I made no serious reply, and we rode westward through the governor’s woods to the river. As we turned into an open space to escape a deep mud-hole, Mr. Montresor said:
“It was here, I think, you and Mr. Warder made yourselves agreeable to two of our people.” I laughed, and said it was a silly business and quite needless.
“That, I believe,” he cried, laughing, “was their opinion somewhat late. They were the jest of every regimental mess for a month, and we were inclined to think Mr. Washington had better raise a few regiments of Quakers. Are you all as dangerous?”
“Oh, worse, worse,” I said. “Jack Warder and I are only half-fledged specimens. You should see the old fellows.” Thus jesting, we rode as we were able until we reached the “banks of the Schuylkill, picketed on both shores, but on the west side not below the lower ferry, where already my companion was laying a floating bridge which greatly interested me.
“We have a post on the far hill,” he said, “I am afraid to Mr. Hamilton’s annoyance. Let us follow the river.”
I was able to guide him along an ox-road, and past garden patches across High street, to the upper ferry at Callowhill street. Here he pointed out to me the advantage of a line of nine forts which he was already building. There was to be one on the hill we call Fairmount to command the upper ferry. Others were to be set along to the north of Callowhill street road at intervals to Cohocsink Creek and the Delaware.
The great trees I loved were falling fast under the axes of the pioneers, whom I thought very awkward at the business. Farm-houses were being torn down, and orchards and hedges levelled, while the unhappy owners looked on in mute despair, aiding one another to remove their furniture. The object was to leave a broad space to north of the forts, that an attacking force might find no shelter. About an hundred feet from the blockhouses was to be an abatis of sharpened logs, and a mass of brush and trees, through which to move would be difficult.
I took it all in, and greedily. The colonel no doubt thought me an intelligent young fellow, and was kind enough to answer all my questions. He may later have repented his freedom of speech. And now I saw the reason for all this piteous ruin. Compensation was promised and given, I heard, but it seemed to me hard to be thus in a day thrust out of homes no doubt dear to these simple folk. We went past gardens and fields, over broken fences, all in the way of destruction. Tape-lines pegged to the earth guided the engineers, and hundreds of negroes were here at work. Near to Cohocsink Creek we met the second Miss Chew, riding with her father. He was handsome in dark velvet, his hair clubbed and powdered beneath a flat beaver with three rolls, and at his back a queue tied with a red ribbon. He had remained quietly inactive and prudent, and, being liked, had been let alone by our own party. It is to be feared that neither he nor the ribbon was quite as neutral as they had been. Miss Margaret looked her best. I much dislike “Peggy,” by which name she was known almost to the loss of that fine, full “Margaret,” which suited better her handsome, uptilted head and well-bred look.
On the right side rode that other Margaret, Miss Shippen, of whom awhile back I spoke, but then only as in pretty bud, at the Woodlands. It was a fair young rose I now saw bowing in the saddle, a woman with both charm and beauty. Long after, in London, and in less merry days, she was described by Colonel Tarleton as past question the handsomest woman in all England. I fear, too, she was the saddest.
“And where have you kept yourself, Mr. Wynne?” she asked. “You are a favourite of my father’s, you know. I had half a mind not to speak to you.”