Books: Janice Meredith

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The seconds held a conference, and then separated. Each
gave his principal a pistol, and stationed him so that they
stood some twenty paces apart.

"Gentlemen, with your weapons pointed groundward, on
the word, you will walk toward each other, and fire when it
pleases you," ordered Major Edwards. "Are you ready?
Go!"

The duellists, with their pistol hands dropped, walked steadily
forward, one, two, three, four, five strides.

"'T is murder, not satisfaction, they seek!" ejaculated
Franks, below his breath.

Another and yet another step each took, until there was
not twenty feet between the two; then Lee halted and coolly
raised his arm; one more step Brereton took as he did so,
and not pausing to steady his body, his pistol was swung upward
so quickly that it flashed first. Lee's went off a second
later, and both men stood facing each other, the smoking
barrels dropped, and each striving to see through the smoke
of his own discharge. Thus they remained for a moment,
then Lee dropped his weapon, staggered, and with the words,
"I am hit," went on one knee, and then sank to the ground.

Brereton walked back to his original position, and stood
calmly waiting the report of his second, who, with Edwards,
rushed to the wounded man's assistance.

"He is struck in the groin," Franks presently informed
him; "and while not dangerous, 't will be a month before he's
good for anything."

"You mean good for nothing," replied Jack. "I meant
to make it worse, but must rest content. As I told you, I
ride north without delay, so will not even return to the city.
Thank you, David, for helping me, and good-by."

Five hours later, Lee was lying in the Pennsylvania hospital,
and Brereton was riding into Trenton. Without the loss of a
moment, the aide sought an interview with the Governor,
clearly with unsatisfactory results; for when he left that
official his face was anxious, and not even tarrying to give
his mare rest, he mounted and spurred northward, spending
the whole night in the saddle. Pausing at Newark only to
breakfast, he secured a fresh horse, and reached Fredericksburg
a little before nightfall. Seeking out the commander-in-chief,
he delivered certain papers he carried; but before the
general could open them, he said:--

"Your Excellency, I wish speech with you on a matter of
life and death. To no other man in the world would I show
this letter, but I beg of you to read it, sir, and do what you
can for my sake and for theirs."

Washington took the sheets held out to him and slowly
read them from beginning to end. "'T is a sad tale the poor
girl tells," he said when he had finished; "but, my boy,
however much I may pity and wish to aid them, my duty to
the cause to which I have dedicated my life--"

"Ah, your Excellency," burst out Jack, "in just this one
instance 't will surely not matter. A word from you to Governor
Livingston--"

Washington shook his head. "I have ever refrained from
interfering in the civil line," he said, "and one breaking of
the rule would destroy the fabric I have reared with so much
pains. If I have gained influence with the people, with the
army, and with the State officials, it is because I have ever
refused to allow personal considerations to shape my conduct;
and that reputation it is my duty to maintain at all hazards,
that what I advise and urge shall never be open to the slightest
suspicion of any other motive than that of the public
good. It is a necessity which has caused me pain in the
past, and which grieves me at this moment, but I hold a
trust. Do not make its performance harder than it need be."

"Do I not deserve something at your hands, sir? Faithfully
I have served you to my uttermost ability."

"You ask what cannot be granted, Brereton; and from
this refusal I must not recede. Now leave me, my boy, to
read the despatches you have brought."

There was that in the general's manner which made impossible
further entreaty, and the aide obeyed his behest.
Yet such was the depth of his concern that he made a second
appeal, two days later, when he brought a bunch of circular
letters to the State governors, concerning quotas of provisions,
which he had written, to his chief for signature.

"Will you not, sir," he implored, "relent and add a postscript
to Governor Livingston in favour of mercy for Mr.
Meredith?"

"I have given you my reasons, Brereton, why I must not,
and all further petitions can but pain us both." Washington
signed the series, and taking the sand-box, sprinkled the wet
ink on each in turn. "Seal them, and see that they fail not
to get into the post," he ordered calmly. Yet as he rose to
leave the room, he laid his hand affectionately on Jack's
shoulder, and said: "I grieve not to do it, my boy, for your
sake and for hers."

The aide took the chair the general had vacated, and
began mechanically the closing of the letters; but when that
to the Governor of New Jersey was reached, he paused in the
process. After a little, he took from his pocket Janice's
frantic supplication, and reread it, his face displaying his response
to her suffering. "And ten words would save him,"
he groaned. His eye sought once more the unsealed letter,
and stared at it fixedly. "At worst it will be my life, and
that is worth little to me and nothing to any one else!" He
snatched a pen hastily, dipped it in the ink, but as he set the
tip to the paper, paused, his brow clouded. "To trick him
after all his generosity!" For a trice Jack hesitated. "He
stands too high to be injured by it," he exclaimed. "It
hurts not the cause, while 't will kill her if they hang him."
Again he set pen to the paper, and wrote a postscript of four
lines below Washington's name. "'T is the devil's work, or
her good angel's, that I had the writing of the letters, so the
penmanship agrees," he muttered, as he folded and sealed it.
Gathering up the batch, he gave a reckless laugh. "I said
I'd not lift finger to save him from the rope, and here I am
taking his place on the gallows. Well, 't is everything to do
it for her, scorn and insult me as they may, and to die with the
memory that my arms have held and my lips caressed her."

LIV
A GAIN AND A LOSS

It was two days of miserable doubt which Janice spent
after despatching her letter to Brereton. Then something
Mr. Drinker told his daughter brought some
cheer to the girl.

"Friend Penrhyn informed me that Colonel Brereton rode
into town this afternoon, Tabitha," he said, at the supper
table; "yet, though I went to the tavern to bespeak his company
here this evening, I could not get word of him. 'T is
neglectful treatment, indeed, of his old friends, that three times
in succession he should pass through without dropping in upon
us."

"He may still come, father," suggested Tabitha; and more
than she spent the evening in a state of expectancy. But
bedtime arrived; and the morrow came and went without
further news of him who had now become Janice's sole hope,
and then she learned that he had ridden northward.

"I knew his temper was hot," she sobbed in her own room,
"but never did I believe he could be so cruel as to come and
go without word or sign."

From the trial, which occurred but three days after this crushing
disappointment, the public were excluded, not even Mrs.
Meredith and Janice being permitted to attend. The result,
therefore, was first brought them by Bagby, who, though his
services had been refused by Mr. Meredith, had succeeded in
being present.

"The squire's lawyer," he told them, "was n't up to a trick
or two that I had thought out, and which might have done
something; but he made a pretty good case, if he could n't
save him. Morris's charge was enough to convict, but every
juryman was ready to vote 'Guilty' before the Chief Justice
had so much as opened his mouth."

"Is there nothing to do?" cried Mrs. Meredith.

"I'll see the Governor, and I'll get my friends to see him,"
promised Bagby; "but don't you go to raising your hopes,
for there is n't one chance in a hundred now."

Once again Mrs. Meredith sought interview with Livingston,
but the Governor refused to even see her; and both Mr.
Drinker's and Bagby's attempts succeeded little better, for
they could only report that he declined to further discuss
the matter, and that the execution was set for the following
Friday.

Abandoning all hope, therefore, Mrs. Meredith wrote a letter,
merely begging that they might spend the last night with
Mr. Meredith in the jail; and when the next morning she
received a call from the Governor, she only inferred that it was
in relation to her plea.

"It has been far from my wish, Mrs. Meredith," Livingston
said, "to bring suffering to you more than to any one else,
and the position I have taken as regards your husband was
only that which I deemed most for the good of the State, and
most in accord with public opinion. The vipers of our own
fireside require punishment; your husband had made himself
one of the most conspicuous and unpopular of these by the
office he held under the king, and no reason could I discover
why he should not reap the punishment he fitly deserved.
But this morning a potent one was furnished me, for I received
a letter from General Washington, speaking in high
terms of Mr. Meredith, and expressing a hope that we will not
push his punishment to the extreme of the law. It is the first
time his Excellency has ever ventured an opinion in a matter
outside of his own concern, and I conclude that he believes
stringent justice in this case will injure more than aid our
cause; and as the use of his name furnishes me with an explanation
that will satisfy the Assembly and people of this
State, I can be less rigorous. That you should not endure
one hour more of anxiety than need be, I have hurried to you,
to tell you that I shall commute his sentence to imprisonment
with the other political prisoners in Virginia."

The scene of gratitude and joy that ensued was not describable,
and some hours passed before either mother or daughter
became sufficiently composed to take thought of the future.
Then, by permission of the jailer, they saw Mr. Meredith and
discussed the problem before them. Neither wife nor daughter
could bear the thought of again being separated from the
squire, and begged so earnestly to be allowed to share the
half-captivity, half-exile, that had been decreed him, that he
could not deny them, the more that his own heart-strings in
reality drew the same way, and only his better judgment was
opposed to it.

"'T will be a hard journey, wife," he urged, "and little
comfort we're like to find at the end of it. For me there can
be no escape, but 't is not necessary that ye should bear it, for
't is to be hoped ye can live on at Greenwood, as ye have
already."

"We should suffer more, Lambert, in being separated from
thee."

"Oh, dadda, nothing could be worse than that," cried
Janice, her arms about his neck.

"Have your way, then," finally acceded their lord and
master.

This settled, they set about such preparations as were possible.
From Mr. Drinker a loan of five thousand dollars--
equal to a hundred pounds, gold--was secured, and a bargain
struck with a farmer to bring from Greenwood such supplies
of clothes as Mrs. Meredith wrote to Sukey to pack and send.
To most the prospect would not have been a cheering one,
but after the last few days it seemed truly halcyon, and Janice
was scarcely able to contain her happiness. She poured her
warmest gratitude and thanks out in a letter to Washington,
which would have surprised him not a little had he ever received
it, but the mail in which it went was captured, and
it was a British officer in New York who ultimately read it.
Nor did this effusion satisfy her.

"Oh, mommy," she joyfully bubbled, as they were preparing
for bed, "was there ever a greater or nobler or kinder
man than General Washington?"

And though the first frost of the season was forming crystals
on the panes, she knelt down in her short night-rail on a
lamb's wool rug, so small that her little feet rested on the cold
boards, and prayed for the general as he had probably never
been prayed for,--prayed until she was shivering so that her
mother interfered and ordered her to come to bed.

Her prayers were far more needed by some one else.
From the commission of his wrong, Brereton made it a point
to meet the post-rider as he trotted up to headquarters each
afternoon, and on the third day after the action of the Governor,
he found in the mail a letter which told him of the success
of his trick. While he was still reading, Colonel Hamilton
came to him with a message that Washington desired his
presence and, squaring his shoulders and setting his mouth as
if in preparation for an ordeal, Jack hastened to obey, though,
as he came to the closed doorway he hesitated for a moment
before he knocked, much as if his courage failed him.

Upon entrance, he found his superior striding up and down
the room, a newspaper in his hand, and without preliminary
word the general gave expression to his obvious anger.

"I would have you know, Colonel Brereton," sternly he
began, "that I am not the man to overlook disobedience of
my orders, nor pass over, without a rebuke, such disrespect as
you have shown me."

"I do not deny that your Excellency has cause for complaint,"
replied Jack, steadily; "and in acting as I did I was
fully prepared for whatever results might flow from it, even the
penalty of life itself; but, believe me, sir, my chief grief will
ever be the having deceived you, and my real punishment can
be inflicted by no court-martial you may order, but will be in
the loss of your trust and esteem."

"You speak in riddles, sir," responded Washington, halting
in his walk. "Cause for anger I have richly, for, as I told my
whole family, any challenge they might send General Lee
would, by the public, be ascribed to persecution. But you
know as well as I that your duel with him is no offence to
submit to a court-martial, and that you should pretend that I
have any such recourse is adding insincerity to the original
fault. You have--"

"That, sir, is a charge I indignantly deny," interrupted
Jack, warmly, "and I was referring--"

"No denial can justify your conduct, sir," broke in Washington,
wrathfully. "You have exposed me to the criticism
and misapprehension of the public. By your disregard of my
orders and my wishes, you have deservedly forfeited all right
to my favour or my affection."

"Your Excellency forgets--"

"I forget nothing," thundered the general. "'T is you
have forgotten the respect and obedience due me from all my
family and--"

"Think you an aide is but a slave," retorted Brereton, hotly,
"and that he possesses no right of independent action? Nor
did I conceive that your Excellency would ever judge me
unheard. I did--"

"The case is too palpable for--"

"Yet misjudge me you have, for I did not challenge Lee
because he had insulted you, but because he was shamefully
persecuting the woman I love."

Washington, who had resumed his angry pacing of the room,
once again halted. "Explain your meaning, sir."

"In your heat, your Excellency has clearly forgot the tale
Miss Meredith's letter told of General Lee's conduct as regards
herself and her father. With the feeling I bear for
her, human nature could not brook such behaviour, and it
was that for which I challenged him."

The general stood silent for a moment, then said, "I have
been too hasty in my action, Brereton, and have drawn a conclusion
that was not justified. I owe you an apology for my
words, and trust that this acknowledgment will end the misunderstanding."
He offered his hand, as he ended, to the aide.

"I thank your Excellency," answered Jack, "for your
prompt reparation, but before accepting it and taking your
hand, sir, it is my painful necessity to tell you that I have fully
merited all the anger you have expressed. Guiltless as I am
of fault as regards General Lee, I have committed a far greater
offence against you,--a wrong, sir, which, done with however
much deliberation, has caused me unending pain and remorse."

"Explain yourself, my boy," said Washington, kindly.

"Despite your decision, sir, I added a postscript in your
letter to Governor Livingston touching upon the case of Mr.
Meredith, and made you express a good opinion of him and a
recommendation that he be dealt with leniently. I now hold
in my hand a letter from a Trenton friend informing me that
this recommendation induced the Governor to commute the
death sentence into imprisonment. It is but the news I
awaited before informing your Excellency of my breach of trust;
and I should have made full confession to you within the hour,
had you not sent for me, as I supposed, to charge me with
this very treachery. And 't was this of which I was thinking
when I spoke expectingly of a court-martial."

During the whole explanation, Washington had stood fixedly,
his brows knit, and when the aide paused, he said nothing for
a minute; then he asked:--

"Has there been aught in the past, sir, to have made me
merit from you such a stab?"

"None, sir," answered Jack, gravely. "And whatever reason
I can find for the action in my own heart, there is nothing
I can offer in its defence to you."

Washington sat down at his desk and leaned his head on
his hand. "Is it not enough," he said, "that Congress is
filled with my enemies, that the generals on whom I must
depend are scheming my ruin and their own advancement,
but that even within my own family I cannot find those who will
be faithful to me? My God! is there no one I can trust?"

"Your Excellency's every word," said Jack, with tears in
his eyes, "cuts me to the heart, the more that nothing you can
say can increase the blame I put upon myself. I beg of you,
sir, to believe me when I say that, be your grief what it may, it
can never equal mine. And I beg that if my past relations to
you plead ever so little for a merciful judgment of my conduct,
you will remember that my betrayal was committed from no
want of affection for you, but because one there was, and but
one alone, whom I loved better."

Washington rose and faced Brereton, his self-control regained.
"Your lapse of duty to the cause we are engaged in,
sir, and my sense of it, make it out of the question that I
should ever again trust you; it is therefore impossible for me
longer to retain you upon my staff. But your loyalty and past
service speak loudly in your favour, and I shall not, therefore,
push your public punishment further than to demand your
resignation from my family, and so soon as there is a vacancy
among the officers of the line you will take your place according
to the date of your commission. The wrong you have
done me personally is of a different nature, and ends from this
moment the affection I have borne you and such friendship as
has existed between us."

LV
PRISONERS OF WAR

The Governor had warned the Merediths that the removal
to Charlottesville must await the chance of an
empty army transport, or other means of conveyance,
and for more than a month they waited, not
knowing at what hour the order would come.

Finally they were told to be ready the following morning;
and at daybreak the three, with a guard, were packed into a
hay cart, the larger part of the townsfolk collecting to view
their departure. Nor did Mr. Bagby, who had made a number
of calls upon them in the interval, fail to appear for a
good-by.

"Just you remember, miss," he urged, "that my arguments
and General Washington's was what saved your dad, and that
I can still do a lot to save your property. Don't forget either
that I'm going to go on rising. Only think it over well, and
you'll see which side your bread is buttered on, for, if you are
mighty good-looking, you 're no fool."

"Thank you, Mr. Bagby, for everything you have done or
tried to do," replied the girl; and the squire, who had heard
the whole speech, said nothing, though the effort to remain
silent was clearly a severe one.

"Whither do we go first?" asked Mrs. Meredith of the
driver, after the ferry-boat had left the Jersey shore and the
spectators both behind.

"Our orders is to take you to Reading, an' hand you over
to the officer in charge of the Convention snogers, pervided
the last detachment hev n't left theer; if they hev, we are to
lick up till we overtake them."

"What regiment is that?" questioned Janice.

"Guess ye 're a bit green on what 's goin' on," chuckled
one of the guard. "Them 's poppy-cock, hifalutin, by-the-grace-of-God
an' King Georgie, come-in-an'-surrender-afore-we-extirpate-yer,
Johnny Burgoyne's army, as did a little capitulatin'
themselves. We've kep' 'em about Boston till we've
got tired of teamin' pork an' wheat to 'em, an' now we're
takin' 'em to where the pigs an' wheat grows, to save us money,
an' to show 'em the size of the country they calkerlated to
overrun. I guess they'll write hum that that job 's a good
one to sub-let, after they've hoofed it from Cambridge to
Charlottesville."

The departure had been well timed, for when they drove
into Reading, about five, long lines of men, garbed in green or
red uniforms, were answering the roll-call as a preliminary to
having quarters for the night assigned to them in the court-house,
churches, and school. After much search, the officer in
command was found, and the prisoner turned over to him, to
his evident displeasure.

"Heavens!" he complained, "is it not bad enough to move
two thousand troops, a third of whom no man can understand
the gibberish of, to say nothing of General de Riedesel's wife and
children, but I must have other women to look out for? I wish
that Governor Livingston would pardon less and hang more!"

Unpromising as this beginning was, it proved a case of growl
and not of bite, for the colonel speedily secured a night's lodging
for them in a private house, and the next morning made a
place for the two women beside the driver of one of the carts
of the baggage train, the squire being ordered to march on
foot with the column.

[Illustration: "Don't move!"]

The journey proved a most trying one. The November
rains, which wellnigh turned the roads from aids into obstacles,
so impeded them that frequently they were not able to compass
more than six or seven miles in a day, and it sometimes
happened, therefore, that they were not able to reach the village
or town on which they had been billeted, and were compelled
to spend the night in the open fields, often with scanty
supplies of provisions as an additional discomfort. From the
inhabitants of the villages and farms, too, they met with more
kicks than ha'pence. Again and again the people refused to
sell anything to those whom they considered their enemies,
and some even denied them the common courtesy of a drink
of water. The chief amusement of the children along the
route was to shout opprobrious or derisive epithets as they
passed, not infrequently accompanied with stones, rotten
apples, and now and then the still more objectionable egg.
The squire's opinion of Whiggism went to an even lower pitch,
but his womenkind bore it unflinchingly and uncomplainingly,
happy merely in the escape from greater suffering.

As for Janice, she took what came with such merriness and
good cheer that she was soon friends not merely with a number
of their fellow-companions in misery, the British and Brunswick
officers, but with the officers of their escort of Continental
troops, and they were all quickly vying to do the little they
could to add to the Merediths' comfort and ease. Of the
miserable lodgings, whether in town or field, they were sure to
be given the least poor; no matter how short were the
commons, their needs were supplied; at every halting-place
they received the first firewood cut; and time and again some
one of the officers dismounted that Mr. Meredith might take
his place in the saddle for an hour.

The girl made a yet more fortunate acquaintance on a night
of especial discomfort and privation, after they had crossed the
Pennsylvania boundary and were well into the semi-wilderness
of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A washed away bridge so
delayed their morning progress that they had advanced only
a little over five miles, and were still four miles from their
appointed camping ground, when the first snowstorm of the
season set in, and compelled them to bivouac along the road-side.
The ration issued to each prisoner on that particular
afternoon consisted of only a half-pound of salt pork and a
handful of beans; and as she had frequently done before,
Janice set out to make a tour of the straggling farms of the
neighbourhood, in the hope of purchasing milk, eggs, or other
supplies to eke the scanty fare. At the first log cabin she
came to she made her request, and for a moment was hopeful,
for the woman replied:--

"Yes. I have eggs and milk and chickens, and vegetables
in a great plenty, but--"

"And what are your prices?"

"--But not a morsel of anything do you get. You come
to our land to kill us and to waste our homes. Now it is our
turn to torment you. I feed no royalists."