Peggy Owen at Yorktown Part 21

"Why, child, that might do! I did not think of that; yet I like not to send you out again so late."

"It is not late. The dark hath come only in the shadow, which will be the better. And where will he be, friend nurse? The grounds are so large that I might go astray if I did not know the exact spot."

"He will be in the great grove of lindens which lies on the far side of the grounds," the nurse told her. "Yet I like not--"

"Say no more, friend nurse," said Peggy quickly. "'Tis settled that I am to go. Now tell me just what thee wishes me to do."

After some further expostulation on the part of the nurse she consented that the girl should go to meet the lad, carrying some of his mother's clothes which he should don, and so arrayed come back to the cottage.

"I wonder," mused Nurse Johnson, "if he knew that the English general hath his headquarters in the palace. 'Tis a rash proceeding to venture so near. If he is taken they will make him either swear allegiance to the king, or else give him a parole. Fairfax will take neither, so it means prison for the boy. Foolish, foolish, to venture here!"

"But all will be well if we can but get him here unbeknown to the guard," consoled Peggy. "Friend nurse, cook many cakes, and regale them so bountifully that they will linger long over the meal; and it may be that Fairfax can slip in un.o.bserved."

"The very thing!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the nurse excitedly. "What a wit you have, Peggy. I begin to think that we can get him here, after all."

She bundled up one of her frocks hastily, saying as she gave it to the girl:

"Of course you must be guided by circ.u.mstances, my child, but come back as quickly as possible lest the guard be through with the meal. If they can be occupied--"

"I will hasten," promised Peggy. "And now good-bye. Oh, I'll warrant those guards will never have again such a meal as thee will give them.

Now don't be too anxious."

"But I shall be," answered the nurse with a sigh. "Not only anent Fairfax but you also."

Peggy pa.s.sed out of the cottage quickly, and went toward the hospital.

It was so usual a thing for her to go back and forth that the going attracted no attention from the guards. Now the hospital had an entrance that opened directly into the palace grounds, and Peggy availed herself of this convenience.

The grounds were very large, and it was fortunate that she knew the exact situation of the grove of linden trees, else she must have become bewildered. The lawns were in a sad state of neglect, overrun with vines and wild growths; for, since Lord Dunmore, the last royal governor, had left, the mansion had held but an occasional tenant. So much of underbrush was there that it was a comparatively easy matter for Peggy to pa.s.s un.o.bserved through the trees in the gathering dusk of the twilight. A guard had been placed in the immediate vicinity of the mansion, and the town itself was thoroughly picketed so that sentinels in the remoter parts of the grounds were infrequent. And un.o.bserved Peggy presently reached the great grove of lindens, the pride of the former royal governor.

The moon was just rising through a bank of threatening clouds which had gathered since the sunset. They obscured the moonlight at one moment, then swept onward permitting the full light of the orb to shine. Peggy's voice trembled a little as she called softly:

"Friend Fairfax!"

"Mistress Peggy!" Fairfax Johnson rose slowly from the copse near the grove, and came toward her.

"Is it thou?" asked Peggy in a low tone. Then as he drew closer: "Thee is to put on this frock, friend. 'Tis thy mother's. Then thee is to come boldly back to the cottage with me, and enter while thy mother hath the guard in the kitchen regaling them with Indian cakes and honey. Be quick!"

The youth took the bundle silently, and retired a short distance from her. The clouds cleared in the next few moments, discovering Master Fairfax arrayed in his mother's frock, which was a trifle long for him.

He stumbled as he tried to approach Peggy, and grabbed at his skirts awkwardly.

"Thee must not stride, friend," rebuked Peggy in a shrill whisper. "Thee is a woman, remember. Walk mincingly. So! Hold not thy skirt so high.

Thy boots will betray thee. No woman had ever so large a foot. Oh, dear!

I don't believe that thee will ever get by the guards. And thy mother is uneasy about thee."

"I'll do better," answered the youth eagerly. "Indeed, I will try to do better, Mistress Peggy. Show me just once more. Remember that I've never been a woman before."

"'Tis no time for frivolity," chided the girl, laughing a little herself. "There! 'tis a decided improvement, Friend Fairfax. I think we may start now. And as we go thee may tell me why thee should be so rash as to venture into the town while the enemy is here. Thy mother wondered anent the matter. Why did thee, friend?"

"Why, because the Marquis de Lafayette hath entered the state, and is marching to meet the British," he answered. "The militia of Williamsburg is to join him. We march at daybreak. I wanted to see mother before going, and to get something to eat. I have eaten naught since yesterday morning."

"Why, thou poor fellow," exclaimed Peggy. "No wonder thee would dare greatly. And 'tis venturesome, friend. Vastly so! And hath the Marquis come from General Washington?"

"Yes; he hath twelve hundred regulars, and everywhere in tide-water Virginia the militia are rising to join him. We must do all we can to keep the old Dominion from being overrun by the enemy. The meeting place is near the Richmond hills."

"Thank you for the information," came a sarcastic voice, and from out of the gloom there stepped a figure in the uniform of an English officer.

The moon, bursting through the clouds at this moment, revealed the dark face of Benedict Arnold. Peggy gave a little cry as she recognized him.

"So this is your trysting place," he said glancing about the grove.

"Upon my word a most romantic spot for a meeting, but a trace too near the enemy for absolute security. You realize, do you not, that you are both prisoners?"

"Sir," spoke Fairfax Johnson, "do with me as you will, but this maiden hath done naught for which she should be made a prisoner. She but came to conduct me to my mother."

"And 'tis no trysting place," interposed Peggy with some indignation.

"The lad but ventured here to see his mother. He hath eaten nothing since yesterday morning. The least, the very least thee can do is to first let him see his mother, and have a good meal."

"And then?" he questioned as though enjoying the situation. "Upon my word, Miss Peggy, you plead well for him. I have heard you plead for another youth, have I not?"

"Thee has," answered she with spirit. "But then I pleaded with an American officer, a gallant and brave man. Now--"

"Yes, and now?" he demanded fiercely. "Have I no bowels of compa.s.sion, think you, because I have changed my convictions? I will show you, Mistress Peggy, that I am not so vile a thing as you believe. Go! You and this youth also. The information he hath so unwittingly given is of far more value than he would be as a prisoner. We had not yet been advised of Lafayette's whereabouts, and we were anxious to know them. We have tarried at this town for want of that very intelligence. Therefore, go! but take this advice: Hereafter, choose your meeting place at a spot other than the enemy's headquarters." He laughed sneeringly, and turning strode off under the trees.

"I would rather he had taken me prisoner," observed the lad gloomily.

"Well, I am glad that he did not," answered Peggy. "Thy mother would have grieved so. Come, Friend Fairfax! With such a man one knows not how long his mood of mercy will last. Let us hasten while we may."

He followed her awkwardly. They reached the cottage without further molestation, and entered it un.o.bserved.

On the morning following the drums beat a.s.sembly soon after the sounding of the reveille. The different commands filed out of their camps, and, forming into a column, took up the line of march out of the city.

CHAPTER XIX-HARRIET AT LAST

"Awake on your hills, on your islands awake, Brave sons of the mountain, the frith, and the lake.

Be the brand of each chieftain like Fin's in his ire.

May the blood through his veins flow like currents of fire.

Burst the base foreign yoke as your sires did of yore, Or die like your sires, and endure it no more."

-"Battle Song," Scott.

With the courage born of the desperateness of the situation the citizens of Williamsburg set about repairing the devastation wrought by the invader. Wrecked homes and desolated families followed fast in the wake of the British army. From field and hills the militia a.s.sembled to repel their approach, leaving the crops to the care of the men too old for service, the women who bravely shouldered tasks too heavy for delicate frames, and the few negroes who remained faithful to their owners.

Patiently demolished gardens were replanted, poultry yards restocked, depleted larders replenished in order that want, stark and gaunt, might not be added to other foes.

And the sunny days of April became the brighter ones of May, and the forests about the city blossomed into riotous greens, starred by the white of dogwood, or the purplish-pink mist of the Judas-tree. The mulberries and sycamores were haunts of song. Out of the cerulean sky the sun shone brilliantly upon the leaf-strewn earth. All Nature rejoiced, and sent forth a profusion of bloom and verdure as though to compensate the land for the b.l.o.o.d.y war waged throughout its length and breadth. For that great game, whose moves and counter-moves were to terminate so soon in the cul-de-sac of Yorktown, had begun. From the seacoast where Greene had sent him Cornwallis, recovered at last from the dearly bought victory of Guilford Court House, was moving rapidly across North Carolina for a junction with the forces in Virginia. There was no longer a doubt but that the subjugation of the state was the aim of the British.

An empty treasury, a scarcity of arms, a formidable combination to oppose in the West, a continual demand upon her resources to answer for the army in the North, with all these contingencies to face Virginia had now to prepare to meet this new foe advancing from the South.