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[Illustration]
The
Tory Maid
By
HERBERT BAIRD
STIMPSON
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
[Illustration: (decorative borders)]
Copyright, 1898, by H. B. STIMPSON.
_To
Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Hall Harrison
this volume
is affectionately inscribed by
the Author_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WE START FOR THE WAR 1
II. WE MEET THE MAID 10
III. A FLASH OF STEEL 24
IV. THE RED COCKADE 34
V. SIR SQUIRE OF TORY DAMES 44
VI. A TALE IS TOLD 55
VII. THE DEFIANCE OF THE TORY 68
VIII. THE BLACK COCKADE 77
IX. THE RED TIDE OF BLOOD 89
X. THE HARRYING OF THE TORY 107
XI. THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY 118
XII. THE VETO OF A MAID 132
XIII. THE GREETING OF FAIR LIPS 146
XIV. THE RETURN OF THE TORY 156
XV. THE FLAG OF TRUCE 166
XVI. THE BALL OF MY LORD HOWE 176
XVII. AN EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES 187
XVIII. THE CROSSING OF SWORDS 196
XIX. THE SANDS OF MONMOUTH 206
XX. IN THE LINES OF THE ENEMY 222
XXI. THE PASSING OF YEARS 230
XXII. THE COMING OF THE MAID 238
The Tory Maid
CHAPTER I
WE START FOR THE WAR
I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern
shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland,
but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty
and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in
the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the
sails on the distant bay, where its gleaming waters meet the mouth of
the creek that runs at the foot of Fairlee. A julep there is on the
table beside me, flavoured with mint gathered by the hands of John
Cotton early in the morning, while the dew was still upon it, from the
finest bank in all Kent County.
So with these old friends around me, with the julep on my right hand
and the paper before me, I sit on the great porch of Fairlee to write
of the wild days of my youth, when I first drew my sword in the Great
Cause. To write, before my hand becomes feeble and my eyes grow dim,
of the strange things that I saw and the adventures that befell me, of
the old Tory of the Braes, of the fair maid his daughter, and of the
part they played in my life during the War of the Deliverance. To
write so that those who come after me, as well as those who are
growing up around my knees, may know the part their grandfather played
in the stirring times that proclaimed the birth of a mighty nation.
The first year of the great struggle, ah, me! I was young then, and
the wild blood was in my veins. I was broad of shoulder and long of
limb, with a hand that gripped like steel and a seat in the saddle
that was the envy of all that hard-riding country. I was hardy and
skilled in all the outdoor sports and pastimes of my race and people,
and being light in the saddle I often led the hardest riders and won
from them the brush, while every creek for fifty miles up and down the
broad Chesapeake, and even the farther shore as far as Baltimore, knew
my canoe, and the High Sheriff himself was no finer shot than I.
You, who bask in the sunshine of long and dreary years of peace, who
never hear the note of the bugle nor see the flash of the foeman's
steel from one year's end to another, know not what it was to live in
those stirring times and all the joy of the strife. You should have
seen us then, when the whole land was aflame.
The fiery signal had come like a rush of the wind from the north, with
the cry of the dying on the roadsides and fields of Lexington.
All along the western shore the men of Anne Arundel, of Frederick, and
Prince George were mustering fast and strong. Then the Kentish men and
those of Queen Anne and all the lower shore were mounting fast and
mustering, while from the Howard hills came riding down bold and hardy
yeomen.
Then, and as it has always been in the old province of Maryland, the
gentlemen led the people, and everywhere the spirit of fire ran like
molten steel through the veins of the gathering hosts, and the people
took up the gauntlet of war with a laugh and a cheer and shook their
clenched hands at the King who was over the sea; so it was the length
and breadth of the province, and so it was with me.
And so one day the signal came, and I mounted my black colt Toby and
rode away to the Head of Elk in the county of Cecil, where the
mustering was, to take my place, as it was my duty and right to do,
side by side with the bravest gentlemen of the province in the coming
struggle for the Great Cause.
I was eighteen in the month of March of that year and considered
myself a man, and, having reached man's estate, I bade good-bye to my
mother and rode from out the sheltering walls and groves of Fairlee.
But just before I rode within the shadow of the great woods I turned
in my saddle and waved my hand to the small, quaint figure that stood
on the broad porch watching me disappear; and she bravely--for the
women were brave in those days--waved her hand in return, and then I
rode on, for the moment saddened at the parting, for the die that day
would be cast, and, though there would be mustering and drilling for
many weeks before we took up our march to the northward, the hand of
the cause would claim me as its own.
I was riding thus through the forest when I heard hoof-beats behind me
and a cheery halloo, and who should ride up but Dick Ringgold of
Hunting Field, a lad of my own age and my true friend?
"Why such a long face?" he laughed. "You look as if you were going to
a funeral and not to a hunt that will beat all the runs to the hounds
in the world. We are going to hunt redcoats and fair ladies' smiles
and not foxes now; so cheer up, man."
"Plague on it, Dick, you are ten miles from home and I am only one," I
retorted. "You ought to have seen how bravely her ladyship tried to
smile, too."
"We will increase the number of miles then," said he, and reaching
over he struck Toby across the flank. Well, Toby needs the curb at
best, and it was a full half-mile before I brought him up and had a
chance to give Dick a rating.
But Dick only laughed.
And so we rode on, across the low-lying plains of Kent, northward
toward the borders of Cecil.
For miles we would ride under the shadow of the dense forest, and then
we would come to the wide-reaching fields of some great manor or
plantation, the manor house itself generally crowning some gently
rising knoll amid a grove of trees, with a view of the distant bay,
or creek, or river, as the case might be; the cluster of houses, the
quarters for the slaves, the stables and the barns, making little
villages and hamlets amid the wide expanse of farm lands and the
distant circle of the dark green forests.
Then, again, a creek or river would bar our course, and we would have
to ride for miles until we turned its head, or found a ferry or a
ford, and so overcome its opposition. So on we rode until, as the day
waxed near the noon hour, we came to the little hamlet of Georgetown,
nestling amid the hills on the banks of the Sassafras. Crossing the
river at the ferry, we began the last stage of our journey.
The trail now skirted the broad lands of Bohemia Manor, and crossed
the beautiful river of that name, embedded between the hills and
wide-stretching farm lands.
As we approached the banks of the Elk the country grew more rolling
and wilder--in our front the Iron Hills rose up before us, crowned
with forests, in sharp contrast to the low-lying country through which
we had been passing.
And now, as our appetites became pressing, we urged our horses on, for
we had still many miles to travel.