keant carry that inter the settin'-room 
 yerself." 
 
 With a glance of outraged dignity that should have annihi- 
 lated the publican, the man went across the hall, and after a 
 knock, entered. 
 
On Brunswick Green 517 
 
 "Why, Billy!" exclaimed Janice, starting up from her 
 chair, her arm outstretched. 
 
 The intense dignity melted away in a breath, and the darky 
 chuckled and slapped himself with delight as he took the 
 hand. " Der, now ! " he cried, " I dun assure her Ladyship 
 dat Missy would remember Billy. Here am a letter from his 
 Excellency, Miss." 
 
 Opening it, Janice read it out to her father : — 
 
 Headquarters, 14 June, 1782. 
 
 Dear Miss Janice, — In writing this I but act as Mrs. 
 Washington's scribe, she having an invincible dislike to the use 
 of a pen. She hopes and begs that you will favour us with the 
 honour of your company for a time at Headquarters, and to 
 this I would add my own persuasions were I not sure that hers 
 will count above mine. However, let me say that it will be a 
 personal gratification to me if you give us now the pleasure I 
 have several times counted upon in the past. Thinking to 
 make more certain of your granting this request, and that you 
 may make the journey without discomfort, Mrs. Washington 
 sends her coach. 
 
 I most sincerely regretted not seeing you at Yorktown, the 
 more that Lord Cor?iwallis assured me when he dined with 
 me on the evening after the surrender, that he would secure 
 your presence at the banquet he tendered to the French and 
 American officers ; but I was still more grieved when told the 
 reason for your refusal to grace the occasion by your presence. 
 The sudden sickness of poor Mr. Custis, which compelled me 
 to hasten away from York, and the affecting circumstance 
 of his untimely death threw Mrs. Washington and Mrs. 
 Bassett, who were both present, into such deep distress that I 
 could not find it in my heart to leave Eltham, once the funeril 
 rites were performed. The Marquis has since assured me that 
 nothing was neglected which could be of comfort or service to 
 your mother, and J trust that he speaks informedly. I have 
 just learned of your loss, and hasten to tender you both Mrs. 
 Washington's and my awn sympathy on this melancholy 
 occasion. 
 
518 Janice Meredith 
 
 Be assured that your compatty will truly gratify both me and 
 the partner of all my Domestic enjoyments, and that I am, my 
 dear young lady, with every sentiment of respect arM- esieejn, 
 Yr most obed'. h~ sen/- 
 
 G? Washington. 
 
 " 'T is the very thing I 'd have for ye, Jan," exclaimed the 
 squire. 
 
 " Oh, dadda, I 'II not leave you." 
 
 " That ye shall, for I '11 be busy with this scheme of Bagby's, 
 and the tavern is no place for ye, child, let alone what ye '11 be 
 forever dwelling on if ye have no distraction." 
 
 " An' his Excellency," said the messenger, " done tell me 
 to say dat he done holds you' parole ob honour, an' dat, if you 
 doan' come back with me in de coach, he done send de 
 provost gyard to fotch youse under arrest. What 's mo, Miss, 
 dat big villin, Blueskin, will be powerful joyed to see youse 
 again." 
 
LXIV 
 A SETTLING OF OLD SCORES 
 
 ON a night of the most intense darkness a strange- 
 looking craft was stealing slowly up the Raritan, quite 
 as much helped in its progress by the flood-tide as 
 by the silent stroke of the oars, about which were 
 wound cloths where they rubbed against the thole-pins. The 
 rowers knelt on the bottom of the boat, so that nothing but their 
 heads projected above the gunwale, which set low in the water, 
 and to which were tied branches of trees, concealing it so com- 
 pletely that at ten feet distance on any ordinarily clear night it 
 would have been difficult to know that it was not a drifting limb. 
 
 Lying at full length in the bottom of the boat were two 
 men, one of whom from time to time moved impatiently. 
 
 "Will we never get there? " he finally whispered. 
 
 "Slow work it is," replied the other, in the lowest of voices, 
 "but it has to be done careful." 
 
 " I understood you the river was open once more." 
 
 "Ay. We had word the regiments had been withdrawn, 
 to go north with the main army ; but this is only the second 
 night the boats have ventured in, and cautious we 've always 
 had to be." 
 
 The note of a crow came floating over the water, and at 
 the sound the last speaker raised himself on his elbow and 
 deliberately began counting in a low voice. As he spoke the 
 number " ten," once again came the discordant " caw, caw," 
 and instantly the counter opened his mouth and sent forth 
 an admirable imitation of the cry of a screech-owl. Counting 
 once again to ten, he repeated the shriek, then listened. 
 
 In a moment the first splash of oars reached them. 
 
 "This way," softly called the man, and put out his hand 
 to prevent a small boat colliding with the larger one. 
 
520 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Thought I heard a bird just now," remarked the solitary 
 occupant. 
 
 " If you did, 'twas a king bird." 
 
 " I have n't much to-night," announced the new arrival, 
 as he handed a small packet into the boat. " It contains a 
 paper from No. 2, giving the decisions of the last counci/ 
 of war, and the line of march they have adopted for next 
 week." 
 
 The one in the larger boat pulled up a cleverly fitted board 
 in the bottom of the boat, and taking out a letter, slipped the 
 just received parcel into the cavity and dropped the plank 
 back into place. " There 's a letter for you," he said, passing 
 it to the new-comer. Without another word the stranger 
 shoved off, and in a moment was lost in the darkness. 
 
 "Wasn't that Joe Bagby?" questioned the man's com- 
 panion. 
 
 " 'Sh ! We don't mention no names, if it can be avoided." 
 
 " You need not fear me. I am in the general's confidence, 
 and know as well as you that No. 2 is Major-General 
 Parsons of the Connecticut line." 
 
 " That 's more than I knew," muttered the boatman ; " so 
 you see. Colonel Hennion, 't is as well not to mention names." 
 
 In silence the boat drifted onward, save for an order pres- 
 ently given that the rowers turn in toward the left bank. 
 
 " Seems like I heam suthin'," suddenly came a voice out of 
 the darkness. 
 
 " 'T is only we, fishin' for what 's to be caught ! " said the 
 boatman. 
 
 " No danger of yer catchin' nuthin' here," asserted the 
 unseen speaker. 
 
 " Pull into the pier, boys ! We 're got your son aboard, 
 Hennion." 
 
 A low exclamation came from the man standing on the rude 
 wharf that suddenly loomed into view. " Yer duz n't mean 
 my Phil ! " 
 
 " Ay, dad," answered the colonel, as he rose and climbed 
 out of the boat; "'tis me." 
 
 " Lordy me, if I ever expected ter see yer ag'in, Phil," cried 
 the father, as he threw his arms about him. " This is a sur- 
 
A Settling of Old Scores 521 
 
 prise ez duz my ole bones a heap of good. Naow say yer 've 
 come ter tell me thet I may make yer peace with the state, an' 
 yer '11 come back ter Boxely fer good. Terrible lonesome I 've 
 bin, lad, all these years yer 've bin off." 
 
 " Nay, dad, my heart 's too much in the service to ever let 
 me get interested in turnips or cabbages again. What I Ve 
 come for is to make you yield to Mr. Meredith's request, and 
 if possible to get a word with Janice. Tell me he 's mistaken, 
 dad, in what he wrote. You never refused — " 
 
 "Look here, Hennion," growled the boatman, "we can't 
 ■waste all night while you — " 
 
 He was in turn interrupted by a sharp click, the spit of a 
 port fire sounded, and instantly came a glare of red light, 
 which brought those on the pier into full view, and showed to 
 them two boats full of soldiers on the river, and another party 
 of them rising from behind a fence a few rods away. 
 
 With a scream of terror. Squire Hennion started down the 
 wharf, hoping to escape before the troops closed in. 
 
 " Halt ! " commanded some one ; and when the old man 
 still ran, he ordered " Fire." 
 
 " Bang ! " went a musket on the word ; but Hennion reached 
 the end of the pier, and turned down the river bank. " Bang, 
 bang," went two more ; and the runner staggered, then pitched 
 forward on his face. 
 
 " I surrender," announced Philemon, as the soldiers came 
 crowding on to the wharf. " Where is your commander? " 
 
 " I am sorry to see you here, Hennion," said Brereton's 
 voice. "You are the last man I wanted to take prisoner 
 under such circumstances." 
 
 " Wilt let me go to my father? " steadily requested the British 
 colonel. " I give my word not to escape." 
 
 "Let him go free," ordered Brereton; and together they 
 walked down to the prostrate body, which an officer had 
 already turned on its face, so that he might search the 
 pockets. 
 
 As the two came up, the squire opened his eyes. "They 've 
 dun fer me, Phil," he moaned. "Yer ole dad 's gone ter the 
 well once too offen, an' a durn fool he wuz ter go on, when he 
 know'd they wuz arter them ez wuz consarned in it." 
 
522 Janice Meredith 
 
 As he spoke, the keel of one of the boats which had rowed 
 in, grated on the river bottom. An officer, springing ashore, 
 joined the group, and saluting, reported : " General Brereton, 
 when you fired the light, it revealed, close upon us, a small 
 boat stealing up the river, in which we captured Mr. Bagby. 
 He declares he was out fishing ; but he had no tackle, and the 
 bowsman swears that as we approached he saw him put some- 
 thing into his mouth and swallow it." 
 
 "Bring him here," ordered the commander; and Bagby, his 
 hands and feet tied, was more speedily than politely spilled 
 into the shallow water and dragged ashore. 
 
 " I '11 pay you military fellows up ! " he sputtered angrily. 
 " Attacking and abusing citizens as is engaged in lawful occu- 
 pations. You wait till the Assembly meets. Hello ! Well, 
 I'm darned, what 's happened to Squire Hennion? " he ejacu- 
 lated. " You don't mean to say he 's got his deserts at last? 
 Now, I guess you see what your buying of Greenwood's 
 brought you. No man makes an enemy of Joe Bagby but 
 lives to regret it." 
 
 A look of intense malignity came on the dying man's face, 
 and purfiing his son, who was kneeling beside him, away, 
 he raised himself with an effort on one elbow. "So it 
 wuz yer ez betrayed me, wuz it," he cried, " yer ez took yer 
 share in it daown ter the time ez we split over Greenwood, 
 an' naowgoes an' plays the sneak? Duz yer hearn that, Phil? 
 Ef yer care fer me one bit, boy, bide yer chance an' pay 
 him aout fer what he 's done ter — " He beat the air wildly 
 with his free arm, in a vain attempt to steady himself, and then 
 once more pitched forward on his face, the blood pouring 
 from his mouth. 
 
 The sun had been up an hour when three companies of 
 Continentals, guarding five fwisoners, marched into Brunswick, 
 and at the word of command halted on the green. The sight 
 was enough to draw most of the villagers to doors or 
 windows ; but. when the rumour spread like wild-fire that among 
 those prisoners were Joseph Bagby and Philemon Hennion, 
 every inhabitant who could, promptly collected about the 
 troops, where, as the soldiers and officers paid no attention to 
 their questions, they spent their time in surmises as to what 
 
A Settling of Old Scores 523 
 
 it meant, and in listening to the Honourable Joseph's threats 
 and fulminations against the military power. 
 
 Among those who thus gathered was Mr. Meredith ; and 
 the moment he appeared Colonel Hennion called to Brereton, 
 who was busily engaged in conferring with the officer in actual 
 command of the half battalion. 
 
 " General Brereton," he requested, " may I have a few words 
 in private with Squire Meredith? " 
 
 " Withdraw your guards out of ear-shot. Captain Blaisdell," 
 ordered Brereton. 
 
 " Why, Phil, this is a sad plight to find ye in," said the 
 squire, regretfully, as he held out his hand, forgetful that the 
 prisoner's cords prevented his taking it. 
 
 "'Tis worse than you think, squire," answered Philemon, 
 calmly ; " I came but to see my father about your wish, but, 
 caught as I was, they will never believe it, and will doubtless 
 hang me as a spy the moment a court-martial has sat." 
 
 " Nay, lad, 't is not possible they — " 
 
 " 'T is what we should do in the same circumstances, so 
 't is not for me to complain. 'T was not this, however, of 
 which I desired to speak. My father was killed this morning, 
 and his death makes it possible for me to end your difficulties. 
 We had word in New York that the governor had pardoned 
 you; is't so?" 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 "Then 'tis all right, if we but act quick enough to com- 
 plete it, ere I am sent to the gallows. Find a justice of the 
 peace without delay, and let him draw deeds from me to — 
 to Janice, of both Greenwood and Boxely, and bring them to 
 me to sign — " 
 
 " Surely, Phil, 't is — " protestingly began the squire. 
 
 " Waste not a moment," importuned Philemon. " If 't is 
 delayed till I am convicted, the state may claim that they 
 were in escheat, but for these few hours I have a good title, 
 and if ever they seek to invalidate the deeds, set up the mort- 
 gages on Boxely that you hold, as the consideration." 
 
 "But—" 
 
 "In God's name, squire, don't lose the opportunity by 
 delay I 'T is best, whatever comes ; for even if by the most 
 
^24 Janice Meredith 
 
 marvellous luck I can convince the court that I am no spy, 
 and so go free, the moment the legislature meets, they will 
 vote a bill of forfeiture against me ; so 't is the one means 
 to save the property, whatever comes." 
 
 " Ye have the sense of it, lad," acceded Mr. Meredith, 
 " and I '11 do as ye tell me, this instant. But I 'II do all that 's 
 possible to save ye as well, and if ye but go free, ye shall be 
 not a penny the worse oif, that I swear to ye." 
 
 " And if not, 't is what I would do with the lands, were I 
 dying a natural death, squire." 
 
 "Don't lose hope, lad," said the squire, his hand on Phil's 
 shoulder. " Once the parson has drawn the deeds, I '11 see 
 Washington himself, and we '11 save ye yet." Then he hurried 
 away towards the parsonage. 
 
 During this dialogue other occurrences had been taking place, 
 which very much interested yet mystified the crowd of specta- 
 tors. When the conference between the general and major had 
 ended, Brereton walked to the doctor's house and entered it. 
 The major meantime went over to the constable, and in response 
 to something he said, the town official took out his keys, and 
 unlocked the stocks, a proceeding which set both soldiers and 
 townsfolk whispering curiously. 
 
 " Free the prisoner Bagby's hands and feet, Corporal Cox, 
 and set him in," commanded the major. 
 
 " What in the 'nation is comin' ! " marvelled one of the 
 observers. " Of all rum ways o' treatin' a suspect, this 'ere 
 is the rummiest." 
 
 Another pause followed, save for a new outburst from Joe, 
 concerning the kinds of vengeance he intended to shortly 
 inaugurate ; but presently Brereton and the doctor came 
 across the green, the latter carrying a bottle and spoon in his 
 hand. 
 
 " This is the one," said the general ; and then, as the doctor 
 stepped forward and poured the spoon full from the bottle, 
 he ordered, " Open your mouth, Mr. Bagby." 
 
 " This is tyranny," shrieked Joe, " and I won't do no such 
 thing." He shut his mouth with a snap and set his jaws 
 rigidly. 
 
 " Hold his head," commanded Brereton ; and the corporal 
 
A Settling of Old Scores 525 
 
 took it firmly and bent it back so that the helpless man 
 looked skyward.- "Snuff," said Jack, and a second officer, 
 pulling out a small box, stepped forward, and placed a pinch 
 in Bagby's nose. 
 
 " A-chew ! " went Joe, and as his mouth flew open, the offi- 
 cer inserted the barrel of his pistol, so that when he tried to 
 close his jaws again they only bit on steel. Instantly the 
 spoon was put to his lips, and the contents emptied down 
 his throat. 
 
 " How long will it take ? " the general asked. 
 
 "The lobelia ought to act in about five rninutes," replied 
 the doctor. 
 
 Silence ensued, as soldiers and crowd stared at the immov- 
 able Joseph, whose complexion slowly turned from ruddy to 
 white, and from white to greenish yellow, while into his eyes 
 and mouth came a hang-dog look of woebegone misery and 
 sickness. 
 
LXV 
 
 PEACE IN SIGHT 
 
 THE occupants of Greenwood were still at breakfast 
 that same morning, when word was brought to the 
 commander-in-chief that Mr. Meredith desired 
 speech with him. 
 
 "Set another place, Billy, and bid him to come in," ordered 
 the hostess. 
 
 "I'll tell him, Lady Washington," cried Janice, springing 
 up, and after she had nearly throttled her father on the porch, 
 he was led in. 
 
 "My thanks to ye, Lady Washington," said the squire, once 
 the introduction was made, " but I have broken fast already, 
 and have merely come to intercede with his Excellency on 
 a sad matter." In the fewest possible words he explained 
 Philemon's situation. " The lad assures me that he came but 
 to serve me, and with never a thought of spying," he ended. 
 " I trust therefore that ye 'II not hold him as one, however 
 suspiciously it may appear." 
 
 " The matter shall have careful consideration at my hands, 
 Mr. Meredith," replied Washington. 
 
 " All the more, I trust, that ye are good enough to take 
 an interest in my Jan, who is his promised bride." 
 
 Both Washington and his wife turned to the girl, and the 
 former said, — 
 
 " What, Miss Janice, is this the way thou hast kept thy promise 
 to me to save thy smiles and blushes for some good Whig? " 
 
 " Janice Meredith 1 you are the most ungrateful creature 
 that ever I knew ! " asserted Mrs. Washington, crossly. 
 
 The girl only looked down into her lap, without an attempt 
 at reply, but her father took up the cudgels. 
 
Peace in Sight 527 
 
 *' Nay ! " he denied, " many a favorwe owe to Mr. Hennion, 
 and now he has topped them all by signing deeds within the 
 hour that gives to the girl both Greenwood and Boxely." 
 
 Janice looked up at her father. " 'T is like him," she 
 said, chokingly. " Oh, General Washington, will you not be 
 merciful to him?" 
 
 " What is done must depend wholly on General Brereton's 
 report. Miss Janice," answered Washington, gravely. 
 
 " Oh, not on him 1 " besought the girl. " He has reason to 
 dislike Major Hennion, and he is capable of such bitter 
 resentments." 
 
 " Hush, child, have you no eyes ? " cried Mrs. Washington, 
 and Janice faced about to find Brereton standing behind her. 
 
 Not a feature of Jack's face showed that he had heard her, 
 as he saluted and began, — 
 
 " The manoeuvre was executed last night, your Excellency, 
 and I have the honour to hand you my report." 
 
 Washington took the document and began an instant 
 reading of it, while the new arrival turned to give and 
 receive a warm greeting with the hostess. " You '11 eat 
 some breakfast. Jack," she almost begged, with affectionate 
 hospitality. 
 
 " Thank you, Lady Washington, I — I — some other morn- 
 ing," answered the officer. 
 
 An awkward silence fell, yet which no one attempted to 
 break, as the commander-in-chief slowly conned each page 
 of the report. Once finished, he turned to the squire, and 
 said, " I must ask, Mr. Meredith, that you go into the parlour, 
 where later I will see you. I have certain questions to put to 
 General Brereton." Mr. Meredith gone, be asked, — 
 
 "What was the paper you recovered from this Bagby? " 
 
 " 'T was a slip of tissue silk, which proves beyond doubt 
 that he has been supplying the British with information, 
 though unluckily there is nothing to show from whom in our 
 army he received his information." 
 
 " 'T is unfortunate, for we have long known that a leak existed 
 in our very councils. However, 't is something gained to have 
 broken the channel of communication, and to have brought 
 one traitor to the gallows. You will deliver the prisoners into 
 
528 Janice Meredith 
 
 the hands of the provost-marshal, sir, and be at headquarters 
 at two this afternoon, prepared to give your testimony and 
 papers to the court I shall order." 
 
 Brereton saluted, and made a movement of departure, but 
 Washington spoke again, — 
 
 " In this report, sir, you speak of having taken Lieutenant 
 Colonel Hennion a prisoner of war. Under the circum- 
 stances in which he was captured 't is a strange definition to 
 give to his footing." 
 
 Jack's bronzed face reddened slightly. "I so stated it, 
 your Excellency, because I overheard the colonel tell his 
 father that he had but stolen within our lines to do Mr. 
 Meredith a service, and having myself read the letter that 
 induced him to take the risk, I had every reason to believe 
 that he spoke nothing but the truth. Yet I knew that no 
 court-martial would take such a view, and so gave him that 
 quality in my report, to save him from a fate he does not 
 merit." 
 
 " Once, sir, you were guilty of a deceit," said Washington, 
 sternly, " and the present conditions are enough similar to 
 make me suspicious. Are you certain that the fact that Miss 
 Meredith's happiness is concerned in this officer's fate, has had 
 nothing to do with the quality you have given to his status? " 
 
 Despite the tan. General Brereton's cheeks paled. " My 
 God, your Excellency ! " he burst out. " It has been one long 
 struggle from the moment I found him my prisoner, until my 
 report was safe in your hands not to — not to send him to the 
 gallows, as I could by mere silence so easily have done. That 
 I reported so promptly was due to the fact that I dared not 
 delay, lest the temptation should become too strong." 
 
 Washington's eye had never left Brereton during his out- 
 break, and at the end he said : " You will remain at head- 
 quarters, and report to me again, sir, in half an hour, after I 
 have duly considered the facts." 
 
 Making no reply. Jack saluted, and passed out of the room. 
 As he reached the doorway, Janice, who had risen, said : 
 
 " I pray you. General Brereton, to forgive me the grave 
 wrong I have just done you in both thought and speech." 
 
 Silently Jack bowed, and closed the door. 
 
Peace in Sight 529 
 
 " 1 should think thee 'd be well ashamed of thyself, miss," 
 declared Mrs. Washington, fretfully. 
 
 "I am. Lady Washington," repUed the girl, humbly, "but 
 ■believe me, that wrong as I was in this instance, I am not so 
 wholly to blame as I seem, for one example of General 
 JBrereton's temper which he gave me, proves that he can carry 
 his resentment to all lengths, and — " 
 
 " And is it because the man has a temper that you have 
 slighted his suit? " interrupted the matron, peevishly. " Child, 
 child, don't you know that every man that is worth his salt 
 has a warm constitution? Why, the tales and warnings that 
 were brought to me of the general's choleric nature when he 
 ■was wooing me were enough to fright any woman. And true 
 they were, for once roused, his wrath is terrible. Yet to me 
 he has ever been the kindest and most amiable of husbands." 
 
 Washington smiled, as he said, " Miss Janice will know who 
 ■deserves the credit for that. But my wife is right. A man 
 is not apt to vent his wrath on the woman he loves, unless 
 she gives him extreme cause." 
 
 " Bitter cause we gave to General Brereton, I own, but — 
 hut I can never think that had he truly loved me he would 
 have refused his aid in our extremity." 
 
 "Refused thee aid ! " snapped Jack's partisan. "Has he 
 •done anything but help thee in every way he could ? Who 
 -was it brought thy poor mother off that dreadful ship ? Who 
 was it has teased General Lafayette with such unending favours 
 for thee, that the marquis asked me what was the source of 
 General Brereton's interest in one Mr. Meredith? Who 
 only last week wrote me a letter that would have melted a 
 stone — anything, I believe, but thy heart — begging me to 
 offer thee a home, that thou might'st escape the tavern dis- 
 comfort and crowd? I declare, thy ingratitude nigh makes 
 me regret my having wasted any liking upon thee." 
 
 "Oh, Lady Washington," cried Janice, "not a one of these 
 did I know of, and if you but knew what gladness it brings me 
 to learn that, once he knew we had insulted him unwittingly, 
 he forgave us, and put his resentment away." 
 
 "Then you '11 reward him as he deserves?" delightedly ex- 
 claimed the match-maker. 
 
 34 
 
53° Janice Meredith 
 
 " I am promised, Lady Washington," replied the girl, 
 gravely, " and were I not, I could never forget his once 
 cruelty — " 
 
 "What did he?" 
 
 " I cannot bear to tell, now he has, by his kindness, en- 
 deavoured to atone for it." 
 
 " I make no doubt 't is more of his masked generosity. 
 Never will I believe that loving you as I know he does, he 
 could be hard-hearted or cruel to you." 
 
 " 'T was not — 't was worse than if his anger had fallen on 
 me. Lady Washington. He refused to aid my father, and 
 but for his Excellency's untellable generosity and — " 
 
 Washington, who had been rereading the report, looked up, 
 and interrupted : " Did General Brereton tell you that it 
 was my act. Miss Janice?" 
 
 " No, your Excellency, 't was from Governor Livingstoa 
 that we learned of the debt we owed to you, for which no 
 thanks can ever — " 
 
 Once again Washington interrupted. " There are no thanks, 
 due to me. Miss Janice," he said, " for, much as I may have 
 wished to service you, my public duties made it unwise*. 
 Your gratitude is wholly due to Brereton." 
 
 " I do not understand — What do you mean? " exclaimed 
 the girl. " He — 't was your letter, so the governor said — " 
 
 " 'Twas my letter, but his act," replied Washington; and 
 in a few words explained. " General Brereton expected, and 
 should have been court-martialled and shot for what he did," 
 he ended ; " but he had served me faithfully, and so I re- 
 frained from making his misconduct public, and punished him 
 no further than by demanding his resignation from my staff. 
 You lost me a good friend and servant, Miss Janice, but now, 
 with the war in effect ended, I scarce feel regret that his action, 
 however blamable, spared you the loss of your father." 
 
 "Now, what do you say, miss?" inquired Mrs. Washington, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 All the reply Janice made was to let her head fall forward 
 on the table, as she burst into tears. 
 
 "There, there, my child ! " cried the matron, putting her 
 arms about and raising the girl, so that the down bent head 
 
Peace in Sight 531 
 
 might find a resting-place on her bosom. " I did not mean 
 to pain thee." 
 
 " Oh, Lady Washington," sobbed Janice, as she threw her 
 arms about the dame's neck, "I — I am so miserable, an — 
 an — and so happy 1 " 
 
 Ten minutes later, Janice, with pale cheeks, but determined 
 air, sought her father in the parlour, and going on her knees 
 at his feet, said, — 
 
 " I have that to tell, dadda, which I fear will anger and pain 
 you greatly." Then in a few words she repeated to him what 
 Washington had told her. 
 
 " And why should that hurt me, lass ? I own I treated the 
 general somewhat scurvily, and that he has repaid it in differ- 
 ent kind, but 't will be no grief to apologise and thank him 
 for what he did." 
 
 " 'T was not that of which I am apprehensive, but when I 
 wrote to General Brereton, and besought his aid, I promised 
 that I would wed him if he would but save you, and — and, 
 oh, dadda, please be not angry with me, but I — I feel I must 
 fulfil my pledge, if he asks it of me." 
 
 " And how of your promise — and mine — to Phil ? " 
 
 " I came to you, ere seeking to see him, to explain — " 
 
 The squire shook his head doubtingly. " I can't lay blame 
 on ye, Jan, since I owe my very life to what ye did. Yet 't is 
 bitter to me to break faith with Philemon." 
 
 " I feel as guilty, dadda, but I think he will be generous, 
 and give us back our promise, when I tell him all the facts." 
 
 " And 't is nigh as hard," went on the father, " to think of 
 letting ye wed General Brereton, though I do owe my life to 
 him." 
 
 " Ah, dadda, you will not punish him for the wrong his 
 psirentsdid him?" 
 
 " 'T is not that, Jan, but because he is a rebel to — " 
 
 The girl gave a little laugh, as if a weight were taken from 
 her thoughts, and she flung her arms about her father's neck 
 and kissed him. "Why, dadda," she cried, with the old 
 Toguishness, " how can he be a rebel, now that they 've 
 won?" 
 
 The squire pulled a wry look. " Little I dreamed I 'd 
 
532 Janice Meredith 
 
 ever break faith, or make friends of the enemies of ray king, 
 but the times are disloyal, and I suppose one must go with 
 them. If ye can persuade Phil to release us, Jan, have your 
 way." 
 
 Again his daughter kissed him, but this time tenderly, with 
 all the archness gone. " Thank you, dadda, for yielding," she 
 said, "for 'twould have been horrible to me had you not.'' 
 
 The squire kissed her in return. " Better one rebel in the 
 family than two," he responded with a laugh, which suggested 
 that whatever his compunctions, he knew at heart that the 
 outcome was for the best, and was already reconciled to it. 
 " Thou 'rt too good a lass, Jan, to make into more of a rebel 
 than this same Brereton will no doubt make thee." 
 
 " He '11 make no rebel of me to my darling dadda, that I 
 promise," asserted Janice, joyfully. 
 
 Mr. Meredith laughed still more heartily. " I '11 rest con- 
 tent if ye don't declare independence of your old dad, and 
 allegiance to him, within one month of marriage, Jan." 
 
 As he ended, came a knock on the door aiid an officer 
 entered. " His Excellency directs me to say. Miss Meredith," 
 he announced, " that the provost-marshal has orders to bring 
 Colonel Hennion to you, whenever you are ready to see him." 
 
 " I '11 see him now," replied the girl. 
 
 " Poor lad ! " lamented the squire. 
 
 "Oh, dadda, what can I say to him?" grieved Janice. 
 
 " I know not, lass," repUed the father, as he hastened to 
 leave the room. 
 
 It was a hard interview the girl had with Colonel Hennion, 
 but she went through with it bravely, telling all the circum- 
 stances. " 'T is not merely that I owe him the fulfilment of 
 the promise I made him before that to you was given, Phil," 
 Janice ended, " but though I thought my love for him was 
 dead, the moment I heard of how he had risked life and 
 station to spare me grief, I — I — " There she ceased 
 speaking, but her eyes and cheeks told eloquently what her 
 tongue refused to put in words. 
 
 Philemon, with a sad face, took her hand. « I '11 not make 
 it the harder for you by protests or appeals, Janice," he said, 
 "for, however it may pain me, I wish to spare you." 
 
Peace in Sight 533 
 
 " Oh, don't, please," she sobbed. " If you — if you would 
 only blame me." 
 
 " I can't do that," he replied simply. " And — and 't is as 
 well, perhaps. General Washington just sent me word that I 
 am only to be treated as a prisoner of war, but even when I 
 am exchanged I must henceforth be an exile, with only my 
 sword to depend upon; so it would have been no hfe for 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, Phil, you '11 take back Greenwood and Boxely, 
 won't — " 
 
 " Only to have them taken by the state ? Keep them, as I 
 would have you, Janice, and if ever I am invalided, and the 
 laws will let me, I '11 come back and ask you for Boxely, pro- 
 vided I can bear the thought of — of — of a life of rust. Till 
 then God prosper you and gooci-by." 
 
 For some time after Philemon left the room the girl wept, 
 but by degrees the sobs ended, and she became calmer. Yet, 
 as the tears ceased, some other emotion replaced them, for 
 thrice, as she sat musing, her cheeks flushed without apparent 
 reason, several times her brows wrinkled, as if some question 
 were puzzling her ; and once she started forward impulsively, 
 some action determined, only to sink back, as if lacking 
 courage. Suddenly she sprang to her feet, and, apparently 
 afraid to give herself time for consideration, she ran, rather 
 than walked, into the garden. Here she picked a single 
 blossom from a rose bush, and such sprays of honeysuckle as 
 she could find, and made them into a bunch. Kissing the 
 flowers as if they were the dearest thing in the world, she 
 hurried out of the garden, and glanced about. Seeing a 
 soldier on the road, she hailed him and asked him whither he 
 was going. 
 
 " Nowhere in pertickerler, miss." 
 
 " Dost know where General Brereton is to be found ? " she 
 asked boldly, though blushing none the less for some reason. 
 
 " I just seen him down ter Colonel Dayton's quarters." 
 
 "Wilt favour me by taking him these flowers?" Janice 
 requested, holding them out with one hand, while her other 
 tendered a Spanish milled dollar, her eyes dropped ground- 
 ward, as if to hide something. 
 
534 Janice Meredith 
 
 " Calkerlate I might ; and who '11 1 say sent 'em ? " 
 
 "I — say nothing at all — but just give him the bunch." 
 
 "Don't hardly worth seem carryin'," said the soldier, 
 glancing at the flowers with open contempt, "an' sartin it 
 ain't worth no sich money ter take 'em." Lest she would 
 agree with him, however, he set off with celerity. " Like as 
 not he '11 give me a reprimand fer troublin' him with a gal's 
 nonsense," he soliliquised, as he walked. " Swan ef I ain't 
 most tempted ter throw 'em in the ditch." 
 
 Fortunately he did not commit the breach of faith, though 
 there were distinct qualities of shame and apology in his voice 
 and manner, when he walked up to a group of officers sitting 
 under a tree, and said to one of them, — 
 
 " A gal gave me this, general, ter take ter you, an' she 
 would hev it, though I told her she 'd no business ter be 
 botherin' yer with sich plumb foolishness." 
 
 The flowers were snatched rather than taken from his 
 hand. " Where was she when she gave them to you ? " 
 demanded Brereton. 
 
 " I seen her go back inter the garding over ter Headquarters 
 House, sir." 
 
 The general, without a word of explanation or apology to 
 his fellow ofificers, started away almost at a run. Halting sud- 
 denly after he had gone some fifty feet, he fumbled in his 
 pocket, and pulling out three or four coins, he tossed back a 
 gold piece to the man ; then hastened away. 
 
 " Waal ! " ejaculated the soldier, as he stooped and picked 
 it up. "A hard dollar from a gal was bad enough, but I 
 did n't expect ter see the general go clean crazy like that. A 
 louis, as I 'm a livin' sinner ! " 
 
 When Jack entered the hedge, one glance he took, and then 
 strode to the garden seat. " I know you would not torture 
 me with false hopes, yet I — I dare not believe the message I 
 would give the world to read in these," he said hoarsely. 
 
 The girl put her hand gently on his arm. "They say. 
 Jack," she replied, her eyes upturned to his, "whatever you 
 would wish they might." 
 
 On the words, her lover's arms were about her. 
 
 " Then they say that I am forgiven and — " 
 
Peace in Sight 535 
 
 " Oh, Jack," cried Janice despairingly, " can you ever for- 
 give me — " Can I ever atone — ever thank you for all — " 
 
 " Hush, my sweet. Put the past, as I will, out of mind 
 for ever." 
 
 " I will, I will — but, oh. Jack, I must tell you how I have 
 suffered — how my heart nearly broke — so that you may know 
 how happy I am ! " 
 
 "Oh, sweetheart," cried Brereton, clasping her tightly. 
 "Do you mean — can the flowers truly say that you really 
 love me?" 
 
 " They can, but never how much." 
 
 " Then tell me yourself." 
 
 " No words can." 
 
 " Ah, sweetheart, try," besought Brereton. 
 
 " Then stoop and let me whisper it," said the girl, and 
 obediently Jack bent his head. But what she had to tell was 
 told by her lips upon his. 
 
 It was Billy Lee who finally interrupted them. " You '11 
 'souse me, Gen'l an' Missy Janice," he called, apologetically, 
 from the opening in the hedge, "but Lady Washington dun 
 send me to 'splain dat if she delay de dinner any mo' dat Gen'l 
 Brereton suttinly be late at de cote-martial." And as a 
 second couple made a hurried if reluctant exodus from 
 paradise, he continued, " I dun tender youse my bestest 
 felicitations, sah. Golly ! Won't Missis Sukey and dat Blue- 
 skin dun be pleased." 
 
 " She will be when she and Peg are bought and safe back 
 at Greenwood, Billy, as they soon will be," predicted 
 Brereton. 
 
 In the dining room stood the commander-in-chief and 
 Mrs. Washington, and as Jack and Janice entered it through 
 one of the windows, the latter caught the girl in her arms, 
 and kissed her warmly. 
 
 "Oh, Lady Washington," cried the maiden, ecstatically, 
 " how can I ever thank you ! " 
 
 "That is my duty, Janice, not yours," asserted Brereton, 
 taking the matron's hand and kissing it. 
 
 Janice, her eyes starry with happiness, crossed to General 
 
536 Janice Meredith 
 
 Washington. " Oh, your Excellency," she begged, her hand 
 on his arm, " there is but one flaw in my gladness, and 't is 
 that for my sake he lost your trust and affection. Will you — 
 oh, won't you forgive him, as he has me, and let my joy be 
 perfect?" 
 
 Washington smiled indulgently into the winsome face, and 
 turning to Brereton, held out his hand. " You have secured 
 an able pleader," he said, " and I cannot find it in my heart 
 to give her nay at any such time. Indeed," he added, as 
 Jack eagerly took the proffered peace-offering, "'tis to be 
 feared, my boy, that had she but made her prayer to me 
 instead of you, I should have found it difficult not to be 
 equally faithless to my duty." 
 
 Janice stooped and kissed the two hands as they clasped 
 each other, then, as her father entered the room, she sped to 
 him, and throwing her arms about his neck, kissed him 
 as well. 
 
 "Mr. Meredith," said Jack, tendering his hand a little 
 doubtfully, " a bondservant of yours ran off while yet there 
 was four years of service due to you. He is ready now to 
 fulfil the bond, nor will he complain if you enforce the legal 
 penalty of double time." 
 
 " 'T is lucky for me, general," answered the squire, heartily, 
 "that ye acknowledge my claim, for I take it that, my lass 
 having sworn a new allegiance, I shall need a hold on you, if 
 I am to retain any lien on her." 
 
 "Nay, Mr. Meredith," said Washington, "you need not 
 fear that the new tie will efface the old one. We have ended 
 the mother country's rule of us, but 't is probable her chil- 
 dren will never cease to feel affection for the one who gave 
 them being J and so you will find it with Miss Janice." 
 
 THE END