“We are going home, Star,” she whispered as she led the pony out of the stable and yard to the road. “It will all depend on thee, thou dear thing! Do thy very best, for thee will have to get us there.”
CHAPTER XXII—FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
| “Our country’s welfare is our first concern: He who promotes that best, best proves his duty.” —Harvard’s Regulus. |
Westward rode Peggy at a brisk pace. There were not many people stirring, the hour was so early. The few who were abroad merely glanced curiously after her, as she passed, without speaking. With a feeling of thankfulness she soon left the deserted streets, and, passing the college with its broad campus of green where the golden buttercups seemed to wave a cheerful greeting, increased her speed as she reached the cleared space of the road which stretched bare and dusty between the town and the forest.
“At last we are started,” exulted the girl, drawing a deep breath as she entered the confines of the great woods. “We ought not to get lost if we follow the road, Star. And too I have been over every bit of it, and my diary will tell the places we went through in case I should forget. But first——” She pulled the pony into a walk; then, letting the reins hang loosely, drew forth a little white flag made of linen, and fastened it to the bridle.
“Clifford said we could not get through without a flag,” she mused. “Well, that should show that we are non-combatants. And we do not wish harm to any; do we, Star?”
The forest was on every hand. The narrow road wound deviously under great trees of fir, and pines, and beech, shady, pleasant and cool. Suddenly there came a medley of bird notes from out of the woods; clear, sweet and inexpressibly joyous, the song of the mocking-bird. As the morning hours passed and Peggy found that she was still the only traveler upon the road, her spirits rose, and she became agreeably excited over the prospects of the journey.
“We will ride hard, Star, until to-morrow night,” she cried catching at a fragrant trailer of wild grape that hung from an overarching tree. “To-morrow night should find us at Fredericksburg, if we go as fast as we did coming down in the cabriolet. And I know we can do that.”
And so, talking sometimes to Star as though the little mare understood, sometimes listening to the call of birds, the whirr of insects or the murmur of the wind in the tree tops, the day passed. It was drawing near nightfall when Peggy rode into New Castle, a small village on the Pamunkey River, tired but happy. She had not been molested and the first day was over. Peggy went immediately to the house where she had stopped with Nurse Johnson on the way down.
There were no signs of the British, she was told at this place. It was rumored that the Marquis de Lafayette had crossed the river further to the west on his way to join General Wayne. Peggy rejoiced at the news.