The very hardihood of this appearance among his bitterest enemies probably secured his safety, for, before the astonished inhabitants could realize the amount of his audacity, and while the glitter of her rich Indian dress was before their eyes, his cavalcade thundered into the fort, and a clamorous shout from those within attested the satisfaction with which he was received.
A long wooden bridge at this time connects Wilkesbarre with the Kingston side of the Susquehanna; a spacious and most excellent hotel stands on the sweep of the road where it winds over from the former place, and engine-whistles may be heard shrieking almost every hour as some train rushes fiercely up the valley, dashing over coal beds, sweeping across the broad river, at its juncture, and away where the Indian war-trail was first laid along the Lackawanna; but, in 1778, there was neither bridge nor hotel, unless a low log-house, fronted by a magnificent elm, and made of consequence by a log-stable, a huge haystack and a shingle roof, might be called such. A public house it certainly was intended to be, for a rudely painted sign hung groaning and creaking among the thick leaves of the elm, and the chickens which congregated about the haystack were always seen to flutter and creep away into hiding-places whenever a traveller was seen to emerge from the shaded road which leads across the Wilkesbarre mountains, a kind of timidity seldom observed at private houses, except at the approach of a travelling minister or a schoolmaster who boards about.
There was little of refinement, but everything essential to comfort, in the interior of Aunt Polly’s tavern, for to that respected female the log-building with its sign belonged. Two small square rooms, separated by a board partition, were divided off from the kitchen; one was the dormitory of Aunt Polly herself, while the other, which served the chance wayfarer as bed-chamber, dining and sitting-room, had the usual furniture of splint chairs, a small looking-glass, surmounted by a tuft of fresh asparagus—a fireplace filled with white-pine tops, a bed decked with sheets of the whitest homespun, and a coverlid of blue and white yarn, woven in what Aunt Polly called orange quarters, and doors and windows.
Later in the evening which witnessed Walter Butler’s return, a gentleman was impatiently pacing this little room, and more than once he opened the door which led to the kitchen, to hurry Aunt Polly in her preparations for supper. This restless impatience in her guest put Aunt Polly somewhat out of patience.
“She was doing as fast as she could,” she said, “and she did hate to be driv.”
Still, at each interruption, the good lady dipped an unfortunate chicken, with more desperate energy, into the kettle of hot water that stood on the hearth before her, and tore away the dripping plumage, handful after handful, with a zeal which might have satisfied the most hungry traveller that ever claimed hospitality at her door. An iron pot, filled with potatoes, and a tea-kettle hung, like a brace of martyrs, in the blazing fire, and everything was in fair progress for a comfortable meal when the young man entered the kitchen, as if weary of remaining alone, and began to chat with Aunt Polly while she dissected the unfortunate fowl after it came out, clean and featherless, from the hot bath in which she had plunged it.
“I see you keep everything clean and snug as usual, Aunt Polly,” he said, looking about the apartment where, however, might be observed greater marks of confusion than was common with the thrifty old maid.
“Nothing to brag of,” replied Polly, shaking her head and looking at the loom which stood in one corner with a web of rag carpeting rolled on the cloth beam. A quill wheel and a rickety pair of swifts were crowded against the heavy posts, the one unhanded, and the other with a few threads of tow-yarn tangled among the sticks, and a skein of cut rags falling heavily around them. “I don’t know how it is, Captain Butler, but you al’es make me fling everything to sixes and sevens when you come. Now, I meant to have wove a yard on that are carpet afore night—anybody else would have took up with a cold bite; but you’re awful dainty about victuals, captain, and al’es was.”
“Well, never mind that, Polly; you know I am always willing to pay for what I have. But, tell me, is there no news stirring in the valley? I see you have got a new fort over the river—who commands there?”
“Who but Edward Clark, your old schoolmate; though I rather think that there won’t be much watch kept up there this week—the captain’s got better fish to fry. You hain’t forgot how reg’lar he went a-sparking to old Mother Derwent’s, have you?”