The year was 1777, a fateful one indeed for the American arms in the struggle for liberty—a year of both blessing and misfortune for the patriot cause. Within its twelve months the Continental army achieved some notable victories; but it suffered, too, memorable defeats. It was the year when human liberty seemed trembling in the balance, when all nations—even France—stood aloof, waiting to see whether the star of the American Colonies was setting or on the ascendant. The British army, under Howe and Clinton, occupied New York. Washington and his little force lay near Philadelphia, then the capital of the newly-formed confederation. New Jersey—all the traveled ways between the two armies—was disputed territory, disturbed continually by a sort of guerilla warfare most hard for the peacefully-inclined farmers and tradespeople to bear.
Spies of both sides in the great conflict infested the country: foraging parties, like the rain, descended upon the just and the unjust; and neighbors who had lived in harmony for years before the war broke out, now were at daggers’ points. The Tories had grown confident because of the many set-backs endured by the patriot forces. Many even prophesied that, when Burgoyne’s army, then being gathered beyond the Canadian border, should descend the valleys of upper New York and finally join Howe and Clinton, the handful of Americans bearing arms against the king would be fairly swept into the sea, or ground to powder between the victorious British lines.
Jonas Benson was intensely patriotic, and the Three Oaks had given shelter oft and again to scouts and foraging parties of the Continental troops. The inn-keeper had given the pick of his horses to the army, reserving few but such nags as were positively needed for the coach which went down to Trenton at irregular intervals. There were more than his staid coach horses in the stable on this afternoon, however, and the fact was much to his distaste.
There had arrived at the Three Oaks the evening before a private carriage drawn by a pair of handsome bays and driven by a most solemn-faced Jehu, whose accent was redolent of Bow Bells. With the carriage came a gentleman—a fierce, military-looking man, though not in uniform—who rode a charger, which, so Jonas told his wife, would have made a saint envious, providing the latter were a judge of horseflesh. Inside the carriage rode a very pretty girl of sixteen or seventeen, whose dress and appearance were much different from the plain country lasses of that region.
“They’re surely gentle folk, Jonas,” Mistress Benson had declared. “The sweet child is a little lady—see how proud she holds herself. Law! it’s been a long day since we served real gentles here.”
Jonas snorted disdainfully; he suspected that at heart his good wife had royalist tendencies. As for him, the American officers who sometimes made the Three Oaks their headquarters for a few days were fine enough folk. “I tell ye what, woman,” he said, “they may be great folk or not; one thing I do know. They possess great influence or they’d never gotten through the Britishers with them fine nags. And if the outposts weren’t so far away, I’m blessed if I believe they’d get away from here without our own lads having a shy at the horses.”
But the Bensons were too busy making their guests comfortable to discuss them—or their horses—to any length. Colonel Creston Knowles was the name the gentleman gave, and the girl was his daughter, Miss Lillian. The driver of the carriage, who served the colonel as valet as well, was called William, and a more stony-faced, unemotional individual it had never been the fate of the Bensons to observe. It was utterly impossible to draw from this servant a word regarding his master’s business between the lines of the opposing armies.
These visitors were not desired by Jonas. He kept a public house, and, for the sake of being at peace with everybody, his Tory neighbors included, he treated all guests who came to the Three Oaks with unfailing cordiality. But the presence of Colonel Knowles at this time was bound to cause trouble.
The inn was on the road usually traversed by those in haste to reach Philadelphia, where, while Washington’s army was posted nearby, Congress held its session. Many a time in the dead of night there was the rattle of hoofs on the road, as a breathless rider dashed up to the door, and with a loud “Halloa” aroused the stable boy. Then in a few moments, mounted afresh, he would hurry on into the darkness. These dispatch-bearers of the American army knew they could trust mine host of the Three Oaks, and that a ridable nag could always be found somewhere in his stable.
The very night Colonel Knowles arrived at the tavern there was an occurrence of this kind. And after the dispatch-bearer had gone, and Jonas and Hadley Morris, the stable boy, stood in the paved yard watching him disappear on the moonlit road, they saw a night-capped head at the colonel’s window.