Chapter 17

Janice, forgetful of her recent woe, answered in the affirmative, as she tried to draw herself away. Her attempt only led to the man's hand on hers tightening its grip. "I can't let you go, Miss Janice, till you give me your word not to speak of this meeting. They could scarce catch me such a night, but my mission is too vital to take any risks."

"I promise," acceded Janice, readily.

Brereton let go her hand at once, and his fingers rattled the bit, as he hastily completed the buckling the girl's entrance had interrupted. "If I never return, you will claim your namesake, my mare, Miss Janice," he suggested as he backed Joggles out of the stall. "And treat her well, I beg you. She's the one thing that has any love for me. God knows if I ever see her again.

Forgetting that Brereton could not see her, Janice nodded her head. "You are going for good?" she asked.

"I fear for anything but that! For good or bad, however, I must ride my thirty miles to-night."

"Thirty miles!" cried Janice, with a shiver. "And your hands are dreadfully cold, and your teeth chatter."

"'T is only the chill of inaction after hard and hungry riding. Ten minutes of cantering will set the blood jumping again."

"Can't you wait a moment while I get something for you to eat?" besought the girl.

"Bless you for the thought," replied the aide, with a little husk in his voice. "But my mission is too important to risk delay, much more the nearness of yon dragoons."

"For what are you going?" questioned Janice.

"To order--to get the dice for a last desperate main."

"General Washington is going to try--?"

"Ay. Ah, Miss Janice, they have beaten our troops, but they've still to beat our general, and if I can but make Lee-- I must not linger. Wilt give me a good-by and God-speed to warm me on the ride?"

"Both," answered Janice, holding out her hand, which the officer once again stooped and kissed. "And to-night I'll pray for his Excellency.'

Brereton shoved open the door wide enough for the horse to pass through. "And not for his Excellency's aide?" he asked.

Janice laughed a little shyly as she replied: "Does not the greater always include the lesser?"

Barely were the words spoken, when a sound from the outside reached them, making both start and listen intently. It needed but an instant's attention to resolve the approaching noise into the jingle of bits and sabres.

"Hist!" whispered the officer, warningly. "Cavalry." He threw back the holster-flap of the saddle to free a pistol, and, grasping his scabbard to prevent it from clanking, he stepped through the doorway, leading Joggles by the bridle.

"Ho, there!" came a voice out of the driving snow. "We've lost sight and road. Which way is 't to Greenwood?"

Brereton put foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. "Away to the right," he responded, as he softly drew his sabre, and slipped the empty scabbard between his thigh and the saddle. Gathering up the reins, he wheeled Joggles to the left.

"Can't ye give us some guidance, whoever ye be?" asked the voice, now much nearer, while the sound of horses' breathing and the murmur of men's voices proved that a considerable party were struggling through the deepening snow. "Where are you, anyway?'

Brereton touched Joggles with the spur gently, and the steed moved forward. Not five steps had been taken before the horse shied slightly to avoid collision with another, and, in doing so, he gave a neigh.

"Here 's the fellow, Hennion," spoke up a rider. "Now we'll be stabled quick enough." He reached out and caught at the bridle.

There was a swishing sound, as Brereton swung his sword aloft and brought it down on the extended arm. Using what remained of the momentum of the stroke, the aide let the flat of the weapon fall sharply on Joggles' flank; the horse bounded forward, and, in a dozen strides, had passed through the disordered troop.

A shrill cry of pain came from the officer, followed by a dozen exclamations and oaths from the troopers, and then a sharp order, "Catch or kill him!"

"Ha, Joggles, old boy," chuckled his rider, "there 's not much chance of our being cold yet a while. But we know the roads, and we'll show them a trick or two if they'll but stick to us long enough."

Bang! bang! bang! went some horse-pistols.

"Shoot away!" jeered the aide, softly, though he leaned low in the saddle as he wheeled through the small opening in the hedge and galloped over the garden beds. "'T is only British dragoons who'd blindly waste lead on a northeaster. 'T is lucky the snow took no offence at my curses of it an hour ago."

XXIX ON CONTINENTAL SERVICE

Once across the garden, the aide rode boldly, trusting to the snow overhead to hide his doings and the snow underfoot to keep them silent. Turning northward, he kept Joggles galloping for five minutes, then confident that his pursuers had been distanced, or misled, he varied the pace, letting the horse walk where the snow was drifted, but forcing him to his best speed where the road was blown clear.

"We know the route up to Middlebrook, Joggles; but after that we get into the hills, and blindman's work 't will be for the two of us. So 't is now we must make our time, if we are to be in Morristown by morning."

The rider spoke truly, for it was already six o'clock when he reached the cross-roads at Baskinridge. Halting his horse at the guide-post, he drew his sword and struck the crosspiece a blow, to clear it of its burden of snow.

"Morristown, eight miles," he read in the dark grayness of approaching day. "Hast go enough in thee left to do it, old fellow? Damn Lee for his tardiness and folly, which forces man and beast to journey in such cold." Pulling a flask from his pocket, he uncorked it. "There's scarce a drop left, but thou shouldst have half, if it would serve thee," he said, as he put it to his lips and drained it dry. "'T is the last I have, and eight miles of Lee way still to do!" He laughed at his own pun, and pricked up the horse. Just as the weary animal broke into a trot, the rider pulled rein once more and looked up at a signboard which had attracted his notice by giving a discordant creak as the now dying storm swung it.

"A tavern! Here 's luck, for at least we can get some more rum." Spurring the horse up to the door, he pulled a pistol from its holster and pounded the panel noisily.

It required more than one repetition of the blows to rouse an indweller, but finally a window was enough raised to permit the thrusting out of a becapped head.

"Who's below, and what do yez want?" it challenged gruffly.

"Never mind who I am. I want a pint of the best spirits you have, and a chance to warm myself for a ten minutes, if you've a spark of fire within."

"Oi've nothin' for anny wan who comes routin' me out av bed at such an hour, an' may the devil fly off wid yez for that same," growled the man. "Go away wid yez, an' niver let me see yez more."

The head was already drawn in, when Brereton, with quick readiness, called lustily: "Do as I order, or I'll have my troopers break in the door, and then look to yourself."

"Just wan minute, colonel," cried the man, in a very different tone; and in less than the time asked for the bolts were slipped back and the door was opened by a figure wrapped in a quilt, which one hand drew about him, while the other held a tallow dip aloft.

In the brief moment it took to do this, the officer not so much dismounted as tumbled from his horse, and he now walked stiffly into the public room, stamping his feet to lessen their numbness.

"Where 's thim troopers yez was talkin' av?" questioned the landlord, peering out into the night.

"Throw some wood on those embers, and give me a drink of something, quickly," ordered Brereton, paying no heed to the inquiry.

"Bad 'cess to yea lies," retorted the man, shutting the door. "It's not wan bit av firing or drink yez get this night from-- Oh, mother in hivin, don't shoot, an' yez honour shall have the best in the house, an' a blessin' along wid it! Only just point it somewheer else, darlin', for thim horse-pistols is cruel fond av goin' off widout bein' fired. Thank yez, sir, it 's my wife in bed will bless the day yez was born." The man hastily raked open the bed of ashes and threw chips and billets on the embers. Then he unlocked a corner cupboard. "Oi've New England rum, corn whiskey, an' home-made apple-jack, sir."

"Give me the latter, and if you've any food, let me have it. Brrrew! From nigh Brunswick I've rid since nine last night and thought to perish a dozen times with the cold, dismount and run beside my horse as I would."

"Drop that pistol, or I shoot!" came a sharp order, spoken from the gloom of a doorway across the room. "You are a prisoner."

Brereton had been stooping over the fire, as it gained fresh life, but with one spring he was behind the chimney breast.

"'T is idle to resist," persisted the hidden speaker. "The way is barred in both directions, and there are three of us."

Brereton laughed recklessly. "Come on, most courageous three. I've a bullet for one, and a sword for two."

"Howly hivin! just let me out first off," besought the publican.

"If I had lead to spare, you should have the first of it for letting me into this trap," Brereton told him viciously. "Why did you not warn me there were British hereabout?"

"Hold!" came the distant voice. "If you think us British, who are you?"

The officer hesitated, pondering on the possibility of being tricked, or of possibly tricking. "If you were a gentleman," he said, after a pause, "you 'd give me a hint as to which side you belong."

The unseen man laughed heartily at Jack's reply. "Set me an example, then."

"That I will," said Jack, "though I don't guarantee the truth of it. I am an aide of General Washington, riding on public service.

"Time enough it took you to know it. And if so, what were you doing near Brunswick?"

"I took the route I knew best."

"Thy name is?"

"Jack Brereton."

"Art thou a green-eyed, carrot-faced put, who frights all the women with his ill looks?" cried the man, entering.

Brereton laughed as he stepped out from the sheltering projection. "Switch you, whoever you are, for keeping me from the fire when I am chilled to the marrow. Why, Eustace, this is luck beyond belief! But hast swallowed a frog? You croak so that I knew you not."

"Not I," responded the new-comer, shaking his fellow-officer's hand, "but I swallowed enough of yesterday's storm to spoil my voice, let alone this creeping out of bed in shirt only, to catch some malignant Tory or spy of King George."

"Where art thy comrades?" inquired Brereton, peering past the major.

Eustace laughed. "They 're making acquaintance with thy troop of horse."

"But what art thou doing here in this lonely hostel, with a British force no further away than Springfield? Dost court capture?"

"Just what I told the general when he said he'd bide here till--"

"The general!" interrupted Brereton. "Is Lee here--in this tavern?"

"Ay. And sleeping through all the rout you made as sound--"

"'T is madness! However, I'll not throw blame, for it has saved me eight miles of weary riding. Wake him at once, as I must have word with him. And you, landlord, stable my horse, and see to it that he has both hay and oats in plenty."

There was some delay before Eustace returned with the word that the major-general would see the aide, and with what ill grace the interview was granted was shown by the reception, for on Brereton being ushered into the room, it was to find Lee still in bed, and so far under the counterpane that only the end of a high-coloured but very much soiled nightcap was in view, while on the top of the covering lay two dogs, who rose with the entrance of the interloper.

"Who the devil are ye; why the devil did ye have me waked; and what the devil do ye want?" was the greeting, grumbled from the bedclothes.

Brereton flushed as he answered sharply: "Eustace has no doubt told you who I am, and letters from his Excellency must have already broke the purport of my mission. Finding you paid no heed to his written orders, he has sent me with verbal ones, trusting your hearing may not be as seriously defective as your eyesight."

The head of the general appeared, as he sat up in bed. "Is this a message from General Washington?" he vociferated.

"No. 'T is my own soft speaking, in recognition of your complaisant welcome. But I bear a message of his Excellency. He directs that you march the entire force under you, without delay, by way of Bethlehem and Easton, and effect a junction with him."

"To what end?"

"The British think us so bad beat, and are so desirous to hold a big territory, for purposes of forage and plunder, that they have scattered their troops beyond supporting distance. Can we but get a force together sufficient to attack Burlington, Trenton, or Princeton, 't will be possible to beat them in detail."

"I have a better project than that," asserted Lee. "Let Washington but make a show of activity on the Delaware, and he shall hear of my doings shortly."

"But what better can be done than to drive them back from a country rich with food supplies, relieve the dread of their advancing upon Philadelphia, and give the people a chance to rally to us?" protested the aide.

"Pooh!" scoffed Lee. "'T is pretty to talk of, but 't is another thing to bring it off, and I make small doubt that 't will be no more successful than the damned ingenious manoeuvres of Brooklyn and Fort Washington, which have unhinged the goodly fabric we had been building. I tell you we shall be in a declension till a tobacco-hoeing Virginian, who was put into power by a trick, and who has been puffed up to the people as a great man ever since, is shown to be most damnably weak and deficient. He 's had his chance and failed; now 't is for me to repair the damage he's done."

Brereton clinched his fist and scowled. "Do I understand that you refuse to obey the positive orders of his Excellency?"

"'T is necessary in detachment to allow some discretion to the commanding officer. However, I'll think on it after I've finished the sleep you've tried to steal." The general dropped back on the pillows, and drew up the bedclothes so as to cover his nose.

The aide, muttering an oath, stamped noisily out of the room, slamming the door with a bang that rattled every window in the house.

"I read failure in your face," remarked Eustace, still crouched before the fire.

"Failure!" snapped the scowling man, as he, too, stooped over the blaze. "Nothing but failure. Here, when the people have been driven frantic by the outraging of their women and the plundering of their property, and want but the smallest encouragement to rise, one man dishes all our hopes by his cursed ambition and disobedience."

"How so?"

Too angry to control himself, even to Lee's aide, Jack continued his tirade. "Ever since the general was put into office his subordinates have been scheming to break him down, and in Congress there has always been a party against him, who, through dislike or incapacity, clog all he advises or asks. With the recent defeats, the plotters have gained courage to speak out their thoughts, and your general goes so far as to refuse to obey orders that would make possible a brilliant stroke, because he knows that 't would stop this clack against his Excellency. Instead, he would have Washington sit passive and freezing on the Delaware while he steals the honours by some attempted action. And all the while he is writing to his Excellency letters signed, 'Yours most affectionately,' or 'God bless you,'--cheap substitutes for the three thousand troops he owes us." The aide went to the cupboard and helped himself to the apple-jack. "Canst get me a place to sleep, for God knows I'm tired?"

"Thou shalt have my bed, and welcome to thee," offered Eustace, leading the way upstairs. "Thou'lt not mind my getting into my clothes, for 't is not shirt-tail weather."

"Sixty miles and upward I've come since five o'clock yesterday morning, and I'd agree to sleep under a field-piece in full action." Brereton took off his cap and wig to toss both on the floor, unbuckled his belt, and let his sabre fall noisily; then sitting on the bed, he begged, "Give me a hand with my boots, will you?" Those pulled off without rising he rolled over, and, bundling the disarranged bedclothes about him, he was instantly asleep.

It was noon before consciousness returned to the tired body, and only then because the clatter of horses' feet outside waked the sleeper and startled him so that he sprang from the bed to the window. Relieved by the sight of Continental uniforms, Brereton stretched himself as if still weary, and felt certain muscles, to test their various degrees of soreness, muttering complaints as he did so. Throwing aside his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, he took his sword and pried out the crust of ice on the water in the tin milk-pail which stood on the wash-stand. Swashing the ice-cold water over his face and shoulders, he groaned a curse or two as the chill sent a shiver through him. But as he rubbed himself into a glow, he became less discontented, and when resuming the flannel shirt, he laughed. "Thank a kind God that it 's as cold to the British as 't is to us, and there are more of them to suffer." Another moment served to don his outer clothing and boots, and to fit on his wig and sword. His toilet made, he went downstairs, humming cheerily. He turned first to the kitchen door, drawn thither by the smell that greeted his nostrils.

"Canst give a bestarved man a big breakfast and quickly?" he asked the woman.

"Shure, Oi've all Oi can do now," was the surly response, "wid the general an' his staff; an' his escort, an' thim as is comin' an' goin', an'--"

Brereton came forward. "Ye 'd niver let an Oirishman go hungry," he appealed, putting a brogue on his tongue. "Arrah, me darlin', no maid wid such lips but has a kind heart." The officer boldly put his hand under the woman's chin and made as if he would kiss her. Then, as she eluded the threatened blandishment, he continued, "Sure, and do ye call yeself a woman, that ye starve a man all ways to wanst?"

"Ah, go long wid yez freeness and yez blarney," retorted the woman, giving him a shove, though smiling.

"An', darlin'," persisted the unabashed officer, "it's owin' me somethin' ye do, for it was meself saved yez father's life this very morning."

"My father--shure, it 's dead he's been this--It 's my husband yez must be afther spakin' av."

"He 's too old to be that same," flattered Brereton.

"'T is he, Oi make shure," acknowledged the woman, as she nevertheless set her apron straight and smoothed her hair. "An' how did yez save his loife?"

"Arrah, by not shooting him, as I was sore tempted to do."

The landlady melted completely and laughed. "An' what would yez loike for breakfast?" she asked.

Brereton looked at the provisions spread about. "Just give me four fried eggs wid bacon, an' two av thim sausages, an corn bread, wid something hot to drink, an' if that 's buckwheat batter in the pan beyant, just cook a dozen cakes or so, for I've a long ride to take an' they do be so staying. Also, if ye can make me up something--ay, cold sausages an' hard-boiled eggs, if ye've nothing else, to take wid me; an' then a kiss, to keep the heart warm inside av me, 't is wan man ye'll have given a glimpse av hivin."

"Bless us all!" marvelled Eustace, when twenty minutes later he entered the kitchen, to learn what delayed the general's lunch. "How came you by such a spread, when it 's all any of us can do to get enough to keep life in us? Is 't sorcery, man?"

"No, witchery," laughed the aide. "If thy chief were but a woman, Eustace, I'd have Washington reinforced within a two days."

His breakfast finished, the aide secured pen and paper, and wrote a formal order for Lee to march. This done, he sought the general, and, interrupting a consultation he was holding with General Sullivan, he delivered the paper into his hands.

"I ask General Sullivan to witness that I deliver you positive instructions to march your force, to effect a junction with General Washington."

"I've already writ him a letter that will convince him I act for the best," answered Lee, holding out the missive.

The aide took it without a word, saluted, and left the room. Going to the front door, where Joggles already awaited him, he put a Continental bill into the hands of the publican, bade adieu to Eustace, and rode away.

"'T is as bright a day as 't was dark a night, old man," he said to the horse, "but it never looked blacker for the cause, and I've had my long ride for nothing. Perhaps, though, there may be pay day coming. She knows that I'm to be at Van Meter's barn to-night. What say you, Joggles? Think you will she be there?"

XXX SOME DOINGS BY STEALTH

The sound of shots outside put a sudden termination to the supper in both the dining-room and kitchen of Greenwood, and served to bring inmates and candles to the front and back doors. Beyond the moment's rush of a body of horsemen past the house, no light on the interruption was obtained, until some of the escort of Clowes were despatched to the stable to learn if all was well with their horses. There they found the wounded man stretched on the snow, and just within the doorway lay Janice in a swoon, with Clarion licking her face. Both were carried to the house, and while Mrs. Meredith and the sergeant endeavoured to save the officer by a rude tourniquet, the squire held Janice's head over some feathers which Peg burned in a bed-warmer.

"Did they kill him?" was the first question the girl asked, when the combined stench and suffocation had revived consciousness.

"He 's just expiring," her father replied. "His arm was struck off above the elbow, and he bleeds like a stuck pig."

Janice staggered up, though somewhat languidly. "May-- "Did he ask to see me?"

"Not he," she was told. "Come, lass, sit quiet for a bit till thy head is steady, and tell us what 't was all about."

Janice sank into the chair her father set beside the fire. "He was on some mission for his Excellency," she gasped, "and stopped here to get a fresh horse--that was how I came to know it--and while we were talking we heard the dragoons coming, so he mounted, to escape. Then I heard a cry--oh! such a cry--and the pistols--and--and--that 's all I remember."

"Why went he to the stable rather than to the house in the first case?" demanded her father.

Janice looked surprised. "He knew the troopers were here," she explained.

The squire was about to speak, when Clowes' hand on his shoulder checked him. "There's more here than we understand," the latter whispered. "Let me ask the questions." He came to the fire and said:--

"Why did he take this route, if he was bearing despatches?"

The first sign of colour came creeping back into the pale cheeks of the girl, as she recalled the double motive the aide had given. "Colonel Brereton said he did not know the westerly roads, and so--"

"Colonel Brereton!" rapped out her father. "And what was he doing hereabout? Plague take the scamp that he must be forever returning to worry us!"

"How much of a force had he with him?" asked the commissary.

"He was alone," replied Janice.

"Alone!" exclaimed the baron, incredulously; then his face lost its look of surprise. "He came by stealth to see you,

There was enough truth in the supposition to destroy the last visible signs of the girl's swoon, and she responded over-eagerly: "I told you he was on a mission for his Excellency, and but stopped here to get a fresh horse."

"Ay," growled the squire, "he steals himself, then steals my crop, and now turns horse thief."

"He was not stealing, dadda," denied Janice. "His own horse was tired, so he left her and said he'd return Joggles some time to-morrow evening."