Books: Janice Meredith

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[Illustration: "Here's to the prettiest damsel!"]

"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?"

"'T is great good fortune," ecstatically sighed the girl.
"Think you 't would 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 knowing.
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'll 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 beautiful!"
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 know what 's the mode.
'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 hail, 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 interminable.

Finally the rustling of the grass told of the return of the
prowler, and as the girl heard it she once more began trembling,
"Oh!" she moaned. "If only I had n't--if only he'd go
away!" She rose from the bed, and stole to the window.

"Mr. Evatt, I'm so frightened, I don't dare," she whispered
to the figure standing below. "Wait till to-morrow
night!

"Nonsense!" said the man, so loudly that Janice was more
cared 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'll 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 prospect
of her parents knowing than by any other possibility. "I'll
come if you'll only be quiet."

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 descended
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.

"Burn it!" exclaimed Evatt, presently, "art never going to
end thy weeping?"

"If you would only have waited till--" sobbed Janice.

"'T was 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 shall
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 approached,
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 barking.

"Keep silence!" again ordered the unseen man.

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!" said the latter. "Hist, Charles!
Call the dog, or he'll 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.

"'T is 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 almost 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." Taking
a lantern from one of the men, he walked back to the speechless
and frightened girl and held the light to her face. "'T is
not possible you--you--oh! I'll never believe it of you."

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 powder,
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 did n'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'll 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 Invincibles
want their powder to follow us, and they shall have fifty
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 off
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 blocky
came across the water, showing that those on board were making
sail. Then, as the men on the wharf dispersed, he mounted
the horse Evatt had ridden.

"Janice Meredith," he said sternly," I 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 meaning
of this arrival, it was briefly explained to him that his daughter
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 presently
the squire's heart began to soften for his lass, and he attempted
at last to interpose in palliation of her conduct. This
promptly resulted in Mrs. Meredith's ordering Janice off the
horse and to her room. "Where I'll 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 her wickedness, the servants addressing
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.

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'll 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 espionage
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. Little by little Janice's misconduct
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 Greenwood,
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 expressive
than refined--"fer sendin' my boy ter Boston, wheer,
belike, he'll 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'll 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 unconscious
humour.

"Heyday!" 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--
"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'll make him smile the other side of his
teeth before I've done with him. Harkee, man, I've a rod in
pickle that 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, I 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' I 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'll go easy on me."

"If ye think I'm going to spare ye on account of Phil ye are
mightily out. I'll 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'll be law enough. Think ye England
is sleeping?"

"We'll see, we'll see," retorted Hennion. "In the meantime,
squire, I hope yer won't wont 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. "'T will enable me to foreclose
all the quicker."

"When theer 's courts ter foreclose," replied Hennion, grinning
suggestively. With this parting shot, he left the house and
rode away.

On the same day this interview occurred, another took place in
the Craigie House in Cambridge, then occupied as the headquarters
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 important
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 you,
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 powder
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 Middlesex
County in Jersey?"

"I did."

"The committee refused to part with the powder."

Washington rose. "Have they no public spirit, no consideration
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 commander
sprang to the window. A glance took in the two carts
loaded with kegs, and he turned, his face lighted with
emotion.

"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, premission to
volunteer."

"In what capacity?"

"I have served in the British forces as an officer, but all I
ask is leave to fight, without regard to rank."

"Tell me the facts of your life."

"As I said, my name is John Brereton. Nothing else about
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 Washington,
that the Continental Army had less than ten rounds of
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, I shall for
the present find employment for you in my own family."

Thus a twelve-month passed without Philemon Hennion, John
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 'lt 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 'rt
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 assume
the offensive, and had, by seizing Dorchester Heights,
compelled the evacuation of the city. Howe's army and the
fleet sailed away without molestation to Halifax, leaving behind
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. General
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.

"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'll
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 crustily,
"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'll 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 constituents
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'll be of some consequence, and if there 's going
to be a peace, like as not you'll be on top; and I'll be concerned
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 lawless
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 proceedings
against all the other enemies of the country."

"Then why are n't ye under arrest?" snapped the squire.

"'Cause there 's too many of us, and too few of you," explained
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 afternoon
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."