plantations, when she was young," announced Peggy with the tone of a
friend. "My mother had a pretty voice, too, but 't was a small voice,
like mine. I 'm good as dumb beside either of them, but there is n't no
tune I ever heard that I can't follow in my own head as true as a bird.
This one was a verse my grandmother knew,--some days I think she sings
right on inside of me,--but I forget the story of the song: she knew the
old story of everything." Peggy was modest, but she had held her
audience for once, and knew it.
She stopped to tie a careful weaver's knot in the warp, and adjust some
difficulty of her pattern. Hitty Warren, who was spinning by the door,
trilled out a gay strain, as if by way of relief to the gloom of a song
which, however moving and beautiful, could not fail to make the heart
grow sad.
"I have a house and lands in Kent,"
protested Hitty's light young caroling voice,--
"And if you 'll love me, love me now,
Two pence ha'penny is my rent,
And I cannot come every day to woo!"
Whereupon Hannah Neal and Phebe, who sang a capital clear second, joined
in with approval and alacrity to sing the chorus:--
"Two pence ha'penny is his rent,
And he cannot come every day to woo!"
They kept it going over and over, like blackbirds, and Peggy clacked her
shuttle in time to this measure, but she did not offer to join them;
perhaps she had felt some dim foreboding that her own song comforted.
The air had suddenly grown full of spring-time calls and cries, as if
there were some subtle disturbance; the birds were in busy flight; and
one could hear faint shouts from the old Vineyard and the neighboring
falls, where men and boys were at the salmon fishing.
At last the girls were done singing; they had called no audience out of
the empty green fields. They began to lag in their work, and sat
whispering and chuckling a little about their own affairs. Peggy
stopped the loom and regarded them angrily, but they took no notice.
All four had their heads close together now over a piece of gossip; she
turned on her narrow perch and faced them. Their young hands were idle
in their laps.
"Go to your wheel, Hitty Warren, and to your work, the pack of you! I
begretch the time you waste, and the meals you eat in laziness, you
foolish hussies!" cried Peggy, with distinctness. "Look at the house so
short of both sheeting and table gear since the colonel took his great
boatload of what we had in use to send to the army! If it wa'n't for me
having forethought to hide a couple o' heaping armfuls of our best
Russian for the canopy beds, we'd been bare enough, and had to content
the gentlefolk with unbleached webs. And all our grand holland sheets,
only in wear four years, and just coming to their softness, all gone now
to be torn in strips for them that's wounded; all spoilt like common
workhouse stuff for those that never slept out o' their own clothes. 'T
was a sad waste, but we must work hard now to plenish us," she gravely
reproached them.
"Miss Mary is as bad as the Colonel," insisted Hannah Neal, the more
demure of the seamstresses, who had promptly fallen to work again. The
handsome master of the house could do no wrong in the eyes of his
admiring maids. They missed his kind and serious face, eyen if
sometimes he did not speak or look when he passed them at their sewing
or churning.
"A man knows nowt o' linen: he might think a gre't sheet like this sewed
its whole long self together," said Phebe Hodgdon ruefully, as she
pushed a slow needle through the hard selvages.
"To work with ye!" commanded Peggy more firmly. "My eye 's upon ye!"
And Hitty sighed loud and drearily; the afternoon sun was hot in the
spinning room, and the loom began its incessant noise again.
At that moment the girls on the doorstep cheerfully took notice of two
manly figures that were coming quickly along the footpath of the spring
pasture next above the Hamilton lands on the riverside. They stooped to
drink at the spring in the pasture corner, and came on together, until
one of them stood still and gave a loud cry. The two sewing girls
beckoned their friends of the spinning to behold this pleasing sight.
Perhaps some of the lads they knew were on their way from the Upper
Landing to Pound Hill farms; these river footpaths had already won some
of the rights of immemorial usage, and many foot travelers passed by
Hamilton's to the lower part of the town. A man could go on foot to
Rice's Ferry through such byways across field and pasture as fast as a
fleet horse could travel by the winding old Portsmouth road.
The two hurrying figures were strangers, and they came to the knoll
above the shipyard. They were both waving their hats now, and shouting
to the few old men at work below on the river bank.
Peggy was only aware of a daring persistence in idleness, and again
began to chide, just as the eager girls dropped their work and clattered
down the outer stair, and left her bereft of any audience at all. She
hurried to the door in time to see their petticoats flutter away, and
then herself caught sight of the excited messengers. There was a noise
of voices in the distance, and workmen from the wharves and warehouses
were running up the green slopes.
"There's news come!" exclaimed Peggy, forgetting her own weaving as she
stumbled over the pile of new linen on the stair landing, and hurried
after the girls. News was apt to come up the river rather than down,
but there was no time to consider. Some ill might have befallen Colonel
Hamilton himself,--he had been long enough away; and the day before
there had been rumors of great battles to the southward, in New Jersey.
The messengers stood side by side with an air of importance.
"Our side have beat the British, but there's a mort o' men killed and
taken. John Ricker 's dead, and John Marr and Billy Lord's among the
missing, and young Hodgdon 's dead, the widow's son; and there's word
come to Dover that the Ranger has made awful havoc along the British
coast, and sent a fortin' o' prizes back to France. There's trouble
'mongst her crew, and young Mr. Wallingford 's deserted after he done
his best to betray the ship."
The heralds recited their tale as they had told it over and over at
every stopping-place for miles back, prompting each other at every
sentence. From unseen sources a surprising crowd of men and women had
suddenly gathered about them. Some of these wept aloud now, and others
shouted their eager questions louder and louder. It was like a tiny
babel that had been brought together by a whirlwind out of the quiet
air.
"They say Wallingford 's tried to give the Ranger into the enemy's
hands, and got captured for his pains. Some thinks they 've hung him for
a spy. He 's been watching his chance all along to play the traitor,"
said one news-bringer triumphantly, as if he had kept the best news till
the last.
"'T is false!" cried a clear young voice behind them.
They turned to front the unexpected presence of Miss Hamilton.
"Who dared to say this?" She stood a little beyond the crowd, and
looked with blazing eyes straight at the two flushed faces of the rustic
heralds.
"Go tell your sad news, if you must," she said sternly, "but do not
repeat that Roger Wallingford is a traitor to his oath. We must all
know him better who have known him at all. He may have met misfortune
at the hand of God, but the crime of treachery has not been his, and you
should know it,--you who speak, and every man here who listens!"
There fell a silence upon the company; but when the young mistress
turned away, there rose a half-unwilling murmur of applause. Old Peggy
hastened to her side; but Miss Hamilton waved her back, and, with
drooping head and a white face, went on slowly and passed alone into the
great house.
The messengers were impatient to go their ways among the Old Fields
farms, and went hurrying down toward the brook and round the head of the
cove, and up the hill again through the oak pasture toward the houses at
Pound Hill. They were followed along the footpath by men and boys, and
women too, who were eager to see how the people there, old Widow Ricker
especially, would take the news of a son's captivity or death. The very
torch of war seemed, to flame along the footpath, on that spring
afternoon.
The makers of the linen sheets might have been the sewers of a shroud,
as they came ruefully back to their places by the spinning-room door,
and let the salt tears down fall upon their unwilling seams. Poor Billy
Lord and Humphrey Hodgdon were old friends, and Corporal Ricker was a
handsome man, and the gallant leader of many a corn-husking. The clack
of Peggy's shuttle sounded like the ticking clock of Fate.
"My God! my God!" said the old woman who had driven the weeping maids so
heartlessly to their work again. The slow tears of age were blinding
her own eyes; she could not see to weave, and must fain yield herself to
idleness. Those poor boys gone, and Madam's son a prisoner, or worse,
in England! She looked at the house on the other side of the river,
dark and sombre against the bright sky. "I 'll go and send Miss Mary
over; she should be there now. I 'll go myself over to Susan."
"Fold up your stents; for me, I can weave no more," she said
sorrowfully. "'T is like the day of a funeral." And the maids, still
weeping, put their linen by, and stood the two flax wheels in their
places, back against the wall.
*XXIX*
*PEGGY TAKES THE AIR*
"And now that an over-faint quietnes
Should seem to strew the house,--"
That evening, in Hamilton House, Mary felt like a creature caged against
its will; she was full of fears for others and reproaches for herself,
and went restlessly from window to window and from room to room. There
was no doubt that a great crisis had come. The May sun set among heavy
clouds, and the large rooms grew dim and chilly. The house was silent,
but on the river shores there were groups of men and boys gathering, and
now and then strange figures appeared, as if the news had brought them
hastily from a distance. Peggy had gone early across the river, and now
returned late from her friendly errand, dressed in a prim bonnet and
cloak that were made for Sunday wear, and gave her the look of a
dignitary in humble disguise, so used to command was she, and so
equipped by nature for the rule of others.
[Illustration: HAMILTON HOUSE]
Peggy found her young mistress white and wan in the northwest parlor,
and knew that she had been anxiously watching Madam Wallingford's house.
She turned as the old housekeeper came in, and listened with patience
as, with rare tact, this good creature avoided the immediate subject of
their thoughts, and at first proceeded to blame the maids for running
out and leaving the doors flying, when she had bidden them mind the
house.
"The twilight lasts very late to-night; you have been long away," said
Mary, when she had finished.
"'T is a new-moon night, and all the sky is lit," exclaimed Peggy
seriously. "It will soon be dark enough." Then she came close to Mary,
and began to whisper what she really had to say.
"'T is the only thing to do, as you told me before I went. Caesar
abased himself to row me over, and took time enough about it, I vowed
him. I thought once he'd fetched himself to the door of an apoplexy, he
puffed an' blowed so hard; but I quick found out what was in his
piecemeal mind, before I heared folks talking on t' other bank. The
great fightin' folks that stayed at home from the war is all ablaze
against Mr. Roger; they say they won't have no such a Tory hive in the
neighborhood no longer! 'Poor Madam! poor Madam!' says I in my mind,
and I wrung my hands a-hearin' of it. Caesar felt bad when he was
tellin' of me, the tears was a-runnin' down his foolish ol' black face.
He 's got proper feelings, if he is so consequential. Likes to strut
better 'n to work, I tell 'em, but he's got his proper feelin's; I
shan't never doubt that no more," asserted Peggy, with emphatic
approval.
"Yes," assented Mary impatiently, "Caesar is a good man, but he is only
one. What shall we do now?" Her voice was full of quivering appeal;
she had been long alone with her distressful thoughts.
Peggy's cheeks looked pink as a girl's in her deep bonnet, and her old
eyes glittered with excitement.
"You must go straight away and fetch Madam here," she said. "I'd
brought her back with me if it had been seemly; but when I so advised,
Susan 'd hear none o' me, 'count o' fearin' to alarm her lady. 'Keep her
safe an' mistaken for one hour, will ye, so's to scare her life out
later on!' says I; but Susan was never one to see things their proper
size at first. If they know Madam 's fled, 't will be all the better.
I want to feel she's safe here, myself; they won't damage the colonel's
house, for his sake or your'n neither; they'd know better than to come
botherin' round my doors. I'd put on my big caldron and get some water
het, and treat 'em same fashion's they did in old Indian times!" cried
Peggy, in a fury. "I did hear some men say they believed she'd gone to
Porchmouth a'ready; and when they axed me if 't was true, I nodded my
head and let 'em think so."
Mary listened silently; this excited talk made her know the truth of
some fast-gathering danger. She herself had a part to play now.
"I shall go at once," she insisted. "Will you bespeak the boat?"
"Everything's all ready, darlin'," said the good soul affectionately, as
if she wished to further some girlish pleasure. "Yes, I 've done all I
could out o' door. The best boat's out an' layin' aside the gre't
warehouse. Caesar 's stopped down there to mind it, though he begun to
fuss about his supper; and there's our own watermen ready to row ye
over. I told 'em you was promised to the Miss Lords at the Upper
Landing for a card party; I 've let on to no uneasiness. You 'll
consider well your part; for me there 's enough to do,--the best chamber
warmed aright for Madam, for one thing; an' Phebe's up there now,
gettin' over a good smart scoldin' I give her. I 'll make a nice gruel
with raisins an' a taste o' brandy, or a can o' mulled port, an' have
'em ready; 't will keep poor Madam from a chill. You'll both need
comfort ere you sleep," she muttered to herself.
"I wonder if she will consent to come? She is a very brave woman," said
Mary doubtfully.
"Darlin', listen to me; she must come," replied Peggy, "an' you must
tell her so. You do your part, an' I'll be waitin' here till you get
back."
The large boat which was Hamilton's river coach and four in peaceful
times lay waiting in the shadow of the warehouse to do its errand. The
pairs of rowers were in their places: Peggy may have had a sage desire
to keep them out of mischief. They were not a vigorous crew, by reason
of age; else they would have been, like other good men, with the army.
With her usual sense of propriety and effect, Peggy had ordered out the
best red cushions and tasseled draperies for the seats. In summer, the
best boat spread a fine red and green canopy when it carried the master
and mistress down to Portsmouth on the ebb tide. The old boatmen had
mounted their liveries, such was Peggy's insistence and unaccountable
desire for display, but a plainer craft, rowed by a single pair of oars,
was enough for any errand at nightfall, and the old fellows grumbled and
shivered ostentatiously in the spring dampness.
Old Caesar handed Miss Hamilton to her seat with all the more deference.
She was wrapped in a cloak of crimson damask, with a hood to it, which
her brother loved to see her wear in their gayer days. She took her
place silently in the stern, and sat erect there; the men stole a glance
at her now and then, and tugged willingly enough at their oars. There
were many persons watching them as they went up the stream.
"'T will be a hard pinch to land ye proper at the upper wharves," said
the head boatman. "The tide's far out, miss."
"I go to Madam Wallingford's," said Mary; and in the dusk she saw them
cast sidewise glances at each other, while their oars lost stroke and
fouled. They had thought it lucky that there should be a card party,
and their young mistress out of sight and hearing, if the threats meant
anything and there should be trouble that night alongshore. Miss
Hamilton said nothing further,--she was usually most friendly in her
speech with these old servants; but she thanked them in a gentle tone as
she landed, and bade them be ready at any moment for her return. They
looked at her with wonder, and swore under their breath for mere
astonishment, as she disappeared from their sight with hurrying steps,
along the winding way that led up to the large house on the hill. As
Mary passed the old boathouse, and again as she came near the
storehouses just beyond, she could see shadowy moving figures like
ghosts, that were gone again in an instant out of sight, crouching to
the ground or dodging behind the buildings as they saw her pass. Once
she heard a voice close under the bank below the road; but it ceased
suddenly, as if some one had given warning. Every dark corner was a
hiding place, but the girl felt no fear now there was something to be
done. There was no light in the lower story of the great house, but in
Madam Wallingford's chamber the firelight was shining, and by turns it
darkened and brightened the windows. For the first time Mary felt weak
at heart, but there was that within her which could drive out all fear
or sense of danger. As she stood on the broad doorsteps, waiting and
looking riverward, she smiled to see that Peggy had lighted their own
house as if for some high festival. It had a look of cheerfulness and
security there beyond the elms; she gave a sigh of relief that was like
a first acknowledgment of fear. She did not remember that one person
might have come safely from the boat, where two could not go back.
Again she struck the heavy knocker, and this time heard Rodney's anxious
voice within, whispering to ask whether she were friend or foe before he
timidly unbarred the door.
"They tell me there is some danger of a mob, my child." Madam
Wallingford spoke calmly, as if this were some ordinary news. Mary had
found her sitting by the fire, and kissed her cheek without speaking.
The room was so quiet, and its lady looked so frail and patient,
unconscious that danger already hemmed them in on every side.
"I fear that this house may be burnt and robbed, like the Salem houses,"
she said. "Poor Rodney and the women are afraid, too. I saw that they
were in a great fright, and forced the truth from them. I think my
troubles have robbed me of all my strength. I do not know what I must
do. I feel very old, Mary, and my strength fails me," she faltered. "I
need my son--oh, I have had dreadful news"--
"I have come to take you home with me to-night, dear," answered Mary.
"Come, I shall wrap you in my warm red cloak; the night is chilly.
These are Peggy's orders, and we must follow them. She would not have
you frighted ever so little, if there is any danger. She is making you
some hot drink this very minute, and I have brought our steady boat with
the four old rowers. They are waiting for us below."
"Good Peggy!" exclaimed Madam Wallingford, who saw the bright smile that
lighted Mary's face, and was now rallying all her forces. "She was here
herself this afternoon; I wish that I had seen her. We shall not obey
her this once; you see that I cannot go. If there is an attack, I must
be here to meet it,--the men may hear to reason; if there is no real
danger, I am safe to stay," and she cast a fond look about the room.
Mary saw it with compassion; at the same moment she heard cries outside,
as if some fresh recruits were welcomed to the gathering fray.
"My safety and the safety of our house lies in my staying here," said
the lady, sitting straight in her great chair. "I am not easily made
afraid; it is only that my strength failed me at the first. If God
sends ruin and death this night, I can but meet it. I shall not go
away. You were a dear child to come; you must make my kind excuses to
Peggy. Go, now, my dear, and Rodney shall put you in your boat." There
was a proud look on Madam Wallingford's face as she spoke.
"I shall stay with you," answered Mary. "Alas, I think it is too late
for either of us to go," she added, as her quick ears were aware of
strange noises without the house. There was a sharp rapping sound of
stones striking the walls, and a pane of glass fell shattering into the
room.
"In Salem they took an old man from his dying bed, and destroyed his
habitation. He had been a judge and a good citizen. If these be our
own neighbors who think me dangerous, I must follow their bidding; if
they are strangers, we must be in danger. I wish that you had not come,
Mary!"
Mary was already at the window; the shutters were pushed back, and the
sweet night air blew through the broken pane upon her face. The heavy
sliding shutter caught as she tried to stir it, and she saw that the
moving crowd had come close about the house. At the sight of her they
gave an angry roar; there were musket shots and a great racket of noise.
"Come out, come out," they cried, "and take the oath!"
"So the mob has come already," said Madam Wallingford calmly, and rose
from her seat. "Then I must go down. Is it a great company?"
"I could not have believed so many men were left," answered Mary
bitterly. "They should be fighting other battles!" she protested,
trembling with sudden rage. "Where go you, Madam?" for Madam
Wallingford was hurrying from the room. As she threw open the door, all
the frightened people of the household were huddled close outside; they
fell upon their knees about her and burst into loud lamentations. They
pressed as near their mistress as they could; it was old Rodney and
Susan who had kept the others from bursting into the room.
"Silence among ye!" said Madam Wallingford. "I shall do what I can, my
poor people. I am going down to speak to these foolish men."
"They have come to rob us and murder us!" wailed the women.
"Rodney, you will go before me and unbar the door!" commanded the
mistress. "Susan shall stay here. Quiet this childishness! I would
not have such people as these think that we lack courage."
She went down the wide staircase as if she were a queen, and Mary her
maid of honor. Rodney was for hanging back from those who pounded to
demand entrance, and needed an angry gesture before he took the great
bar down and flung the door wide open. Then Madam Wallingford stepped
forward as if to greet her guests with dignity, and Mary was only a step
behind. There was a bonfire lit before the house, and all the portraits
along the paneled hall seemed to come alive in the blazing light that
shone in, and to stand behind the two women like a guard.
"What do you wish to say to me?" asked Madam Wallingford.
"The oath! the oath!" they cried, "or get you hence!" and there was a
shaking of firebrands, and the heads pressed closer about the door.
"You are Sons of Liberty, and yet you forbid liberty to others," said
the old gentlewoman, in her clear voice. "I have wronged none of you."
For very sight of her age and bravery, and because she was so great a
lady, they fell silent; and then a heavy stone, thrown from the edge of
the crowd, struck the lintel of the door, beside her.
"Is there no man among you whom you will choose to speak fairly with me,
to tell your errand and whence you come?"
"We are some of us from Christian Shore, and some are Dover men, and
some of us are men of your own town," answered a pale, elderly man, with
the face of a fanatic; he had been a preacher of wild doctrines in the
countryside, and was ever a disturber of peace. "We want no Royalists
among us, we want no abettors of George the Third; there 's a bill now
to proscribe ye and stop your luxury and pride. We want no traitors and
spies, neither, to betray the cause of the oppressed. You and your son
have played a deep game; he has betrayed our cause, and the penalty must
fall."
There was a shout of approval; the mob was only too ready to pour into
the house.
"My son has put his name to your oath, and you should know that he has
not broken it, if some of you are indeed men of our own town," said the
mother proudly, and they all heard her speak. "I can promise that this
is true. Cannot you wait to hear the truth about him, or is it only to
rob us and make a night of revel you have come? Do not pay sin with
sin, if you must hold those to be sinners who are Loyalists like me!"
"Burn the old nest!" cried an impatient voice. "She may be hiding some
King's men,--who knows? Stop her prating, and let's to business; we are
done with their Royalties," and the crowd pushed hard. They forced the
two women and old Rodney back into the hall; and at the sound of heavy
trampling, all the women on the stair above fell to shrieking.