Books: Janice Meredith

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It was after nightfall ere there was any variation of the monotonous
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 listening.
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.

"'T was played to a nicety," answered the voice of Harcourt,
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."

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 behind
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 statement
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 prisoner
free.

"Fo' de good Lord in hebin--" began the cook, in amazement;
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
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 intently,
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
his 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 himself
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 horror
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, bangings 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, however,
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 without
hesitation she ran down the stairs and entered the dining-room
just in time to hear Sukey affirm:--

"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 prisoner
loose before she knew what I had in mind."

"Doan youse believe one word dat chile says," protested
Sukey.

"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."

"Oh, missy, missy!" cried Sukey, "wha' 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 intensity
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 concession
that if Hennion recaptured the prisoner he would take a
less drastic course. The morrow brought a return of the pursuing
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 Brereton's
mare and Joggles to pull it, received the three, and, together
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
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 beginning.
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 consented
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, and 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'll 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 another
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'lt find us pushed into the garret,
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, "'t is 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."
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?" expostulated
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 quartered,
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 taken
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
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 shrewd 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 comfort,
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 unknown
German, and possibly Papistical, if not devilish 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 indoors,
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
could be made to produce, plus a perfect forest of bottles,--
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 English, and in fact by some who,
for want of that language, could only show their admiration by
ardent glances, were vastly set up by the unaccustomed attentions;
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 cheerful
smile as the evening advanced.

A crescendo of enjoyment secured by means of wine is apt
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 instantly
in a turmoil, the women screaming, the combatants
locked, others struggling to separate them, and Rahl 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, Dec. 25, 1776.
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
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 mit
cold und hunger. Dey vill not cross to dis side, mooch ice or
no ice, but if dey do, ye prisoners of dem make."

And once more the toasting and merry-making was resumed.

With not a little foresight the three ladies had availed themselves
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 assured
thee must have given the lewd creatures some encouragement,
or they would never have dared a familiarity. Not a one
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!"

"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 is n'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 arrival;
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 footprints.
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'll be marched back with not
so much as a sight of the enemy."

"You think the attack impossible?"

"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."

"I thought the game up when my general refused the command
and set out for Philadelphia," remarked Wilkinson.

"Gates is too good a politician and too little of a fighter to
like forlorn hopes," 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 riddled,
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 them 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 watching
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.