I
The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Morristown, New
Jersey.
It was bitterly cold. A northeasterly wind had been stiffening the mud
of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's wayfaring on
the Baskingridge road. The hoof-prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left
by baggage-wagons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery, lay stark
and cold in the waning light of an April day. There were icicles on
the fences, a rime of silver on the windward bark of maples, and
occasional bare spots on the rocky protuberances of the road, as if
Nature had worn herself out at the knees and elbows through long
waiting for the tardy spring. A few leaves disinterred by the thaw
became crisp again, and rustled in the wind, making the summer a thing
so remote that all human hope and conjecture fled before them.
Here and there the wayside fences and walls were broken down or
dismantled; and beyond them fields of snow downtrodden and discolored,
and strewn with fragments of leather, camp equipage, harness, and
cast-off clothing, showed traces of the recent encampment and
congregation of men. On some there were still standing the ruins of
rudely constructed cabins, or the semblance of fortification equally
rude and incomplete. A fox stealing along a half-filled ditch, a wolf
slinking behind an earthwork, typified the human abandonment and
desolation.
One by one the faint sunset tints faded from the sky; the far-off
crests of the Orange hills grew darker; the nearer files of pines on
the Whatnong Mountain became a mere black background; and, with the
coming-on of night, came too an icy silence that seemed to stiffen and
arrest the very wind itself. The crisp leaves no longer rustled; the
waving whips of alder and willow snapped no longer; the icicles no
longer dropped a cold fruitage from barren branch and spray; and the
roadside trees relapsed into stony quiet, so that the sound of horse's
hoofs breaking through the thin, dull, lustreless films of ice that
patched the furrowed road, might have been heard by the nearest
Continental picket a mile away.
Either a knowledge of this, or the difficulties of the road, evidently
irritated the viewless horseman. Long before he became visible, his
voice was heard in half-suppressed objurgation of the road, of his
beast, of the country folk, and the country generally. "Steady, you
jade!" "Jump, you devil, jump!" "Curse the road, and the beggarly
farmers that durst not mend it!" And then the moving bulk of horse and
rider suddenly arose above the hill, floundered and splashed, and then
as suddenly disappeared, and the rattling hoof-beats ceased.
The stranger had turned into a deserted lane still cushioned with
untrodden snow. A stone wall on one hand--in better keeping and
condition than the boundary monuments of the outlying fields--bespoke
protection and exclusiveness. Half-way up the lane the rider checked
his speed, and, dismounting, tied his horse to a wayside sapling. This
done, he went cautiously forward toward the end of the lane, and a
farm-house from whose gable window a light twinkled through the
deepening night. Suddenly he stopped, hesitated, and uttered an
impatient ejaculation. The light had disappeared. He turned sharply
on his heel, and retraced his steps until opposite a farm-shed that
stood a few paces from the wall. Hard by, a large elm cast the gaunt
shadow of its leafless limbs on the wall and surrounding snow. The
stranger stepped into this shadow, and at once seemed to become a part
of its trembling intricacies.
At the present moment it was certainly a bleak place for a tryst. There
was snow yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and a film of ice on
its bark; the adjacent wall was slippery with frost, and fringed with
icicles. Yet in all there was a ludicrous suggestion of some sentiment
past and unseasonable: several dislodged stones of the wall were so
disposed as to form a bench and seats, and under the elm-tree's film of
ice could still be seen carved on its bark the effigy of a heart,
divers initials, and the legend, "Thine Forever."
The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the farm-shed and
the open field beside it. Five minutes passed in fruitless expectancy.
Ten minutes! And then the rising moon slowly lifted herself over the
black range of the Orange hills, and looked at him, blushing a little,
as if the appointment were her own.
The face and figure thus illuminated were those of a strongly built,
handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in bearing that it needed not the
buff epaulets and facings to show his captain's rank in the Continental
army. Yet there was something in his facial expression that
contradicted the manliness of his presence,--an irritation and
querulousness that were inconsistent with his size and strength. This
fretfulness increased as the moments went by without sign or motion in
the faintly lit field beyond, until, in peevish exasperation, he began
to kick the nearer stones against the wall.
"Moo-oo-w!"
The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor that he had
failed to recognize in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested,
half-drowsy low of a cow, but that it was so near him--evidently just
beside the wall. If an object so bulky could have approached him so
near without his knowledge, might not she--
"Moo-oo!"
He drew nearer the wall cautiously. "So, Cushy! Mooly! Come up,
Bossy!" he said persuasively. "Moo"--but here the low unexpectedly
broke down, and ended in a very human and rather musical little laugh.
"Thankful!" exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a trifle uneasily
and affectedly as a hooded little head arose above the wall.
"Well," replied the figure, supporting a prettily rounded chin on her
hands, as she laid her elbows complacently on the wall,--"well, what
did you expect? Did you want me to stand here all night, while you
skulked moonstruck under a tree? Or did you look for me to call you by
name? did you expect me to shout out, 'Capt. Allan Brewster--'"
"Thankful, hush!"
"Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent," continued the
girl, with an affected raising of a low, pathetic voice that was,
however, inaudible beyond the tree. "Capt. Brewster, behold me,--your
obleeged and humble servant and sweetheart to command."
Capt. Brewster succeeded, after a slight skirmish at the wall, in
possessing himself of the girl's hand; at which; although still
struggling, she relented slightly.
"It isn't every lad that I'd low for," she said, with an affected pout,
"and there may be others that would not take it amiss; though there be
fine ladies enough at the assembly halls at Morristown as might think
it hoydenish?"
"Nonsense, love," said the captain, who had by this time mounted the
wall, and encircled the girl's waist with his arm. "Nonsense! you
startled me only. But," he added, suddenly taking her round chin in
his hand, and turning her face toward the moon with an uneasy
half-suspicion, "why did you take that light from the window? What has
happened?"
"We had unexpected guests, sweetheart," said Thankful: "the count just
arrived."
"That infernal Hessian!" He stopped, and gazed questioningly into her
face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was as
sweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two
inconstants understood each other.
"Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian, but an exiled gentleman from
abroad,--a nobleman--"
"There are no noblemen now," sniffed the trooper contemptuously.
"Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal."
"But they are not, Allan," said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in her
brows: "even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was dropped
last night by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose mother come by
herself in a ship from Surrey? Do they look equal?"
"Titles are but breath," said Capt. Brewster doggedly. There was an
ominous pause.
"Nay, there is one nobleman left," said Thankful; "and he is my
own,--my nature's nobleman!"
Capt. Brewster did not reply. From certain arch gestures and wreathed
smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied her statement,
it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stood before her was
the nobleman alluded to. At least, he so accepted it, and embraced her
closely, her arms and part of her mantle clinging around his neck. In
this attitude they remained quiet for some moments, slightly rocking
from side to side like a metronome; a movement, I fancy, peculiarly
bucolic, pastoral, and idyllic, and as such, I wot, observed by
Theocritus and Virgil.
At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps her wits about her
much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal; and, while
the gallant captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips, Miss
Thankful distinctly heard the farm-gate click, and otherwise noticed
that the moon was getting high and obtrusive. She half released
herself from the captain's arms, thoughtfully and tenderly--but firmly.
"Tell me all about yourself, Allan dear," she said quietly, making room
for him on the wall,--"all, everything."
She turned upon him her beautiful eyes,--eyes habitually earnest and
even grave in expression, yet holding in their brave brown depths a
sweet, childlike reliance and dependency; eyes with a certain tender,
deprecating droop in the brown-fringed lids, and yet eyes that seemed
to say to every man who looked upon them, "I am truthful: be frank with
me." Indeed, I am convinced there is not one of my impressible sex,
who, looking in those pleading eyes, would not have perjured himself on
the spot rather than have disappointed their fair owner.
Capt. Brewster's mouth resumed its old expression of discontent.
"Everything is growing worse, Thankful, and the cause is lost. Congress
does nothing, and Washington is not the man for the crisis. Instead of
marching to Philadelphia, and forcing that wretched rabble of Hancock
and Adams at the point of the bayonet, he writes letters."
"A dignified, formal old fool," interrupted Mistress Thankful
indignantly; "and look at his wife! Didn't Mistress Ford and Mistress
Baily, ay, and the best blood of Morris County, go down to his
Excellency's in their finest bibs and tuckers, and didn't they find my
lady in a pinafore doing chores? Vastly polite treatment, indeed! As
if the whole world didn't know that the general was taken by surprise
when my lady came riding up from Virginia with all those fine
cavaliers, just to see what his Excellency was doing at these assembly
balls. And fine doings, I dare say."
"This is but idle gossip, Thankful," said Capt. Brewster with the
faintest appearance of self-consciousness; "the assembly balls are
conceived by the general to strengthen the confidence of the townsfolk,
and mitigate the rigors of the winter encampment. I go there myself
rarely: I have but little taste for junketing and gavotting, with my
country in such need. No, Thankful! What we want is a leader; and the
men of Connecticut feel it keenly. If I have been spoken of in that
regard," added the captain with a slight inflation of his manly breast,
"it is because they know of my sacrifices,--because as New England
yeomen they know my devotion to the cause. They know of my suffering--"
The bright face that looked into his was suddenly afire with womanly
sympathy, the pretty brow was knit, the sweet eyes overflowed with
tenderness. "Forgive me, Allan. I forgot--perhaps, love--perhaps,
dearest, you are hungry now."
"No, not now," replied Captain Brewster, with gloomy stoicism; "yet,"
he added, "it is nearly a week since I have tasted meat."
"I--I--brought a few things with me," continued the girl, with a
certain hesitating timidity. She reached down, and produced a basket
from the shadow of the wall. "These chickens"--she held up a pair of
pullets--"the commander-in-chief himself could not buy: I kept them for
MY commander! And this pot of marmalade, which I know my Allan loves,
is the same I put up last summer. I thought [very tenderly] you might
like a piece of that bacon you liked so once, dear. Ah, sweetheart,
shall we ever sit down to our little board? Shall we ever see the end
of this awful war? Don't you think, dear [very pleadingly], it would
be best to give it up? King George is not such a very bad man, is he?
I've thought, sweetheart [very confidently], that mayhap you and he
might make it all up without the aid of those Washingtons, who do
nothing but starve one to death. And if the king only knew you,
Allan,--should see you as I do, sweetheart,--he'd do just as you say."
During this speech she handed him the several articles alluded to; and
he received them, storing them away in such receptacles of his clothing
as were convenient--with this notable difference, that with HER the act
was graceful and picturesque: with him there was a ludicrousness of
suggestion that his broad shoulders and uniform only heightened.
"I think not of myself, lass," he said, putting the eggs in his pocket,
and buttoning the chickens within his martial breast. "I think not of
myself, and perhaps I often spare that counsel which is but little
heeded. But I have a duty to my men--to Connecticut. [He here tied the
marmalade up in his handkerchief.] I confess I have sometimes thought
I might, under provocation, be driven to extreme measures for the good
of the cause. I make no pretence to leadership, but--"
"With you at the head of the army," broke in Thankful enthusiastically,
"peace would be declared within a fortnight."
There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not accept
from the woman whom he believes loves him. He will perhaps doubt its
influence in the colder judgment of mankind; but he will consider that
this poor creature, at least, understands him, and in some vague way
represents the eternal but unrecognized verities. And when this is
voiced by lips that are young and warm and red, it is somehow quite as
convincing as the bloodless, remoter utterance of posterity.
Wherefore the trooper complacently buttoned the compliment over his
chest with the pullets.
"I think you must go now, Allan," she said, looking at him with that
pseudo-maternal air which the youngest of women sometimes assume to
their lovers, as if the doll had suddenly changed sex, and grown to
man's estate. "You must go now, dear; for it may so chance that father
is considering my absence overmuch. You will come again a' Wednesday,
sweetheart; and you will not go to the assemblies, nor visit Mistress
Judith, nor take any girl pick-a-back again on your black horse; and
you will let me know when you are hungry?"
She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain pretty trouble
in the brow, and such a searching, pleading inquiry in her glance, that
the captain kissed her at once. Then came the final embrace, performed
by the captain in a half-perfunctory, quiet manner, with a due regard
for the friable nature of part of his provisions. Satisfying himself
of the integrity of the eggs by feeling for them in his pocket, he
waved a military salute with the other hand to Miss Thankful, and was
gone. A few minutes later the sound of his horse's hoofs rang sharply
from the icy hillside.
But, as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled suddenly from the
shadow of the roadside, and bade him halt.
"Capt. Brewster, if this moon does not deceive me?" queried the
foremost stranger with grave civility.
"The same. Major Van Zandt, I calculate?" returned Brewster
querulously.
"Your calculation is quite right. I regret Capt. Brewster, that it is
my duty to inform you that you are under arrest."
"By whose orders?"
"The commander-in-chief's."
"For what?"
"Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior officers."
The sword that Capt. Brewster had drawn at the sudden appearance of the
strangers quivered for a moment in his strong hand. Then, sharply
striking it across the pommel of his saddle, he snapped it in twain,
and cast the pieces at the feet of the speaker.
"Go on," he said doggedly.
"Capt. Brewster," said Major Van Zandt, with infinite gravity, "it is
not for me to point out the danger to you of this outspoken emotion,
except practically in its effect upon the rations you have in your
pocket. If I mistake not, they have suffered equally with your steel.
Forward, march!"
Capt. Brewster looked down, and then dropped to the rear, as the
discased yolks of Mistress Thankful's most precious gift slid slowly
and pensively over his horse's flanks to the ground.