Janice Meredith Part 48

As Brereton slammed the kitchen door behind him, the girl ran to the a.s.sistance of the injured trooper, only to recoil at sight of the blood flowing from his mouth and nose, and in uncontrollable horror and fright she fled to her own room. Here, cowering and shivering, she crouched on the floor behind her bed, her breath coming fast and short, as she waited for the sword of vengeance to fall. Ere many seconds the sounds below told her that the escape had been discovered, bangings of doors, shouts, bugle calls, and the clatter of horses' feet each in succession giving her fresh terror. Yet minute after minute pa.s.sed without any one coming to find her, and at last the suspense became so intolerable that the girl rose and went to the head of the stairs to listen. From that point of vantage she could hear in the dining-room the voice of Harcourt sternly asking questions, the replies to which were so inarticulate and so intermixed with sobs and wails that Janice could do no more than realise that the cook was under examination. Harcourt's inquiries, however, served to reveal that the faithful Sukey was endeavouring to conceal her young mistress's part in the prisoner's escape; and as Janice gathered this, the figure which but a moment before had expressed such fear suddenly straightened, and without hesitation she ran down the stairs and entered the dining-room just in time to hear Sukey affirm:--

"I dun it, I tells youse, I dun it, and dat's all I will tells youse."

"Colonel Harcourt," announced the girl, steadily, "Sukey did n't do it. I took the knife from her and cut the prisoner loose before she knew what I had in mind."

"Doan youse believe one word dat chile says," protested Sukey.

"It is true," urged Janice, as eager to a.s.sume the guilt as five minutes before she had been anxious to escape it; "and if you want proof, you will find the knife on my bed upstairs."

"Oh, missy, missy!" cried Sukey, "wha' fo' youse tell dat?

Now dey kill youse an' not ole Sukey;" and the sobs of the slave redoubled as she threw herself on the floor in the intensity of her grief.

It took but few interrogations on the part of Harcourt to wring all the truth from the culprit, and ordering her to follow him to the parlour, he angrily denounced the girl to her parents.

Much to her surprise, she found that this latest enormity called forth less of an outburst than her previous misconduct, her father being quite staggered by its daring and seriousness; while Mrs. Meredith, with a sudden display of maternal tenderness that Janice had not seen for years, took the girl in her arms, and tried to soothe and comfort her.

One more friend in need proved to be Clowes, who, when Harcourt declared that the girl should be carried to Princeton in the morning, along with Lee, that Lord Cornwallis might decide as to her punishment, sought to make the officer take less summary measures, but vainly, except to win the concession that if Hennion recaptured the prisoner he would take a less drastic course. The morrow brought a return of the pursuing party, empty-handed, and in a hasty consultation it was agreed that the squire should accompany Janice, leaving Mrs.

Meredith under the protection of Philemon,--an arrangement by no means pleasing to the young lieutenant, and made the less palatable by the commissary's announcement that he should retrace his own steps to Princeton in the hope of being of service to his friends. Philemon's protests were ineffectual, however, to secure any amendment; and the sleigh, with Brereton's mare and Joggles to pull it, received the three, and, together with Lee and the escort, set out for headquarters about noon.

With the arrival at Na.s.sau Hall, then serving as barracks for the force centred there, a fresh complication arose, for Colonel Harcourt learned that Lord Cornwallis, having seen his force safely in winter quarters at Princeton, Trenton, and Burlington, had departed the day previous for New York, while General Grant, who succeeded him, was still at Trenton. Taking the night to consider what was best to be done, Harcourt made up his mind to carry his prisoners to New York, a decision which called forth most energetic protests from the squire, who had contrived in the doings of the last two days to take cold, and now a.s.serted that an attack of the gout was beginning.

His pleadings were well seconded by the baron, and not to hara.s.s too much one known to be friendly both to the cause and to the commander-in-chief, the colonel finally consented that the fate of Janice should be left to the general in command. This decided, Lee was once more mounted, and captive and captors set about retracing their steps, while the sleigh carried the squire and Janice, under guard, on to Trenton, Mr. Meredith having elected to make the short trip to that town rather than await the indefinite return of Grant.

It was dusk when they reached Trenton, and once more they were doomed to a disappointment, for the major-general had departed to Mount Holly. Mr. Meredith's condition, as well as nightfall, put further travel out of the question, and an appeal was made to Rahl, the Hessian colonel commanding the brigade which held the town, to permit them to remain, which, thanks to the influence of the commissary, was readily granted, on condition that they could find quarters for themselves.

"No fear," averred the squire, cheerily. "I'll never want for sup or bed in Trenton while Thomas Drinker lives."

"Ach!" exclaimed the colonel. "Dod iss mein blace ver I sleeps und eats und drinks. Und all bessitzen you will it find."

Notwithstanding the warning, the sleigh was driven to the Drinkers' door, now flanked by a battery of field-pieces, and in front of which paced sentries, who refused to let them pa.s.s.

Their protests served to attract the attention of the inmates, and brought the trio of Drinkers running to the door; in another moment the two girls were locked in each other's arms, while Mr. Meredith put his question concerning possible hospitality.

"Ay, in with thee all, Friend Lambert," cried Mr. Drinker, leading the way. "Thou'lt find us pushed into the garret, and forced to eat at second table, while our masters take our best, but of what they leave us thou shalt have thy share."

"Is 't so bad as that?" marvelled Mr. Meredith, as, pa.s.sing by the parlour, he was shown into the kitchen, and a chair set for him before the fire.

"Thee knows the tenets of our faith, and that I accept them," replied the Quaker. "Yet the last few days have made me feel that non-resistance--"

"Thomas!" reproved his sister. "Say it not, for when the curse is o'er, 't will grieve thee to have even thought it."

If the tempered spirit of the elders spoke thus, it was more than the warm blood of youth could do, and Tabitha gave a loose to her woes.

"'T is past endurance!" she cried, "to come and treat us all as if we were enemies who had no right even to breathe.

They take possession of our houses and turn them into pig-sties with their filthy German ways; they eat our best and make us slave for them day and night; they plunder as they please, not merely our cattle and corn, so that we are forced to beg back from them the very food we eat, but take as well our horses, our silver, our clothes, and whatever else happens to please their fancy. The regiment of Lossberg has at this moment nine waggon-loads of plunder in the Fremantle barn. No woman is safe on the streets after sundown, and scarcely so in the day-time, while night after night the town rings with their drunken carousals. I told Friend Penrhyn the other night that if he had the s.p.u.n.k of a house cat he would get something to fight with, if 't were nothing better than a toasting-fork tied to a stick, and cross the river to Washington; and so I say to every man who stays in Trenton. I only wish I were not a female!"

"Hush, Tabitha!" chided Miss Drinker, "'t is G.o.d's will that we suffer as we do, and thee shouldst bow to it."

"I don't believe it 's G.o.d's will that we should be turned out of our rooms and made to live in the garret, or even in the barns, as some are forced to do; I don't believe it's G.o.d's will that they should have taken our silver tea-service and spoons.

If G.o.d is just, He must want Washington to beat them, and so every man would be doing G.o.d's work who went to help him."

Evidently with whatever strength her father and aunt held to the tenets of their sect, Tabitha's was not sufficiently ingrained to stand the test of the Hessian occupation.

"Dost think it is G.o.d's work to kill fellow-mortals?" expostulated Miss Drinker. "No more of such talk, child; it is time we were making ready for supper."

There was, however, very much more talk of this kind over the hastily improvised meal, and small wonder for it. In a town of less than a thousand inhabitants, nearly thirteen hundred troops, with their inevitable camp followers, were forcibly quartered, filling every house and every barn, to the dire discomfort of the people. As if this in itself were not enough, the Hessian soldiery, habituated to the plundering of European warfare, and who had been sold at so much per head by their royal rulers to fight another country's battles, brought with them to America ideas of warfare which might serve to conquer, but would never serve to pacify, England's colonies. Open and violent seizure had been made, without regard to the political tenets of the owner, of every kind of provision; and this had generally been accompanied with stealthy plundering of much else by the common soldiery, and, indeed, by some of the officers. Thus, in every way, despite their submissions and oaths of allegiance to King George, the Jerseymen were being treated as if they were enemies.

Of this treatment the Drinker family was a fair example.

Without so much as "by your leave," Colonel Rahl had taken possession of the first two floors of their house for himself and the six or seven officers whom he made his boon companions.

Moreover, Mr. Drinker was called upon to furnish food, firewood, and even forage for them; while his servants were compelled to labour from morning till night in the service of the new over lords.

When the squire, after his fatiguing day, was compelled, along with his host and hostess and the girls, to climb two flights of stairs to an ice-cold garret, his loyalty was little warmer than the atmosphere; and when the five were further forced to make the best they could of two narrow trundle-beds, but a brief time before deemed none too good for the coloured servitors, with a scanty supply of bedclothes to eke the discomfort, he became quite of the same mind with Tabitha. Even the most flaming love of royalty and realm serves not to keep warm toes extended beyond short blankets at Christmas-tide. It is not strange that late in December, 1776, all Jersey was mined with discontent, and needed but the spark of Continental success to explode.

Clowes had left his friends, after the interview with Rahl, to quarter himself upon an army acquaintance, and thus knew nothing of the hardships to which they were subjected. When he heard in the morning how they had fared, he at once sought the commander, and by a shrewd exaggeration of the Merediths'

relations with Howe, supplemented by some guineas, secured the banishment of enough officers from the house to restore to the Drinkers two of their rooms.

To contribute to their entertainment, as well as to their comfort, he brought them word that Colonel Rahl, by his favour, bid them all to a Christmas festival the following day; and when Mr. and Miss Drinker refused to have aught to do with an unknown German, and possibly Papistical, if not devilish orgy, he obtained the rescinding of this veto by pointing out how unwise it would be to offend a man on whom their comfort for the winter so much depended.

It was, as it proved, a very novel and wonderful experience to the girls. After the two o'clock dinner which the invading force had compelled the town to adopt, the three regiments of Ans.p.a.ch, Lossberg, and Rahl, and the detachments of the Yagers and light horse, with beating drums and flying colours, paraded from one end of the town to the other, ending with a review immediately in front of the Drinkers' house. Following this the regimental bands of hautboys played a series of German airs which the now disbanded rank and file joined in vocally.

Then, as night and snow set in, a general move was made indoors, at Rahl's quarters, to the parlour, where a tall spruce tree, brilliant with lighted tallow dips, and decorated with bits of coloured paper, red-tinted eggs, and not a little of the recent plunder, drew forth cries of admiration from both Janice and Tabitha, neither of whom had ever seen the like.

After a due enjoyment of the tree's beauty, the gifts were distributed; and then the company went to the dining-room, where the table sagged with the best that barnyard and pantry could be made to produce, plus a perfect forest of bottles,-- tall, squat, and bulbous. The sight of such goodly plenty was irresistible, and the cheer and merriment grew apace. The girls, eagerly served and all the time surrounded by a host of such officers as could speak English, and in fact by some who, for want of that language, could only show their admiration by ardent glances, were vastly set up by the unaccustomed attentions; the squire felt a new warmth of loyalty creep through his blood with the draining of each gla.s.s; and even Miss Drinker's sallow and belined spinster face took on a rosy hue and a cheerful smile as the evening advanced.

A crescendo of enjoyment secured by means of wine is apt to lack restraint and presently, as the fun grew, it began to verge on the riotous. The officers pressed about the girls until the two were separated, and Janice found herself in a corner surrounded by flushed-faced men who elbowed and almost wrestled with one another as to which should stand closest to her.

Suddenly one man so far forgot himself as to catch her about the waist; and but for a prompt ducking of her head as she struggled to free herself, she would have been forcibly kissed.

Her cries rose above the sounds of conviviality; but even before the first was uttered, Clowes, who had kept close to her the whole evening, struck the officer, and the whole room was instantly in a turmoil, the women screaming, the combatants locked, others struggling to separate them, and Rahl shouting half-drunken orders and curses. Just as the uproar was at its greatest came a loud thundering at the door; and when it was opened a becloaked dragoon, white with snow, entered and gave Rahl a despatch. Both the dispute and the conviviality ceased, as every one paused to learn what the despatch portended.

The commander was by this time so fuddled with drink that he could not so much as break the seal, much less read the contents; and the commissary, who for personal reasons had been drinking lightly, came to his a.s.sistance, and read aloud as follows:--

Burlington, Dec. 25, 1776.

Sir,--By a spy just come in I have word that Mr.

Washington, being informed of our troops having marched into winter quarters, and having been reinforced by the arrival of a column under the command of Sullivan, meditates an attack on some of our posts. I do not believe that in the present state of the river a crossing is possible, but be a.s.sured my information is undoubtedly true, and in case the ice clears, I advise you to be upon your guard against an unexpected attack at Trenton.

I am, sir, your most obed't h'ble serv't, James Grant, Major-General.

"Nein, nein," grunted Rahl, tipsily, "I mineself has vort dat Vashington's mens ha.s.s neider shoes nor blankets, und die mit cold und hunger. Dey vill not cross to dis side, mooch ice or no ice, but if dey do, ye prisoners of dem make."

And once more the toasting and merry-making was resumed.

With not a little foresight the three ladies had availed themselves of the lull to escape from the festival to their own room, where, not content with locks and bolts, nothing would do Miss Drinker, as the sounds below swelled in volume and laxity, but the heavy bureau should be moved against the door as an additional barrier.

"Our peril is dire," she admonished the girls; "and if to-morrow's sun finds me escaped unharmed I shall thank Heaven indeed." Then she proceeded to lecture Janice. "Be a.s.sured thee must have given the lewd creatures some encouragement, or they would never have dared a familiarity. Not a one of them showed me the slightest disrespect!"

"Oh, Jan," whispered Tibbie, once they were in bed and snuggled close together, "if thee hadst been kissed!"

"What then?" questioned the maiden.

"It would be so horrible to be kissed by a man!" declared the friend.

"Wilt promise to never, never tell?" asked Janice, with bated breath.

"Cross my heart," vowed Tabitha.

"It--well--I--It is n't as terrible as you 'd think, Tibbie!"