“Why, Mandy Egan,” exclaimed a motherly looking woman, coming to the door of the dwelling as she caught sight of them. “Whatever has happened? Come right in. You all look ready to drop.”
Mistress Egan, who had borne up wonderfully all through the long night and the wearing walk, now broke down at this kindly greeting.
“The Tories, under some British, burnt us out last night,” explained her husband. “They sacked the house first, of course, and ran off all the ponies and cattle. We have come to you for help, Martha. Will you let us have the horses to get up to Charlotte to her mother’s?”
“Of course I will, Henry. All sorts of reports are flying about. Will says that down at Wilmington ’tis thought that nothing can save the old north state. Cornwallis hath already begun his march toward us.”
“Heaven save us if ’tis true,” ejaculated the fisherman, sinking into a chair. “First Lincoln and his whole army at Charleston; then Gates and his forces at Camden! Two armies in three months swept out of existence. The cause is doomed.”
“Oh, if they had only sent General Arnold,” cried Peggy. “He is so brave, so daring, I just know he could have saved us.”
Gravely, oppressed by vague fears for the future, they gathered about the table. American freedom trembled in the balance. Disaster had followed fast upon disaster. Georgia, South Carolina restored to the British—North Carolina’s turn to be subjugated was at hand.
It was with sad forebodings that the three began their journey toward the north early the next morning.
CHAPTER XXIX—PEGGY FINDS AN OLD FRIEND
| “One hope survives, the frontier is not far, And thence they may escape from native war, And bear within them to the neighboring state An exile’s sorrows, or an outlaw’s hate: Hard is the task their fatherland to quit, But harder still to perish or submit.” —Byron. |