AT THE SIGN OF THE GEORGE.
As they proceeded, Dick laughingly alluded to the time when, at the age
of four, he had started out on this same road, thinking it would take
him to Paris in a few hours.
"And wha kens," said MacAlister, in all seriousness, "but this same road
may yet lead ye there, or to Chiney, for that matter? Him that sets out
on a journey knowing where 'twill land him is a wiser man nor you and
me, my son!"
Presently MacAlister fell behind, and was soon lost to sight as Dick
rode on. By and by Dick dismounted, tied the horse to a tree by the
path, and went on afoot. When he had walked about an hour, he was
overtaken and passed by MacAlister, on the horse, which Tom, on coming
up to it, had untied and mounted. Walking on alone, Dick in due time
found the horse tied at the path's side, and mounted to overtake and
pass Tom in turn. He caught up to his comrade at the place where, it had
been decided, they should cross the Juniata, which they did on
horseback together, partly by fording and partly by swimming the horse.
Proceeding as before, and not losing the time to cross to the island for
a visit to Dick's grandfather when they reached the Susquehanna, they
came at nightfall to the house of a farmer on the west bank of that
river, and lodged there. At early dawn they were on their way again, and
just as the sun rose Dick reached the crest of the farthest mountains
southeast of his home. Who could describe his feelings as he looked for
the first time over the fair wooded country that rolled afar towards the
purple and golden east? Did his mother, at this moment, looking towards
the farthest azure line, know he was there at last, and that he saw what
the birds had seen that he had so often envied when they flew eastward?
"Get up!" he cried, and urged his horse down the eastern mountainside
towards his future.
Riding and tying, the two comrades came to Harris's ferry-house, whence
they crossed the Susquehanna in a scow, to the small collection of low
buildings--stone residence, old storehouse for skins, blockhouse for
defence, and others--which then constituted Harrisburg. While they were
crossing, the ferryman at the pole entertained them with anecdotes of
the parents of the John Harris of that day,--how they were sturdy
Yorkshire people; how the wife Esther once in time of necessity rode all
the way to Philadelphia in one day on the same horse; how she was once
up the river on a trading trip to Big Island, and heard of her husband's
illness and came down in a bark canoe in a day and a night; how she was
a good trader, and could write, and had boxed the ears of many an Indian
chief when he was drunk; how she could swim as well as a man and handle
firearms as well as any hunter; how she worked at the building of her
brick house five miles up the Susquehanna; how she once ran up-stairs
and took from a cask of powder a lighted candle that her maid had
mistakenly stuck in the bung-hole; how the then present John Harris was
the first white child born thereabouts and was taken to Philadelphia to
be baptized in Christ's Church. Dick would have liked to see the inside
of the church at Paxton, three miles from Harrisburg, because one of his
acquaintances, having got a girl into trouble, had made public
confession before the congregation there, praying in the usual formula:
"For my own game,
Have done this shame,
Pray restore me to my lands again."
He would have liked, also, to seek out some member of the gang of
"Paxton Boys" that had killed the Conestogo Indians in Lancaster County,
in 1764, and get the other side of that story, which was generally
accepted as one of unwarranted massacre of friendly natives. But the
impulse to press forward overcame the other, and the travellers, having
followed the left bank of the Susquehanna, by the road which had been in
existence from Harris's since 1736, lodged on the second night of their
journey at a wooden tavern in the village of Middletown. The next
morning they turned directly eastward, their backs towards the
Susquehanna, and proceeded on the road to Lancaster. They now entered
the band of country settled by German Protestants, whose fertile farms
gave the slightly undulating land a soft and smiling appearance.
At noon, dining at a rude log hostelry, more farmhouse than tavern, they
were invited to drink by two thin, middle-aged, merry fellows, in brown
cloth coats and cocked hats, who said they were Philadelphia merchants
returning from a view of some interior land which they intended to
purchase for the purpose of developing trade. They invited Tom and Dick
to drink with them, laughed so boisterously at Tom's sage jokes, and
expressed so much admiration of Dick's intelligence and book-learning,
that when all four left the tavern to proceed eastward, Dick and Tom,
seeing that the two jolly merchants were afoot, took counsel together
and agreed to share with them the use of the horse. This generous idea
was engendered by a hint that one of the merchants made in jest. The
horse was a huge animal and could easily bear any two of four such thin
men as were those concerned. Lots were cast to determine which two
should be the pair to mount first. One of the two merchants held the
straws, and as a result of the drawing he and his companion got on the
horse together and started. A turn in the road hid them from view in
half a minute. Dick and MacAlister were about to follow afoot, when they
were reminded by the tavern-keeper that the drinks taken at the
merchants' invitation were yet to be paid for.
"Bedad," said Tom, "our friends were so busy laughing at my tale of the
ensign's wife at the battle of Minden, they forgot to settle the score."
Dick, who had been provided with sufficient silver to see him to
Philadelphia, besides his two gold pieces, speedily paid the bill, and
the two comrades resumed their journey. After several minutes of
silence, Tom expressed some belated surprise at the fact that two
substantial merchants should be travelling afoot. Dick replied that
there must be some interesting reason for so unusual a circumstance.
"Ay," said Tom, "we'll speer them when we catch up to them." The two
trudged on. By and by Dick began to look, each time the road made a
turn, for the horse standing at the side of the way, accordingly to
agreement. An hour had passed since the tavern had been left behind.
Another hour followed. At last Dick broke the silence:
"Is it likely our friends may have lost their way?"
Tom MacAlister drew a deep breath and replied:
"Devil a bit is it them that's lost their way! It's us that's lost our
horse."
"Why, what do you mean? Two such worthy Philadelphia merchants!"
"Philadelphia nothing! I'll warrant they do be a pair of rascals from
the Connecticut settlement in the Wyoming Valley, turned out of the
community for such-like tricks as they've played on us new-born babes.
That's the effect on me of twelve years' residence in the wilderness. My
son, it's time we throwed off our state of innocence and braced
ourselves to meet the mickle deviltry of the world. Richard, lad, I tell
it to ye now, though ye'll no mind it till ye've had it pounded into ye
by sore experience, your fellow man is kittle cattle, and your fellow
woman more so!"
They might have had to walk all the way to Lancaster but that they were
overtaken by a train of pack-horses from Carlisle, and paid the
pack-driver to shift the horses' loads and give them the use of one of
the animals. At evening they arrived at Lancaster, which then had some
thousands of inhabitants and was to Dick quite a busy and town-like
place. He saw the prison where the Indian chief Murhancellin had been
confined on being apprehended by Captain Jack's hunters for the murder
of three Juniata men the previous year. Dick went to see the barracks,
the Episcopal and German churches, and a house where some of the famous
Lancaster stockings were made. He gazed with wonder and hidden
disapproval at the long beards of the Omish men, and enjoyed the bustle
of horses and wagons before the excellent tavern where he and Tom passed
the night. The next morning the two got seats in one of the huge covered
wagons engaged in the trade between Philadelphia and the interior. They
dined at the Duke of Cumberland Tavern, and put up at evening at the
sign of the Ship, thirty-five miles from Philadelphia. This distance was
covered the next day, and a little before sunset, the wagon having
crossed the picturesque Schuylkill by the Middle Ferry and passed under
beautiful trees down the High Street road, through the Governor's Woods
and by brick kilns and verdant commons, and across little water-courses
spanned by wooden bridges, Dick set his eyes on Philadelphia, whose
spires and dormer windows reflected the level sun rays, and whose trim
brick and wooden houses rose among leafy gardens. The town then had
about thirty thousand people, and lay close along the Delaware, its
built-up portion extending at the widest part about seven or eight
streets from the river, not counting the alleys and by-streets. As the
wagon lumbered down High Street, which was then popularly (as it is now
officially) known as Market Street, Dick kept his emotions to himself,
satisfying his curiosity without betraying it, and in no outward way
disclosing how novel to him was the actual sight, which neither excelled
nor fell short of the scene he had so often imagined, much as it
differed from it in general appearance. At Fourth Street, as the wagon
continued east, the houses began to be quite close together. At Third,
the markets began, and ran thence down the middle of the street towards
the Delaware. The wagon, with its eight horses, stopped for some reason
at the Indian King Tavern, near Third Street, whereupon Tom and Dick,
having settled with the wagoner, and not intending to lodge at that inn,
proceeded afoot down Market Street, a part of which was paved with
stones and had a narrow sidewalk for foot-passengers. This last-named
convenience was one that even some of the first cities of Europe then
lacked.
The animation of the streets quite put to shame Dick's recollections of
the little bustle at Lancaster. The rifles and baggage of the two did
not attract much attention among the citizens and tradespeople, in those
days of much hunting, and especially at a time when there was already
talk of new military companies forming, when the provincial militia was
drilling and recruiting, and when men were coming to town to offer the
colonies their services in the event of general revolt. Delegates were
already arriving from other colonies to attend the Second Continental
Congress, which was to meet on the tenth.
As the two comrades approached the London Coffee House, at Front and
Market Streets, they saw three well-dressed citizens issue from the door
and greet with the utmost respect a stocky old gentleman who had just
turned in from Front Street, and whose face was both venerable and
worldly, kind and shrewd, while his plain brown coat took nothing from
his look of distinction, and his walking-stick seemed quite unnecessary
to one whose vigor was still that of youth. He cordially responded to
the three gentlemen, the first of whom detained him for the purpose of
introducing the third. The name by which the old gentleman was addressed
startled Dick for the moment out of his self-possession, and he stopped
and stared with unfeigned curiosity and pleasure. It was his first sight
of a world-famous man, and the writer of Poor Richard's Almanac, whose
proverbs every Pennsylvanian knew by heart, the celebrated philosopher,
the wise agent of the provinces, who had just returned from London, lost
nothing in Dick's admiration from the youth's visual inspection of his
face and person.
While Doctor Franklin stood talking with the three, Dick and Tom went on
past Front and Water Streets, turned down along the wharves, and
presently arrived at their recommended destination, the Crooked Billet
Inn, which stood at the end of an alley on a wharf above Chestnut
Street. The two engaged lodging for the night, bestowed their
belongings, and went for supper to Pegg Mullen's Beefsteak House, at the
southeast corner of Water Street and Mullen's Alley. Having devoured one
of the steaks for which that house was famous, and as it was not yet
dark, Dick proposed a walk about the city. But Tom demurred as to
himself, and said in a low tone, turning his eye towards a party of
young gentlemen who sat at a near-by table:
"Go and see the sights, lad, and ye'll meet me at the Crooked Billet
some time before the hour of setting out, the morning. I've other fish
to fry, for a private purpose of my own. And should ye see me in company
with yon roisterers, mind to call me captain or not at all, for I'm bent
on introducing myself to their acquaintance, and that'll require me
belonging to the quality."
Dick looked at the group indicated, which consisted of a handsome,
insolent-looking young man of about twenty-five and three gay dogs of
the same age, whose loud conversation had dealt exclusively with cards
and other implements of fortune. With no hope or wish of fathoming
MacAlister's designs, Dick paid the bill (for his friend was almost
without money), and left the eating-house. He first inspected parts of
Water and Front Streets, where many rich merchants lived over their
shops; then viewed the handsomer residences in South Second Street; saw
the City Tavern and some of the well-dressed people resorting there;
looked at Carpenter's Hall, where the Congress had met the preceding
year; walked out to the State House, crossed Chestnut Street therefrom,
to drink at the sign of the Coach and Horses, the old rough-dashed
tavern nestling amidst great walnut-trees; loitered on the bridge to
look down at Dock Creek each time he crossed that stream. When, at dusk,
the street lamps were lighted (for, thanks to Franklin, Philadelphia had
long possessed the best street lamps in the world), the town assumed
what to Dick was a fairylike appearance. Of the people he saw in the
streets, perhaps a third wore the broadbrims of the Quakers. A few of
the faces were of the German type, but most were of the unmistakable
English character, and from such of these as were not Quaker a trained
observer might easily have picked out a Church of England person or a
Dissenter at sight. On first entering the city Dick had been struck with
the prettiness of the young women, but now that night had fallen and he
had returned to the vicinity of the river, the few of the fair that he
saw abroad were of rather bedraggled appearance.
As he walked along the wharves, listening to the lap of the tide against
the piles and vessels, he heard a sharp scream of mingled pain and
anger, in a feminine voice. Looking quickly towards the wharf whence it
came, he saw, in the light from the corner of a small warehouse, a young
woman recoiling from the blow of a sailor who was about to strike her
again. She dodged the second blow, and the sailor made ready to deliver
a third, but before he could do so Dick's fist landed on the side of his
head and he dropped to the wharf, dazed and limp. Dick then took off his
hat to the woman, who was a slender creature of about twenty, dressed
with a cheap attempt at gaiety. With quite attractive large eyes, she
quickly viewed Dick from head to foot.
"Rely on my protection, madam," said he, tingling with exultation at
having had so early an opportunity to figure as a rescuer of assailed
womankind.
"I am afraid he will follow me," said the girl, in a low tone, glancing
at the sailor, after her examination of Dick's appearance.
"He will do so at his peril, if you'll accept my arm to the place
where you are going," said Dick, with great gallantry and inward
self-applause.
The girl took the proffered arm, cast a final look at the sailor, who
was foggily trying to get on his legs, and led Dick off at a rapid gait.
They had turned into an alley towards Water Street before the sailor had
fully regained his senses. Up Water Street the girl went, giving Dick
the opportunity to see, by a window light or a street lamp here and
there, that her features, though pale, were well formed. For beauty they
lacked only something in expression. After passing several streets, the
girl turned into another alley that led towards the river, stopped at a
mean two-story wooden house half way down, and asked her preserver to
come in and accept some refreshment. He did so with alacrity, and found
himself in a small room beneath the rafters, the floor bare, the single
window broken in most of its small panes, a tumble-down bed taking up
half the apartment, a broken wooden chair beside a dressing-table, the
whole lighted by a single tallow candle that the girl obtained
down-stairs. Without consulting her guest, she called to some invisible
person below for brandy and water, with two tumblers. Dick sat on the
chair, his hostess on the bed, both in silence, till the liquor was
brought by a fat, red-faced woman with unkempt hair, who grinned amiably
at Dick, and departed only after several suggestive looks at the brandy.
Her fishing for an invitation to partake was all in vain, being
unobserved by the inexperienced Dick.
When he was alone with the heroine of his first adventure, and the
brandy had been tasted, Dick undertook to overcome her reticence, being
sure that she had some story of unmerited misfortune to tell. She soon
gratified him with a tale as harrowing as might have been found anywhere
in fiction. She was the daughter of people of quality who had lost their
all through the schemes of designing persons, and her only weapon
against starvation was her needle. She had that evening delivered some
sewing to the wife of a sea-captain on his vessel, which was to sail
that night, and it was on her return therefrom that she had been
accosted by the sailor, whose blows were elicited by the repulse she had
given him. Her face became more animated as she talked, and Dick began
to think her fascinating. Brandy was called for and served repeatedly,
and at last the red-faced woman who brought it said she was going to bed
and could serve no more that night, and her bill was ten shillings. Dick
promptly paid, forgetting that he was the invited guest, and not
neglecting the occasion to show in a careless way how much money he
carried. The girl then told him that, as he would certainly find his
tavern closed should he return to it at so late an hour, she would, in
spite of appearances and on account of his character and his services to
her, share her own poor accommodations with him for the rest of the
night. As Dick was now in a state in which he would have solicited this
favor had it not been offered, he readily accepted.
When he awoke, at dawn, he found himself alone. Taking up his waistcoat
to put it on, he noticed that a certain inner pocket did not bulge as
usually. A swift investigation disclosed that all his money had
disappeared, silver as well as gold. There was not a sign of his hostess
left in the bare, squalid room. He hastened down the steep, narrow
stairs, and met, in the entry below, the red-faced servitor, of whom he
inquired the whereabouts of the girl. The fat woman professed entire
ignorance of all occurrences since she had left the young people the
night before. From that moment to this, she said, she had slept like a
top, and from her reply Dick learned that she was the proprietress of
the house, and that the unfortunate daughter of people of quality was a
new lodger, of whom she knew nothing. A theory formed itself in Dick's
mind, and he hastened from the house to the Crooked Billet, where he was
astonished to find Tom MacAlister just arrived from a night, like
Dick's, passed elsewhere than at that inn. Dick rapidly recounted his
adventure to Tom, over a morning glass at the bar, and ended his
narration with the words:
"Do you know what her disappearance means?"
"What?" grunted Tom.
"It means that my robbers have carried her away in order to silence all
evidence of their crime! Or, maybe, the sailor tracked us and procured a
gang to abduct her, and robbed me in doing so, either in revenge or to
pay his accomplices!"
"Huh! Ye're ower fu' of them there things ye read in the novel-books,
Dickie, lad."
"By George, this proves that real life is sometimes very like the
novels! I hope this affair will end like them. We must find the girl,
Tom; we must rescue her!"
"Be jabers, we maun be spry about it, then, for the New York stage-coach
starts from the sign of the George in an hour."
"Come, then! But I won't leave Philadelphia till I've found her, though
we have to wait for another day's stage-coach. Come, Tom, for God's sake
don't be so slow!"
Tom indeed walked so deliberately from the Crooked Billet that Dick had
to accelerate his progress by tugging at his arm. Dick hurried him up
along the wharves, without the slightest plan of action formed. "Bide a
wee," said Tom, presently; "sure, there's no arriving anywhere till
ye've laid out your line of march. Come wi' me into yon tavern, and
we'll plan a campaign in decency and order." Dick saw the good sense of
this, and turned with Tom up an alley towards a wretched-looking place,
of which the use was indicated alike by its dirty sign and by the sounds
of drunken merriment issuing from its windows. As Dick and Tom entered,
they saw by whom those sounds were produced,--a sailor and a young woman
drinking together in great good-fellowship at a table. Dick recognized
both,--the sailor whom he had knocked down the night before, the girl in
whose defence he had knocked him down. Both looked up as he entered, and
the girl burst out laughing in a jeering, drunken fashion. "That's him,"
she said to her companion, who thereupon began to bellow mirthfully to
himself, regarding Dick with mingled curiosity and amusement.
"Wha might your friends be?" queried MacAlister of Dick.
"Come away," said Dick, a little huskily; and when the two were out in
the alley, whither the derisive shouts of the pair inside followed them,
he added, "If the stage goes in an hour, we'd better be taking our
things to the sign of the George."
"But your money? 'Twas a canny quantity of coin ye had in the bit pocket
there."
"Damn the money! I couldn't prove anything, and I want to get away from
here. But--by the lord, how can we go on without money?"
"Whist, lad! If some folk choose to spend the nicht a-losing of their
coin, there's others knows how to tell a different tale the morning. Do
ye mind the braw soldier-looking lad I proposed to thrust my company
on, in the beefsteak house? If I didn't introduce myself as Captain
MacAlister, retired on half pay from his Majesty's army, and if I didn't
pile up a bonny pile of yellow boys through handling the cards wi' him
and his pals in his room at the George all nicht, then I'm seven kinds
of a liar, and may all my days be Fridays! Oh, Dickie, lad, a knowledge
of the cards, ye'll find, comes in handy at mony a place in the journey
through this wicked, greedy, grasping world!" And old Tom made one of
his pockets jingle as he finished.
The two travellers returned to the Crooked Billet, paid for the lodging
they had not used, got their weapons and baggage, and went to Second
Street and thereon north to Arch, at the southwest corner of which the
sign of St. George battling with the dragon hung before the fine and
famous inn where the stage-coaches departed and arrived. The "Flying
Machine" was already drawn up before the entrance, the horses snorting
and pawing in impatience to start. Dick and Tom saw their belongings
safely stowed in the coach, which was a flat-roofed vehicle simple and
plain in shape, and loitered before the inn, watching the hostlers and
enjoying the fine spring sunshine, while MacAlister gave Dick a further
description of the card-playing young man from whom much of the money
had been won.
"I took the more joy in winning," added Tom, "for because the young buck
showed himsel' sic a masterfu', overbearing de'il and ill-natured loser,
not at all like his friend wi' the French name, who dropped his round
shiners like a gentleman. And mind here, now, take heed to call me
captain should they fa' in wi' us on the way to New York, for, frae the
talk of them, I conjecture that them and the Frenchman's sister start
the morning hame-bound for Quebec, on their ain horses."
"Do they come from Quebec?"
"Ay, on business for the Frenchman and his sister, wha, it seems, cam'
in for the proceeds of some estate in this town, them being of English
bluid on the mother's side. That I gathered frae the Frenchman's talk
wi' a man of the law wha called while his hot-headed friend and
me and the others were at the cards. Ah, now I mind the friend's
name,--Blagdon, Lieutenant Blagdon; for, bechune you and me, he's a
King's officer on leave of absence frae Quebec, only he keeps it quiet
just now, lest the mob might throw a stane or two his way."
"Then what's he doing here?"
"Bearing company to the Frenchman and his sister. It's like there's
summat bechune him and the girl, though devil a bit could I find that
out, wi' all my speering. But come, lad, while we ha' our choice of
seats."
They entered the coach, where they were soon joined by other passengers.
While Dick was watching the driver on the front seat take up lines and
whip, three horses were brought from the yard, and at the same time two
young gentlemen and a young lady came out of the inn and stood ready to
mount. Dick did not observe them until his attention was called from the
driver by some low-spoken words of MacAlister's:
"That's a sour-faced return for a friendly salutation! 'Tis the English
lieutenant that gave me a scowl for my bow. Sure, the French Canadian
has more civility."
By this time the three were mounted. Dick at once recognized the
robust but surly-looking young man on the right as the arrogant talker
of the beefsteak house, and the rather slight but good-looking and
well-mannered youth on the left as one of the other's companions there.
The lady between the two was partly concealed from Dick's view by the
English officer, until with a crack of the driver's whip the stage-coach
pulled out, when, by looking back, he had a full sight of her. The sight
caused his lips to part and himself to throw all his consciousness into
his eyes alone.
Catherine de St. Valier, daughter of a younger branch of the noble
French Canadian family of that name, was then in her seventeenth year,
tall and well developed for her age, in carriage erect without
stiffness, her face oval in shape with chin full but not too sharp or
too strong, nose straight and delicate, dainty ears, forehead about
whose sides hair of dark brown fell in curves but left the middle
uncovered, brows finely arched and high above the eyes, which were of a
piercing black and never too wide open, full red lips, complexion pale
but clear, with a very faint touch of red in each cheek, her countenance
dignified and made doubly interesting by a slight frown ever present
save when she smiled, which was rarely and then naturally and with no
gush of overpowering sweetness. The slightly thrown-back attitude of her
head was no affectation, but was a family characteristic, possessed also
by her brother.
"What is it, lad?" whispered MacAlister, catching Dick's arm. "Sure,
ye'll be leaving that head of yours behind ye in the road if ye bean't
carefu'!"
"Sure," Dick murmured, as he drew his head in, "I think I've left this
heart of mine back yonder under the sign of the George."
Tom gave a low whistle. "Weel, weel," he then said, "it 'ull soon catch
up, for this Flying Machine, as they call it, is no match for them
Virginia pacers the Canadian folk is mounted on."
This prediction was soon fulfilled. Ere the stage-coach had passed the
outskirts of the city, a little above Vine Street, the three riders had
cantered by at a gait that promised soon to take them far ahead.
"Nay, don't be cast down," quoth Tom. "We're like to run across them on
the journey, and they'll have to wait in New York for their baggage,
which goes by wagon. I mind now, frae the gentlemen's talk, they'll go
up the Hudson by sloop till Albany, then by horse again to Montreal, and
then by the St. Lawrence to Quebec. What a pity they don't be bound for
Boston,--eh, lad! But whist, Dickie! The sea do be full of good fish,
and it's mony a sonsie face ye'll be drawing deep breaths about, now
ye're over the hills and far away,--and ganging furder every turn of the
coach-wheels."