THE SOUND OF GALLOPING.
A rush of wind came in from the outer gloom and almost blew out the
candle. Williams held up his hand to protect the flame and stepped
aside from before the doorway.
The wind was promptly followed by Elizabeth, who strode in with
the air that a king might show on reentering one of his palaces,
still holding her whip in her gloved hand. Behind her came Colden,
the picture of moody dejection. When Cuff had entered with the
portmanteaus, Williams, seeing but three horses without, closed
the door, locked it, and looked with inquiry and bewilderment at
Elizabeth.
"Br-r-r-r!" she ejaculated. "Light up my chamber, Molly, and have a
fire in it; then make some hot tea, and get me something to eat."
Elizabeth's impetuosity sent the open-mouthed maid flying up-stairs to
execute the first part of the order, whereupon the mistress turned to
the wondering steward.
"I've come to spend a week at the manor-house, Williams. Cuff, take
those to my room."
The black boy, with the portmanteaus, followed in the way Molly had
taken, but with less rapidity. By this time Williams had recovered
somewhat from his surprise, and regained his voice and something of
his stewardly manner.
"I scarcely expected any of the family out from New York these times,
miss. There----"
"I suppose not!" Elizabeth broke in. "Have some one put away the
horses, Williams, or they'll be shivering. It's mighty cold for the
time of year."
"I'll go myself, ma'am. There's only black Sam, you know, and he isn't
back from the orchard. I sent him to get some apples." And the steward
set the candlestick on the newel post of the stairway, and started for
the door.
"No, let Cuff go," said Elizabeth, sitting down on a settle that stood
with its back to the side of the staircase. "You start a fire in the
room next mine, for aunt Sally. She'll be over from the parsonage in a
few minutes."
Williams thereupon departed in quest of the stable key, inwardly
devoured by a mighty curiosity as to the wherefore of Elizabeth's
presence here in the company of none but her affianced, and also the
wherefore of that gentleman's manifest depression of spirits. His
curiosity was not lessened when the major called after him:
"Tell Cuff he may feed my horse, but not take the saddle off. I must
ride back to New York as soon as the beast is rested."
"Why," said Elizabeth to Colden, "you may stay for a bite of supper."
"No, thank you! I am not hungry."
"A glass of wine, then," said the girl, quite heedless of his tone;
"if there is any left in the house."
"No wine, I thank you!" Colden stood motionless, too far back in the
hall to receive much light from the feeble candle, like a shadowy
statue of the sulks.
"As you will!"
Whereupon Elizabeth, as if she had satisfied her conscience regarding
what was due from her in the name of hospitality, rose, and opened the
door to the east parlor.
"Ugh! How dark and lonely the house is! No wonder aunt Sally chose to
live at the parsonage." After one look into the dark apartment, she
closed the door. "Well, I'll warm up the place a bit. Sorry you can't
stay with us, major."
"It is only you who send me away," said Colden, dismally and
reproachfully. "I could have got longer leave of absence. You let me
escort you here, because no gentleman of your family will lend himself
to your reckless caprice. And then, having no further present use for
me, you send me about my business!"
Elizabeth, preferring to pace the hall until her chamber should be
heated, and her aunt should arrive, was striking her cloak with her
riding-whip at each step; not that the cloak needed dusting, but as a
method of releasing surplus energy.
"But I do have further present use for you," she said. "You are going
back to New York to inform my dear timid parents and sisters and
brothers that I've arrived here safe. They'll not sleep till you tell
them so."
"One of your slaves might bear that news as well," quoth the major.
"Well, are you not forever calling yourself my slave? Besides, my
devotion to King George won't let me weaken his forces by holding one
of his officers from duty longer than need be."
But Colden was not to be cheered by pleasantry.
"What a man you are! So cross at my sending you back that you'll
neither eat nor drink before going. Pray don't pout, Colden. 'Tis
foolish!"
"I dare say! A man in love does many foolish things!"
The utterance of this great and universal truth had not time to
receive comment from Elizabeth before Cuff reappeared, with the stable
key; and at the same instant, a rather delicate, inoffensive knock was
heard on the front door.
"That must be aunt Sally," said Elizabeth. "Let her in, Cuff. Then go
and stable the horses. My poor Cato will freeze!"
It was indeed Miss Sarah Williams, and in a state of breathlessness.
She had been running, perhaps to escape the unseemly embraces of the
wind, which had taken great liberties with her skirts,--liberties no
less shocking because of the darkness of the evening; for though De la
Rochefoucauld has settled it that man's alleged courage takes a
vacation when darkness deprives it of possible witnesses, no one will
accuse an elderly maiden's modesty of a like eclipse.
"My dear child, what could have induced you----" were her first words
to Elizabeth; but her attention was at that point distracted by seeing
Cuff, outside the threshold, about to pull the door shut. "Don't close
the door yet, boy. Some one is coming."
Cuff thereupon started on his task of stabling the three horses,
leaving the door open. The flame of the candle on the newel post was
blown this way and that by the in-rushing wind.
"It's old Mr. Valentine," explained Miss Sally to Elizabeth. "He
offered to show me over from the parsonage, where he happened to be
calling, so I didn't wait for Mrs. Babcock's boy----"
"You found Mr. Valentine pleasanter company, I suppose, aunty, dear,"
put in Elizabeth, who spared neither age nor dignity. "He's a widower
again, isn't he?"
Miss Sally blushed most becomingly. Her plump cheeks looked none the
worse for this modest suffusion.
"Fie, child! He's eighty years old. Though, to be sure, the attentions
of a man of his experience and judgment aren't to be considered
lightly."
Those were the days when well-bred people could--and often did,
naturally and without effort--improvise grammatical sentences of more
than twelve words, in the course of ordinary, every-day talk.
"We started from the parsonage together," went on Miss Sally, "but I
was so impatient I got ahead. He doesn't walk as briskly as he did
twenty years ago."
Yet briskly enough for his years did the octogenarian walk in through
the little pillared portico a moment later. Such deliberation as his
movements had might as well have been the mark of a proper self-esteem
as the effect of age. He was a slender but wiry-looking old gentleman,
was Matthias Valentine, of Valentine's Hill; in appearance a credit to
the better class of countrymen of his time. His white hair was tied in
a cue, as if he were himself a landowner instead of only a manorial
tenant. Yet no common tenant was he. His father, a dragoon in the
French service, had come down from Canada and settled on Philipse
Manor, and Matthias had been proprietor of Valentine's Hill, renting
from the Philipses in earlier days than any one could remember. His
grandsons now occupied the Hill, and the old man was in the full
enjoyment of the leisure he had won. His rather sharp countenance,
lighted by honest gray eyes, was a mixture of good-humor, childlike
ingenuousness, and innocent jocosity. The neatness of his hair, his
carefully shaven face, and the whole condition of his brown cloth coat
and breeches and worsted stockings, denoted a fastidiousness rarely at
any time, and particularly in the good (or bad) old days, to be found
in common with rustic life and old age. Did some of the dandyism of
the French dragoon survive in the old Philipsburgh farmer?
He carried a walking-stick in one hand, a lighted lantern in the
other. After bowing to the people in the hall, he set down his
lantern, closed the door and bolted it, then took up his lantern, blew
out the flame thereof, and set it down again.
"Whew!" he puffed, after his exertion. "Windy night, Miss Elizabeth!
Windy night, Major Colden! Winter's going to set in airly this year.
There ain't been sich a frosty November since '64, when the river was
froze over as fur down as Spuyten Duyvel."
There was in the old man's high-pitched voice a good deal of the
squeak, but little of the quaver, of senility.
"You'll stay to supper, I hope, Mr. Valentine."
From Elizabeth this was a sufficient exhibition of graciousness. She
then turned her back on the two men and began to tell her aunt of her
arrangements.
"Thankee, ma'am," said old Valentine, whose sight did not immediately
acquaint him, in the dim candle-light, with Elizabeth's change of
front; wherefore he continued, placidly addressing her back: "I
wouldn't mind a glass and a pipe with friend Williams afore trudging
back to the Hill."
He then walked over to the disconsolate Colden, and, with a very
gay-doggish expression, remarked in an undertone:
"Fine pair o' girls yonder, major?"
He had known Colden from the time of the latter's first boyhood visits
to the manor, and could venture a little familiarity.
"Girls?" blurted the major, startled out of his meditations.
The old country beau chuckled.
"We all know what's betwixt you and the niece. How about the aunt and
me taking a lesson from you two, eh?"
Even the gloomy officer could not restrain a momentary smile.
"What, Mr. Valentine? Do you seriously think of marrying?"
"Why not? I've been married afore, hain't I? What's to hinder?"
"Why, there's the matter of age." Colden rather enjoyed being
inconsiderate of people's feelings.
"Oh, the lady is not so old," said the octogenarian, placidly, casting
a judicial, but approving look at the commanding figure of Miss
Sally.
Then, as he had been for a considerable time on his legs, having
walked over from the Hill to the parsonage that afternoon, and as at
best his knees bent when he stood, he sat down on the settle by the
staircase.
Miss Sally, though she knew it useless to protest further against
Elizabeth's caprice, nevertheless felt it her duty to do so,
especially as Major Colden would probably carry to the family a report
of her attitude towards that caprice.
"Did you ever hear of such rashness, major? A young girl like
Elizabeth coming out here in time of war, when this neutral ground
between the lines is overridden and foraged to death, and deluged with
blood by friend as well as foe? La me! I can't understand her, if she
_is_ my sister's child."
"Why, aunt Sally, _you_ stay out here through it all," said Elizabeth,
not as much to depreciate the dangers as to give her aunt an
opportunity of posing as a very courageous person.
Miss Sally promptly accepted the opportunity. "Oh," said she, with a
mien of heroic self-sacrifice, "I couldn't let poor Grace Babcock stay
at the parsonage with nobody but her children; besides I'm not Colonel
Philipse's daughter, and who cares whether I'm loyal to the King or
not? But a girl like you isn't made for the dangers and privations
we've had to put up with out here since the King's troops have
occupied New York, and Washington's rebel army has held the country
above. I'm surprised the family let her come, or that you'd
countenance it by coming with her, major."
"We all opposed it," said Colden, with a sigh. "But--you know
Elizabeth!"
"Yes," said Elizabeth herself with cheerful nonchalance, "Elizabeth
always has her way. I was hungry for a sight of the place, and the
more the old house is in danger, the more I love it. I'm here for a
week, and that ends it. The place doesn't seem to have suffered any.
They haven't even quartered troops here."
"Not since the American officers stayed here in the fall o' '76," put
in old Mr. Valentine, from the settle. "I reckon you'll be safe enough
here, Miss Elizabeth."
"Of course I shall. Why, our troops patrol all this part of the
country, Lord Cathcart told us at King's Bridge, and _we_ have naught
to fear from them."
"No, the British foragers won't dare treat Philipse Manor-house as
they do the homes of some of their loyal friends," said Miss Sally,
who was no less proud of her relationship with the Philipses, because
it was by marriage and not by blood. "But the horrible "Skinners," who
don't spare even the farms of their fellow rebels--"
"Bah!" said Elizabeth. "The scum of the earth! Williams has weapons
here, and with him and the servants I'll defend the place against all
the rebel cut-throats in the county."
The major thought to make a last desperate attempt to dissuade
Elizabeth from remaining.
"That's all well enough," said he; "but there are the rebel regulars,
the dragoons. They'll be raiding down to our very lines, one of these
days, if only in retaliation. You know how Lord Cornwallis's party
under General Grey, over in Jersey, the other night, killed a lot of
Baylor's cavalry,--Mrs. Washington's Light Horse, they called the
troop. And the Hessians made a great foray on the rebel families this
side the river."
"Ay," chirped old Valentine; "but the American Colonel Butler, and
their Major Lee, of Virginia, fell on the Hessian yagers 'tween
Dobbs's Ferry and Tarrytown, and killed ever so many of 'em,--and I
wasn't sorry for that, neither!"
"Oho!" said Colden, "you belong to the opposition."
"Oh, I'm neither here nor there," replied the old man. "But they say
that there Major Lee, of Virginia, is the gallantest soldier in
Washington's army. He'd lead his men against the powers of Satan if
Washington gave the word. Light Horse Harry, they call him,--and a
fine dashing troop o' light horse he commands."
"No more dashing, I'll wager, than some of ours," said Elizabeth,
whose mood for the moment permitted her to talk with reason and
moderation; "not even counting the Germans. And as for leaders, what
do you say to Simcoe, of the Queen's Rangers, or Emmerick, or
Tarleton, or"--turning to Colden--"your cousin James De Lancey, of
this county, major?"
The major, notwithstanding his Toryism, did not enter with enthusiasm
into Elizabeth's admiration for these brave young cavalry leaders.
Staten Island and East New Jersey had not offered him as great
opportunities for distinction as they had had. It was, therefore, Miss
Sally who next spoke.
"Well, Heaven knows there are enough on either side to devastate the
land and rob us of comfort and peace. One wakes in the middle of the
night, at the clatter of horses riding by like the wind, and wonders
whether it's friend or foe, and trembles till they're out of hearing,
for fear the door is to be broken in or the house fired. And the sound
of shots in the night, and the distant glare of flames when some poor
farmer's home is burned over his head!"
"Ay," added Mr. Valentine, "and all the cattle and crops go to the
foragers, so it's no use raising any more than you can hide away for
your own larder."
Elizabeth was beginning to be bored, and saw nothing to gain from a
continuation of these recitals. Doubtless, by this time, her room was
lighted and warm. So, thoughtless of Colden, she mounted the first
step of the stairway, and said:
"I have no doubt Williams has contrived to hide away enough provisions
for _our_ use. So _I_ sha'n't suffer from hunger, and as for Lee's
Light Horse, I defy them and all other rebels. Come, aunt Sally!"
She had ascended as far as to the fourth step of the stairway, and
Miss Sally was about to follow, when there was heard, above the wind's
moaning, another sound of galloping horses. Like the previous similar
sound, it came from the north.
Elizabeth stopped and stood on the fourth step. Miss Sally raised her
finger to bid silence. Colden's attitude became one of anxious
attention, while he dropped his hat on the settle and drew his cloak
close about him, so that it concealed his uniform, sword, and pistol.
The galloping continued.
When time came for it to turn off eastward, as it would do should the
riders take the road to Mile Square, it did not so. Instead, as the
sound unmistakably indicated, it came on down the post-road.
"Hessians, perhaps!" Miss Sally whispered.
"Or De Lancey's Cowboys," said Valentine, but not in a whisper.
Elizabeth cast a sharp look at the old man, as if to show disapproval
of his use of the Whigs' nickname for De Lancey's troop. But the
octogenarian did not quail.
"They're riding towards the manor-house," he added, a moment later.
"Let us hope they're friends," said Colden, in a tone low and slightly
unsteady.
Elizabeth disdained to whisper.
"Maybe it is Lee's Light Horse," she said, in her usual voice, but
ironically, addressing Valentine. "In that case we should tremble for
our lives, I suppose."
"Whoever they are, they've stopped before the house!" said Miss Sally,
in quite a tremble.
There was a noise of horses pawing and snorting outside, of directions
being given rapidly, and of two or three horses leaving the main band
for another part of the grounds. Then was heard a quick, firm step on
the porch floor, and in the same instant a sharp, loud knock on the
door.
No one in the hall moved; all looked at Elizabeth.
"A very valiant knock!" said she, with more irony. "It certainly
_must_ be Lee's Light Horse. Will you please open the door, Colden?"
"What?" ejaculated Colden.
"Certainly," said Elizabeth, turning on the stairway, so as to face
the door; "to show we're not afraid."
Jack Colden looked at her a moment demurringly, then went to the door,
undid the fastenings, and threw it open, keeping his cloak close about
him and immediately stepping back into the shadow.
A handsome young officer strode in, as if 'twere a mighty gust of wind
that sent him. He wore a uniform of blue with red facings,--a uniform
that had seen service,--was booted and spurred, without greatcoat or
cloak. A large pistol was in his belt, and his left hand rested on the
hilt of a sword. He swept past Colden, not seeing him; came to a stop
in the centre of the hall, and looked rapidly around from face to
face.
"Your servant, ladies and gentlemen!" he said, with a swift bow and a
flourish of his dragoon's hat. His eye rested on Elizabeth.
"Who are you?" she demanded, coldly and imperiously, from the fourth
step.
"I'm Captain Peyton, of Lee's Light Horse," said he.