Produced by Dennis Hyer
KATE AYLESFORD
A STORY OF THE REFUGEES
BY CHARLES J. PETERSON
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said
This is my own, my native land.”
—Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Philadelphia:
T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
NEW YORK: J. C. DERBY.
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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
A. H. SIMMONS & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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CONTENTS
I. THE NIGHT AT SEA
II. KATE AYLESFORD
III. THE SHIPWRECK
IV. MORNING
V. THE COUNTRY TAVERN
VI. MAJOR GORDON
VII. THE ABORTIVE ATTEMPT
VIII. THE RESCUE
IX. SWEETWATER
X. ARAB
XI. THE RIDE
XII. UNCLE LAWRENCE
XIII. KATE
XIV. THE MARCH ON TRENTON
XV. THE FIRE IN THE WOODS
XVI. THE MISUNDERSTANDING
XVII. JEALOUSY
XVIII. THE COUNTRY CHURCH
XIX. THE MEETING
XX. THE INTERRUPTION
XXI. AYLESFORD AND MRS. WARREN
XXII. AYLESFORD AND KATE
XXIII. THE REFUGEE'S HUT
XXIV. THE PLOT
XXV. TREACHERY
XXVI. POMP'S ADVENTURE
XXVII. THE ABDUCTION
XXVIII. THE VOLUNTEERS
XXIX. CHESTNUT NECK
XXX. THE PURSUIT
XXXI. THE REFUGEE REVEL
XXXII. THE ATTACK
XXXIII. THE SACK OF CHESTNUT NECK
XXXIV. THE REPULSE
XXXV. THE DEATH-BED
XXXVI. THE ESCAPE
XXXVII. INTERCEPTED
XXXVIII. THE FLIGHT
XXXIX. THE BLOODHOUND
XL. POMP AGAIN
XLI. THE PRISONERS
XLII. THE RELEASE
XLIII. PULASKI
XLIV. THE PURSUIT
XLV. THE DEATH-SHOT
XLVI. SWEETWATER AGAIN
XLVII. THE ORPHAN CHILD
XLVIII. THE AYLESFORD MANSION
XLIX. MAGGY
L. A WEDDING IN 1780
LI. FAREWELL
CHAPTER I.
THE NIGHT AT SEA
“Beautiful!
I linger yet with nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man.” — Byron.
“The silver light, with quivering glance,
Play’d on the water’s still expanse.” — Scott.
It was out on the broad Atlantic. The sun had just set, red and
colossal, behind a bank of clouds, leaving the whole firmament around
him in a blaze of glory. Far along the western horizon, where the hollow
dome of the sky cut the level plain of waters, a streak of vivid gold
was seen, which grew less and less luminous, however, as it curved
around to north and south, until finally it faded off, at either
extremity, into the misty shadows of approaching night. Above this were
piled, in gorgeous confusion, purple and crimson clouds, the warmer
colors becoming fainter as they ascended, until a gold apple green
prevailed. This itself subsided, towards the zenith, into a pure,
transparent blue, in whose fathomless depths appeared a solitary silver
star, that shone there like the altar light, which twinkles alone in the
profound obscurity of some vast and silent cathedral.
Two persons, on the quarter-deck of an armed merchant man, were gazing
at this scene. One was an elderly lady, precise in dress and look, the
very type of a conventional and somewhat pompous old dowager. Her
companion was a young girl just budding into womanhood, and of a beauty
as peculiar as it was dazzling. The attitude in which she stood, though
assumed without a thought, was just that which an artist would have
chosen for her. The tiny left foot, with its high instep and slender
ankle, peeped from beneath her petticoat as she leaned on her right arm
to watch the sunset; the round shoulder, white as milk, yet with a warm
tint like rich Carrara marble, was slightly elevated; while the shapely
set of the swan-like neck, the trim waist, and the undulating outline of
her whole person were more than ordinarily conspicuous. As she stood,
her head was partially turned, so that one could see that her complexion
was brilliantly clear; that she had a small, red and pouting mouth; that
her eyes were so darkly blue as to seem almost purple; and that her
hair, which swept in rippling masses from her forehead, as in a Greek
statue, was of that rare color, which, though brown in shadow, flashes
into fleeting gold whenever a sunbeam strikes it.
“How beautiful!” she said, after a long silence, drawing a deep
breath that seemed almost a sigh.
The words, though rather a soliloquy than a remark intended for her
companion, nevertheless drew a reply from the latter.
“Yes! niece,” answered the dame, briskly, “I wish our cousin, Lord
Danville, could see this sunset. He won’t believe that we have skies,
in America, equal to those of Italy.”
“We must be near the coast,” said the niece, after another long
pause. “We don’t find such sunsets up on the Banks.”
“In about two days we shall be at New York, the captain says.”
There was a third silence. The clouds in the west had now lost most of
their gorgeous tints. They were generally of a deep purple, almost
approaching to black, with only their edges tinged here and there with
gold or crimson. Instead of lying, in fleecy piles, or hanging like
thick curtains drawn partially aside, as they had awhile before, they
were broken up into all sorts of fantastic shapes: castles and
battlements, mountains and deep valleys, towers and spires, vast
elephantine forms and figures, gigantic and weird as the Brocken: airy
dissolving views that were every moment changing.
One mass of these clouds the two persons we have introduced continued to
watch for some time. At first it had attracted their attention by its
striking similarity to Gibraltar, as it stretched darkly along the
horizon, like a colossal sleeping lion. Gradually the vapors spread
horizontally, and became almost shapeless. Then, suddenly, they assumed
form again, and there, plain to even the most unimaginative, was an old
woman in a short-gown, with one foot angrily uplifted, a pipe in her
mouth, and the most grotesque of all caps upon her head.
A light, silvery laugh broke from the young girl, and clapping her
hands, gleefully, she cried,
“Aunt, aunt, see!”
Even the stately dame smiled, but only for a moment, when she looked
more prim than ever, as if fearing she had lowered her dignity.
“The moon will rise directly,” she said, crossing to the opposite
side of the ship, whither her niece soon followed her.
In the eastern sky, the clouds were now of the richest amber, while
under them the ocean was suffused with a delicate rosy hue. These tints
slowly faded from both the firmament and sea, and darkness began to
accumulate upon the prospect. In the course of a quarter of an hour,
night had settled down. And now there appeared above a bank of cloud,
that lay like a range of dark hills on the seaboard, the upper edge of
the moon’s disc. Instantaneously a bit of moonlight glimmered on the
waters close under the side of the ship. As the planet gradually rose
from behind the cloud, like some huge burnished ball of copper, the line
of light extended itself to the eastern horizon, a tremulous bridge of
silver.
It was but a little while, however, that the bright orb shone unclouded.
The whole firmament, indeed, was fast becoming flecked by vapory masses:
and one of these soon floated between the moon and the spectators. In a
few moments the planet was entirely concealed. But far away, almost on
the utmost verge of the horizon, her light, still shining from behind
the cloud, lay on the waters beneath, like a silver lake on a blue and
solitary plain. Gradually this began to contract, lessening and
lessening until it seemed a mere thread of light along the sea-board;
and then a low, white sand-bank: after which it vanished altogether.
Simultaneously the upper edge of the obscuring cloud showed a faint
pearly lining, which the instant after brightened into silver. Soon the
tip of the moon’s disc appeared; and once more the waves beneath the
spectators began to glitter with the planet’s wake, which directly
bridged the undulating deep again; the crests of the dark waves, and
even their higher sides, sparkling and shining as if discharging
electricity.
“It is like a scene in the Arabian Nights,” enthusiastically
exclaimed the younger female. “But see,” she added, shortly after,
“see again!” The animated speaker caught her aunt’s arm, as she
spoke, while she pointed to a new variation in the brilliant scene
before them.
Another cloud was now approaching the moon, and in such a way, that its
shadow fell like a bridge of ebony, right across her wake. In a few
minutes, the planet had vanished a second time; a second time the lake
of silver shone on the far-off plain of blue; the white coast-line
followed; the momentary darkness recurred again; and the moon again
emerging, walked up the firmament, in cloudless majesty, like some
majestic, white-robed virgin.
For nearly an hour the two females remained watching the changes of this
lovely night. Not the least beautiful spectacle were the moonbeams
shining on the snowy sails, which rose above the beholders, cloud on
cloud, until the upper ones almost seemed lost in the sky. The single
star still twinkled over head, swinging backwards and forwards past the
mainmast, as the ship careened and rose in the freshening breeze.
Few words were spoken. The younger of the two passengers, absorbed
completely in the loveliness of the night, had lost herself in a
succession of those bewitching dreams which haunt the imagination in
youth. The dim obscurity of the scene, when the moon was hidden for any
considerable period, affected her with a sense as of the presence of
eternity; and when her relative, complaining that the air grew cool,
proposed an adjournment to the cabin, she was astonished to see her
niece’s eyes full of tears.
“I think it will rain,” said the aunt, scarcely knowing what to say,
yet wishing to dissipate what she supposed must be sad thoughts of the
past.
“The wind sighs mournfully,” answered her companion, vacantly, as if
pursuing some secret train of thought, “mournfully as a lost child,
alone on a moor, calling for its mother.”
Again the dame looked at her. But there were often thoughts and feelings
in the imaginative niece, which the good prosaic lady could not
comprehend; and so she wisely made no reply, but called the captain, who
stood not far off.
“Will we continue to have clear weather, captain?” she said. “It
would be a pity, after so fine a voyage, to meet a storm at the end.”
“A night like this is no sign of the morrow, ma’am,” was the
reply. “I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was to blow great guns
before morning. The wind has a treacherous feel about it.”
“Dear me, you frighten us,” exclaimed the good lady, with a slight
scream, and visibly turning paler.
“Your niece does not look scared, at any rate, Mrs. Warren,” said
the captain, laughingly, as the young girl raised herself, proud and
self-collected, at her aunt’s remark. “I confess that I almost
regret we have had no storm,” he added, “for I would like to see
Miss Aylesford’s courage put to the test. She looks as if nothing
would make her afraid.”
“Oh! she’ll be the death of me yet,” replied the aunt, “she’s
so reckless. You’d tremble to see her ride, captain, leaping fences
and galloping like a wild huntsman. She’ll get thrown and killed yet:
she has, all the time, such fractious horses; I never had a minute’s
peace in England, and I’m sure I shan’t have any here either.”
“Never fear, aunty,” said the niece, affectionately, putting her arm
around the other’s waist, and yet with something of the manner with
which one would soothe a timorous child. “I’ll not be so lucky as to
be thrown romantically from my horse, like heroines in novels, and
rescued by some handsome cavalier—”
“Nonsense, child.”
“Whom I shall marry, of course—”
“How foolish you talk.”
“Even if I run away with him—”
“Pshaw!” said the aunt, quite vexed, not noticing the laughing
glance which her niece directed towards the captain.
“Well, come then, I was wrong,” said the gay girl, kissing her, “I
won’t keep you out in this chill night air. See, I’ll wrap your
shawl close about you. Captain Powell will take good care of us even if
it does storm.”
With these words, they bade the captain good night and descended to
their cabin. The skipper continued walking the deck, for some time,
listening to the rising wind, and occasionally looking up to the clouds
that now began to scud swiftly across the sky.
“I was foolish to say even a word to alarm the good old soul,” he
remarked at last, as if conversing to himself. “I’ve seen worse
nights than this turn into a clear morning. Besides, we have a stout
ship and a good offing.”
So speaking, he dismissed all idea of possible danger.