Milady at Arms/Chapter 12
SALLY! Sally!"
Sally stirred, opened her eyes, and found Zenas standing beside her, tugging excitedly at a fold of her gown. Raising herself upon a stiffened elbow, she stared around her in sleep-drugged bewilderment.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Here i' the tap room, on the settle!" Zenas told her impatiently. "Do ye not remember, Sally? The officers did give ye their coats last night and ye lay down here and went to sleep—and I on another settle yonder! But now," the boy's voice deepened, "'tis dawn, Sally—and the enemy hath indeed been discovered across the river, gathering i' great numbers for an attack upon the Town!"
"Aye?" Sally sprang to the floor; but she staggered sleepily and dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. For a moment, as on that dreadful morning in Marshal Cunningham's office, months ago, everything seemed dreamlike—the gray, reluctant light stealing churlishly through the tap-room windows, the furniture standing ghostlike about, Zenas, she, herself—the Todds' bond maid, here under strange circumstances—all seemed fragments of an overwrought imagination! Surely, she told herself, as she had told herself on that long-ago morning, she must waken soon!
Zenas's voice brought her back to the exigencies of the moment. "Captain Camp hath ordered our retreat, Sally," he said hurriedly. "He says we must return to the Mountain at once!"
"Oh," said Sally. She looked at him disappointedly. "Of course, I want to be safe, Zenas," she went on naïvely, "but I did indeed want to see some o' the fighting, an fighting there is going to be! Must we go at once?"
Zenas nodded. "At once!" he repeated.
"Well," Sally sighed, "well, where be the horses, then, Zenas?"
"Horses?" Zenas opened his eyes. "Why, I ne'er thought o' horses, Sally." He admitted it ruefully. "Nay, I have not seen any this morn! We shall e'en have to walk, I fear!"
A voice spoke from the doorway in displeased surprise. "What, still lingering i' this dangerous vicinity?" asked Captain Camp. "Haste ye, young folk; this be too near the river to tarry o'erlong!"
Sally approached him with a curtsey. "We have no horses. Captain Camp," she told him in a respectful little voice. "And—and—'tis a long walk back to the Mountain!"
"No horses?" Captain Camp frowned. "Well," he made a dismissing gesture, "ye must ne'ertheless leave the Town, mistress, before the fighting commences. Walk toward Caleb Wheeler's house—he doth have a horse or two to spare—he hath offered me the use o' them, an needful. An no one be home—indeed, 'tis doubtful, now, for his family be fled to the Mountain and he will be wi' his company—go straight around to his barn and there borrow two steeds and depart at once!"
"Ye mean Captain Wheeler, who did complete that fine new house last year on the market lane?" inquired Sally.
Nathaniel Camp nodded impatiently. "Aye, mistress. Haste ye, now!"
Sally made another curtsey; but Captain Camp, approached by a dispatch rider at that moment, was already immersed deep in the papers handed to him and did not even nod farewell.
As they stepped out into the misty dawn, the girl drew a deep breath and gazed around her. How queer that such beauty of landscape should be but the calm before the storm, for the trees were etched against their hazy background with an almost unearthly beauty, and the silver fog that blew in from the river seemed to enfold her like peace itself!
She and Zenas paused at the tavern well long enough to splash some cold water over their hands and faces and to drink deep of it. Then, glancing nervously toward the Passaic, half dreading, half wishing that the mist might lift, they started off, trudging down the Broad Lane.
"Think ye 'tis really true that the enemy be so close to Newark?" asked the girl. "I cannot see how our men tell, when the fog hides all!"
"The fog came only with daybreak," Zenas told her, hurrying along. "All the hours since a little past midnight have the British and Hessian and Tories been gathering up the river beyond Newark—coming up the Hackensack River to Dow's Ferry. I heard one Master Caleb Bruen—who had just returned from a scouting expedition—make his report to Captain Camp. I was behind a wood pile when they paused before it. Master Bruen said that General Clinton had already established his headquarters on the bank o' the Passaic River at Master John Schuyler's house. Ye know the ford a little north o' that mansion? Well, 'tis thought they will attack from that point. All night long have they been marching along Schuyler's Road—the one he had built to his copper mines from the Hackensack River about twelve years ago!"
Sally, half running along beside Zenas, kept turning her eyes in the direction of the river, wishing, now, that the mist would lift. But it remained thick and obscure until they had turned down the market lane and had reached the northeast corner of what is now Mulberry Street; but what was called the East Back Lane in those days. There they were greeted by the loud crowing of a cock and the first rays of the sun piercing the mist. Sally, coming to an involuntary stop, watched with suspended breath. Slowly, slowly the haze was burned off until the sun, golden-red and glorious, smiled at her over the top of Master Wheeler's fine, new house. Then she gave a sigh and turned to Zenas—to find him leaning against a tree, actually almost asleep upon his feet.
"Come, Zenas," said Sally decidedly, making for the large barn visible at the rear of Master Wheeler's property.
Zenas followed her more slowly, still with his eyes blinking. "Forsooth, 'twas poor rest upon that tavern settle!" he yawned.
"Nay, I found my settle comfortable enow!" returned Sally, glancing up at the drawn blinds of the house and thinking how deserted and forlorn it looked in the morning sunshine.
"Ye had the officers' coats to lie on," Zenas reminded her, yawning again.
"Aye, 'tis true," acknowledged Sally. A moment later she said, "Hush!" And with a sudden nervous clasp of Zenas's arm, she came to an abrupt standstill.
"What!" exclaimed Zenas, startled momentarily out of his drowsiness. "I hear naught, Sally!" He looked around him.
"There!" whispered Sally, pointng toward a grape arbor which stood between their destination and them. "That red—thing moving yonder!" She clutched poor Zenas's arm with pinching and painful intensity. Zenas winced.
"Nay, I see naught!" he insisted, peering obligingly, however, in the direction Sally was staring. "Let go, Sally!" The next moment he burst into laughter, for around the end of the arbor stepped—a rooster! It had been his red comb which Sally had glimpsed moving among the grape leaves!
Sally moved forward, her head held high and her cheeks encarmined. "I see naught comical," she remarked loftily, and maintained a dignified silence until they had reached the barn, although Zenas, at her heels, went from one explosive spasm of laughter to another.
But once inside the dark, cool stable interior, both girl and boy, after going from one stall to another, stared in perplexity at each other. Not a horse was left in the barn!
"Now here be a pretty kettle o' fish!" said Zenas, in doleful tones. "Master Wheeler's family must have taken the horses when they fled. 'Twill be a long, hot walk, forsooth, back to the Mountain!"
Absently, Sally seated herself upon the upturned end of a small keg standing near by, "Stay—let us think!" she murmured, yawning. "Surely there must be some other way an we only can think o't!"
Silence descended. Sally, sitting there upon her keg, chin resting upon pink palms, thought she pondered—and actually heard the clucking of hens outside the barn door, actually noticed the coolness of the morning air as it melted into the newborn sunshine, really saw the beauty of an ancient apple-tree branch, with a bird's nest swaying in the fork of it—and nodded, nodded. Coming to herself with a start, she found that she had very nearly nodded herself off from her keg. She looked around for Zenas; but no Zenas was to be found. Where had he gone?
Jumping to her feet, she ran to the door and stared in every direction. The neighborhood was deserted. Turning back, then, in puzzled anxiety, Sally's glance happened to fall upon the hayloft ladder, and a look of enlightenment spread over her face. Swiftly she bundled her skirts beneath her arm and climbed. The first object her seeking gaze rested upon, at the ladder top, was Zenas, a veritable Boy Blue, fast asleep in the hay!
It was marvelously sweet and surprisingly cool up there in the hayloft. The sun had not yet managed to dispel the coolness engendered by night by shining fervently upon the roof of hand-hewn cedar shingles. Later in the day, perhaps, it would be breathlessly warm beneath that sloping roof; but not yet!
Sally stepped out upon the broad, hay-strewn floor. More than half of the storage space was piled with hay—a lovely brown mountain of it. She tiptoed over to Zenas and shook him.
"Boo!" she exclaimed playfully.
But poor Zenas was too utterly weary to answer even boo! He only stirred and sighed and, having shifted his position, sank back again into slumber so deep that Sally stood looking down at him, disliking to waken him.
"Surely it cannot hurt an we linger for a brief nap—'tis so rarely lovely up here!" Her wistful glance found a hollow in the hay, as though created for a couch, and she sauntered toward it. Somehow, then, she found herself sinking down into the hay, found herself snuggling sleepily. "It—cannot—matter, an—we only—rest—a short while!" she told herself, weakly yielding, knowing well that she and Zenas should have been far on their way to the Mountain by now. Both boy and girl paid for their disobedience, however, as we shall see!
It seemed to Sally, for whom, as for Zenas, the night's rest had not been sufficiently sound to restore vigor exhausted by the previous day's exertions, that she had barely closed her eyes when a great boom shook the barn walls. She scrambled to her feet and found Zenas, erect upon his, facing her horrifiedly. A rattle, probably musket shot, sounded below, then came another boom, jarring, ominous! And Zenas stifled a groan.
"What ha' we done!" he whispered. "The enemy hath come and we still be here! Why did ye not waken me?"
Sally stood in frozen terror. "Think ye—think ye 'tis the enemy?" she whispered back.
Zenas, in spite of his fright, glanced at her disgustedly. "Who else?" His whisper was disdainful. "Think ye the militia are but amusing themselves? Nay, Sally, be not overly foolish! The enemy are come, and we"—he made a precocious gesture of fatality—"are caught like rats i' a trap, for I doubt an the red-coats be prepared to show mercy!"
"Quick—let us try to escape!" Sally started impetuously toward the ladder hole.
Zenas caught her by the arm. "And be shot by stray bullets?" he asked her grimly. "Nay, 'tis safer here. Mayhap," he looked at her almost hopefully, "the enemy will pass by!"
Sally blanched as another volley of musket shot broke out, this time obviously nearer. "Zenas—I—I—cannot stay here, i' this trap!" She jerked her arm from Zenas's detaining grasp and started for the ladder hole again. But the next instant she was back, her face dead white, her eyes staring. "The red-coats be below i' the barn!" she whispered below her breath. "Oh, Zenas, must we die like this?"
Strangely enough, it was the boy who took charge in this crisis. "Run to the end of the haymow—back, where ye cannot be seen, Sally—and burrow in! I will do the same at this end! Perchance we may escape! Only, go far in, for swords are long, and—and bayonets jab deep"
Ah, now how Sally wished that they had done as Captain Camp had ordered, had not weakly yielded to weariness! If only they were tramping toward the Mountain now! For even had they met the enemy, they might have hidden in the underbrush, as the old refugee had advised, and so escaped! Sally's breath came in great panting gasps—were they to be stuck like squealing pigs? She clenched her teeth to keep from nervous screaming, shrinking as steps upon the ladder could be heard, ascending. Almost as though she were staring at them, with her mind's eye she could see a file of British soldiers clamber up into the hayloft, to stand with bayonets held in position and an officer following them with drawn sword. But the words which she heard uttered were not imaginary!
"Search the haymow!" came the order in a deep, cold voice. "An rebels be concealed there, we will gie them all they might desire! Attention—bayonets!"
Then sounded footsteps, the rustle of hay being swept aside. Sally, burrowing frantically, discovered a prayer upon her lips! Could see, without looking at them, the gleaming bayonets jabbing in and out of the hay! She gasped, because for an instant she felt the sleeve of her gown caught and held, felt her skirt caught and held, and feeling gingerly she found two slits in the cloth! And then she knew no more. Sheer, exquisite terror had mercifully robbed her of her senses!
When she recovered her consciousness, a faraway voice was calling her by name. Sally! Sally! She gasped, began to push wildly at the imprisoning hay, reached the edge of the haymow, staggered out to air and freedom. Zenas was upon his knees, facing her, pulling in a queer, weak, uncertain manner at the hay, muttering her name. Sally! Sally! The girl, staring down at him, thought for an awful moment that he had gone daft from horror.
"Here—here I be, Zenas!" she stammered.
The boy started, glanced up at her wild-eyed, and the next instant had fallen forward into the hay, sobbing. This frightened Sally almost as much as his apparent daftness; but she stood gently by, and presently Zenas's hysterical sobbing ceased and, shamefaced, he sat erect and searched for his kerchief.
"Are—ye—not—not dead, then, Sally!" he asked foolishly. Then he was laughing with the girl at his silly question, both rather hysterical, still, from their dreadful experience.
But gradually their overwrought mirth was quieted and their young faces became grave as, comparing rents where the enemy's bayonets had punctured their clothing, they each found it to be a miracle that the other still lived. Zenas, as a matter of fact, had been slightly cut upon the arm; but it was a minor injury, in view of what might have happened!
"How think ye we e'er escaped!" he exclaimed, as he bound his small wound with a kerchief Sally had pulled from her petticoat bag, to hand him.
"Only by the grace o' God, Zenas!" responded Sally. And for a moment there was brief silence as two young hearts sent up very grateful little prayers of thanksgiving, indeed. Then Sally looked at him. "Nay, let me tie the kerchief, butter fingers!" she said.
Zenas had once more sunk upon the hay, and Sally was kneeling before him, her glorious mop of curls falling forward over her face as she bent to tie the rude bandage, when a new voice spoke from the ladder hole. Both sprang to their feet to face the newcomer, terror evident in their eyes as a loathed red uniform was perceived. But the man who advanced toward them smiled and shook his head as Zenas stepped protectingly in front of Sally.
"Non, non—ze cause for ze fright—eet is not needful!" he exclaimed. "I come wiz ze—peace—dans le main—in my hand, m'sieur!"
Sally peeped out from behind Zenas. "Ye—ye—mean—ye be o' the enemy, yet not one o' them, truly?" she faltered. She gestured below. "Any—any more red-coats down there?" Both she and Zenas held their breath for the stranger's answer. When the young Frenchman shook his head, Sally heaved an audible sigh of relief. "Marry, 'tis well! Now, prithee continue, sir!"
"That ees all, mademoiselle!" smiled the young man, with a graceful shrug. "My seem-pa-thee—he ees not wiz ze British! I cannot fight ze so nice Americans now zat I know ze nobility o' zeir cause!"
"Why, then, do ye not fight wi' them?" asked Sally bluntly. "The patriots, I mean!"
But the young Frenchman stood silent, and Sally and Zenas fell into conversation. Suddenly, the girl felt a touch upon her sleeve, and, turning, she found the foreigner staring wide-eyed at the bayonet rents in sleeve and gown.
"Surely—you were not in ze hay—just now!" he exclaimed, in a horror-stricken tone. "I thought ze British were—were looking for men rebels!"
"The word 'rebels' be sufficient!" Sally told him grimly. "Methinks they care not whether rebels be men or not! Were ye wi' the red-coats who but now searched the hay?"
"Oui, oui!" nodded the Frenchman." I returned, "he went on simply, "for I did not wish to keel the inhabitants who fought only to protect ze—homes!"
"Did ye come Hackensack way?" asked Sally.
The Frenchman shook his head. "I come by ze Elizabeth Town Point—many o' us! We do ze march to Newark, arriving at noon!"
"'Tis past noon now?" asked Zenas in surprise, speaking for the first time.
"Oui, oui—yes, long past!" exclaimed the other. He looked around him. "May I secrete myself in ze hay?" he asked plaintively. "I—I do not wish to fight—I onlee wish to hide until I can escape to France!"
"Why not?" asked Zenas, looking at Sally. "Poor varlet! An Master Wheeler were here, I feel sure he would bid him remain and e'en help him to return to France!"
"Of course," nodded Sally, with eager sympathy. "Tell him to stay, Zenas!"
So Zenas turned to the young man, who, bowing, had already seated himself with a sigh upon the hay and had removed the high, awkward hat which was part of the British uniform.
"Stay ye here," said Zenas earnestly, "and we will tell Master Wheeler, an we see him, o' thy plight, and he will help ye!"
"Mais oui—but yes, I intend to remain," answered the other, with an air of surprise. He rose politely, however, and made a deep bow as the two young people departed, Sally turning to drop him a curtsey at the ladder hole.
"Little I thought," murmured the girl, glancing back up the ladder at Zenas when she had reached the ground floor of the barn once more, "little I thought when I climbed so blithely this morn those ladder rungswhat dreadful experience awaited me!"
"Nay, let us forget about it!" said Zenas, shuddering despite the hot sunlight which slanted in at the open door.
Emerging, they stared about them. All around were evidences of enemy occupation. Windows had been wantonly broken, furniture, some of which had been carried away, had been dumped out in a heap and set fire to and was now but a smouldering pile of ashes. Walking along the market lane toward the Four Corners, Sally saw three or four still forms upon the ground, some clad in the hated red, and shiveringly averted her eyes. There was still the sound of musketry to the west and north, with an occasional boom from a cannon which must have been near the river front, and when she and Zenas had reached the Broad Lane, they perceived a moving body of men marching northward, the red of their uniforms bright as a danger signal. Zenas declared he saw cattle, too, being driven away by the British!
The girl sat down wearily upon the top step of the pump stairs. "Oh, Zenas," she groaned softly, "I be that hungry, methinks I shall fade into thin air, an we do not eat soon!"
Zenas looked hopelessly about him. "I ha' pence i' my pocket; but I do doubt an any shop be open! Stay!" His face brightened with resolve. "I will go to yon house and beg for food!"
"To Master Alling's house?" Sally looked after him. "Aye, they will give ye food!"
Zenas disappeared around the rear of the house. Presently, to Sally's joy, he returned with a loaf of bread beneath his arm, like a young Benjamin Franklin, and carrying a tankard of milk in each hand.
"No one home," he announced gleefully. "So I did help myself!"
"But there comes the owner now!" Sally, who had been gazing idly up the Market Lane, suddenly told him, pointing.
"Nay, he will not care, for this be war," Zenas was beginning, when Sally gave a cry.
"A red-coat! A red-coat!" she shrieked, dancing up and down and pointing toward an outhouse at the rear of Master Alling's property. The band of militia, marching down the Market Lane, broke into a run at a command from their leader. Zenas, tankards in hand, stared open-mouthed.
"Nay, ye dream, Sally," he muttered; but Sally would not be stilled.
"A red-coat! A red-coat!" she kept screaming. And when the militiamen had reached her, they, too, saw a flash of red as someone dodged behind a tree.
"Gadzooks, not one but two!" shouted the leader, John Alling. "After them, men!" And then commenced a wild chase, indeed. In and out of prim, fenced-in yards, doubling, redoubling from tree to tree, the hunted red-coats ran. Sally, mad with excitement, followed, and thought she saw Stockton's face glaring at her as he ran. Now, doubly determined the red-coats should not escape, she pursued the militia, coming to a panting stop outside the churchyard whither the hunted men had run. Savage joy engulfed her when she saw the patriots closing in upon the panting, desperate red-coats, who had taken refuge behind a gravestone.
"Caught i' a trap!" she exulted. "Caught i' a trap as bad as our haymow!"
At last, as was inevitable, the enemy were secured! And when this was done, Sally joined in the small, feeble cheer which came from some wounded who had appeared in the church door, attracted by the commotion outside their windows.
But suddenly the girl's hands dropped to her sides and she stared. For the first red-coat who was being hustled toward her roughly by two militiamen was a stranger and the second, stumbling along with his hands tied behind him, his face streaked with dirt and blood from a blow, was Jerry Lawrence! He looked up and recognized her. The grim look of accusation upon his thin young face was succeeded by a look so unbelieving, so sorrowful, that Sally shrank back.
"Ah, Sally, Sally!" he groaned, as he was unceremoniously shoved past her, "was it indeed ye who betrayed us?"
That was all. The little moment was gone. Tramp, tramp went the marching feet, and Sally, the tears rolling unnoticed down her cheeks, was left staring after that haggard figure, staggering along with its hands tied behind its back.
"Well," said Zenas's voice behind the girl, "that be two less o' the varlets, forsooth! 'Tis good ye did perceive them, Sally! Here, let us sit down here on the church steps and eat!"
Sally shook her head. "Nay," she said in a low voice, "I—I—be not hungry!"
"But ye said," began Zenas in an amazed voice. Sally whirled upon him angrily. "I said I was not hungry! Eat an ye will—I cannot!" And to Zenas's stupefied surprise, she turned and followed, at a distance, the militamen and their prisoners toward the town jail.