“Dear me, is he that hard of learning? Methinks even I could master the art of shouldering a gun and turning out my toes in less time than that. It seems not so difficult a matter.”
“And even after all this,” Betty went on, taking no heed of the other’s laugh, “he may not rest at night, but must needs do picket duty or go on reconnoitring expeditions. And he hath not tasted meat in two weeks, not since he hath been in camp.”
“What a shame! A soldier such as Master Clevering should sit among the fleshpots and sleep all night in a feather bed.”
“I knew you would laugh,” Betty said with sudden heat. “You treat Richard as though he counted for naught; but the truth is, Joscelyn, you are not half good enough for him.”
And Betty flung out of the house with her chin in the air, while Joscelyn kissed her hand to her with playful courtesy, but with a genuine admiration for her spirit.
But she softened not her heart toward Richard. Because of his impatience with her opinions, and the personal nature of their disputes and oppositions, he had come to typify to her the very core and heart of the insurrection. She knew this was foolish, that he was in truth but an insignificant part of the general turmoil; and yet he was the prominent figure that always came before her when the talk turned on the Revolution, no matter in what company she was. His masterful ways of wooing and cool assumption of her preference also grated harshly upon her, and even in his absence her heart was often hot against him. She listened indifferently to his mother’s and Betty’s praise of him.
Her position in the community was rather a peculiar one; for while many of her companions disliked her tenets, they loved her for her merry ways and grace of manner, and so they refused to listen to some of the more rabid members who counselled ostracism. Her mother, too, was a strong bond between her and the public; for when the patriotic women of the town met together to sew and knit for the absent soldiers, Mistress Cheshire often went with them, and no needle was swifter than hers. It was her neighbours she was helping; the soldiers were a secondary consideration. She was not going to quarrel with Ann Clevering and Martha Strudwick because their husbands had fallen out with the king; that was his Majesty’s affair, not hers, and she did not believe in meddling in other people’s quarrels. But Joscelyn shut herself in her room on these days and read her English history; or else, being deft with her pencil, made numerous copies of the historical pictures of King George and his ministers, which were pinned up on the railing of her balcony as a new testimonial of her loyalty. But no sooner was her back turned than some passer-by tore them away, sometimes leaving instead a written threat of retaliation that made her mother’s heart cold with a nameless dread.
It was in the end of March, some six weeks after the departure of the troops, that sad news came from the south. Where the Pedee widened toward its mouth a blow had been struck for liberty, and Uncle Clevering had fallen in a charge with Sumter.
There had been a body of Tories to disperse, a wagon-train to capture, and despatches to intercept; and Sumter’s troops, knowing this, rode all the windy night through moonshine and shadow to surprise the enemy in the daffodil dawn of that March morning. Swift, silent, resistless, like spectres of the gray forest, they came upon the astonished Redcoats—and kept their tryst with Victory! The prisoners, the wagon-train, the despatches were theirs; but one of them had ridden to his rendezvous with death. The elder Clevering’s horse was led back through all the long miles to Hillsboro’ with the stirrups crossed over the saddle; and Ann Clevering sat in her house, bereft. Each day Martha Strudwick and other friends went to her with words of kindly commiseration; but it was Mistress Cheshire who did most to comfort the afflicted widow, so that these two were drawn yet closer together with that bond of sympathy that comes of a mutual loss. And in Betty’s or Mistress Clevering’s presence Joscelyn never again talked tauntingly of English prowess, since it was an English bullet that had wrought such sorrow to her friends. But even this death, shocking as it was to her, in no way shook her allegiance to the cause she held to be right.