VIRGIN WHITE PINES, WARREN COUNTY, 1912
It was in the early summer of 1755 when John Penn, accompanied only by one retainer, John Monkton, a white-bearded veteran of Preston, rode out of the gateway of the stockade of John Harris’ trading post, bound for Peter Allen’s. His heart was glad and his spirits elated for, moody lad that he was, he dearly loved his wife and her influence over him was good.
On the very top of the Second Mountain he drew rein, and in the clear stillness of the Sunday morning listened to a cheewink poised on the topmost twig of a chestnut sprout, and viewed the scenes below him. In an ample clearing at the foot of Fourth Mountain he could see Peter Allen’s spacious stone mansion, where his love was probably at that minute instructing the little class in the beauties of revealed religion. They would soon be united, and he was so wonderfully happy!
As the cool morning breeze swayed the twig on which the cheewink perched, it sang again and again, “Ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee, ho-ho-hee!” in a high key, and with such an ecstasy of joy and youth that all the world seemed animated with its gladness, yet Penn’s thought as he rode on was, “I wonder where that bird will be next year; what will it have to undergo before it can feel the warmth and sunlight of another spring?”
He hurried his horse so that it stumbled many times going down the mountain, and splashed the water all over old Monkton in his anxiety to ford Clark’s Creek. He lathered his horse forcing him to trot up the steep contrefort which leads to “Tulliallan,” though he weighed hardly more than one hundred and twenty pounds. He drew rein before the door; no one rushed out to greet him, even the dogs were still. He made his escort dismount and pound the heavy brass knocker, fashioned in the form of an Indian’s head. After some delay, Peter Allen himself appeared, looking glum and deadly pale.
“What is wrong?” cried Penn who was naturally as intuitive as a woman, noting his altered demeanor.
“Can I tell you, sir, in the presence of your bodyguard?”
“Out, out with it, Allen,” shouted Penn, “I must know now.”
“Mary Warren has been gone a fortnight, we know not whither. She had taken the Berryhill children home after classes, and left them about five o’clock in the evening. She did not return, and we have searched everywhere. Strange to relate, George Smithgall, the young serving man whom you left here to look after your apartments, and who accompanied Mary from London is gone also; draw your own inferences.”