49
“It’s I, Williams! Don’t keep me standing here in the wind all night.”
“It’s Miss Elizabeth!” cried Molly; and Williams, in a kind of daze of astonishment, hastily unlocked, unbolted, and threw open the door.
50CHAPTER III.THE SOUND OF GALLOPING.
A rushof 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.”
51
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 take52the 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!”
53
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.54“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?”
55
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 from56the 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.
57
“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?”
58
“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 sheismy sister’s child.”
“Why, aunt Sally,youstay 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.59“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, andwehave naught to fear from them.”
“No, the British foragers won’t dare treat Philipse60Manor-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.”
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“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 shots62in 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 forouruse. SoIsha’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 it63would 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 more64irony. “It certainlymustbe 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.
65CHAPTER IV.THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON.
ThePeytons of Virginia were descended from a younger son of the Peytons of Pelham, England, of which family was Sir Edward Peyton, of Pelham, knight and baronet. Sir Edward’s relative, the first American Peyton, settled in Westmoreland County. Within one generation the family had spread to Stafford County, and within another to Loudoun County also. Thus it befell that there was a Mr. Craven Peyton, of Loudoun County, justice of the peace, vestryman, and chief warden of Shelburne Parish. He was the father of nine sons and two daughters. One of the sons was Harry.
This Harry grew up longing to be a soldier. Military glory was his ambition, as it had been Washington’s; but not as a mere provincial would he be satisfied to excel. He would have a place as a regular officer, in an army of the first importance, on the fields of Europe. Before the Revolution, Americans were, like all colonials, very loyal to their English King. Therefore would Harry Peyton be content with naught less than a King’s commission in the King’s army.
66
His father, glad to be guided in choosing a future for one of so many sons, sent Harry to London in 1770, to see something of life, and so managed matters, through his English relations, that the boy was in 1772, at the age of nineteen, the possessor, by purchase, of an ensign’s commission. He was soon sent to do garrison duty in Ireland, being enrolled with the Sixty-third Regiment of Foot.
He had lived gaily enough during his two years in London, occupying lodgings, being patronized by his relations, seeing enough of society, card-tables, drums, routs, plays, prize-fights, and other diversions. He had made visits in the country and showed what he had learned in Virginia about cock-fighting, fox-hunting and shooting, and had taken lessons from London fencing-masters. A young gentleman from Virginia, if well off and “well connected,” could have a fine time in London in those days; and Harry Peyton had it.
But he could never forget that he was a colonial. If he were treated by his English associates as an equal, or even at times with a particular consideration, there was always a kind of implication that he was an exception among colonials. Other colonial youths were similarly treated, and some of these were glad to be held as exceptions, and even joined in the derision of the colonials who were not. For these Harry Peyton had a mighty disgust and detestation.67He did not enjoy receiving as Harry Peyton a tolerance and kindness that would have been denied him as merely an American. And he sometimes could not avoid seeing that, even as Harry Peyton, he was regarded as compensating, by certain attractive qualities in the nature of amiability and sincerity, for occasional exhibitions of what the English rated as social impropriety and bad taste. Often, at the English lofty derision of colonials, at the English air of self-evident superiority, the English pretence of politely concealed shock or pain or offence at some infringement of a purely superficial conduct-code of their own arbitrary fabrication, he ground his teeth in silence; for in one respect, he had as good manners as the English had then, or have now,—when in Rome he did not resent or deride what the Romans did. He began to think that the lot of a self-respecting American among the English, even if he were himself made an exception of and well dealt with, was not the most enviable one. And, after he joined the army, he thought this more and more every day. But he would show them what a colonial could rise to! Yet that would prove nothing for his countrymen, as he would always, on his meritorious side, be deemed an exception.
His military ambition, however, predominated, and he had no thought of leaving the King’s service.
The disagreement between the King and the68American Colonies grew, from “a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand,” to something larger. But Harry heard little of it, and that entirely from the English point of view. He received but three or four letters a year from his own people, and the time had not come for his own people to write much more than bare facts. They were chary of opinions. Harry supposed that the new discontent in the Colonies, after the repeal of the Stamp Act and the withdrawal of the two regiments from Boston Town to Castle William, was but that of the perpetually restless, the habitual fomenters, the notoriety-seeking agitators, the mob, whose circumstances could not be made worse and might be improved by disturbances. Now the Americans, from being a subject of no interest to English people, a subject discussed only when some rare circumstance brought it up, became more talked of. Sometimes, when Americans were blamed for opposing taxes to support soldiery used for their own protection, Harry said that the Americans could protect themselves; that the English, in wresting Canada from the French, had sought rather English prestige and dominion than security for the colonials; that the flourishing of the Colonies was despite English neglect, not because of English fostering; that if the English had solicitude for America, it was for America as a market for their own trade. Thereupon69his fellow officers would either laugh him out, as if he were too ignorant to be argued with, or freeze him out, as if he had committed some grave outrage on decorum. And Harry would rage inwardly, comparing his own ignorance and indecorousness with the knowledge and courtesy exemplified in the assertion of Doctor Johnson, when that great but narrow Englishman said, in 1769, of Americans, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”
There came to Harry, now and then, scraps of vague talk of uneasiness in Boston Town, whose port the British Parliament had closed, to punish the Yankees for riotously destroying tea on which there was a tax; of the concentration there of British troops from Halifax, Quebec, New York, the Jerseys, and other North American posts. But there was not, in Harry’s little world of Irish garrison life, the slightest expectation of actual rebellion or even of a momentous local tumult in the American Colonies.
Imagine, therefore, his feelings when, one morning late in March in 1775, he was told that, within a month’s time, the Sixty-third, and other regiments, would embark at Cork for either Boston or New York!
There could not be a new French or Spanish invasion. As for the Indians, never again would70British regulars be sent against them. Was it, then, Harry’s own countrymen that his regiment was going to fight?
His comrades inferred the cause of his long face, and laughed. He would have no more fighting to do in America against the Americans than he had to do in Ireland against the Irish, or than an English officer in an English barrack town had to do against the English. The reinforcements were being sent only to overawe the lawless element. The mere sight of these reinforcements would obviate any occasion for their use. The regiment would merely do garrison duty in America instead of in Ireland or elsewhere.
He had none to advise or enlighten him. What was there for him to do but sail with his regiment, awaiting disclosures or occurrences to guide? What misgivings he had, he kept to himself, though once on the voyage, as he looked from the rocking transport towards the west, he confided to Lieutenant Dalrymple his opinion that ’twas damned bad luck senthisregiment to America, of all places.
When he landed in Boston, June 12th, he found, as he had expected, that the town was full of soldiers, encamped on the common and quartered elsewhere; but also, as he had not expected, that the troops were virtually confined to the town, which was fortified at the Neck; that the last71time they had marched into the country, through Lexington to Concord, they had marched back again at a much faster gait, and left many score dead and wounded on the way; and that a host of New Englanders in arms were surrounding Boston! The news of April 19th had not reached Europe until after Harry had sailed, nor had it met his regiment on the ocean. When he heard it now, he could only become more grave and uneasy. But the British officers were scornful of their clodhopper besiegers. In due time this rabble should be scattered like chaff. But was it a mere rabble? Certainly. Were not the best people in Boston loyal to the King’s government? Some of them, yes. But, as Harry went around with open eyes and ears, eager for information, he found that many of them were with the “rabble.” News was easy to be had. The citizens were allowed to pass the barrier on the Neck, if they did not carry arms or ammunition, and there was no strict discipline in the camp of New Englanders. Therefore Harry soon learned how Doctor Warren stood, and the Adamses, and Mr. John Hancock; and that a Congress, representing all the Colonies, was now sitting at Philadelphia, for the second time; and that in the Congress his own Virginia was served by such gentlemen as Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Patrick Henry, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, and Colonel Washington.72And the Virginians had shown as ready and firm a mind for revolt against the King’s measures as the New Englanders had. Here, for once, the sympathies of trading Puritan and fox-hunting Virginian were one. Moreover, a Yankee was a fellow American, and, after five years of contact with English self-esteem, Harry warmed at the sight of a New Englander as he never would have done before he had left Virginia.
But it did not conduce to peace of mind, in his case, to be convinced that the colonial remonstrance was neither local nor of the rabble. The more general and respectable it was, the more embarrassing was his own situation. Would it really come to war? With ill-concealed anxiety, he sought the opinion of this person and that.
On the fourth day after his arrival, he went into a tavern in King Street with Lieutenant Massay, of the Thirty-fifth, Ensign Charleton, of the Fifth, and another young officer, and, while they were drinking, heard a loyalist tell what one Parker, leader of the Lexington rebels, said to his men on Lexington Common, on the morning of April 19th, when the King’s troops came in sight.
“‘Stand your ground,’ says he. ‘Don’t fire till you’re fired on, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!’”
“And it began there!” said Harry.
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The English officers stared at him, and laughed.
“Ay, ’twas the Yankee idea of war,” said one of them. “Run for a stone wall, and, when the enemy’s back is turned, blaze away. I’d like to see a million of the clodhoppers compelled to stand up and face a line of grenadiers.”
“Ay, gimme ten companies of grenadiers,” cried one, who had doubtless heard of General Gage’s celebrated boast, “and I’ll go from one end of the damned country to the other, and drive ’em to their holes like foxes. Only ’tis better sport chasing handsome foxes in England than ill-dressed poltroons in Bumpkin-land.”
“They’re not all poltroons,” said Harry, repressing his feelings the more easily through long practice. “Some of them fought in the French war. There’s Putnam, and Pomeroy, and Ward. I heard Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie, of the Twenty-second, say yesterday that Putnam—”
“Cowards every one of ’em,” broke in another. “Cowards and louts. A lady told me t’other day there ain’t in all America a man whose coat sets in close at the back, except he’s of the loyal party. Cowards and louts!”
“Look here, damn you!” cried Peyton. “I want you to know I’m American born, and my people are American, and I don’t know whether they are of the loyal party or not!”
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“Oh, now, that’s the worst of you Americans,—always will get personal! Of course, there are exceptions.”
“Then there are exceptions enough to make a rule themselves,” said Harry. “I’m tired hearing you call these people cowards before you’ve had a chance to see what they are. And you needn’t wait for that, for I can tell you now they’re not!”
“Well, well, perhaps not,—to you. Doubtless they’re very dreadful,—to you. You don’t seem to relish facing ’em, that’s a fact! You’ll be resigning your commission one o’ these days, I dare say, if it comes to blows with these terrible heroes!”
Harry saw everybody in the room looking at him with a grin.
“By the Lord,” said he, “maybe I shall!” and stalked hotly out of the place.
His wrath increased as he walked. He noticed now, more than before, the confident, arrogant air of the redcoats who promenaded the streets; how they leered at the women, and made the citizens who passed turn out of the way. Forthwith, he went to his quarters, and wrote his resignation.
When the ink was dry he folded up the document and put it in the pocket of his uniform coat. Then that last tavern speech recurred to him. “If I resign now,” he thought, “they’ll suppose it’s because I really am afraid of fighting, not because the rebels75are my countrymen.” So he lapsed into a state of indecision,—a state resembling apathy, a half-dazed condition, a semi-somnolent waiting for events. But he kept his letter of resignation in his coat.
At dawn the next morning, Saturday, June 17th, he was awakened by the booming of guns. He was soon up and out. It was a beautiful day. People were on the eminences and roofs, looking northward, across the mouth of the Charles, towards Charlestown and the hill beyond. On that hill were seen rough earthworks, six feet high, which had not been there the day before. The booming guns were those of the British man-of-warLively, firing from the river at the new earthworks. Hence the earthworks were the doing of the rebels, having been raised during the night. Presently theLivelyceased its fire, but soon there was more booming, this time not only from the men-of-war, but also from the battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston. After awhile Harry saw, from where he stood with many others on Beacon Hill, some of the rebels emerge from one part of the earthworks, as if to go away. One of these was knocked over by a cannon-ball. His comrades dragged his body behind the earthen wall. By and by a tall, strong-looking man appeared on top of the parapet, and walked leisurely along, apparently giving directions. Harry heard from a citizen, who had a field-glass, the words, “Prescott, of Pepperell.”76Other men were now visible on the parapet, superintending the workers behind. And now the booming of the guns was answered by disrespectful cheers from those same unseen workers.
The morning grew hot. Harry heard that General Gage had called a council of war at the Province House; that Generals Howe, Clinton, Burgoyne,[3]—these three having arrived in Boston about three weeks before Harry had,—Pigott, Grant, and the rest were now there in consultation. At length there was the half-expected tumult of drum and bugle; and Harry was summoned to obey, with his comrades, the order to parade. There was now much noise of officers galloping about, dragoons riding from their quarters, and rattling of gun-carriages. The booming from the batteries and vessels increased.
At half-past eleven Harry found himself—for he was scarcely master of his acts that morning, his will having taken refuge in a kind of dormancy—on parade with two companies of his regiment, and he noticed in a dim way that other companies near were from other different regiments, all being supplied with ammunition, blankets, and provisions. When the sun was directly overhead and at its hottest, the order to march was given, and soon he was bearing the colors through the streets of Boston. The roar of the cannon now became deafening. Harry knew77not whether the rebels were returning it from their hill works across the water or not. In time the troops reached the wharf. Barges were in waiting, and field-pieces were being moved into some of them. He could see now that all the firing was from the King’s vessels and batteries. Mechanically he followed Lieutenant Dalrymple into a barge, which soon filled up with troops. The other barges were speedily brilliant with scarlet coats and glistening bayonets. Not far away the river was covered with smoke, through which flashed the fire of the belching artillery. A blue flag was waved from General Howe’s barge, and the fleet moved across the river towards the hill where the rebels waited silently behind their piles of earth.
At one o’clock, Harry followed Lieutenant Dalrymple out of the barge to the northern shore of the river, at a point northeast of Charlestown village and east of the Yankees’ hill. There was no molestation from the rebels. The firing from the vessels and batteries protected the hillside and shore. The troops were promptly formed in three lines. Harry’s place was in the left of the front line. Then there was long waiting. The barges went back to the Boston side. Was General Howe, who had command of the movements, sending for more troops? Many of the soldiers ate of their stock of provisions. Harry, in a kind of dream, looked westward up the hill towards78the silent Yankee redoubt. It faced south, west, and east. The line of its eastern side was continued northward by a breastwork, and still beyond this, down the northern hillside to another river, ran a straggling rail fence, which was thatched with fresh-cut hay. What were the men doing behind those defences? What were they saying and thinking?
The barges came back across the Charles from Boston, with more troops, but these were disembarked some distance southwest, nearer Charlestown. General Howe now made a short speech to the troops first landed. Then some flank guards were sent out and some cannon wheeled forward. The companies of the front line, with one of which was Harry, were now ordered to form into files and move straight ahead. They were to constitute the right wing of the attacking force, and to be led by General Howe himself. The four regiments composing the two rear lines moved forward and leftward, to form, with the troops newly landed, the left wing, which was to be under General Pigott. The cannonading from the river and from Boston continued.
The companies with which was Harry advanced slowly, having to pass through high grass, over stone fences, under a roasting sun. These companies were moving towards the hay-thatched rail fence that straggled down the hillside from the breastwork north of79the redoubt. Harry had a vague sense that the left wing was ascending the southeastern side of the hill, towards the redoubt, at the same time. His eye caught the view at either side. Long files of scarlet coats, steel bayonets, grenadiers’ tall caps. He looked ahead. The stretch of green, grassy hillside, the hay-covered rail fence looking like a hedge-row, the rude breastwork, the blue sky. Suddenly there came from the rail fence the belching of field-pieces. Two grenadiers fell at the right of Harry. One moaned, the other was silent. Harry, shocked into a sense that war was begun between his King and his people, instantly resolved to strike no blow that day against his people. But this was no time for leaving the ranks. Mechanically he marched on.
Heads appeared over the fence-rail, guns were rested on it, and there came from it some irregular flashes of musketry. Then Harry saw a man moving his head and arms, as if shouting and gesticulating. The musket flashes ceased. Harry did not know it then, but the man was Putnam, and he was commanding the Yankees to reserve their fire. The British files were now ordered to deploy into line, and fire. They did so as they advanced, firing in machine-like unison, as if on parade, but aiming high. Nearer and nearer, as Harry went forward, rose the fence ahead and the breastwork on the hill towards the left. Why did not the Yankees fire?80Were they, indeed, paralyzed with fear at sight of the lines of the King’s grenadiers?
All at once blazed forth the answer,—such a volley of musketry, at close range, as British grenadiers had not faced before. Down went officers and men, in twos and threes and rows. Great gaps were cut in the scarlet lines. The broken columns returned the volley, but there came another. Harry found himself in the midst of quivering, writhing, yelling death. The British who were left,—startled, amazed,—turned and fled. As mechanically as he had come up, did Harry go back in the common movement. General Howe showed astonishment. The left wing, too, had been hurled back, down the hill, by death-dealing volleys. The rabble had held their rude works against the King’s choice troops. Never had as many officers been killed or wounded in a single charge. There had not been such mowing down at Fontenoy or Montmorenci. These unmilitary Yankees actually aimed when they fired, each at some particular mark! Harry had heard them cheering, and had thought they were about to pursue the King’s troops; they had evidently been ordered back.
The troops re-formed by the shore. Orders came for another assault. Back again went Harry with the right wing, bearing the colors as before. He had secretly an exquisite heart-quickening elation81at the success of his countrymen. If they should win the day, and hold this hill, and drive the King’s troops from Boston! He knew, at last, on which side his heart was.
There was more play of artillery during this second charge. Harry could see, too, that the village of Charlestown was on fire, sending flames, sparks, and smoke far towards the sky. It was not as easy to go to the charge this time, there were so many dead bodies in the way. But the soldiers stepped over them, and maintained the straightness of their lines. Again it seemed as if the rebels would never fire. Again, when the King’s troops were but a few rods from them, came that flaming, low-aimed discharge. But the troops marched on, in the face of it, till the very officers who urged them forward fell before it; then they wavered, turned, and ran. Harry’s joy, as he went with them, increased, and his hopes mounted. The left wing, too, had been thrown back a second time.
There was a long wait, and the generals were seen consulting. At last a third charge was ordered. This time the greater part of the right wing was led up the hill against the breastwork. With this part was Harry. One more volley from the rebel defences met the King’s troops. They wavered slightly, then sprang forward, ready for another. But another82came not. The rebels’ ammunition was giving out. Harry’s heart fell. The British forced the breastwork, carrying him along. He found himself at the northern end of the redoubt. Some privates lifted him to the parapet; he and a sergeant mounted at the same time, and leaped together into the redoubt. They saw Lieutenant Richardson, of the Royal Irish Regiment, appear on the southern parapet, give a shout of triumph, and fall dead from a Yankee musket-ball. A whole rank that followed him was served likewise, but others surged over the parapet in their places. The rebels were defending mainly the southern parapet. Many were retreating by the rear passageway. Harry saw that the King’s troops had won the redoubt. He took his resolution. He threw the colors to the sergeant, pulled off his coat, handed it to the same sergeant, shouting into the man’s ear, “Give it to the colonel, with the letter in the pocket;” picked up a dead man’s musket, and ran to the aid of a tall, powerful rebel who was parrying with a sword the bayonets of three British privates. The tramp of the retreating rebels, invading British, and hand-to-hand fighters raised a blinding dust. Harry and the tall American, gaining a breathing moment, strode together with long steps, guarding their flank and rear, to the passageway and out of it; and then fought their course between two divisions of British, which had turned the outer corners of the redoubt. There was no firing here, so closely mingled were British and rebels, the former too exhausted to use forcibly their bayonets. So Harry retreated, beside the tall man, with the rebels. A British cheer behind him told the result of the day; but Harry cared little. His mind was at ease; he was on the right side at last.