_A Time of Rest._
The winter passed without special incident to Lettice and the
household where she was sheltered, but the spring brought a renewal of
depredations along the shores of the Chesapeake, and again Cockburn
and his men were dreaded and feared. It was one day in the summer of
this year of 1814, that Betty and Lettice, sitting out on the porch,
discussed soberly their year’s experience.
“Rouse yourself, Letty dear,” said Betty. “Do not look so sad. I wish
we had not started this topic. I know what memories it has stirred,
but you are too young to let your thoughts dwell on grief continually.
Here, take the boy; he has been fretting to go to you ever since we
came out here. I shall be jealous of his love for you after a while.”
Lettice held out her hands for the pretty child who, clutching his
mother’s finger, took a step forward, tottered, and then threw himself
with a gleeful laugh into Lettice’s arms. “Pretty boy, he will soon
toddle about everywhere,” said Lettice, hugging him up close to her.
“I am so glad you are not old enough to be a soldier, baby; and I hope
there will be no more wars in your lifetime.” She sighed, and laid her
cheek against the child’s sunny hair.
“There, Lettice, don’t be so doleful. Let me see, what can we talk
about that will be more cheerful? Did you not have a letter from Rhoda
yesterday?”
“Yes, I did. She is at home in Boston, and writes that the blockade
is exciting them up there; that the cry against the administration
is louder than ever, and that they are in a state of fear and dread,
continually.”
“And what of Mr. Clinton? That is a subject which I think might
interest you.”
“She didn’t mention him,” replied Lettice, shortly.
“Does he know that you have learned of his innocence in the matter of
the papers?” Betty asked, after a short silence.
“Yes, I wrote to him as soon as I knew. I thought I could not do less.
It was right, wasn’t it, Sister Betty?”
“It certainly was. Well?”
“He never has answered my letter.”
“Then he is certainly very rude, and entirely unworthy of my little
sister’s regard.”
“But think what a dreadful charge it was; no wonder he cannot forgive
me.”
“He should have written, anyhow.”
“But if he had nothing but resentment to express, it was better that he
should not, I think. At all events, I have said I am sorry, and I can
do no more. I acknowledged that I had formed hasty conclusions, and was
as humble as I could be.”
“Which was an acknowledgment against your will, I know. He should have
appreciated the fact that it went against the grain for Lettice Hopkins
to eat humble pie for the sake of any man. You liked him a little,
Lettice?”
“I liked him very much at one time, but I never liked him well
enough to give up all for him. I should always have disagreed with
his opinions. We quarrelled often, and after all this, it would be
impossible for us to forget what had come between us. Besides, after
the sorrows I have had, I never, never could care for any one who sided
with those who were the cause of them.”
“And Rhoda, what does she say? Rhoda was very fond of our dear Jamie, I
well know.”
Lettice did not reply for a moment. She was rocking her little nephew,
whose eyelids were beginning to droop over his bright eyes. “He is
almost asleep,” Lettice remarked. “I cannot tell about Rhoda,” she went
on to say. “She is a very dutiful daughter, and although I think she
will never forget Jamie, she is young, and some day she may marry, as
it would please her father to have her. Ah me, Sister Betty, trouble
makes one feel very old. I was such a careless thing a couple of years
ago; but when I think of my two brothers and my father all in peril, of
my home destroyed and my friends scattered, is it a wonder that I am
sad?”
“No wonder at all, dear child, but I predict happy days for you yet. I
see a gallant young officer, splendid in his uniform, riding toward my
lady sister, and she all smiles and blushes.” Betty leaned over, tipped
back Lettice’s head, and looked down with laughing eyes at her. “I see
the smiles and the blushes,” she said, kissing her forehead; then,
lifting her head, she gave a start and looked intently toward the gate.
“Oh, Letty,” she cried, “I see the officer in the flesh! Look yonder,
coming up the lane.”
Lettice lifted her eyes; then dropped them and continued to rock the
sleeping baby until a voice said, “Ah, Miss Lettice, I hoped to find
you here. What a sweet, peaceful picture is this to a man who has seen
only the deck of a frigate for the last six months. May I sit here?”
He took the chair Betty had just vacated and leaned forward to put a
gentle finger on the baby’s soft hair. “How he has grown,” he remarked.
“I am tremendously glad to see you, Miss Lettice.”
“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Baldwin.”
“You look pale, and scarce as sunny and blithe as I remember. But I
recall that you have passed through deep waters since I saw you.”
The tears gathered in Lettice’s eyes, and one fell on the golden head
pillowed on her arm.
The young man viewed her sympathetically. “I wish I could have spared
you such a grief,” he said gently. “Believe me, I feel it deeply. We
were companions in great peril, Miss Lettice, and I cannot feel that we
are the strangers our short acquaintance would seem to suggest. Will
you not tell me all that has befallen you since we met? I have heard
only fragmentary reports.”
“I must take baby in, and then I will tell you,” she responded.
[Illustration: “_How he has grown!_”]
“Let me take him,” cried the young man, eagerly. And as gently as
possible he lifted the sleeping boy in his arms, touching his lips
softly to the fine, pink little cheek, and the act won Lettice’s
favor more than a deed of valor could have done. Over her sad little
face broke a smile, and she looked up with such a glance that the young
man hummed softly to himself, “‘From the glance of her eye shun danger
and fly.’ Where shall I take him, Miss Lettice?”
“In here on this couch, and then come speak to Mr. and Mrs. Weeks. We
all want to hear the war news. Mr. Weeks, you know, lost an arm in the
Revolution, and frets that he cannot go fight the British now. He is
always very eager for news.”
“Then I will satisfy his eagerness as well as I can.”
They found Betty’s father in the spacious sitting-room. He was a
fine-looking old gentleman, gray-haired and erect. Near him sat Mrs.
Weeks; she was much younger than her husband, being his second wife and
the mother of Betty, whose half-brothers and sisters were all married
and living in homes of their own. Betty stood behind her father’s
chair. She was arranging his cue, for he still clung to the fashions of
half a century before, and to either Betty or Lettice fell the daily
duty of tying the cue he wore.
“Mr. Baldwin has just come from the city,” Lettice announced.
“And brings news, no doubt. Welcome, Mr. Baldwin.” The old man sprang
to his feet, and with his left hand gripped the strong right one of the
young officer. “Well, sir, we’re sitting here pining for news. What is
the latest?”
“The best is, that Jackson has ended the war with the Creeks.”
“Good! Jackson’s a great man; would there were more like him in this
fight against England! What next?”
“We’ve had some reverses in Canada, sir, but--”
“But we don’t give up, eh? No, sir, we do not. We may see the country
running red with blood, but we’ll hold on, at least we Southerners
will; we’ve inherited enough of the bulldog from England to do that. I
suppose Massachusetts is still fussing and fuming and threatening to
secede.”
“I regret to say it is so, and I regret it the more that I am from
Boston, myself. I think, sir, that it would be a wise thing if you
would all get nearer the city, for I hear that an order has been issued
by the British commander, Cockburn, to lay waste all districts along
the coast, and to spare only the lives of the unarmed inhabitants;
this, I believe, in revenge for a small raid made by a party of
Americans who crossed Lake Erie and destroyed some buildings at Long
Point.”
“Humph! what of the outrages committed along our coast?”
“We don’t forget them, sir. We will also retaliate when we get a
chance.”
“By Jove, sir, I wish I had my good right arm, I’d join you. As it is,
they’ll not find this inhabitant unarmed, despite his empty sleeve.” He
laughed at his joke, and clenched his fist with a frown a moment after.
“Now, father,” Mrs. Weeks protested, “you wouldn’t offer fight. You’ve
given enough for your country. No one could expect more.”
“It isn’t what is expected; it is what I want to do. I suppose the
old graybeards up your way, Mr. Baldwin, would call me a terribly
hot-headed fellow.”
“A certain number might, but we young men honor you, Mr. Weeks. I pray
you, don’t censure all New England for the attitude of a few. To be
sure they are leading men, and the Peace party is strong up there, but
we furnish some good fighters when all is told.”
“I believe that. I hear Providence has voted money for fortifications
in Rhode Island, and that the shipmasters in Portland have formed
themselves into a company of sea-fencibles, and that even your own
state has caught the fever and is preparing for defence.”
“Yes, I am glad to say she is touched at last, even though the
Federalists still urge their militia to stay at home.”
“What a contrast to Kentucky and her gallant governor, leading his men
to the front.”
“There, father, there,” came Mrs. Weeks’s soft voice. “You always get
excited over that. Mr. Baldwin is a Boston man, remember.”
“But not a Federalist,” replied the young man, smiling. “You surely
will consider this question of getting farther away from the coast,
Mrs. Weeks. It is really not safe for you here.”
“We can ill leave our place just now,” said the intrepid Mr. Weeks. “I
am determined to stand by my home till the last. Yet, in the main, I
agree with you. Betty and her mother would better take Lettice and the
boy and go up to the city.”
“Not I,” Mrs. Weeks objected decidedly. “If you stay, so do I; but I
insist that Betty and Lettice shall leave. It is what your husband
would wish, Betty.”
“If you could make it convenient to leave to-morrow, I would be happy
to be your escort,” Mr. Baldwin told them. Yet it was only after much
protesting on Betty’s part that the safety of her precious baby became,
at last, the inducement which decided her to go up to Baltimore under
Mr. Baldwin’s care. Mrs. Tom Hopkins was there, ready to open her house
to them, and glad enough to have her loneliness invaded by the cheery
presence of a baby.
To Lettice, however, the house was too full of memories for her to feel
other than depressed within its walls, and Patsey’s eager letters,
urging her to come to her in Washington at last had weight even with
Aunt Martha.
“The child looks pale and peaked,” she said. “She needs young company
to cheer her up.”
“So she does,” Betty agreed. “She has been all these months with staid
married people, like myself and my parents, and she needs girls of her
own age.” Betty spoke sedately, as one whose youth had long past, but
Aunt Martha quite approved. She objected to an approach to frivolity in
married women. “Patsey still keeps up hope,” Betty went on. “I suppose
you have had no word of Joe, Aunt Martha?”
“No, but I’ve had good news from my husband. At last we have something
besides reverses on the Canada frontier.”
“And such glorious victories at sea! It makes one very proud of our
little navy that has been so snubbed and scorned.”
“Proud indeed! We have some good patriots. I am lost in admiration over
those Kentuckians. What an example their governor has set to the people
of the country! There is a patriot for you.”
“And here’s another,” laughed Betty, patting Aunt Martha’s hand. “You
aren’t much of a Federalist, Aunt Martha.”
“I am not, I confess. I am disgusted with all these squabbles about
the administration, when the foe is at our very doors. Suppose we are
taxed, we should have no money for the war, else; and to pretend it is
unjust and as bad as the taxation of the colonies by England before the
Revolution is ridiculous. Next there will be civil war, if this is not
stopped. Massachusetts may go out of the Union if she chooses, but I’ll
not go with her, dearly as I love my own state. And I venture to say
that is the opinion of the greater part of her people. It is only the
politicians who make all this ferment.”
“Good!” cried Lettice. “Aunt Martha, I love you for that. I wish Rhoda
and her father could hear you. I suppose Mr. Kendall still adheres to
his opinions.”
“My brother? Yes, he is blind to everything but his resentment toward
the administration, I am sorry to say.”
“Aunt Martha certainly does improve with age,” said Betty to Lettice,
as she was helping the latter to pack her trunk. “She speaks as
tenderly of Cousin Joe as if he were her own son, and she is perfectly
devoted to the baby. Poor Cousin Joe! I wonder where he is?”
“Patsey declares he is in some prison, and I don’t doubt but that she
is right,” said Lettice, lifting the cover of her bandbox to see if her
best hat were safely inside.
“I hope, then, he is not in that dreadful Dartmoor Prison,” said Betty.
“I declare, Lettice, I forgot to ask Aunt Martha about Mr. Clinton. I
wonder where he is?”
Lettice gave her head a little toss. “It needn’t concern us where he
is.”
“You’re well off with the old love, aren’t you, dear?” Betty said. “And
as for the new, I’ll warrant the way to Washington will not seem very
long with him as escort. Yet, I don’t see, with all the fine fellows
here in Baltimore, why you couldn’t have chosen one nearer home. You
are bound to be a Yankee, at all hazards, it seems.”
Lettice laughed. “I haven’t chosen any one, Sister Betty, and it is
all very silly to take it for granted. Why, honey, I may have a dozen
fancies yet.”
“I don’t believe it. You and Ellicott Baldwin are cut out for each
other, I must say, though I oughtn’t to, you little monkey, for I don’t
want you to leave your own state, and go live up there. However will
you manage to subsist on baked beans, I don’t know.”
“Goosey! Am I such a poor stick that I can’t cook what I like? And,
besides, I could take one of our own servants with me,--Speery, for
instance,--and teach her.”
Betty, who was sitting on the floor, hugged her knees and rocked back
and forth in glee. “So it’s all settled, is it? How many times have you
seen him, Lettice?”
Lettice blushed furiously. “Nothing is settled with anybody anywhere,
silly girl. I only meant that if I ever did have to live in New
England, that my home training would prevent me from starving, if I
should chance not to like Yankee dishes. That is all.”
“Of course it is all, Miss Innocence. Let me see; when I was your
age, I had been engaged to William a year, and had all my wedding
clothes ready. I shall expect an announcement when you get back from
Washington.”
“It looks like you do want to be rid of me, after all. Do you suppose
I want to marry a man who would be at sea half his time, and who would
leave me to mourn at home while he was off, nobody knows where? No;
give me one of our own domestic swains, I say.”
“It’s all very well to talk,” Betty returned, “but you’ll be a Yankee
yet.” At which Lettice made a face at her, and, having finished her
packing, declared that she was tired to death, and that she did miss
Lutie more than ever.
“Lutie loved to pack. She would rather have the chance to handle my
gowns than to eat, and that’s saying a good deal. Poor Lutie!” Lettice
sighed.
The next morning she started for Washington, and it was a coincidence
that one of the passengers going by the same coach was none other than
Lettice’s former travelling companion, Mr. Francis Key, who at once
recognized Miss Hopkins, but who had the discretion not to obtrude
himself too frequently upon her attention, since it was evident to his
perceptions that the young naval officer who devoted himself to the
girl was quite able to entertain her. And though the way was long, the
end of the journey did not seem greatly to be desired by either of the
two.
“Dear, oh me, Lettice, but I certainly am glad you have come,” Patsey
said, as the two girls, with their arms around each other, and
chattering as fast as their tongues could run, made haste to get to
the refuge of Patsey’s room, after Lettice was landed on the doorstep
of Mrs. Gittings’s house in Washington. “That is a fine new spark you
had dancing attendance on you,” Patsey went on, when the two had seated
themselves comfortably by a window overlooking the Potomac.
“Is he not a good-looking fellow?” Lettice returned. “He is from
Boston, yet he is as stanch a fighter and as eager for the war as any
Marylander or Kentuckian.”
“And you like him very much?”
“Yes, but I hope not too much, for he joins his ship to-morrow, and I
would not have my heart rent asunder should he never return.” Then,
seeing the effect of her words, she threw her arms around Patsey. “Ah,
Patsey dear, I should not have said that. I should have remembered. But
no news is good news, they say; so do not let us look for the ill news
that flies quickly.”
The house where they were was on Capitol Hill, which neighborhood then
represented about all there was of Washington. “I am glad you came
to-day,” Patsey told her friend, “for this afternoon there is to be a
fringe party at the Ingles.”
“A fringe party?”
“Yes, you know it is quite the fashion to meet around at each other’s
houses and make fringe for the soldier’s epaulets. The government is
too poor to buy it, and we can’t have our boys go without.” Patsey
sighed, and Lettice knew of whom she was thinking.
“You’ll be my cousin yet, Patsey,” she said, and Patsey gave her a
grateful smile; but despite their girlish enthusiasm over Lettice’s
arrival, each noted that the other looked sadder and was quieter than
when they last met.
“War is a dreadful thing,” said Patsey, shaking her head. “I never knew
how dreadful till I came here to Washington and heard the talk that
our brave men have been beaten and made prisoners, up there on the
frontier, or have been massacred by Indians. I wish there were no war.
I am patriotic, I hope, but I think the New Englanders are half right
when they say, ‘Anything but war.’”
“Even disgrace?”
“Even disgrace; for we have had that, in spite of all our fighting.”
“But we have had some rousing victories at sea; quite enough to
encourage us to keep up a good heart. No, Patsey, with all I have lost,
I still believe it was right for us to fight.”
“You have more spirit than I, for I would grovel on my knees, give up
everything, be a British subject, or anything else, if it would but
give me back my Joe safe and sound. You don’t know what it is to feel
so, do you, Lettice dear? Your heart is not so deeply touched.”
“No, I don’t believe it is,” she replied slowly.
“Yet, I venture to say it beats quicker when a certain person is near,”
returned Patsey, patting her hand. “Come now, my sister will wonder if
we are going to stay here all night without a word to her.”
It was, indeed, as Patsey said; war, war, politics, politics, were all
that Washington people talked about. The news from Europe was scarcely
less eagerly looked for than home news, and when it became apparent
that Napoleon’s power was overthrown, and that England was free to send
her transports laden with troops to attempt the subjugation of the
United States, the seriousness of the danger threatening their native
land aroused men, north, south, east, and west.
“Every seaboard city is in peril,” the people said one to another,
and one August morning into Washington galloped an express messenger
with the news that a large fleet of British men-of-war had been seen
in the Potomac. It was evident that, despite the obstinate refusal of
the Secretary of War to admit the possibility of an attack upon the
nation’s capital, precisely that was the object. The militia began
trooping into town. Few had uniforms; they were without bayonets, and
were so poorly equipped that it seemed a farce for them to attempt to
withstand a foe which had just triumphed so signally against Napoleon
at Waterloo.
There was much talk, much advice, and great excitement. No one seemed
to know what was to be done, or whose orders were to be obeyed, and
in consequence of this state of affairs, at first appearance of the
British the raw militia, without hesitancy, ran for dear life.