“Yes, where the British thought they had won the day, sure, and Morgan brought up his dragoons, and they cut and slashed right and left, and put the Redcoats to flight, and took a lot of prisoners.”
“What are dragoons?” inquires Marie.
“Mounted troops—cavalry. Oh, but didn’t they pitch into ’em good with their swords! Wish I’d been there.”
“And then you know, Harry, how Cornwallis pursued Morgan, in hopes of recovering the prisoners; and how General Greene had to come to Morgan’s rescue. By the way, Walter, I don’t know exactly why, but somehow all I hear of Sherman in the last war reminds me of that General Greene.”
“And did your great-great-grandmother live around there anywheres?”
“Yes, Marie. But you mustn’t think of her as a grandmother at all, with gray hair and cap and spectacles; for she was only a young girl then. There’s a portrait of her painted a few years after. They have it at Uncle Robert’s—little Rob’s father, you know. There she sits, with her arms folded; and she wears a brocade silk, with much lace about the low neck and flowing sleeves; and her hair is combed straight up from the forehead over a roll, and coiled high at the back of the head, very much as the style is now—only I suppose it was all her own, for switches hadn’t yet been thought of.”
“And did she do something brave?”
“So the story goes. She was an orphan, you see, and lived with her uncle, who was a hot-tempered old Tory, and all his sons and daughters the same. But, perhaps because they weren’t as good to her as they might have been, she took it into her head to believe some other way—sympathized with the rebels, you know. But she took care not to let any one find that out, which no one was likely to, for she was so young, only sixteen—just two years older than you, Marie—people wouldn’t be questioning her about politics. Well, it was just at this time, when Cornwallis was chasing up Morgan, that there came one rainy evening to her uncle’s a small detachment of British troops, with some Americans belonging to Morgan’s force whom they had captured the day previous, and asked for lodgings for the night. Her uncle welcomed them heartily, and gave them a room where they could lock up their prisoners, and ordered Chloe, the black cook, to get up a grand supper for them. Grand? I don’t suppose it was what would be called a grand supper nowadays. I presume it consisted largely of game from the forest, venison, and the like—not much in the way of dessert and nick-nacks, you know. While the British were feasting in the dining-room, Kate—we may as well call her Kate, for I forgot to tell you that I was named after her—slipped into the kitchen, and managed, unseen, to fill a basket with some of that plentiful supper, and creep with it up a back stairway to the store-room or garret at the top of the house. Now the room where the prisoners were locked in was in the second story, and had no window; but in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the garret. Kate raised this door—or rather, it was a mere piece of plank—and let down the basket by a rope. And the prisoners, looking up and catching sight of her friendly face by the light of the candle she held, were gladdened, you may be sure. Ah, poor fellows, and they were hungry, too; hadn’t had a mouthful for two days. (Indeed, they had been out in search of game. That was the way they happened to be caught.) ‘Was there any way under the sun for them to get out of there?’ they asked her. Yes; she told them of a way she had thought of, but they would have to be very still about it, and wait till everybody in the house had gone to sleep. Then she closed the door again, but she was careful to take the basket with her, lest the Red-coats might look in before retiring, and find it there and suspect something was wrong. They did look in, too. There were the prisoners, all secure. Then they locked and bolted the door again, and for further security stationed a guard outside. When Kate found out about the guard she trembled for her plans. But toward midnight she peeped into the hall and saw him nodding sleepily, for he and his comrades, as well as their officers, had been making free with her uncle’s wine. In those days it was the custom to keep quantities of wine even in private houses, and to use it freely at the table.”
