his strength was taxed to its utmost. He was a wild, hunted thing
that the forces of the world were about to drown. A wet blanket was
over the earth. Watery trees touched him with their wet arms, making
him shudder. Deep pools in the middle of the roadway showed him his
shadow. Dark, wet things flew out at him from coverts and joined
his mad course. The wind was at his heels, growing louder and more
insistent. "You are to die!--to die!" it shrieked. Now he was battling
with it. "I cannot die!--I shall not die!" his soul said. On he plunged.
It was his own log school-house overlapping the road that stopped
him. Close to his path it stood like some grim sentinel. Before it
he paused, his breath coming in short gasps. "You must go back," it
whispered. "You have promised." "I cannot die," he answered; but he
lingered by it as if afraid to go on. The wind was lessening; it
no longer challenged him. In its sweep he now heard the voices of
children. "Here you taught us the meaning of faith and honor." Over
the years he saw them all. A long line of eager little forms were
stealing through a gate whose latch was rusted. Where were they all
to-night: the merry boys who dreamed of playtimes over dull books; the
girls with their flowers and apples for the master? No longer would he
guide them. They were gone forever from him. The wind had caught their
droning voices. A lad who wore the dunce-cap often was before him. He
saw him stolid and indifferent in the corner of the dreary room; then
again, awakened by the call of war, he was by his side, a drummer-boy,
charging the heights of Bergen. The dunce was not afraid to die. "You
will go back," the voices wailed, and he answered, "Yes!"
The moon was throwing off the mist veils, and her first pale beams sent
earthward showed him his mother's cot. There were no lights in the
windows. He approached the door and stood by it shivering. An awful
fear came over him that perhaps she was away. A fourth of his time was
already gone. What if he could not see her again? He longed to feel
her tender arms about him, and yet he knew that the agony of leaving
them would be more than he could bear. He dared not knock, but crept
softly to an open window. In the old stole-band rocking-chair she was
seated close to a dying fire, her eyes closed by sleep. The worn strip
of wool rag carpet he knew so well was smooth beneath her feet. A pair
of finches were twittering softly in their cage by the south window.
Over the broad sill he climbed as in the days of his boyhood. To her
side he crept and began to stroke her calloused, tired hands. His touch
brought her back from her visionary realm. "Is he dead?" her waking
lips murmured, and then she saw her son.
At the Townsend house none of the officers knew that the youth who
left them was anything to Sally. It was proper for a tender-hearted
maid to swoon at a danger. After the door closed upon him there were
calls for the hostess. Was she revived? Then André stepped forward and
told the officers what the condemned youth was to her. In his graphic
way he repeated the simple love-story. The eyes of all in the room,
expressing varying emotions, were still centred on his face when a
faint rustle of women's garments was heard in the hall. André stopped
speaking. In their midst stood Sally, pale and with anguish in her
eyes. Miss Townsend was near her, wringing her hands.
"Sirs," the girl said, "you have been here nigh a month, and we have
given you of our best, hiding naught, although you are not of our
color." Her voice was breaking. "I," she continued, "have worked for
you, amused you, laughed for you, and now I want my pay. You must give
me an innocent man's life. The one you have condemned to death is not a
spy. I swear it before God!"
Bluff and hearty Colonel Simcoe, in the act of drawing a goblet of
port, lowered the glass a few inches at each of the girl's passionate
outbursts. He began to feel of his wig to see if it were awry. "Lud,
here is a pretty to do," he murmured to himself. The lady was a fine
creature and her words were true. He placed the heavy cut piece on the
table and then he spoke. "His death-sentence was but a mock one," he
said. "'Tis our mind to set him free, yet 'twas necessary to find out
if he knew aught."
"Oh, sir, let me have his life! Write it on a paper that you set him
free." The girl's tones were entreating. "I must go to him, and now."
For a moment the commander hesitated; then André's voice rang out.
"Those who are for Sally unsheath their swords," he cried. The room was
full of flashing steel. The pardon was in Sally's hand.
"Come," she said, as she turned and faced the group of excited men.
The next moment she was out in the night, followed by a line of
supperless redcoats.
The moon, grown round and full, smiled on the procession. Sally and
André headed the company splashing through the wet road. So intent
were they on their errand that scarcely any one spoke.
They were nearing the lights of the cottage when Sally paused. Placing
her finger to her mouth to enjoin silence, she said, "You must turn
back, friends. The sight of you all might kill his mother. 'Twas
thoughtless in asking you to come with me. André," she whispered, "you
must stay to bring me home."
"Brave little Sally!" a youth's lusty voice rang out. The men
surrounded her. One by one they asked to kiss her hand, then crept
off through the dripping foliage. All the while she was gazing at the
house. Rain-drops glistened in her hair and her garments hung limp
about her knees. André stood by her side seemingly lost in thought. He
was dreaming of days that were dead. Softly she touched his shoulder.
"André," she said, "I am afraid to go in."
The crashing of twigs under foot died away in the distance; the clouds
were all swept out of the heavens and the night seemed one vast ambient
plain of loneliness. The girl and the man in the middle of the roadway
drew closer to each other. Tenderly he caught her trembling hands in
his. "Do not be afraid, Sally," he said; "you will find happiness." His
voice was breaking. "Two hearts will always beat for you--one belongs
to the man in yonder cot and the other to John André." Softly she crept
from him to the door which opened into her earthly Paradise.
[Illustration]
PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS,
AN AMERICAN MONTAGU
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS, AN AMERICAN MONTAGU
When the great Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu was receiving the _bas-bleus_ of
London in her Hill Street drawing-room there arose across the water
a little American salon which reflected in a degree the spirit of
the famous gatherings Admiral Boscawen named after the slovenly Dr.
Stillingfleet's gray stockings. It is only recently that historians
have taken a marked interest in the literature which followed in
the wake of the Revolutionary War and the world has learned that in
the newly-formed States there were a few bright spirits whose lives
and aspirations reflected the culture of Europe. One of the most
interesting of these was Elizabeth Kearny, _née_ Lawrence, a daughter
of Judge Lawrence, of Burlington, and a half-sister of Captain James
Lawrence of "Don't give up the ship" fame. She formed a literary circle
which flourished for a few years in old Perth Amboy, Jersey's fallen
capital.
Elizabeth Lawrence passed her early youth in Burlington, where she
pursued the study of Greek and Latin, to the mild astonishment of the
community. Over her father's library table in the Lawrence mansion,
still existing impervious to the encroachments of time, she chatted as
a girl with the Tory satirist Jonathan Odell. She must have imbibed
some of his sarcasm, for in later years her loquacious tongue was
barbed with a wit almost Walpolian in its acrid cleverness. At nearby
Philadelphia she met the famous Peggy Chew, and formed an intimacy
with Anne Willing, better known as Mrs. William Bingham. The "dazzling
Bingham" she made the subject of some animated verses, entitled,--
"LINES ON MRS. BINGHAM'S RECALL OF A SUPPER INVITATION.
"Just in from the country, with nothing to wear,
At Bingham's to-night I am bidden repair.
My one silken pelisse is all in a tangle,
And I know I have lost my Parisian bangle:
Not a whif of hair-powder to light up my head--
Methinks 'twould be better to get into bed!
My slippers the parrot has quite eaten up--
Oh! why am I bidden to come in to sup?
Now, Rebecca, do try make the child stop its wailing;
At the thought of the company courage is failing!
There's a chair going past and a coach with a clatter.
If I go as I am--pray, what does it matter?
Here give me some Rose-Bloom to ease up my face,
And a patch on my chin would give it a grace.
My new brilliant necklace, my white turkey wrapping,
Ah, now I am ready; but who is that tapping?
A word from the Binghams--you say a postponement:
An illness--alas, 'tis a hurried atonement,
With nothing to wear and nothing to eat!
Come blow out the candles and gaze on the street."
There are very few records of this remarkable woman's girlhood still
extant. Her brother John, for whom she cherished a strong attachment,
was born after her marriage to Mr. Michael Kearny, "the beloved noble
Michael," who erected her Perth Amboy cottage. There she lived as "the
scribbling Mrs. Kearny, occupying the highest seat on Parnassus," a
power in her world. Argus-eyed she evidently was, for nothing seems to
have escaped her facile quill. There was scarcely a subject too great
or too small for her to digress upon, and she wrote in the morning of
"the shameful performance of certain gentlemen in Congress" and at
night of "the sorrow she felt on finding a slave under the influence of
pernicious rum."
[Illustration: A LADY OF OLD AMBOY]
About some of the streets of the city named in honor of the
"passionately proud" Earl of Perth there lingers an air of decayed
opulence. Although old Amboy of the scarlet coats died long ago, a
few of her echoes live on undrowned by the din of new voices. In Mrs.
Kearny's day many a stately garden crept down to the water-front. The
great houses overlooking the smooth Raritan still sheltered a few of
the noble Scotch and Irish families who had unwillingly relinquished
their king and remained in the New World. In the letters of Sophia
Brown, who lodged with the mother of William Dunlap, the art historian,
there are glimpses of this society. The frail and aristocratic Misses
Parker with their tea-drinkings, the gallant Captain Love, and
other charming figures, look out at us from pages filled with the
trivialities of every-day life. A child dreaming beside a broad pane
overlooking the quiet street, where trees stood in line as if awaiting
the call of Orpheus, saw many things. Now a youthful pair sauntered by
in the spring-time of love, now an ancient crone in worn satin shoes
that had once touched ever so lightly a king's feet in a long-forgotten
dance, and now a tired veteran of the Revolution murmuring to himself
of battles still unwon. Suddenly would come the rush of many footsteps.
Off in the distance the bell of St. Peter's tolls. People of condition
are to be married. Ladies in faded silk or humble erminetta mince
past gentlemen in desay suits. Then the music creeps out of the
chancel,--the faint, sweet air of an old English wedding-march. Even
the sombre fronts of the houses seem to be ravished with it. The voices
of the gentle choir may not be as pure as they were in the days of
George III., but to the girl who listened then they were like strains
from Paradise.
The city which had received its charter one day after New York was at
that period beginning to lose its importance in the eyes of the Western
world. No longer chariots drawn by white horses carried a supercilious
nobility to the resort of the Knickerbockers. No longer big-wigs talked
over the commercial supremacy of Perth Amboy in the Sweeting's Alley
Coffee House. No longer were there stately minuets and revels at the
Governor's palace. The old days were gone forever; but although the
leading actors and the lights had fled, the stage remained unchanged.
That sad-faced baggage Poverty loitered behind and came often to once
proud dwelling-places. Pinderina heard the sighs of her friends, and
decided to enliven the situation. In the Kearny Cottage, whose rooms
seem to widen mysteriously as one enters, she held her gatherings of
sympathetic souls. These affairs differed somewhat from the parties
given at an earlier date by Mrs. Hugh Ferguson and Mrs. Richard
Stockton, two other literary lights of the time, for the hostess
suffered from a slender purse. Her guests came only for the pleasure of
conversation, without the "stomach compensation" Mrs. Montagu and her
American imitators thought so necessary.
One of the most distinguished frequenters of Mrs. Kearny's
Blue-Stocking Club was Philip Freneau, whose mother had made a second
matrimonial venture and wedded Captain James Kearny, of Kearny Port, a
relative of the Perth Amboy family. "Small but well formed, his blue
eyes sparkling with poetic fire," it is easy to imagine him the lion of
Mrs. Kearny's evenings. Whenever the old sloop "King William"--changed
to "Liberty"--sailed into Amboy, bringing Mr. Freneau to pass the
night with his friends before journeying to Monmouth, there was always
great excitement in the town. Mrs. Kearny's black Rebecca was sent
forth in haste to inform the chosen few of the neighborhood that their
leader bade them to her drawing-room. The seven romping Kearny boys
were hurried up to the attic to bed, the furniture rearranged, and
Madam Scribblerus, as her world called her, slipped on her brocade
gown to be in readiness for the battle of wits sure to ensue. A happy
woman was this quaint personage when footfalls began to sound on the
gallery steps. The rap-tap of the knocker made her spirits buoyant, and
each greeting took her farther away from the cares of a commonplace
existence. Although she was a lover of nature, she too could have
said with Mr. Robinson, the father of Mrs. Montagu, that living in the
country was like sleeping with one's eyes open. Each breath of the
world beyond Amboy brought new life to her.
We can picture to ourselves the evening. About the oddly-shaped room,
on hard-seated, fiddle-backed chairs, sits Pinderina's little court. By
the wide fireplace on the settle old Judge Nevill, the editor of the
first American magazine, is blinking at the embers. Mr. Freneau has
finished telling some of his recent adventures in New York City. Now
Mrs. Kearny begins the story of Captain Kidd's black cat, which lived
on long after her master had been condemned to death in Old Bailey,
and for these two hundred years has haunted the spot where the bold
adventurer is said to have buried some of his chests of rupees. Sleepy
eyes grow wider as she advances in her narrative. Timid ladies feel
for each other's hands in the flickering light. The hostess is in her
element.
Taking a penetrating look at the company over the years, they are not
as we would at first imagine them. There are holes in Mr. Freneau's
wrist ruffles, and the worn brocade gown of the hostess no longer gives
forth even faint protesting rustle as she walks. In this respect the
circle is true-blue,--for Oliver Goldsmith went to Mrs. Montagu's in
darned stockings and a laced coat, and the immortal Johnson and many of
his confrères were naturally careless in their attire, or were helped
to the state by the lack of pence.
The one great ambition of Elizabeth Kearny's life was to write like
her "admired Mr. Freneau," and her many mild plagiarisms of his poems,
if they failed in their object, were no doubt regarded by him as
flattering homage to his genius. Theirs was an unusual friendship of
which the world knows very little, but mute testimonials remain of it
to-day in her letters and her autographs fading under those of Philip
Freneau's in many of his favorite volumes. She could have written of
him as Mrs. Montagu once wrote, thinking no doubt of her faithful Dr.
Beattie:
"Many guests my heart has not admitted; such as there are do it honor,
and a long and intimate acquaintance has preceded their admittance;
they were invited in it by its best virtues; they passed through
the examination of severity, nay, even answered some questions of
suspicion that inquired of their constancy and sincerity; but now they
are delivered over to the keeping of constant faith and love; for
doubt never visits the friends entirely, but only examines such as
would come in, lest the way should be too common."
When Philip Freneau lived for a short period over a little shop in
the Fly-Market, New York City, and edited _The Time Piece_, Mrs.
Kearny became one of its constant contributors. Among that sentimental
group of female poets, numbering a Saraperina, Edena, Cynthea, Clara,
Carolina, and a Petronella, her effusions--generally under the _nome
de guerre_ of "Scribelra"--stand forth in bold type. Turning the musty
pages of a bound volume of the paper, we find
"LINES BY A LADY ON HEARING THE FROGS SING ON THE 17TH OF MARCH.
"Hail! pleasing harbingers of spring,
Who in the ponds so jocund sing;
And with a merry roundelay
Do usher in St. Patrick's day;
Some think your music rather hoarse,
Nay that 'tis altogether coarse;
Others ever fond of joking,
Swear your singing is but croaking.
Yet I declare it is to me
A pleasing, perfect harmony.
For in your varying notes I trace
The counter, treble, tenor, bass.
Should _some_ reply too _base_ indeed,
Such rude sarcasms pray don't heed,
But in your old accustomed way
Still celebrate St. Patrick's day;
Whether to hail the saint you sing
Or joy for the returning spring,
Which doth your tribe from jail release,
Let not your annual tribute cease."
Although the merit of this poem lies much below mediocrity, in
subject it is delightfully grotesque. Her style was varied and
her pen strangely moody, judging from her productions extant. The
following _jeu d'esprit_ was written at the beginning of Jefferson's
administration:
"AN EPIGRAM.
"Says William to Thomas I'll hold you a bet,
That the French are confoundedly frighted;
They thought that our Federal ships had o'erset,
But they find that they staunch are, and righted.
"They slighted our Pleno's and made a demand
That we a shameful tribute should pay them,
Or else (as they plundered at sea) on the land
Neither Rapine nor Murder should stay them!
"But those who are born in the woods can't be scared
By the croaking of Bull-frogs in ditches.
Nor will we of Frenchmen at all be afraid,
A people who're _sans_ honor, _sans_ breeches.
"They've taken our coats from our backs, and say too
That they will have our shirts and our smocks, sir;
But faith if they try it the project they'll rue,
For we'll give them some flesh-burning knocks, sir!
"They've tried every art which deception could frame,
But our Congress too wise were to heed them,
They've Heaven defied, and have put aside shame,
And have gone all lengths the Devil would lead them."
Among her poems are some pleasing verses, entitled "A Whim." These also
appeared in _The Time Piece_, unsigned, and we have nothing to show
whether they were a copy or the child of her own muse:
"I gave--'twas but the other day--
My Kate a ticket for the play,
'Tis love such tricks imparts;
When holding up the card to me,
She laughed and said, the emblem see,
And show'd the Knave of Hearts.
"Amaz'd I cry'd, what means my dear?
A knave will lie, will steal, will swear;
I pray, your words define.
She smiled and said, nay never start.
He's sure a knave that steals a heart,
And you have stolen mine!"
There was one yearly occasion when the world of Amboy did not flock
with acceleration to the Kearny Cottage, and that was the anniversary
of Michael Kearny's death. Mrs. Kearny was always fond of writing
epitaphs to embellish the tombstones of departed Amboyites, but as the
years progressed she developed a very morbid strain. To commemorate the
demise of her husband she wrote poems of several hundred verses and
then assembled her satellites to weep with her. Woe to the indifferent
ones whose tears of sorrow were dry. They were pretty sure of indignant
visits from her, or, worse still, her far-reaching pen was capable of
dealing them swift retribution. She never spared the most loyal of her
friends. When one of the distinguished men of the city came to her
under the effects of toddy, she celebrated his fall from grace by lines
which must have always rankled in his breast.
Mrs. Kearny longed to have her work admired for its worth alone, and,
like Miss Burney, who visited the bookseller Mr. Lownes as a chance
purchaser of "Evelina" to learn his opinion of its author, "Pinderina"
was in the habit of calling upon her friends with her manuscripts,
coyly reading them, and then requesting their criticism on the latest
compositions she had copied from the _Gazette_. Tradition says that
this plan did not always meet with pleasant results. Descending upon a
Mrs. Golightly, a new-comer to Perth Amboy, with a batch of her poems,
she was told that the productions were far from those of a genius and
must have been written by some very foolish female. Pinderina, placidly
awaiting praise, was astounded at the intelligence. Recovering herself,
she informed the unfortunate woman that her own pen had given birth to
the verses, and left her house in high indignation.
[Illustration: THE WALK TO MRS. BELL'S MANSION]
A new book was an event in the Perth Amboy world at the beginning of
the century. When Simeon Drake, who received the mail from Woodbridge
three times a week, brought a packet to the door of Mrs. Andrew Bell,
the wealthiest member of the circle, a flutter of envy arose in
every breast. What anxious hours were passed before it started on its
round from house to house. Ofttimes an impatient dame sent her little
Abigail to gaze through the low windows of Mrs. Bell's study, where the
lady usually sat reading, to see if she were nearly through with the
volume. When the first month of its Amboy life was over, how it had
been discussed! The golden urns and garlands of roses which decorated
the cover were already worn. To-day high up in the dust of dim attics
the books of old Amboy are content to rest neglected and forgotten. The
love that was given to them was stronger and truer than that bestowed
upon their modern kindred. Through the long years of summer suns and
wintry rains they had been happy in the thought of a mission fulfilled.
When the wind creeps through the cracks in the casements and stirs
their musty pages, one can almost fancy that they are whispering to the
ghosts of the long ago.
A letter written by Mrs. Kearny to Mrs. Bell has been preserved:
"I am much obliged to you Madam for your Books. The scriptural essays
are very good; the author seems to have been fully inspired by his
subject. Rather enthusiastically so (I think) when he prefers the
story of Ruth to that of Lavinia. I have long thought that Mr. Thomson
had taken that sacred history for his model but had no idea that any
one would say--the Paraphrase is inferior to the original. The story
of the unfortunate lovers, very interesting--Carolina but so, so quite
middling; I read it through without being able to approve of it. Allow
me to mention a few remarks I made when reading it--It, in my opinion,
wants two essential qualities Style and Reason; qualities which you
know are capable of making any story pleasing--interesting, however
fictitious we suppose the circumstances to be.