WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE
By W. Bert Foster
CHAPTER XIV
The Occupation of Philadelphia
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.
The story opens in the year 1777, during one of the most critical periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors, Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the American cause. When, therefore, he is intrusted with a message to be forwarded to the American headquarters, the boy gives up, for the time, his duties at the Three Oaks and sets out for the army. Here he remains until after the fateful Battle of Brandywine. On the return journey he discovers a party of Tories who have concealed themselves in a woods in the neighborhood of his home. By approaching cautiously to the group around the fire, Hadley overhears their plan to attack his uncle for the sake of the gold which he is supposed to have concealed in his house. With the assistance of Colonel Knowles, who, although a British officer, seems to have taken a liking to Hadley, our hero successfully thwarts the Tory raid. No sooner is the uncle rescued, however, than he ungratefully shuts the door upon his nephew. Thereupon Hadley immediately returns to the American army and joins the forces under that dashing officer, “Mad Anthony” Wayne. In the disastrous night engagement at Paoli our hero is left upon the battlefield wounded.
THE sun shining warmly upon his face through the rapidly-drying bushes which during the night had partly sheltered him, was Hadley’s first conscious feeling. Then he felt the dull pain in his leg where the spent ball had become imbedded, and he rolled over with a groan. The wood lay as peaceful and quiet under the rising sun as though such a thing as war did not exist. Here and there a branch had been splintered by a musket ball, or a bush had been trampled by the retreating Americans. But the rain had washed away all the brown spots from the grass and twigs, and the birds twittered gayly in the treetops, forgetting the disturbing conflict of the night.
The boy found, when he tried to rise, that his whole leg was numb and he could only drag it as he hobbled through the wood. To cover the few rods which lay between the place where he had slept and the road, occupied some minutes. The wound had bled freely, and now the blood was caked over it, and every movement of the limb caused much pain.
Where had his companions gone? When the company rolls were called that morning there would be no inquiry for him, for he was not a regularly recruited man. He had been but a hanger-on of the brigade which was so disastrously attacked during the night, and they would all forget him. Captain Prentice was far away, and Hadley had known nobody else well among Wayne’s troops. The fact of his loneliness, together with his wound and his hunger, fairly brought the tears to his eyes, great boy that he was. But many a soldier who has fought all day with his face to the enemy has wept childish tears when left at night, wounded and alone, on the battlefield.
However, one could not really despair on such a bright morning as this, and Hadley soon plucked up courage. He got out his pocket knife, found a sapling with a crotched top, cut it off the proper length, and used it for a crutch. With this, and dragging his useless musket behind him, he hobbled up the road in a direction which he knew must bring him to the American lines, and eventually to Philadelphia. But such traveling was slow and toilsome work, and he was trembling all the time for fear he would fall in with the British.
He had not been many minutes on the way, however, when a man stepped out of the brush beside the road and barred his way. Hadley was frightened at first; then he recognized the man and shouted with delight.
“Lafe Holdness! How ever did you come here?”
“Jefers-pelters!” exclaimed the Yankee scout. “I reckon I might better ask yeou that question, Had. An’ wounded, too! Was yeou with that brigade last night that got bamfoozled?”
“The British attacked us unexpectedly. Oh, Lafe! they charged right through our lines and bayonetted the men awful.”
“I reckon. It’s war, boy—you ain’t playin’.” Meanwhile the man had assisted Hadley to a seat on the bank and with his own knife calmly ripped up the leg of Hadley’s trousers. “Why, boy, you’ve got a ball in there—as sure as ye live!”
“It hurts pretty bad, Lafe,” Hadley admitted, wincing when the scout touched the leg which was now inflamed about the wound.
There was a rill nearby, and to this the scout hurried and brought water back in his cap. With the boy’s handkerchief he washed the dry blood away and then, by skilful pressure of his fingers, found the exact location of the imbedded bullet. “Oh, this ain’t so bad,” he said, cheerfully. “We’ll fix it all right in no time. But ye musn’t do much walking for some days to come. Yeou can ride, though, and I’ve got a hoss nearby. First of all, I must git the ball aout and wash the hole. Ye see, Had, the ball lies right under the skin on the back of the leg—so. D’ye see?”
“I can feel it all right,” groaned Hadley.
“Well, it’s a pity it didn’t go way through. Howsomever, if you’ll keep a stiff upper lip for a minute, I’ll get the critter aout. ’Twon’t hurt much ter speak of. Swabbin’ aout the hole, though, ’ll likely make ye jump.”
He opened the knife again and, before Hadley could object, had made a quick incision over the ball and the lead pellet dropped out into his hand. The boy did not have a chance to cry out, it was done so quickly. “So much for so much,” said Lafe, in a business-like tone. “Nothin’ like sarvin’ yer ’prenticeship ter all sorts of trades. I ain’t no slouch of a surgeon, I calkerlate. Now, lemme git an alder twig.”
He obtained the twig in question, brought more water, and then proceeded, after having removed the pith from the heart of the twig, to blow the cool water into the wound. Hadley cried out at this and begged him to desist, but Lafe said: “Come, Had, yeou can stand a little pain now for the sake of being all right by and by, can’t yeou? It’s better to be sure than sorry. P’r’aps there warn’t no cloth nor nothin’ got inter that wound, but ye can’t tell. One thing, there warn’t no artery cut or ye’d bled ter death lyin’ under them bushes all night. I ’spect many a poor chap did die in yander after the retreat. Anthony Wayne’ll have ter answer for that. They say he’s goin’ ter be court-martialed.”
Having cleaned the wound, Holdness bound it up tightly with strips torn from the boy’s cotton shirt, and then brought up the horse which he had hidden hard by. He helped the boy into the saddle and walked beside him until they were through the American picket lines. The wounded had been sent on to Philadelphia, for there were few conveniences for field hospitals. “Yeou take that hoss and ride inter Philadelphy, Had,” said Holdness. “Leave it at the Queen and take yourself to this house”—he gave the wounded lad a brief note scrawled on a bit of dirty paper—“and the folks there’ll look out for ye till the laig’s well. I’ll git another hoss somewhere else that’ll do jest as well. Yeou can’t go clean back to Jarsey with your laig in that shape.”
It was a hard journey for the wounded youth, and before he crossed the Schuylkill and followed Chestnut Street down into the heart of the town, he was well-nigh spent. He fairly fell off the horse in front of the Indian Queen Tavern, and the hostler had to help him to the address which Holdness had given him. Here the good man and his wife—Quaker folk were they, who greatly abhorred the bloodshed of the war, yet were stanch supporters of the American cause—took the boy in and cared for him as though he was their own son. For a night and a day he kept to his bed; but he could not stand it any longer than that. The surgeon who was called to attend him declared the wound had been treated very well indeed by the scout, and that it was healing nicely; so what does Master Hadley do but hobble downstairs to the breakfast table on the second morning, determined no longer to cause the good Quakeress, Mistress Pye, the extra trouble of sending his breakfast up to him.
He was anxious to learn the news, too. Affairs were moving swiftly these days in Philadelphia. The uncertainty of what the next day might bring forth forced shops to close and almost all business to cease. The Whigs were leaving by hundreds; even the men who held authoritative places in the council of the town had departed, fearful of what might happen when the redcoats marched in. And that Washington could keep them out for long, after the several reverses the American troops had sustained, was not to be believed.
A sense of portending calamity hung over the city like an invisible cloud. A third of the houses were shut and empty. Many of the others were occupied solely by servants or slaves, the families having flown to the eastward. Hadley did not get outside the door of the Pye house that day, for he was watched too closely. But early on the morning of the 26th the whole street was aroused by the swift dash of a horseman over the cobbles; and a cry followed the flying messenger:
“The British are coming!”
The people ran out of their houses, never waiting for their breakfasts. Was the news true? Had the redcoats eluded the thin line of Americans that so long had stayed their advance upon the town? Soon the truth was confirmed. Congress had adjourned to Lancaster. Howe had made a feint of marching on Reading, and when the Americans were thrown forward to protect that town the British had turned aside and were now within sight. They had surprised and overpowered a small detachment left to guard the approach to Philadelphia, and—the city was lost! His Excellency was then at Skippack Creek with the bulk of his army, and the city could hope for no help from him.
Hadley, hobbling on a crutch, but too anxious and excited to remain longer indoors, soon reached Second Street. From Callowhill to Chestnut it was filled with old men and children. Scarcely a youth of his own age was to be seen, for the young men had gone into the army. It was a quiet, but a terribly anxious crowd, and questions which went unanswered were whispered from man to man. Will the redcoats really march in to-day? Will the helpless folk left in the city be treated as a conquered people? Why had Congress, spurred on by hot-heads, sanctioned this war at all? Many who had been enthusiastic in the cause were lukewarm now. The occupation of the town might mean the loss of their homes and the scattering of those whom they loved.
Here and there a Tory strutted, unable to hide his delight at the turn affairs had taken. Several times little disturbances, occasioned by the overbearing manners of this gentry arose, but as a whole the crowds were solemn and gloomy. At eleven o’clock a squadron of dragoons appeared and galloped along the street, scattering the crowd to right and left; but it closed in again as soon as they were through, for far down the thoroughfare sounded the first strains of martial music. Then something glittered in the sunshine, and the people murmured and stepped out into the roadway the better to see the head of the approaching army of their conquerors.
A wave of red—steadily advancing—and tipped with a line of flashing steel bayonets was finally descried. In perfect unison the famous grenadiers came into view, their pointed red caps, fronted with silver, their white leather leggings, and short scarlet coats, trimmed with blue, making an impressive display. Hadley, who had seen the nondescript farmer soldiery of the American army, sighed at this parade. How could General Washington expect to beat such men as these? And then the boy remembered how he had seen the same farmers standing off the trained British hosts at Brandywine, and later at the Warren Tavern, and he took heart. Training and dress, and food, and good looks were not everything. Every man on the American side was fighting for his hearth, for his wife, for his children, and for everything he loved best on earth.
Behind the grenadiers rode a group of officers, the first a stout man, with gray hair and a pleasant countenance, despite the squint in his eye. A whisper went through the silent crowd and reached Hadley’s ear: “’Tis Lord Cornwallis!” Then there was a louder murmur—in some cases threatening in tone. Behind the officers rode a party of Tories hated by every patriot in Philadelphia—the two Allens, Tench Coxe, Enoch Story, Joe Galloway. Never would they have dared return but under the protection of British muskets.
Then followed the Fourth, Fortieth and Fifty-fifth regiments—all in scarlet. Then Hadley saw a uniform he knew well—would never forget, indeed. He saw it when Wayne held the tide of Knyphausen’s ranks back at Chadd’s Ford. Breeches of yellow leather, leggings of black, dark blue coats, and tall, pointed hats of brass completed the uniform of the hireling soldiery which, against their own desires and the desires of their countrymen, had been sent across the ocean by their prince to fight for the English king. A faint hiss rose from the crowd of spectators as the Hessians, with their fierce mustaches and scowling looks marched by.
Then there were more grenadiers, cavalry, artillery, and wagons containing provisions and the officers’ tents. The windows rattled to the rumbling wheels and the women cowered behind the drawn blinds, peering out upon the ranks that, at the command of a ruler across the sea who cared nothing for these colonies but what could be made out of them, had come to shoot down and to enslave their own flesh and blood.
Hadley could not get around very briskly; but he learned where some of the various regiments were quartered. The artillery was in the State House yard. Those wounded Continentals, who had lain in the long banqueting hall on the second floor of the State House, and who could not get away or be moved by their friends, would now learn what a British prison pen was like. Hadley shuddered to think how he had so nearly escaped a like fate, and was fearful still that something might happen to reveal to the enemy that he, too, had taken up arms against the king. The Forty-second Highlanders were drawn up in Chestnut Street below Third; the Fifteenth regiment was on High Street. When ranks were broken in the afternoon the streets all over town were full of red or blue-coated figures.
Hadley hobbled back to the shelter of the Pye homestead and learned from the good Quaker where some of the officers had been quartered. Cornwallis was just around the corner on Second Street at Neighbor Reeves’s house; Knyphausen was at Henry Lisle’s, while the younger officers, including Lord Rawden, were scattered among the better houses of the town. A young Captain André (later Major André) was quartered in Dr. Franklin’s old house. The British had really come into the hot-bed of the “rebels” and had made themselves much at home.
CHAPTER XV
HADLEY IS CAST OFF BY UNCLE EPHRAIM
THE army of occupation brought in its train plenty of Tories and hangers-on besides the men named, though none who had been quite so prominent in affairs or were so greatly detested. It now behooved the good folk of pronounced Whig tendencies to walk circumspectly, for enemies lay in wait at every corner to hale them before the British commander and accuse them of traitorous conduct. Hadley Morris, therefore, although he did not expect to be recognized by anybody in the town, resolved to get away as soon as his wound would allow.
He could not resist, however, going out at sunset to observe the evening parade of the conquerors. There was something very fascinating for him in the long lines of brilliant uniforms and the glittering accoutrements. The British looked as though they had been simply marching through the country on a continual dress parade. How much different was the condition of even the uniformed Continentals!
To the strains of martial music the sun sank to rest, and as the streets grew dark the boisterous mirth of the soldiery disturbed those of the inhabitants who, fearful still of some untoward act upon the part of the invaders, had retired behind the barred doors of their homes. In High Street and on the commons camp fires were burning, and Hadley wandered among them, watching the soldiers cooking their evening meal. Most of the houses he passed were shut; but here and there was one wide open and brilliantly lighted. These were the domiciles where the officers were quartered, or else, being the abode of “faithful” Tories, the proprietors were celebrating the coming of the king’s troops. Laughter and music came from these, and the Old Coffee House and the Indian Queen were riotous with parties of congratulation upon the occupation by the redcoats.
As Hadley hobbled back to Master Pye’s past the tavern, he suddenly observed a familiar face in the crowd. A number of country bumpkins were mixing with the soldiery before the entrance to the Indian Queen, and Hadley was positive he saw Lon Alwood. Whether the Tory youth had observed him or not, Hadley did not know; but the fact of Lon’s presence in the city caused him no little anxiety and he hurried on to the Quaker’s abode. He wondered what had brought Lon up to Philadelphia—and just at this time of all others?
“The best thing I can do is to get out of town as quick as circumstances will permit,” thought Hadley, and upon reaching Friend Pye’s he told the old Quaker how he had seen somebody who knew him in the city—a person who would leave no stone unturned to injure him if possible.
“We must send thee away, then, Hadley,” declared the Quaker. “Where wilt thou go with thy wounded leg?”
“I’ll go home. There isn’t anything for a wounded man to do about here, I reckon. But the leg won’t hobble me for long.”
“Nay, I hope not. I will see what can be done for thee in the morning.”
Friend Jothan Pye was considered, even by his Tory neighbors, to be too close a man and too sharp a trader to have any real interest in the patriot cause. He had even borne patiently from the Whigs much calumny that he might, by so doing, be the better able to help the colonies. Now that the British occupied the town, he might work secretly for the betterment of the Americans and none be the wiser. He had already gone to the British officers and obtained a contract for the cartage of grain into the city for the army, and in two days it was arranged that Hadley should go out of town in one of Friend Pye’s empty wagons, and he did so safely, hidden under a great heap of empty grain sacks. In this way he traveled beyond Germantown and outside the British lines altogether.
Then he found another teamster going across the river, and with him he journeyed until he was at the Mills, only six miles from the Three Oaks Inn. Those last six miles he managed to hobble with only the assistance of his crutch, arriving at the hostelry just at evening. Jonas Benson had returned from Trenton and the boy was warmly welcomed by him. Indeed, that night in the public room, Hadley was the most important person present. The neighbors flocked in to hear him tell of the Paoli attack and of the occupation of Philadelphia, and he felt like a veteran.
But he could not help seeing that Mistress Benson was much put out with him. As time passed the innkeeper’s wife grew more and more bitter against the colonists. She had been born in England, and the presence of Colonel Knowles and his daughter at the inn seemed to have fired her smoldering belief in the “divine right,” and had particularly stirred her bile against the Americans.
THERE WAS AN OCCASIONAL OUTBREAK IN THE QUIET TOWN
“I’m sleepin’ in the garret, myself, Had,” groaned Jonas, in an aside to the boy. “I can’t stand her tongue when she gets abed o’ nights. I’m hopin’ this war’ll end before long, for it’s a severin’ man and wife—an’ sp’ilin’ business, into the bargain. She’s complainin’ about me keepin’ your place for ye, Had, so I’ve got Anson Driggs for stable boy. And, of course, she won’t let me pay Miser Morris your wage no more. I didn’t know but she’d come down from her high hosses when them Knowlses went away, but she’s worse ’n ever!”
“Have the Colonel and Mistress Lillian gone?”
“They have, indeed—bad luck to them!—though I’ve no fault to find with the girl: she was prettily spoken enough. But the Colonel had been recalled to his command, I understand. His business with your uncle came to naught, I reckon. D’ye know what it was, Had?”
Hadley shook his head gloomily. “No. Uncle would tell me nothing. But the Colonel seemed very bitter against him.”
“And what d’ye think of doing?”
“I’m not fit for anything until this wound heals completely. I can’t walk much for some time yet. But I’ll go over and see Uncle in the morning.”
“Ride Molly over. There’s no need o’ your walking about here. And come back here to sleep. Likely Miser Morris will be none too glad to see ye. Your bed’s in the loft same’s us’al. Anson goes home at night. The place is dead, anyway. If this war doesn’t end soon I might as well burn the old house down—there’s no money to be got by keeping it open.”
On the morrow Hadley climbed upon Black Molly and rode over to the Morris homestead. Most of the farmers in the neighborhood had harvested their grain by this time. The corn was shocked and the pumpkins gleamed in golden contrast to the brown earth and stubble. In some fields he saw women and children at work, the men being away with the army. The sight was an encouraging one. Despite the misfortunes and reverses of General Washington’s army, this showed that the common people were still faithful to the cause of liberty.
News, too, of an encouraging nature had come from the north. The battle of Bennington and the first battle of Stillwater had been fought. The army of Burgoyne, which was supposed to be unconquerable, had been halted and, even with the aid of Indians and Tories, the British commander could not have got past General Gates. News traveled slowly in those days, but a pretty correct account had dribbled through the country sections; and there was still some hope of Washington striking a decisive blow himself before winter set in.
The signs of plenty in the fields as he rode on encouraged Hadley Morris, who had seen, of late, so many things to discourage his hope in the ultimate success of the American arms. When he reached his uncle’s grain fields he found that they, too, had been reaped, and so clean that there was not a beggar’s gleaning left among the stubble. He rode on to the house, thinking how much good the store of grain Ephraim Morris had gathered might do the patriot troops, were Uncle Ephraim only of his way of thinking.
As he approached the house the watch dog began barking violently, and not until he had laboriously dismounted before the stable door did the brute recognize him. Then it ran up to the boy whining and licked his hand; but as Uncle Ephraim appeared the dog backed off and began to bark again as though it were not, after all, quite sure whether to greet the boy as a friend or an enemy. Evidently the old farmer had been in like quandary, for he bore a long squirrel rifle in the hollow of his arm, and his brows met in a black scowl when his gaze rested on his nephew’s face.
“Well, what want ye here?” he demanded.
“Why, Uncle, I have come to see you—”
“I’m no uncle of yours—ye runaway rebel!” exclaimed the old man, harshly. “What’s this I hear from Jonas Benson? He says ye are not at his inn and that he’ll no longer pay me the wages he promised. If that doesn’t make you out a runaway ’prentice, then what does it mean?”
“Why, you know, Mistress Benson is very violent for the king just now—”
“Ha!” exclaimed the farmer. “I didn’t know she had the sense to be. It’s too bad she doesn’t get a little of it into Jonas.”
“Well, she doesn’t want me around. And Jonas can’t pay two of us.”
“She wouldn’t have turned ye off if ye’d stayed where ye belonged, Hadley Morris. Oh, I know ye—and I know what ye’ve been doing of late,” cried the farmer. “Ha! lame air ye? What’s that from?”
“I got a ball in my leg—”
“I warrant. Crippling yourself, too. Been fighting with the ‘ragamuffin reg’lars,’ hey? An’ sarve ye right—sarve ye right, I say!” The old man scowled still more fiercely. “And now that you’ve got licked, ye come back home like a cur with its tail ’twixt its legs, arskin’ ter be taken in—hey? I know your breed.”
“If you don’t want me here I can go away again,” Hadley said, quietly.
“What would I want ye for? You’re a lazy, good-for-nothing—that’s what ye air! There’s naught for ye to do about the farm this time o’ year—an’ crippled, too. Ye’d never come back to me if that ball hadn’t hit ye. Ye’d stayed on with that Mr. Washington ye’re so fond of talking about. Ha! I’m done with ye! Ye’ve been naught but an expense and a trouble since your mother brought ye here—and she was an expense, too. I’m a poor man; I can’t have folks hangin’ ter the tail o’ my coat. Your mother—”
“Suppose we let that drop, sir,” interrupted Hadley, firmly, and his eyes flashed. “Everybody in this neighborhood knows what my mother was. They know that she worked herself into her grave in this house. And if she hadn’t begged me to stay here as long as I could be of any use to you, I’d never stood your ill treatment as long as I did. And now,” cried the youth, growing angrier as he thought of the slurring tone his uncle had used in speaking of the dead woman, “it lies with you whether you break with your last relative on earth or not. I will stand abuse myself, and hard work; but you shan’t speak one word against mother!”
“Hoity, toity!” exclaimed the old man. “The young cock is crowing, heh? Who are you that tells me what I should do, or shouldn’t do?” Hadley was silent. He was sorry now that he had spoken so warmly. “Seems to me, Master Hadley, for a beggar, ye talk pretty uppishly—that’s it, uppishly! And you are a beggar—ye’ve got nothing and ye never will have anything. I’ll find some other disposal to make of my farm here—”
“I’m not looking for dead men’s shoes!” flashed out the boy again. “You’ve had my time, and you’ve a right to it for three years longer. If you want to hire me out as soon as my wound is well, you can do so. I haven’t refused to work for you.”
“Yah!” snarled the old man. “Who wants to hire a boy at this time of the year? The country’s ruined as it is—jest ruined. There’s no business. I tell you that you’re an expense, and I’d ruther have your room than your company.”
Hadley turned swiftly. He had clung to Black Molly’s bridle. Now he climbed upon the horse block and, in spite of his wound, fairly flung himself into the saddle. “You’ve told me to go, Uncle Ephraim!” he exclaimed, with flaming cheeks. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” and, pounding his heels into the mare’s sides, he set off at a gallop along the path, and in a moment was out of sight of the angry farmer.
There was bitterness in the boy’s heart and angry tears in his eyes as Black Molly fled across the pastures and out upon the highway. Hadley Morris did not really love his uncle. There was nothing lovable about Miser Morris. The boy had been misjudged and his mother spoken ill of—and that fact he could not forget. He had tried for a year and a half to keep from a final disagreement with Uncle Ephraim; but to no avail. The old man did not consider Hadley old enough to judge for himself, or to have any opinions of his own. The times were such that children grew to youth and young men to manhood very rapidly. When the fathers went to the war the sons became the providers and defenders of the household; if the fathers did not go, the sons were in the ranks themselves. Questions were not asked regarding age by the recruiting officers, providing a youth looked hearty and was able to carry a musket. And Hadley felt himself a man grown in experience, if not in years, after the exciting incidents of the past few weeks.
“I am able to judge for myself in some things,” he told himself, pulling Molly down to a walk, so as to ease his leg. “If Uncle would accept the fact that I have a right to my own opinion, as he has a right to his, we never would have quarreled. I’d never gone over to the Three Oaks to work. And then I’d never seen any active service, I s’pose. He’s got only himself to thank for it, if he did not want me to join the army.
“But now, I reckon, there isn’t anything left for me to do but that. Jonas can’t have me and keep peace in the family; and I wouldn’t stay after the way Mistress Benson talked last night—no, indeed. I’ll go to some of the neighbors. They’ll give me a bite to eat and a place to sleep till my leg gets well enough for me to walk. Then I’ll go back to the army.”
He so decided; but when Jonas heard his plan he vetoed it at once. “What, Had!” cried the old innkeeper, “d’ye think I’ll let a nagging woman drive you away from here to the neighbors? Nay, nay! I’m master here yet, and she is not really so bad, Had. She doesn’t begrudge ye the bite and sup. Stay till your leg is well.”
“But I shall not feel comfortable as long as I stay, Jonas,” declared the boy.
“And how long will that be? Your leg is mending famously. If you could but ride ye’d be fit to go into battle again now. Ah, lad, I’m proud of you—and glad that it was part through me ye went to the wars. I can’t go myself; but I can give of what I have, and if the mistress does not like it she can scold—’twill make her feel better, I vum.” Then he looked at Hadley curiously. “You’re anxious to get back to General Washington again, eh, lad?”
“I wish I had hunted up Captain Prentice, or Colonel Cadwalader, when I got out of Philadelphia, instead of coming over here,” admitted the youth.
“Then start back now,” Jonas said. “Ride Molly—she knows ye, and ye’ll get back in time to be of some use, mayhap, for I heard this morning that there’s a chance of another battle in a day or two.”
“Take Molly, sir?” cried the astonished boy.
“Yes. Most of my horses have already gone to the cause. I’ve got a packet of scrip, as they call it, for ’em, but it’s little worth the stuff is now, and perhaps it will never be redeemed. But I’m a poor sort of a fellow if I mind that. You take Molly. I know if you both live you’ll come back here. And if she is killed—”
The innkeeper stopped, for his voice had broken. He was looking hard at the boy’s flushed face, and now he reached up and gripped Hadley’s hand with sudden warmth. The youth knew that it was not the thought of the possible loss of Black Molly that had choked the worthy innkeeper, but the fear that, perhaps, her rider would never come back again.
“I’ll take her, Jonas—and thank you. I’ll be happier—better content, at least—away from here. Uncle doesn’t want me, nor does he need me; and certainly Mistress Benson doesn’t wish me about the inn. So I’ll take Molly, and if all comes well you shall have her back safe and sound.”
“That’s all right—that’s all right, Had!” exclaimed the other, quickly. “Look out when them army smiths shoe her. She’s got just the suspicion of a corn on that nigh fore foot, ye know. And take care of yourself, Had.”
He wrung Hadley’s hand again and the boy pulled the little mare around. There was nothing more to be said; there was nothing to keep him back. So Hadley Morris rode away to join Washington’s forces, which then lay idle near the beleaguered city.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
