Milady at Arms/Chapter 1
SALLY! Sal-lee!" Impatiently Mistress Todd's voice could be heard calling.
Just as impatiently, a slight young figure in torn linsey-woolsey frock stirred in the haymow, shrugged a rebellious shoulder, at last jumped to two bare feet, and stood hesitating.
"Sally! Sal-lee!" Now Mistress Todd's voice came whipping up the ladder hole of the hayloft straight at Sally's pink-tipped ears.
"Yes, mistress, coming! Coming!" she called back, making a little mouth to herself; but walking obediently, albeit reluctantly, toward the top of the ladder. Descending, at the ladder foot, she was caught and jerked around by a none too gentle hand to face Mistress Todd.
"Wilt tell me, girl, why ye needs must plague me thus, why I must search this farm o'er and me wi' so much to do?" demanded the irate dame. "Could ye not hear me the first time ever I called?"
Sally shook her head. "Nay," she answered with maddening gentleness.
Mistress Todd gave her a little shake. "Here I be wi' my week's baking on hand, forsooth, wi' a sick child to care for, the parson to come a-calling, as he hath sent word by Eleazer Lamson's boy—and you up here mooning i' the hayloft!" she bewailed. "Call yourself, too, an honorable lass! I vow, 'tis enow to try the patience o'Aye, Mary, what be it now?"
She turned from Sally, who was hanging her head beneath the tirade, to question a tiny girl of five who had peeped into the door of the saddle room where they were standing.
"An it pleaseth ye, Moth-er," lisped the little girl, "the parthon hath arrived!"
Mistress Todd gave a tragic groan and glanced down miserably at her gown. "Lawk, whate'er possessed the man to come a-calling so early!" she ejaculated in a vexed tone. "Run along, Mary. Tell him I will come at once," she bade the child, in a soft voice of fond motherhood. "Now, ye, Sally," her tone changed to a sharper pitch, "run in and clean yourself. 'Tis a pity a great girl o' fourteen, almost fifteen, must look thus! Your hair, your gown, the straw on your skirt—where are your stockings?"
"I—I" began Sally falteringly.
"Didst not understand ye were forbidden to go wi'out them?" exclaimed Mistress Todd angrily.
"Aye." Sally pushed the tangled red-gold curls out of her eyes and glanced at the other appealingly. "But it be so warm this May day, and—and the grass was so soft and cool out in you orchard; and then I came up to the hayloft, and 'twas so very nice—ye can't think, Mistress Todd," Sally's eyes grew dreamy, "so sweet the hay makes it up there, and the drone o' the bees coming in the open door, and the fluttering o' pigeons' wings, and the dusty cobwebs blowing at the windows like fairy lace—ah, 'twas nice!"
"Tush!" Mistress Todd, who had been listening in spite of herself, now turned away crossly. "Think ye I ha' time to stand here a-listening to your idle chatter, Sally? Hurry ye! Parson Chapman be here, as ye heard Mary say, and he may wish to see ye."
Sally stood silent a long moment after the lady had switched indignantly out of the barn. Then she sighed; and stepping out into the premature heat of the May afternoon, she followed Mistress Todd to the house.
Entering the buttery, a lean-to through which one had to pass to reach the kitchen door from the rear of the house, Sally paused in great distress. Parson Chapman was already seated in the kitchen, doubtless drinking the buttermilk offered him by his hostess after his long, hot ride from the settlement at Orange; and how could Sally pass through to get to her room without being detected? She glanced down dismally at her torn frock. Oh, how Mistress Todd would scold were the minister to behold her thus! And yet the clean gown hanging neatly upon its peg in her room at the head of the stairs might as well have been hanging in New York Town for all its use to Sally!
She opened the door a crack and peeped into the big kitchen. In a straight line she could see Mistress Todd, occupying in her usual nervous fashion a straight ladder-backed chair, with one foot vigorously applied to a cradle rocker, for the baby was sick and fretting from his teeth, and her eyes fixed anxiously upon the door of the Dutch oven where her bread was baking. Between her mother and the buttery door sat Mary, a quiet, good child working upon a quaint sampler with precocious little fingers. Somewhere in the room, beyond Sally's vision, probably near the other door to catch any stray breeze that might come along, to offset the fierce heat of the baking oven, sat the minister. Sally could hear his deep voice with a silence every now and then punctuating his remarks when he raised the silver flagon to his lips.
Sally leaned in discouragement against a rude pine table used as a shelf for the pans of milk in winter time, but now occupied only by some sticks of charcoal with which Mary had been playing that morning. Now the girl's fingers nervously crumbled the charcoal as she stood debating with herself, for the more she thought about her problem of obtaining that clean gown, the more perplexing it became. Finally, raising her hands and pushing back her curls, she made a despairing little gesture which, had she known of the great black smudge left upon her white forehead by her charcoal-grimed fingers, would have been even more despairing.
Presently, in the next room. Mistress Todd looked around impatiently. "Sally?" she repeated in answer to the minister's inquiry. "Forsooth, I called her! I cannot understand why she be not here!"
Sally, eying her desperately through the crack, scratched the tip of her nose meditatively—thereby leaving another smudge!—and wondered dismally what to do. Her glance fell at last upon the unconscious Mary and brightened with resolve. If she could attract the little girl's attention, get her into the buttery by surreptitious means, the child could be induced to fetch her gown. No sooner thought of than attempted! "Pst! S-ss-ss!" hissed Sally through the crack.
Mary stirred uneasily, looked up from her sampler. Her mother looked up more alertly.
"Mary!" Sally shrank back at the sharp voice. "Pardon me, sir! Mary, see an that old gander be in the garden again! Methinks I heard him. Ye were saying, sir?" Mistress Todd turned back deprecatingly to the minister, whose voice had stopped abruptly at his hostess's exclamation.
Mary soon came running back into the kitchen through the door leading into the garden. "Nay, the old gander wath nowhere near!" she told her mother innocently, seating herself once more in her little chair and setting to work again upon her sampler.
Sally shook her head disgustedly. There was nothing to do now but try to get through the kitchen and up the stairs without being noticed, for she knew it would not be long before Mistress Todd would call her again.
Opening the buttery door inch by inch, she cautiously edged her way into the kitchen. Both Mistress Todd and the minister, who were facing each other, had their profiles toward her, while Mary was completely turned from her, with her back to the buttery door.
Sally plumped noiselessly down upon her hands and knees. Creeping across the kitchen, there would be the table and three chairs to hide her; and if Mistress Todd, observing her, would guess her dilemma and pay no attention to her as she crept toward the door which the lady faced, Mr. Chapman would be none the wiser. Sally could then descend bravely in clean gown, stockings, and slippers, and be able to greet the gentleman not quite so handicapped as she was now.
But poor Sally reckoned without the harassed nerves that even then twitched Mistress Todd's thin shoulders, and she had no sooner reached a chair and started for the security of the table before making a last dash for the stair door than Mistress Todd, catching unexpected sight of her, uttered a loud shriek and threw up her hands.
Instantly, the Todd kitchen was in an uproar, Little Mary also uttered a shriek, and taking fright at her mother's start, ran to her and buried her round face in her mother's skirts. The baby, seizing any chance to burst into a roar, set up a series of howls not to be quieted by any mere rocking of his cradle. Master Chapman, springing to his feet and staring in dismay at the terrible bedlam, opened and shut his mouth rapidly many times before he was able to speak. At last he came toward his hostess with upraised hand.
"Madam," he shouted above the tumult, "what—why—what—prithee, what is it?"
Mistress Todd, having snatched her son out of his cradle, pointed a dramatic finger at the cause of all the excitement; and Parson Chapman, following her accusing finger, found his astonished gaze upon Sally. The girl, still upon her hands and knees, had been frozen into immobility by the riot of noise she had succeeded in arousing.
As the minister stared, however, she got slowly to her feet; and pushing back the curls from her grotesquely marked face, she stood in silent, overwhelming dismay.
"Wretched maid! There, there, son!" Mistress Todd's voice alternately assailed Sally and sought to soothe the crying infant.
Little Mary now created a diversion by lifting her head to stare at Sally and then running over to her to clasp the young girl by the knees.
"Why, it's only Thally, Moth-er!" she cried in reassuring tone. She looked up into the charcoal-smudged face. "Hast hurt thyself, Thally?" she asked in a pitying little voice.
"Nay—no hurt, I'll warrant, the naughty wench!" interrupted Mistress Todd scornfully.
But here Parson Chapman interrupted in his turn. "Nay, dear Mistress Todd," he implored, advancing to the girl's side to look down at her with kind eyes, "I do protest the lass meant no harm an ye will gi' her opportunity to explain! One can see that in the pretty face! How now, my dear," he took one of Sally's moist, hot hands in his own cool grasp, "why dost creep into the room to frighten the mistress so?"
"I—I—was trying to—to reach you stairs without being seen, sir!" stammered poor Sally. "I was—was 'shamed, sir!" And she glanced down at her torn frock and bare feet with tears in her eyes.
Mistress Todd returned to her chair, a grim expression settling upon her countenance that served to confirm the good minister's suspicions of her attitude toward the little waif he had given into her charge a few years before. His face was very grave as he followed his hostess back to the center of the room. Reseating himself in the armchair from which he had started, while Sally and little Mary escaped up the stairs, he eyed the lady with sober gaze for a while.
"Mistress Todd, it hath been over three years since I came to ye and asked ye to take the young lass Sarah and care for her, hath it not?" he asked at last.
The lady nodded her head shortly. "Aye, 'twas in 1774, I mind," she confirmed him.
"Art tired o' the charge?" Unexpectedly brief, the minister looked at her searchingly. She raised frank eyes to meet his gaze.
"I will be honest wi' ye, sir—I am tired o' having Sally here!" she answered. "The lass be no help to me, as I had thought she would be—there be a queer strain to her. Seem's if her people before her were not brought up to work, for sometimes she acts as though I should be waiting on her, 'stead o' her on me! 'Tis all unconsciouslike; that's why I be thinking she comes o' queer stock. But she be lazy, unpractical, as ye have but now perceived. I am a worker, mysel', Parson Chapman, a hard worker!" Mistress Todd sighed. "A farmer's life is no easy one, nor can a farmer's wife have much rest. But"—dryly—"my life has not been made an easier one wi' Sally around! My children be good children, prone to obedience. Not so Sally! She hath a fiery temper which punishment hath not seemed to quell!"
"Punishment—h'm!" The minister's tone was vague. "Hath tried a little love on the lass?" he asked smilingly.
Mistress Todd did not smile, however, as she shook her head vigorously. Her black eyes fairly snapped as she glanced past the minister at the stair door.
"Love, sir? Nay, I do admit there hath been no love lost between us! Indeed, I see nothing about the maid to call forth any!"
"And yet—she be a pretty lass," began the minister tactlessly.
Mistress Todd verbally swooped upon him. "Pretty?" Her tone was contemptuous. "Your pardon, Master Chapman, an I say that be just like a man! A pretty face doth ever appeal to your sex, sir! But a pretty face doth not always augur a pretty nature. Sally is not only hard to manage; but she will, in time, I doubt not at all, lead my Mary into paths I do not care to have her follow!"
"So?" The minister paused suggestively.
"So," answered the lady, "I do desire ye to release Samuel and me from our bond o' caring for the girl. An ye do not, we shall soon set her free, ourselves, and then"
"There!" The minister softly struck his hands together and so did not hear the stair door open. "I did fear that was in your mind. Mistress Todd—that ye did wish to be rid o' the lass! That is why, then, when I left the Continental Army at Morris Town to shift for itself awhile—though Parson Johnes be there to more than fulfill my poor place, I came home, I say, to settle the question o' Sally!"
Sally stood still on the bottom step and stared. Only that morning had she wept over her dreary lot, and now here was Parson Chapman calling about her!
Mistress Todd, catching sight of her, frowned. "Come, close the door!" Her tone was querulous. Then, as the girl obeyed her and advanced into the kitchen, she nodded toward the front entrance. "Wait ye outside and see that Mary keeps out o' the hot sun," she ordered.
Master Chapman moved in his chair. "An so ye wish to be rid o' Sally," he resumed, after Mary and Sally had departed. "Had ye any other place in mind for her here on the Mountain or at the settlement to suggest?"
"None." The lady's tone was curt.
"And Master Todd is quite o' your mind, mistress?" Parson Chapman's voice was as gentle as usual, but his eyes were very keen.
His parishioner flushed a little. "We-ell," she hesitated, "o' course he be not bothered by the maid all day long as I be. He—yes, I must admit it—he be fonder o' Sally than I; but, as I say, he is either working i' the fields or off soldiering and, not seeing much—not seeing overly much o' her, he—he—finds her agreeable when he comes home, and so—and—so"
The minister, by his upflung hand, brought Mistress Todd's flounderings to an abrupt termination. "And so the question o' Sally remains," he was commencing. When, all at once, the sunny doorway was darkened.
"Oh—oh, Parson Chapman!" Sally, gasping and staring, wide-eyed, stood upon the threshold pointing helplessly behind her. "Parson Chapman!"
Both minister and hostess sprang to their feet at the unmistakable note of alarm in the girl's voice.
"What is it, Sally?"
"The red-coats! The red-coats be a-coming!"
Parson Chapman, at this, snatched up his hat and, jamming it upon his head, was away through the open door like a flash.
"They be at the turn o' the road, sir!" screamed Sally after him, running down the garden walk.
Mistress Todd, within her orderly kitchen, wrung her hands, for she well knew what a British raid meant. While there might be no personal danger for any of them, although the colonists did not always find this to be the rule, their stores of grain and their stock would be taken mercilessly from them, without payment, and carried triumphantly back to New York or to Staten Island by the enemy.
"Is he upon his horse yet?" she asked hoarsely, her minister's danger, for the nonce, overshadowing her own affairs. She did not stir from beside her chair.
Sally, outside the door, shaded her eyes and peered eagerly down the road. "Aye," she called back, then, "he is mounted! Ah, the red-coats see him! There, now they hasten their steeds! Ride ye. Parson Chapman!" Sally danced up and down excitedly. "Ride ye! Ah, now he be going up the ridge! Why, what" Her voice broke off sharply.
Mistress Todd, unable to bear the suspense, now came running to the door to stare over Sally's shoulder, for the girl had retreated to the threshold. She saw a troop of British light horse go galloping past her house, raising a swirling cloud of red New Jersey dust as they went. Far up the road, where it ascended over a ridge, she saw her minister's figure outlined against the background of mountain woodland. But instead of riding on over the ridge, he had drawn partial rein and was watching, in cool amusement, the enemy's approach. Then, as she gazed open-mouthed, he rose in his stirrups and gave a rousing cheer full in the face of the pursuing troop. His sonorous voice came faintly to Mistress Todd's ears.
"What did he say?" demanded that lady.
"He did cheer for freedom!" cried Sally, clapping her hands.
"Aye, that is what I thought!" nodded Mistress Todd, who ever hated to admit that she had missed anything. "Why, the red-coats," she craned her neck to stare, "the red-coats be drawing rein!"
As they gazed, open-mouthed, scarcely able to believe their eyes, it did seem to be a fact. The British soldiers were most assuredly slowing the headlong pace with which they had been pursuing that lonely figure, were coming to a wavering, indecisive standstill. Then, as both the feminine onlookers stared and Parson Chapman, with a last triumphant wave of his hat, rode over the hill, the British horsemen turned and trotted back down the hill toward the Todd farmhouse.
Thundering past the gate, the officer in the lead chanced to glance into the shady yard with its stone well and its long well sweep. He drew rein and, turning in his saddle, shouted out a command. At once the troop halted; and, dismounting, they tied their steeds to the fence and came toward the house.
"Madam," the officer in charge bowed civilly enough, "mayhap ye will gi' tired and thirsty men some o' your cold well water?"
"Aye." Mistress Todd dropped him a curtsey, hastily imitated by Sally. "I ha' ne'er yet refused beast or man a drink o' water," went on Mistress Todd tartly. "Sally, fetch the gourds!"
So Sally ran to fetch the wooden gourds which, turned and polished, were used as drinking mugs to save pewter and silver ones. As the men, breaking ranks at a command from the officer, gathered eagerly around the well, taking the gourds from her shy hands, she noticed that one of them, a handsome youth, started and stared at her when his eyes fell upon her. She flushed beneath his gaze, and her own sought the tips of her square-toed slippers as she turned to go into the house. One of the other men laughed boisterously, catching sight of this.
"How now, Lieutenant Lawrence, art day dreaming o' you maid's curls?"
Sally paused for the other's answer. Lawrence reddened, even as Sally's hands flew instinctively to the auburn locks which, defying restraint, were tumbling out beneath her cap.
"Nay, I—I was but wondering," stammered the young Englishman. "The lass might be related to my guardian, forsooth. She looks much like his two little daughters in England, who, I vow, do possess hair similar to this maid's—not quite so bright, mayhap. But 'tis the Holden red!"
"Aye?" But the other's tone was uninterested, and the subject was dropped.
Sally, more interested than she cared to show, lingered, however, slowly gathering up the gourds which the soldiers were now dropping upon the ground. And, presently, her quick ears caught the drift of an argument between the two older officers of the British troop.
"But, I tell ye, I think the rebel saw an American troop behind him!" one was insisting. "Think ye he would have dared to stop and cheer in our very faces as he did, otherwise?"
"'Twas but a clever ruse, sir, for these rebels dare anything, Major Lumm!" returned the other coolly. "With all due respect for your judgment, I do declare there were no rebel horsemen behind that man, and I think we should ha' pursued him! An there were help there in back o' him, why do we see naught o' them now?"
"Captain Stockton, ye forget yourself!" The man addressed as Lumm drew himself up haughtily, his face crimsoning. "I know that the rebel perceived help below the hill which we on our side could not see. And now, sir," he made an imperative gesture as Captain Stockton regarded him sullenly, "tell the men to mount! It waxes late, and the sun be sinking behind this cursed mountain!"
As the other swung around to repeat the order, his eye fell upon Sally, who, as soon as she saw his darkening gaze, stooped innocently to retrieve a gourd which had fallen upon the grass. Straightening herself, however, she was alarmed to find the man still staring at her.
"What do ye here, young mistress?" With one quick step he was beside her, his hand closing around her slender wrist.
"Nay, I—I" Sally's other hand, dropping the gourd, crept to her throat where the pulse could be seen beating in terror.
"What is it, Captain?" The superior officer's voice was careless.
Sally, glancing up into the face near her own, was conscious of instant dislike. It was such a thin, ferretlike face, with quick, darting eyes set closely together, and cruel, thin lips. "His face doth look like a hatchet-edge!" thought the girl helplessly.
Major Lumm now reached them, however, and made a negligent gesture that at once freed the girl. And now it was Stockton's turn to color, while his eyes darted a look at his superior officer that held ill-concealed venom.
Major Lumm turned indifferently upon his heel. "An the girl happened near us, she meant no harm. Remember, we war not on women while I command!" he flung back to the other.
Captain Stockton, forced to follow him out to the horses, snapped out an order in an angry voice to the men resting upon the grass.
A clank of steel, a muffled sound of hoofs, and the long column of men was off, moving in a line northward upon the narrow road that, leading past the Todd farmhouse, went along the foot of the First Mountain to join the road to Orange. As they trotted off, the young British officer, Lawrence, twisted himself in his seat to catch a last glimpse of Sally. Oddly enough—for what could patriot maid have to do with enemy officer?—she was upon the doorstep, her gaze fixed upon him.
The next instant, as the troop of light horse swept past a stone wall which formed one of the boundaries of the Todd farm, there was the flash and the report of a musket. At once there was panic-stricken flight among the red-coats' horses. In vain. Major Lumm sawed upon his beast's reins—the brute, crazed by fright, took the bit between his teeth and bolted. The others, seeing their leader's apparent fright, followed headlong—all except Stockton. He, glancing back, saw young Lawrence reel in his saddle and slip to the dusty road, when his horse, riderless, galloped on with the rest.
Stockton drew rein and hesitated. He ought to go back, he knew, and rescue the boy, for he was sure he was the only one who had seen him fall. Generally not a coward, the courage to go back and face that hidden musket behind the stone wall simply was not his. He skulked, pulling his horse to a standstill behind a great walnut tree that stood near the road. There he watched quietly; and after a little his watching was rewarded, for he saw a farmer, clad in homespun shirt and leather breeches, come out from behind the stone wall and walk toward that silent figure in the road. And Stockton knew that the farmer, in his excitement, had not seen him! His hand crept to his pistol, then he stifled an exclamation. It had fallen from its holster!
The farmer, musket in hand, stood over young Lawrence's motionless form. Slowly, slowly the musket muzzle was lowered. Stockton held his breath. Was the lad going to be murdered there before him, in cold blood? But as he watched, a slender figure came flying down the road from the farmhouse with outstretched hands and radiant hair gleaming in the last rays of the sun.
After a moment's apparent pleading upon the part of the little maid, the farmer stooped; and getting the wounded youth upon his back, with the girl's help, he staggered toward the farmhouse, with Sally—for it was Sally!—trudging along beside him, carrying the fatal musket.