Books: Janice Meredith

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"I grieve to intrude upon so mirthful a company," apologised
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." Brereton
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'll not inconvenience you by our intrusion. Perhaps,
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!" gasped
one of the officers. "Dost think thou 'rt not prisoners?"

"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 Leftenant-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, despite
a bad trade. Fair lady," he continued after the handshake,
"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'll not force a wounded man to take such exposure,"
protested Mrs. Meredith. "Lieutenant Hennion--"

Brereton carried on the speech: "Can drink punch and
study divinity. I'll 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; "'t was 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 Meredith?"
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. Meredith,"
he said, "I've stolen a husband from your daughter.
'T is 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 Washington 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; and Howe learned that if the capital was to be captured,
it could not be by the direct march of his command
across the Jerseys, but must be by the far slower way of conveying
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 situated,
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 belligerents.
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 followed
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 Greenwood
was interrupted by a heavy hand being laid on his
shoulder, and ere he could blink himself into effective eyesight,
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'll 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 coating
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 ignominiously rolled in the feathers,
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'll 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
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, hastily
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 assoomed command, ontil we gits resottled,
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-board 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 little 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.

"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 my 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 overtook
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'll 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 little further. It's being far-seeing that wins, miss." The
speaker paused, as if he expected a response, but getting none,
he continued, "Would you like to see him home, and everything
quiet and easy again?"

"Oh!" said the girl, starting to her feet. "I'd give anything
if--"

"Now we're talking," interjected the captain, quite as
eagerly. "Only say that you'll be Mrs. Bagby, and back he
is before sundown, and I'll 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 the.
form of knocking, came into the parlour.

"You'll 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 anything
but her father, "was he well, and where is he?"

"He was smarting a bit when he wrote," Bagby remarked
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'll give you
just half an hour to pack, and if you are n't done then, off 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 following
day in the city of brotherly love. The escort, or captor,
first took them to the headquarters of the general in command
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 headquarters
the next day, or for many following ones. Nor could 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
doctor or her loquacious landlady she heard of how Burgoyne's
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
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 full 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.

"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."

"'T is 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.

"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'll 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.