Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: HE THREW HIMSELF UPON THE GROUND. _See page 136_]
ROGER DAVIS
LOYALIST
BY
FRANK BAIRD
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
Toronto
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE OUTBREAK
II. AMONG ENEMIES
III. MADE PRISONER
IV. PRISON EXPERIENCES
V. THE TRIAL AND ESCAPE
VI. KING OR PEOPLE?
VII. THE DIE CAST
VIII. OFF TO NOVA SCOTIA
IX. IN THE 'TRUE NORTH'
X. THE TREATY
XI. HOME-MAKING BEGUN
XII. FACING THE FUTURE
XIII. THE GOVERNOR'S PERIL
XIV. VICTORY AND REWARD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
HE THREW HIMSELF UPON THE GROUND . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
SHE MOTIONED ME TO MY FATHER'S EMPTY CHAIR
'THAT MAN,' I SAID, TURNING AND FACING THE 'COLONEL,'
WHO SAT PALE AND SHIVERING
'THIS IS NOVA SCOTIA,' HE SAID, POINTING TO THE MAP
Roger Davis, Loyalist
Chapter I
The Outbreak
It was Duncan Hale, the schoolmaster, who first brought us the news.
When he was half-way from the gate to the house, my mother met him. He
bowed very low to her, and then, standing with his head uncovered--from
my position in the hall--I heard him distinctly say, 'Your husband,
madam, has been killed, and the British who went out to Lexington under
Lord Percy have been forced to retreat into Boston, with a loss of two
hundred and seventy-three officers and men.'
The schoolmaster bowed again, one of those fine, sweeping, old-world
bows which he had lately been teaching me with some impatience, I
thought; then without further speech he moved toward the little gate.
But I had caught a look of keen anxiety on his face as he addressed my
mother. Once outside the garden, he stooped forward, and, breaking
into a run, crouching as he went as though afraid of being seen, he
soon disappeared around a turn in the road.
My mother stood without speaking or moving for some moments. The birds
in the blossom-shrouded trees of the garden were shrieking and
chattering in the flood of April sunlight; I felt a draught of perfumed
air draw into the hall. Then a mist that had been heavy all the
morning on the Charles River, suddenly faded into the blue, and I could
see clearly over to Boston, three miles away.
I shall not soon forget the look on my mother's face as she turned and
came toward me. I have wondered since if it were not born of a high
resolve then made, to be put into effect later. She was not in tears
as I thought she would be. There were no signs of grief on her face,
but instead her whole countenance seemed illuminated with a strangely
noble look. I was puzzled at this; but when I remembered that my
mother was the daughter of an English officer who was killed while
serving under Wolfe at Quebec, I understood.
In a firm voice she repeated to me the words I had already heard, then
she passed up the stairs. In a few moments I heard her telling my two
sisters Caroline and Elizabeth--they were both younger than
myself--that it was time to get up. After that I heard my mother go to
her own room and shut the door. In the silence that followed this I
fell to thinking.
Was my father really dead? Could it be that the British had been
repulsed? Duncan Hale had been telling me for weeks that war was
coming, but I had not thought his prophecy would be fulfilled. Now I
understood why he had come so often to visit my father; and why, during
the past month, he had seemed so absent-minded in school. My
preparation for going to Oxford in the autumn, over which he had been
so enthusiastic, appeared to have been completely pushed out of his
mind. I had once overheard my father caution him to keep his visits to
Lord Percy strictly secret. I was wondering if the part he had played
might have any ill consequences for him and for us, when my mother's
footsteps sounded on the stairs. She came at once to where I had been
standing for some moments, caught me in her arms, and, without
speaking, held me close for a moment, and then pressed a kiss on my
forehead.
'Go, Roger,' she said, 'and find Peter and Dora. Bring them to the
library, and wait there till I come with your sisters.'
I was turning to obey, when I caught a glimpse through the hall doorway
of two rebel soldiers galloping up. They had evidently come from
Boston. At sight of my mother, one of them addressed her with an
unmannerly shout that sent the blood pulsing up to my cheeks in anger.
What my mother had been thinking I did not know; but from that moment a
great passion seized me. That shout which almost maddened me, had, I
can see in looking back over it all, much to do in making me a
Loyalist, and in sending me to Canada.
The soldiers looked in somewhat critically, but passed. They were
rough looking men, poorly mounted and badly dressed. My mother
withdrew from the doorway and went upstairs, as I proceeded to seek out
our two faithful coloured servants. I delivered to each the bare
message given me by my mother, and returned at once to the library.
Everything in the room suggested my father. On his desk lay an
unfinished letter to my brother, who had enlisted in the King's forces
some six months before. I had read but a few lines of this when the
door opened, and my mother entered with Caroline and Elizabeth. In a
moment I saw that the spirit of my mother had passed on to my sisters.
I was sure they knew the worst; and although I could see Caroline
struggle with her feelings, both girls maintained a brave and sensible
silence. A moment later Peter and Dora entered, each wide-eyed and
apprehensive, but still ignorant of the great calamity that had now
befallen our recently happy household.
The east window of the library looked toward Boston. To this my mother
went, and stood looking out for some time; then she turned and began to
speak.
'Your master,' she said, addressing Peter and Dora, 'has been killed.
We are here to make plans for the future.'
Dora threw up both hands, giving a little shriek as she did so. Peter
lifted his great eyes to the ceiling, and slid to his knees; a little
later he pressed his hands hard over his heart as though to prevent it
from beating its way through. He found relief in swaying backward and
forward, and uttering a long, low moan, which finally shaped into,
'Poor Massa killed.' He kept repeating this, until we were all on the
point of giving way to our smothered emotion. But my mother's voice
recalled us.
'What are we to do, Roger?' she said.
Instantly the thought of a new and great responsibility flashed upon
me. Was my mother to relinquish the leadership? Did her question mean
that I was to step at once into the place of my fallen father? Had she
forgotten that I was but sixteen? I glanced at my sisters, but I found
I could not look long upon them in their helplessness, and retain my
self-control.
With a hurried glance at the servants, who now sobbed audibly in spite
of all efforts at suppression of grief, my eyes came again to the face
of my mother. The look of noble fortitude had gone, and I saw that I
must no longer delay in coming to her assistance.
She motioned me to my father's empty chair; I took it at once, and,
though I felt all eyes in the room turn upon me, prompted by a rush of
heroic feeling, I neither flinched nor blushed under their gaze. But
in spite of my pretended composure nature had her way. My sister
Elizabeth, breaking into a flood of tears, rushed across the floor to
my mother's arms, and soon all were weeping uncontrollably. Mastering
my rising feelings, I began thinking what was best to be done.
[Illustration: SHE MOTIONED ME TO MY FATHER'S EMPTY CHAIR.]
I knew the King's cause had many sympathisers on the farms that lay
about us. What effect the real shedding of blood and the defeat of the
British would have I could not determine, but, while I knew that the
country would soon be swarming with rebels, I was equally sure that we
would not be absolutely alone, if we resolved to declare ourselves in
favour of the King and his government in the colony. At first, it
occurred to me to advise fleeing at once inside the protected limits of
Boston. But the thought of the value of my father's property turned me
from this course. That we were in danger, I was certain. My father,
owing to his trade relations with the colonists of all types, had not
openly espoused the royal cause; on many occasions rebels had claimed
him as a sympathiser; but I knew that now all would be revealed. The
jeer of the soldiers half convinced me that all was known already. Had
these simply gone by that they might return with others to carry us off
prisoners?
At that moment, on glancing through the window, I was startled to see
several buildings on fire away toward Boston. The rebels had evidently
begun the work of destruction; but the thought that it had suddenly
come to this, that our quiet, happy, and thriving country-side was to
be devastated by fire and sword as during old wars of which I had read
in history, made me, for a moment, wonder if it were not all a horrible
dream. Recalling myself, however, to the situation in which I was
placed, as the defender of my mother and sisters, I turned from the
window, and, when a silence fell in the sobbing, said, 'I shall see
Duncan Hale; he will help us.'
The painful day wore slowly on. It was evident that the whole country
was deeply stirred. Not a single soldier of the King could be seen,
but rebels were everywhere. On horseback and on foot; in rough
carriages and farm wagons; armed and unarmed; singly and in crowds;
cheering, shouting, swearing, threatening--all day long these rough,
leaderless, untrained farmer soldiers kept passing and re-passing, in
what seemed to be wild, purposeless confusion. Now and then the sound
of distant firing came from the direction of Boston; occasionally a
column of smoke arose from the country round, telling its own story of
destruction.
I wondered if a similar fate awaited our fine old house, with its
fluted Corinthian corners, and its air of English solidity. I recalled
the peculiar pride with which my father had shown visitors through and
around it. The big hallway running from front to back, and on either
side the lofty square rooms; the high wainscotting, the deeply recessed
window seats, and queer, old-fashioned mouldings that bordered the
ceilings; the wide fire-places with their curiously-wrought andirons;
the two magnificent lindens before the door, planted by my grandmother
when a bride some sixty years ago; the wide garden with shaded walks,
and the hundred acres of rich, valuable land, all took on a new
interest to me that day. It came to me that these things could not be
given up without a pang.
The day--it was the twentieth of April, 1775--proved gloriously fine
until the end; this, with the unusual gaiety of the birds in the
lindens, the bursting of the buds in the gardens, and other assurances
of spring, were in striking contrast with all that had been taking
place in the world of men. But the consequences of the events that had
preceded that day were to be infinitely greater than any contrast could
be. I can see now, as I did not then, that rightly looked at, the
skirmish at Lexington where my father fell, had within it the
beginnings of two nations--and one of them was Canada. But of this,
later in the story.
That night I was again in the library in consultation with my mother
and sisters, regarding the possible recovery of my father's body, when
a low knocking at the door startled us. A few moments later Duncan
Hale and Doctor Canfield, minister of the parish, were seated among us.
In a few softly spoken words the good clergyman expressed his sincere
sympathy for us in our sudden affliction. Doctor Canfield was one of
Harvard's most brilliant sons; he had travelled much; was directly
descended from a noble English family; he was possessed of means; many
of the foremost men of letters were his correspondents; he was tall and
military in bearing; graceful and eloquent in speech; the soul of
courtesy and honour; and withal, he was a master of the fine art of
manners. It was Doctor Canfield and others like him who made
separation from England difficult, standing, as they did, for the only
refinement that the provinces knew, peopled as these were mainly with
rough, plain tradespeople and farmers. As he talked with my mother, I
could not help setting his fineness over against the coarseness of the
many men I had seen through the day.
Duncan Hale sat silent, until Doctor Canfield, turning to him, asked
him to relate what he knew of the events of the previous day. As this
was a matter to which our minds had been constantly reverting since the
reported death of my father, we gave him willing audience.
'Three days ago it became known to General Gage, madam,' he said,
rising and addressing my mother, 'that a considerable quantity of rebel
stores had been collected at the village of Lexington, some fourteen
miles from Boston. The General decided, in the interests of His
Majesty's government and of peace, that these should be destroyed.
Accordingly he ordered Major Pitcairn to march with eight hundred men
to Lexington, and destroy or seize the rifles and ammunition there
stored. Guided by your excellent husband, who knew the country as the
officers did not, the soldiers succeeded in destroying the stores, but,
when they were on the point of returning to Boston, they were attacked
by thousands of the rebels, who, having been previously made acquainted
with the intention of our soldiers by means of spies riding out from
Boston, one Paul Revere being chief, were fully armed and well
prepared. Seeing themselves so overwhelmingly outnumbered, and being
informed that the whole country for fully fifty miles around was in
arms, the English officers, after consulting with Lord Percy, who had
gone out later in the day, agreed to fall back upon Boston.'
The schoolmaster finished and sat down. There was a strangely agitated
look on his face. I was wondering what this could mean, when a sharp
whistle sounded at the door.
Instantly we were on our feet. Duncan Male's face went suddenly white.
The next moment a dozen or more of the rough rebel soldiers I had seen
through the day, burst into the room.
'Spy!' the leading man shouted, springing toward the schoolmaster. But
a door that had been unobserved by the rebels, and therefore unguarded
by them before their attack, opened from the library upon the verandah.
Through this Duncan sprang, and in the shaft of light that shot from
the room, I saw him leap into the darkness. The door shut with a
spring lock in the face of his pursuer.