The month was drawing to a close when the army fell back to Williamsburg, and halted. The heat had become so intense that the troops were easily exhausted, and necessity compelled a rest. Peggy was glad when the spire of Bruton Church came into sight.
“I am so tired, Clifford,” she said wearily when the lad came to her as the army entered the place from the west. “Tired and sick at heart. I know not what form is used in leaving, if any, but if there be custom of any sort to observe, let it be done quickly, I pray thee. And then let us go to the cottage to Nurse Johnson.”
“There is no form to comply with,” he said, regarding her with compassion. “We will go at once, though not to the cottage. Father hath taken a house more commodious on the Palace Green, and hath sent me for you. Harriet will be there also.”
And, though well she knew that taking a house meant in this instance the turning out of the inmates that they might be lodged, Peggy, knowing that protest would be of no avail, went with him silently.
CHAPTER XXVII—PEGGY RECEIVES A SHOCK
| “Chains are round our country pressed, And cowards have betrayed her, And we must make her bleeding breast The grave of the invader.” —Bryant. |
Harriet, with her chestnut hair flying in a maze of witching ringlets, her eyes starry with radiance, came dancing to meet them as they entered the house which Colonel Owen had taken for his use.
“Father told me that you had come,” she cried embracing Peggy rapturously. “Is it not delightsome that we are all together at last, Peggy? Here are father, Clifford, you, and last, but not least, your most humble and devoted servant, Mistress Harriet Owen. Oh, I am so happy! And why did you run away, you naughty girl? Still, had you not done so I should have missed seeing father and the army.”
“I was trying to get home,” answered Peggy, forgetting her weariness in admiration of her cousin’s beauty, and wondering also at her light-heartedness.
“Home to that poky Philadelphia, where tea and rusks, or a morning visit are the only diversions?” laughed Harriet. “You quaint little Quakeress, don’t you know that now that the army hath come we shall have routs, kettledrums, and assemblies to no end?”