ONWARD TO VALLEY FORGE.
"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves besides."
--COWPER.
The colony of North Carolina had long been ready for rebellion against
kingly authority. Governor Tryon had sown the seeds of discontent by his
unpopular measures, and the taxes levied upon the people that he might
build his "palace" at New Berne. This discontent had culminated in the
insurrection of the Regulators and the battle of Alamance, where was
made the first armed stand against England. But Tryon was victorious,
and the captured leaders of the insurrection were hanged on Regulators'
hill in Hillsboro'-town. But from that field of Alamance, the defeated
people carried to their homes the same persistent, haunting dream of
liberty which was to rise incarnate when the tocsin of the Revolution
blew through the land.
That tocsin waked many an echo among the hills that surrounded the town
upon the Eno. At the first call to arms, the older men had gone to the
field, some marching away to the north, others serving under the
partisan leaders throughout their own section. Now the younger
ones--those who had been but boys when the cannon at Lexington made the
pulse of the people first to quicken and throb--were going out to bear
their share in the fray.
For the past year the company of which Richard Clevering was a member
had done service in the militia at home, keeping the Tories in a
semblance of subjection, and now and then going to Sumter's aid when he
made one of those electrical sallies which were like lightning flashes
amid the general storm. In this hard school Richard had learned his
first lessons in soldiering; but graver and sterner military work was
now ahead, for the company was marching northward to aid in recruiting
Washington's regular army, reduced and discouraged by the terrible
winter at Valley Forge.
When they started, the willows that fringed the Eno, that fierce little
river that winds about Hillsboro', had already lost their winter
grayness, and, with the rising of the sap, had taken on that wonderful
golden brown which is the aureole of the coming springtime. The
bluebirds had not yet come back to the fence corners, but the earth was
soggy with the thaw, and from under the whirls of last year's dead
leaves, crocuses were holding up green signals to the sun. But as the
troop held their steady way to the north the spring signs disappeared,
and hoar frost and bleak winds told that winter's reign was not yet
over.
It was a long tramp up through the Virginia woods and along the salt
marshes of the coast, and down and up the desolate streams hunting a
ford. But youth and enthusiasm lighten many a burden, and to Richard the
greatest hardship was lack of news from Joscelyn. The thought of her
tugged at his heart, and if his step ever lagged in the line, it was
because the memory of her face drew him back with that sickening sense
of longing that youth finds so hard to resist. At every chance he sent
her a missive.
"Not that she will care, but just to show her _I_ do," he said, trying
to convince himself there was no bitterness in the thought.
Peter Ruffin, marching beside him, often looked at the knit brows and
compressed lips and smiled, guessing something of the cause; he said to
himself that it was safer to leave a wife behind than a sweetheart,
since one was sure to find the wife waiting his return, while a
sweetheart might be gone with a fresher fancy. But little Billy Bryce,
who could never have kept up with the line had it not been for Richard's
aid now and then, could not fathom the meaning of that dark look in his
benefactor's face, and so was silent and sorry.
The March winds tore at them, and the storms pelted them as they tramped
the rugged roads or slept in their thin tents, and the bullets that they
had intended for the enemy, often went to provide game for their daily
sustenance. The Tories of the districts through which they passed
sometimes rallied to oppose them, so that they had to fight their way
through ambuscades, or, when the enemy greatly outnumbered them, slip
away under cover of night or by circuitous paths through the forest and
swamps.
And so, at last, toward the end of March, they reached their goal--the
encampment at Valley Forge, and shuddered at the desolation they
witnessed. As the little band marched down the streets of the military
village, gaunt men who had survived the horrors of the winter came out
to meet them with huzzas, and the drums beat a long welcome. Their
coming was as a thrill that runs through a half-numb body, a sign of
revivification and awakened hope. But under it all was a sense of
unspeakable sadness that filled the hearts of the newcomers with a
strange wistfulness of pity and admiration.
The succeeding weeks were given up literally to camp work, to ceaseless
mustering and drilling under the vigilant eye of Baron Steuben, until
the newcomers lost the air of recruits and bore themselves with the
semblance of veterans.
"We had hoped to fight under Morgan," Richard wrote his mother, "but,
doubtless for excellent reasons, we are to be assigned to General
Wayne's command, which just now sorely needs strengthening. Save that
Morgan is from our part of the country, the change matters not to me,
since both men are fearless leaders. What I want is a fray, and with
either of these men I am like to get my fill."
Here there was a long blot on the page, as though the back of his quill
had been drawn along a line. In truth it had, for he had started to send
a message to Joscelyn, and then with a sudden accession of determination
had erased it, lest she come to think he had never anything in mind save
herself. But he fondled the letter as he folded it, knowing that her
fingers would doubtless hold each page and her eyes travel along each
line, for his mother would share her news of him with her neighbours
over the way.