VOL. I MARCH 1902 No. 1
WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGEBy W. Bert Foster
By W. Bert Foster
ALL day the strident whistle of the locust had declared for a continuation of the parching heat. The meadows lay brown under the glare of the August sun; the roads were deep in powdery yellow dust. The cattle stood with sweating flanks in the shade of the oaks which bordered the stage track, and although the sun was now declining toward the summits of the distant mountains, all nature continued in the somnolence of a summer day.
A huddle of sheep under a wagon shed and the lolling form of a big collie dog in the barnyard were the only signs of life about the Three Oaks Inn. Mistress and maids, as well as the guests now sheltered by its moss-grown roof, had retired to the cooler chambers, and Jonas Benson, the portly landlord, snored loudly in his armchair in the hall. Out of this hall, with its exposed beams of time-blackened oak and its high fanlight over the entrance, opened the main room, its floor sanded in an intricate pattern that very morning by one of the maids. Across the hall was the closed door of the darkened parlor.
Had Jonas Benson been of a more wakeful mind this hot afternoon, it is quite likely that this narrative would never have been written. But he snored on while behind the closed door of the parlor were whispered words which, had they reached the ears of the landlord of the Three Oaks, would have put him instantly on the alert.
The year was 1777, a fateful one indeed for the American arms in the struggle for liberty—a year of both blessing and misfortune for the patriot cause. Within its twelve months the Continental army achieved some notable victories; but it suffered, too, memorable defeats. It was the year when human liberty seemed trembling in the balance, when all nations—even France—stood aloof, waiting to see whether the star of the American Colonies was setting or on the ascendant. The British army, under Howe and Clinton, occupied New York. Washington and his little force lay near Philadelphia, then the capital of the newly-formed confederation. New Jersey—all the traveled ways between the two armies—was disputed territory, disturbed continually by a sort of guerilla warfare most hard for the peacefully-inclined farmers and tradespeople to bear.
Spies of both sides in the great conflict infested the country: foraging parties, like the rain, descended upon the just and the unjust; and neighbors who had lived in harmony for years before the war broke out, now were at daggers’ points. The Tories had grown confident because of the many set-backs endured by the patriot forces. Many even prophesied that, when Burgoyne’s army, then being gathered beyond the Canadian border, should descend the valleys of upper New York and finally join Howe and Clinton, the handful of Americans bearing arms against the king would be fairly swept into the sea, or ground to powder between the victorious British lines.
Jonas Benson was intensely patriotic, and the Three Oaks had given shelter oft and again to scouts and foraging parties of the Continental troops. The inn-keeper had given the pick of his horses to the army, reserving few but such nags as were positively needed for the coach which went down to Trenton at irregular intervals. There were more than his staid coach horses in the stable on this afternoon, however, and the fact was much to his distaste.
There had arrived at the Three Oaks the evening before a private carriage drawn by a pair of handsome bays and driven by a most solemn-faced Jehu, whose accent was redolent of Bow Bells. With the carriage came a gentleman—a fierce, military-looking man, though not in uniform—who rode a charger, which, so Jonas told his wife, would have made a saint envious, providing the latter were a judge of horseflesh. Inside the carriage rode a very pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen, whose dress and appearance were much different from the plain country lasses of that region.
“They’re surely gentle folk, Jonas,” Mistress Benson had declared. “The sweet child is a little lady—see how proud she holds herself. Law! it’s been a long day since we served real gentles here.”
Jonas snorted disdainfully; he suspected that at heart his good wife had royalist tendencies. As for him, the American officers who sometimes made the Three Oaks their headquarters for a few days were fine enough folk. “I tell ye what, woman,” he said, “they may be great folk or not; one thing I do know. They possess great influence or they’d never gotten through the Britishers with them fine nags. And if the outposts weren’t so far away, I’m blessed if I believe they’d get away from here without our own lads having a shy at the horses.”
But the Bensons were too busy making their guests comfortable to discuss them—or their horses—to any length. Colonel Creston Knowles was the name the gentleman gave, and the girl was his daughter, Miss Lillian. The driver of the carriage, who served the colonel as valet as well, was called William, and a more stony-faced, unemotional individual it had never been the fate of the Bensons to observe. It was utterly impossible to draw from this servant a word regarding his master’s business between the lines of the opposing armies.
These visitors were not desired by Jonas. He kept a public house, and, for the sake of being at peace with everybody, his Tory neighbors included, he treated all guests who came to the Three Oaks with unfailing cordiality. But the presence of Colonel Knowles at this time was bound to cause trouble.
The inn was on the road usually traversed by those in haste to reach Philadelphia, where, while Washington’s army was posted nearby, Congress held its session. Many a time in the dead of night there was the rattle of hoofs on the road, as a breathless rider dashed up to the door, and with a loud “Halloa” aroused the stable boy. Then in a few moments, mounted afresh, he would hurry on into the darkness. These dispatch-bearers of the American army knew they could trust mine host of the Three Oaks, and that a ridable nag could always be found somewhere in his stable.
The very night Colonel Knowles arrived at the tavern there was an occurrence of this kind. And after the dispatch-bearer had gone, and Jonas and Hadley Morris, the stable boy, stood in the paved yard watching him disappear on the moonlit road, they saw a night-capped head at the colonel’s window.
“We’ll have no peace, Had, while yon Britisher’s hereabout,” muttered the old man.
“I wonder why he has come into this country, so far from New York?” was the boy’s observation. “He can’t be upon military service, though he be a colonel in his majesty’s army.”
“He’s here for no good, mark that, Had,” grumbled Jonas. “I’d rather have no guests at the Three Oaks than men of his kidney.”
“His daughter is a pretty girl, and kindly spoken.”
“That may be—that may be,” testily. “You’re as shortsighted as my old wife, Had. You’ll both let this Master Creston Knowles throw dust in your eyes because he’s got a pretty daughter. Bah!”
And Jonas stumbled back to bed, leaving Hadley Morris to retire to his couch on the loft floor of the stable.
But had these well-founded suspicions been to any purpose, the inn-keeper surely would have remained awake on the afternoon our story opens, instead of lolling, sound asleep, in his wide chair in the hall. Behind the parlor door, not ten feet away from mine host of the Three Oaks, Colonel Creston Knowles was conversing in a low tone with his serving man.
“And you say it happened twice during the night, sirrah?” queried the British officer, who spoke to everybody but his daughter with sternness.
“Twice, hand it please ye, sir. Hi’m sure the stable was hopened once hafter the time you was hup, sir, hand another ’orse taken hout. My life! but Hi thought hit thieves hat first, sir—some o’ them murderin’ cowboys; but the young lad has tends to the ’orses seemed to know them that came, hand they did not touch hour hanimals, sir.”
“It’s a regular nest of rebels!” exclaimed the colonel, his brow black enough at the report. “Such places as this should be razed to the earth. The spies who report to this Mr. Washington and his brother rebels evidently have free course through the country. They even exchange their steeds here—and Malcolm’s troop lying less than six miles away this very day. William!”
“Yes, sir?”
The colonel beckoned him nearer and whispered an inaudible order in the man’s ear. There was no change of expression upon the servant’s countenance, and the command might have been welcome or distasteful as far as an observer could have told. When the colonel ceased speaking, William rose without a word and tiptoed cautiously to the door. On pulling this ajar, however, the lusty snoring of Jonas Benson warned him of the inn-keeper’s presence. He closed the door again, nodded to the colonel, and vaulted through one of the open windows, thus making his exit without disturbing the landlord.
But although everybody about the tavern itself seemed to be slumbering, the colonel’s man found that he could not enter the stable without being observed. As he came out of the glare of sunshine into the half darkness of the wide threshing floor, the Englishman suddenly came upon a figure standing between him and the narrow window at the further end of the stable. It was the stable boy and he was just buckling the saddle-girth upon a nervous little black mare whose bit was fastened to a long halter hanging from one of the cross-beams.
Hadley Morris was a brawny youth for his age, which was seventeen. He was by no means handsome, and few boys would be attractive-looking in the clothing of a stable boy. Yet there was that in his carriage, in the keenness of his eye, in the firm lines of his chin and lip, which would have attracted a second glance from any thoughtful observer. Hadley had been now more than a year at the Three Oaks Inn, ever since it had become too unpleasant for him to longer remain with his uncle, Ephraim Morris, a Tory farmer of the neighborhood. Hadley was legally bound to Ephraim, better known, perhaps, as “Miser Morris,” and, of course, was not permitted to join the patriot army as he had wished. The youth might have broken away from his uncle altogether had he so desired, but there were good reasons why he had not yet taken this decisive step.
He had found it impossible to live longer under his uncle’s roof, however, and therefore had gone to work for Jonas Benson; but he still considered himself bound to his uncle, and Jonas grumblingly paid over to the farmer the monthly wage which the boy faithfully earned. Hadley found occasion oft and again to further the cause which in his soul he espoused. It was he rather than the landlord who saw to it that the fleetest horse in the stable was ready saddled against the expected arrival of one of those dispatch-bearers whose coming and going had disturbed Colonel Knowles the night before. As he now tightened the girth of the mare’s trappings she danced about as though eager to be footing it along the stage road toward the river.
Hadley was startled by the sudden appearance of the colonel’s servant in the doorway of the barn.
“So you are riding hout, too?” observed the latter, going toward the stalls occupied by his master’s thoroughbreds. “There’s a deal of going back and forth ’ere, hit seems to me.”
“Oh, it’s nothing so lively as it was before the war broke out,” Hadley explained, good-naturedly. “Then the coaches went out thrice a week to Trenton, and one of the New York and Philadelphia stages always stopped here, going and coming. Business is killed and the country is all but dead now.”
William grunted as he backed out one of the carriage horses and threw his master’s saddle upon it. “You’re going out yourself, I see.” Hadley said, observing that the man did not saddle the colonel’s charger.
“Hi’ve got to give the beasts some hexercise if we’re goin’ ter lie ’ere day hafter day,” grumbled William, and swung himself quickly into the saddle.
The boy went to the open door and watched him ride heavily away from the inn, with a puzzled frown upon his brow. “He’s never going for exercise such a hot afternoon as this,” muttered the youth. “There! he’s put the horse on the gallop. He’s going somewhere a-purpose—and he’s in haste. Will he take the turn to the Mills, I wonder, or keep straight on for Trenton?”
The trees which shaded the road hid horse and rider, and leaving the little mare dancing on the barn floor, Hadley ran hastily up the ladder to the loft, and then by a second ladder reached the little cupola, or ventilator, which Master Benson had built atop his barn. From this point of vantage all the roads converging near the Three Oaks Inn could be traced for several miles.
Behind the cluster of tall trees which gave the inn its name, a road branched off toward the Mills. In a minute or less the watcher saw a horseman dash along this road amid a cloud of dust.
“He’s bound for the Mills—and in a wonderful hurry. What was it Lafe Holdness told us when he was along here the other day? Something about a troop of British horse being at the Mills, I’ll be bound.” Then he turned toward the east and looked carefully along the brown road on which any person coming from the way of New York would naturally travel. “Well, there’s nobody in sight yet. If that fellow means mischief—Ah! but it’s six miles to the Mills and if he continues to ride like that on this hot day the horse will be winded long before he gets there.”
He went down the ladders, however, with anxious face, and during the ensuing hour made many trips to the wide gateway which opened upon the dusty road. There was not a sign of life, however, in either direction.
Meanwhile the tavern awakened to its ordinary life and bustle. The last rays of the sun slanted over the mountain tops and the shadows crept farther and farther across the meadows. The old collie arose and stretched himself lazily, while the tinkle of sheep bells and the heavier jangle which betrayed the approach of the cattle cut the warm air sharply. Even a breeze arose and curled the road dust in little spirals and rustled the oak leaves. Dusk was approaching to relieve panting nature.
Jonas awoke with a start and came out upon the tavern porch to stretch himself. He saw Hadley standing by the gateway and asked:
“Got the mare saddled, Had?”
“Yes, sir. She’s been standing on the barn floor for an hour. One of the other horses has gone out, sir.”
“Heh? How’s that?” He tiptoed softly to the end of the porch so as to be close above the boy. “Who’s been here?” he asked.
“Nobody. But the colonel’s man took one of those bays and started for the Mills an hour ago.”
“I d’know as I like the sound of that,” muttered Jonas. “I wish these folks warn’t here—that I do. They aint meanin’ no good—”
“Hush!” whispered Hadley, warningly.
From the wide tavern door there suddenly appeared the British colonel’s daughter. She was indeed a pretty girl and her smile was infectious. Even Jonas’ face cleared at sight of her and he hastened, as well as a man of his portliness could, to set a chair for her.
“It is very beautiful here,” Miss Lillian said, “and so peaceful. I got so tired in New York seeing soldiers everywhere and hearing about war. It doesn’t seem as though anything ever happened here.”
“I b’lieve something’s goin’ to happen b’fore long, though,” the landlord whispered anxiously to Hadley, and walked to the other end of the porch, leaving the two young people together.
“It is usually very quiet about here,” Hadley said, trying to speak easily to the guest. He was not at all used to girls, and Miss Lillian was altogether out of his class. He felt himself rough and uncouth in her presence. “But we see soldiers once in a while.”
“Our soldiers?” asked the girl, smiling.
“No—not British soldiers,” Hadley replied, slowly.
“Oh, you surely don’t call those ragamuffin colonists soldiers, do you?” she asked, quickly.
A crimson flush spread from Hadley’s bronzed neck to his brow; but a little smile followed and his eyes twinkled. “I don’t know what you’d really call them; but they made your grenadiers fall back at Bunker Hill.”
Miss Lillian bit her lip in anger; then, as she looked down into the stable boy’s face her own countenance cleared and she laughed aloud. “I don’t think I’ll quarrel with you,” she said. “You are a rebel, I suppose, and I am an English girl. You don’t know what it means to be born across the water, and—”
“Oh, yes I do. I was born in England myself,” Hadley returned. “My mother brought me across when she came to keep house for Uncle Ephraim Morris—”
“Who?” interposed Lillian, turning towards him again, with astonishment in both voice and countenance.
“My mother.”
“No, no! I mean the man—your uncle. What is his name?”
“Ephraim Morris. He is a farmer back yonder,” and Hadley pointed over his shoulder. “My name is Hadley Morris.”
Before Lillian could comment upon this, or explain her sudden interest in his uncle’s name, both were startled by an exclamation from the landlord at the other end of the porch.
“Had! Had!” he called. “He’s coming.”
Hadley left the gate at once and leaped into the road. Far down the dusty highway there appeared a little balloon of dust, and the faint ring of rapid hoofs reached their ears. Somebody was riding furiously toward the inn from the east. Lillian rose to look, too, and in the doorway appeared the military figure of her father. His face looked very grim indeed as he gazed, as the others were doing, down the road.
The advancing horseman was less than a quarter of a mile away when, of a sudden, there sounded a single pistol shot—then another and another. It was a scattering volley, but at the first report those watching at the inn could see the approaching horse fairly leap ahead under the spur of its rider.
“Ha! the scoundrels are after him!” cried the inn-keeper, his fat face paling.
The colonel’s countenance expressed sudden satisfaction. “Go into the house, Lillian!” he commanded. “There will be trouble here in a moment.” He brought out from under his coat tails as he spoke a huge pistol such as was usually carried in saddle holsters at that day.
Hadley Morris, from the centre of the road, did not see the colonel’s weapon. He only observed the approaching horseman in the cloud of dust, and knew him to be a dispatch-bearer aiming to reach the ferry and Washington’s headquarters beyond. In a moment there loomed up behind him a group of pursuers riding neck and neck upon his trail. They were British dragoons and the space between them and their prey was scarce a hundred yards.