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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 supplication 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 complicated
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 interfered
and checked both song and purse. On September 11
the low boom of guns was heard, and that very evening word
came that the Continental army had been defeated at Brandywine.
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 Continental
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
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 Philadelphia
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 dragoons,
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 inroads
into it that the girl could not but worry over the future.

[Illustration: "The despatch"]

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;
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 herself.
With her knitting needle she pried up the glass and, removing
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 something
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'll have him captured by night.
All the other boys hez gone out on the Germantown 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 breaking
into a run 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'll put it back," hastily offered Janice, very much
alarmed and flustered. "I--I never dreamed that--that
the picture would make it worth any more."

"'T would have made it look more regular. How much
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 girl, "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?"

"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 't is."

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 rumbled by her door during the sleepless
night she spent.

As time lessened her fright, her necessities grew more
pressing, and finally became so desperate, that, braving everything,
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 man
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 endless
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!"

"Ye don't foist that take-in on me, John Andre! I score
six 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 occurring,"
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 Cornwallis
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 Andre; "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 teaching his army 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 tale of her mother's
sickness, and then with less glibness, and with reddened
cheeks, 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, I
thank you, but I can't take your--"

"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 Cornwallis
might--"

"In truth, Miss Meredith, you ask for what is far scarcer
than guineas in these days," said Andre. "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 Washington'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 Andre, "can't something be
done?"

Mobray shook his head gloomily. "I did my best yesterday
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 Andre, "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'll take hell and army rations,
Captain Andre, rather than lose the pleasure of your society,"
he added ironically.

"Small doubt I shall be found there," retorted Andre, derisively;
"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, Andre," broke in Mobray, "let me answer, not for
you, but for the army." He faced Clowes and went on.
"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; until then no man of honour would lower himself by
fighting you."

"I make Sir Frederick's answer mine, my Lord," said Andre,
"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. Commissary-General,
you have an opportunity to aid Miss Meredith
that you should not have were it in my power to forestall
you."

"Come to my office, Miss Janice," requested Clowes, perhaps
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
slightly 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 tightened
his grasp. "Ye have owed me something for long," he
said, drawing her 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 postponement,
for she was not long returned when the knocker summoned
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'll 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
reduce the rebel works, and break through their cursed chevaux-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, Miss 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 remind
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 myself.
But you 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?" demanded
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 remember
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."

"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 acknowledged,"
he said. "I'll 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 where
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 which 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 Andre appeared, to
inquire if her immediate needs were supplied, and with a plan
of assistance.

"Miss Meredith," said Mobray, "Captain Andre 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. Meredith
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 servants, 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 something
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 office
are little better. Alone here, you are scarcely safe, but with us
you need have no fear."

Janice attempted some objections, but her previous helplessness
and loneliness, as well as her recent fright from the
commissary, made them faint-hearted, and it needed little
urgence to win her consent to the plan. Her mother approving,
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 breakfast,
she found that others had been more wakeful. In the
middle of the table was a pail of milk, a pile of eggs, four unplucked
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 Andre, 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 disobeying
the general orders by stealing through the lines: one hundred
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 shooting.
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
have him to dinner to-day, just to spoil his appetite with sight
of our cates."