INSIDE BRITISH LINES
"Drat that knocker!" said Peter Provoost.
The house stood on Wall Street, and to the fact that it like a few
others has been built of brick, it owed its escape from the fire which
ravaged, the city in 1776, the fire which also destroyed old Trinity
Church, leaving the unsightly ruin standing for some years in what was
aristocratic New York of the period. It was a square,
comfortable-looking mansion, with the Dutch _stoep_ in front, and the
half-arch of small-paned glass above the front door, which was painted
white and bore a massive brass knocker. That same knocker was a source
of much irritation to Peter Provoost; for although he was of fair size
for his thirteen years, he could barely reach it when mounted on the
very tips of his toes, and even then never dared touch its shining
surface unless his fingers were clean--a desirable state of neatness
which, alas! did not often adorn the luckless Peter. For though tidy and
careful enough when appearing before his guardians, Mr. and Mrs.
Verplanck, it must be confessed that going to and from school Peter was
prone to lay down both books and hat, oftentimes in the mud, and square
himself pugnaciously if he chanced to meet one of the boys of the "Vly
Market," who were wont to scoff and tease the Broadway boys
unmercifully; and fierce battles were the frequent outcome of the
feeling between the two sections, and in those Peter invariably took
part.
The family was a small one, and consisted of Gulian Verplanck and his
wife, his grandmother, Mrs. Effingham, a lovely old Quakeress, and
Peter, who, having lost both parents at an early age, had remained in
Albany with his other guardian, Mr. Abram Lansing, until some six months
before, when it was decided that he should go to New York and be under
the Verplanck eye; and although Peter had rebelled much against the plan
in the first place, he found himself much happier under Clarissa's
gentle rule, and positively adored her in consequence. The only lion in
Peter's path at present was the strong Tory proclivity of the head of
the house; and although he had been warned by his Albany friends to be
prudent and respectful, the boy had inherited a sturdy patriotism which
burned all the more hotly for its repression.
On this cold December afternoon Peter stood, books in hand, and surveyed
that aggravating knocker from his stand on the sidewalk. He was
painfully conscious that his feet were muddy, and his chubby fingers
certainly needed soap and water; it was Friday, and Pompey, one of the
black servants, had evidently been scrubbing the front steps. Therefore
Peter debated whether it would be wiser to skirt around the mansion and
gain entrance by the area steps, where no doubt he would encounter
Dinah, the cook (who objected to invasions of unclean shoes), or boldly
ascend the front steps, struggle with that balefully glittering knocker,
and trust to Pompey's somewhat dim eyes to escape remonstrance before he
could gain his own room and make himself presentable. The chances of a
scolding seemed pretty equally balanced to Peter, and he heaved a deep
sigh and put his foot on the first immaculate step before him as a hand
fell on his shoulder and a merry voice said behind him:--
"What in the world are you pondering, Peter? I have watched you since I
turned the corner of Broadway, and truly for once have seen you stand
absolutely still. In some scrape with the Vly boys, I'll warrant; do you
wish me to come in and plead for you?" and Kitty Cruger tripped lightly
up the steps as she beckoned Peter to follow.
"Now you have done it--not I!" said Peter, with a mischievous chuckle,
as he tore up after her.
"Done what?" asked mystified Kitty. She and Peter were fast friends.
"Muddied the clean steps," quoth Peter with gleeful brevity.
"Have I?" glancing down carelessly until she saw each dainty footprint
plainly depicted on the white marble, side by side with Peter's heavier
tracks. "Oh, what a shame," reaching up successfully to the brass
knocker; "but I am sure Pompey will forgive me, and you can"--stopping
short as the door opened and Pompey himself stood bowing low in the
hall.
"Good-day, missy," said he, for Kitty Cruger was a frequent and welcome
visitor at the Verplancks'. "Miss Clarissa is pretty well to-day, thank
you, and ole madam is in the drawing-room--Law!" catching sight of
Peter, who was skillfully slipping down the hall in Kitty's wake. "Dat
you, Massa Peter? Reckon you better hurry, for it's mos' time for
dinner, sah."
But Peter, with great discretion, paused not for reply as he vanished up
a back stair-case and reached his own chamber, panting but triumphant.
"Good-day, dear grandma," said Kitty, crossing the hall as Pompey held
open the door of the drawing-room; "I was detained by reason of the
sewing-bee at the Morrises', and have barely time to see you and ask for
Clarissa."
"How does thee do?" said Grandma Effingham, drawing her little drab
shawl more closely around her shapely shoulders as she laid down her
knitting. "I am pleased to see thee. Clarissa is somewhat stronger
to-day; thee knows she has been more like her old self since Gulian
dispatched the letters asking that one of her sisters be allowed to come
to her. The poor child pines for a home face; it is natural; thee sees
she has been long absent from her people."
"Surely it is almost time to get some reply," said Kitty, as she kissed
the dear old Quakeress, for Kitty was one of Mrs. Effingham's
grandchildren, although her mother had been read out of meeting for
having married one of the "world's people." "I doubt that Clarissa will
shortly begin to worry and grow ill again unless kind Providence sends
some tidings."
"Nay, nay," said grandma gently. "If thee had half Clarissa's patience
it would be thy gain, Kitty."
Grandma was such a quaint, pretty picture, as she sat in her
straight-backed chair, with her Quaker cap and steel-gray silk gown, her
sleeves elbow-cut, displaying still plump and rounded arms (although she
was nearly seventy), and her smooth white fingers flew rapidly in and
out of the blue yarn as she resumed her knitting of Peter's stocking.
Peter was rather a godsend to grandma in the matter of stockings; no
wool that was ever carded could resist his vigorous onslaughts, and it
kept grandma busy all her spare moments to supply his restless feet with
warm covering.
"Patience," echoed Kitty, with a comical sigh. "Nay, grandma, give me a
few more years without it."
"Fie," said grandma, gazing at the bright face with her indulgent eye;
"eighteen is full late to begin to learn to conform to thy elders. I was
married and the twins were born at thy age, Kitty."
"Good lack," quoth Kitty. "Where are the men nowadays, grandma? Save for
the redcoats, and I am not so daft over Sir Henry Clinton's gay officers
as some--no doubt't is my Quaker blood--except for the officers, where
are our gallants? Some of mine are up the Hudson beyond the neutral
ground, others with the rebels at Morristown."
"Hush," said grandma, with an uneasy glance toward the door; "do not
talk of rebels in this house; hadn't thee better run up and see
Clarissa?"
"If Miss Kitty pleases," spoke the voice of Pompey at the door, "will
she walk upstairs? Young madam wants to see her."
"Coming," said Kitty, kissing grandma fondly, and then following Pompey
as he marched gravely up to open the door of Mrs. Verplanck's
morning-room. It was a tiny apartment; for when Gulian Verplanck brought
his young bride home he had added a room to the wing below, and as it
greatly enlarged their bedroom, the happy idea had struck him to throw
up a partition, corner-ways, which formed an irregularly shaped room
opening on the passage, and gave Clarissa her own cherished den in that
great house of square rooms and high ceilings. In it she had placed all
her home belongings; her spinnet, which had been her mother's (brought
by sloop to New York from New Haven), found the largest space there, and
her grandmother's small spinning-wheel was in the corner near the
chimney-piece which Gulian had contrived to have put in lest his
delicate wife might suffer with cold.
Near the small log which blazed brightly on the hearth, in a low chair
made somewhat easy with cushions, sat a fair, fragile-looking, girlish
figure, in whose mournful dark eyes was something so pathetic that it
suggested the old-time prophecy that such "die young." Clarissa
Verplanck in that resembled none of her family, and the one reason for
her father's and aunt's anxiety about her was that she was thought the
image of a sister of her mother who fulfilled the prophecy. Be that as
it may, Clarissa was anything but a mournful person in general; her
spirits were somewhat prone to outrun her physical strength, and
therefore her sad little appeal for one of her sisters to cheer her had
come in the light of a demand to the Litchfield home, and alarmed them
more than anything else could have done.
"Kitty, Kitty," said Clarissa, holding out a welcoming hand to her
visitor, who seated herself on a cricket beside her, "why have you not
been in this four days? I am truly glad to see you, for ever since
Gulian and I dispatched our letters to my father I have been so cross
and impatient that I fear my good husband is beginning to tire of his
bargain, and lament a peevish wife."
"Heaven forgive you for the slander," retorted Kitty, laughing; "if ever
there was a husband who adored the ground you walk on, Gulian is"--
"Thank you," said a quiet voice, as a tall dark man entered from the
bedroom.
"Let me finish my sentence--Gulian is that benighted swain," burst in
Kitty.
"Again, my thanks," answered Gillian gravely. To none but Clarissa was
he ever seen to relax his serious manner; perhaps hers were the only
eyes who saw the tenderness behind the stern, reserved exterior. He
really liked his cousin; but although Kitty was not, like most people,
afraid of him, it must be confessed that he wearied her, and she much
preferred to have her gossip with Clarissa, when Gulian was safely out
of the house.
"And now tell me about the letters," pursued Kitty. "You sent for your
sister, grandma told me. Which one, Clarissa?"
"Indeed, I do not know; I left the choice to my father, but I think--I
hope it may be Betty. I only wish I might have Moppet as well," and the
quickly checked sigh told Gulian's keen ears what the unuttered thought
had been.
"Betty--let me see--is that the sister next yourself?"
"Oh, no; the sister next to me in age died in infancy. Then comes
Oliver, and then Pamela, who is seventeen now, and next my Betty. How I
wonder if the girls have changed; five years makes a long gap, you know,
and even my imagination can scarce fill it. Do you fancy we will hear
soon, Gulian?"
"I cannot tell," he said gently, thinking how often he had sought reply
to the same question in the past week, and longing tenderly to give her
the expected pleasure.
"It may be that General Wolcott may find some chance opportunity to
send his daughter at once, in which event you know there would scarce be
time to hear before she would reach us."
"Oh, Gulian," cried Clarissa, clasping her hands, as a faint pink glow
lit her pale face, "you did not say that before. If it were only
possible"--
"Why not?" said Kitty encouragingly.
"But, Gulian, you said in the letter that you would await my sister at
King's Bridge Inn. Surely you cannot go there and stop, waiting at the
Inn for days?"
"I can ride out to-morrow, and, in fact, I hastened through some
business at the wharf to-day which enabled me to have the day free. I
can easily go to King's Bridge and inquire at the Inn for dispatches;
you will not mind my being absent all day? Perhaps Kitty will come and
bear you company while I am gone?"
"Right gladly," replied Kitty; "will you ride alone, Gulian?"
"I might, easily," said Gulian; "but when I procured a pass from Sir
Henry Clinton yesterday (it is an eight days' pass, Clarissa) I found
that Captain Yorke goes to-morrow to the neutral ground to inspect
troops, and I think I shall take advantage of his company."
"I am glad of that," said Clarissa, putting her slender hand in Gulian's
and looking with grateful eyes up at him, as he stood beside her chair.
"Is he the aide-de-camp you told me of, Gulian, for whom you had taken a
liking?"
"The same; a fine, manly fellow, the second son of Lord Herbert Yorke,
one of my father's old friends in England. You were dancing with him at
the De Lanceys' 'small and early,' were you not, Kitty, last week?"
"Yes," said Kitty, with a quick nod and a half frown, "he has the usual
airs and graces of a newly arrived officer from the mother-country."
"Perhaps you find the colonists more to your mind," responded Gulian
somewhat severely; but Clarissa gave his sleeve a warning twitch, as
Kitty made answer with heightened color:--
"My own countrymen are ever first with me, as you know full well,
Gulian, but one must dance sometimes to keep up one's heart in those
times, and Captain Yorke has a passably good step which suits with
mine."
What Gulian would have replied to this was never known, for at that
moment an outcry arose in the hall, followed by the bump, bump of some
heavy body rolling down the staircase, and Peter's boyish voice shouting
out, between gasps of laughter,--
"Pompey, Pompey, I say!--it's nobody but me; oh, what a proper old goose
it is; do, somebody come and thrash him."
In a second Gulian and Kitty were outside the door, and beheld at the
foot of the winding stairs poor Pompey, picking himself up, with many
groans and much rubbing of his shins, while Peter, rolling himself
nearly double with laughter, stood midway of the flight, with a queer
object in his hand which Gulian seized hastily.
"It's only a gourd," gasped Peter between paroxysms. "I kept it in my
closet for a week, and half an hour ago I stole a bit of wick out of
Dinah's pantry and dipped it well in melted tallow, and than stuck it
inside, when, as you see, having carved out two eyes and a slit for the
nose, it looks somewhat ghastly when the light comes forth."
"It's a debbil, debbil," cried Pompey. "Massa Peter sent me to find his
skates, and dat awful face"--Pompey's teeth chattered, and Peter went
off in a fresh burst of laughter.
"It soured him properly, Uncle Gulian; and though I ran after him and
shook it (it only looks gruesome in the dark, you know) he never
stopped, and he stumbled on the first step, and then he rolled--My! how
he did bump"--and naughty Peter sat down on the stalls and held his
sides for very merriment.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Gulian sternly, to whom
practical jokes were an utter abomination, "and you deserve to be well
punished. Pompey, stop groaning, and inform me at once whether you have
sustained any injury by your fall."
"Law, Massa Gulian, you tink falling down dat stair gwine to hurt dis
chile?" began Pompey, who entertained a warm affection for the
mischievous Peter and dreaded nothing so much as a scolding from his
master. "Dose stairs don't 'mount to nuffin; ef it had been de area
steps dey moughten be dangerous. Massa knows boys mus' have dey fun:
please 'cuse me for makin' such a bobbery."
"Well, I did it," said Peter sturdily, instantly sobered by the
expression of his uncle's face, and his generous heart touched with
Pompey's defense of his prank, "and nobody helped me, so let's have the
whipping right off before dinner, please, Uncle Gulian, and then I can
eat in peace--even if I am a trifle sore," wound up the sinner ruefully.
Gulian Verplanck's sense of humor was not keen, but the situation was
too much for him, and a queer, grim smile lit up his eyes, as he said
slowly:--
"As Pompey seems more frightened than hurt, and has interceded for you,
I shall not punish you this time, Peter; but recollect that the very
first occasion after this that you see fit to practice a joke on any
member of my household, your skates will be confiscated for the
remainder of the winter," and with a warning glance he followed Kitty
back into his wife's room, leaving Pompey on the staircase, still
rubbing his bruised shins, while the irrepressible Peter indulged once
more in a convulsion of silent laughter which bent him double and
threatened to burst every button off his tightly fitting jacket.