Part 13

“My folks didn’t make that mistake,” he said abruptly. “They come here on a ship, like all the rest of us, except those who be Injun bred. Come out o’ Scotland, my folks. Had five young ones die on the voyage, and raised another five to replace ’em. Yes, your ancestor made a mistake, lad. But how do you think to right it? Peace time, you could come here like other Englishmen always did, and settle down and be one of us. But not now, now that we be at war.”

“Couldn’t I, Colonel? That was what I was hoping for. It’s not that I’m afraid of fighting. But I don’t want to fight against you. And I can’t fight against my own.”

“And what would you do, Private Malory, if I said, ‘Go to! Clear out of my camp and make your way as best you can?’”

Gerry’s face lit up, and there was no play-acting about him this time. “Why, I’d thought about that, Colonel. Do you know what I’d do? I sailed from Plymouth myself, for my regiment took ship there, so for old times’ sake, I’d take the highroad and go down to your Plymouth in Massachusetts, and see if I could make my way there and settle in, and become a Plymouth man.”

“We got a Plymouth in New Hampshire,” said Stark thoughtfully. “I don’t know whether all the land be taken there or no.” Then the lines in his face hardened.

“I got the power tonight to send you on your way,” he said. “Tomorrow, I may be plain Johnny Stark, headed back to the sawmill again. We got a new commander coming up from the South to take over the whole army. Name o’ Washington. A Virginia man. Can’t tell what he’ll do.”

On that July night the name of Washington meant nothing to Kitty Greenleaf and Gerald Malory.

“Then let me go, Colonel Stark. Let me go tonight,” Gerry pleaded.

The colonel looked down at the rich woven rug on the floor. His eyes seemed to be tracing the scrollwork pattern. Then he turned to Gerry again. “There’s only one thing still bothers me, Private Malory,” he said. “I believe you when you say you’d like to be an American, and settle down in America and make your way there, and do no harm to anyone. I commend you for it. But how do you feel toward your own people? Don’t you believe in Parliament and the King?”

“I believe in them--over there,” said Gerry slowly. “But not over here. They rule fine in England, it seems to me. But in America--the way I’ve come to see America--they don’t know what they’re doing at all.”

Stark’s grin told Kitty that he had heard the answer he wanted to hear, but he had one more word of caution. “Remember, you been knocked in the head, lad. Are you sure you know what you’re about? That you won’t wake up in a daze some morning and wish you was back with the Twenty-third?”

“No,” said Gerry. “I won’t wish myself back.”

Stark got to his feet. “Might happen,” he said mildly, “if you was to slip out of camp long about midnight, sentry would be looking the other way.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Gerry fervently.

“Thank me in ten years,” said Stark, “if you still want to then. It’s a crazy venture, and we can’t tell how it’ll turn out. But if it’s what you want, get on with it. They say hanging and wiving goes by destiny. And I guess you’re lucky in both o’ them matters, lad.”

He led them toward the front door, and as they passed by a small parlor opening off the hall, Kitty caught sight of a couple inside it. They sat on a peacock-colored sofa, locked in a deep embrace. Startled at the sound of footsteps, they drew apart. Stark shot a quick look in their direction and grinned widely. “No harm in it,” he said, “they’re a betrothed pair.” He would have kept on down the hall, but Kitty stood still, gasping.

The man on the blue sofa was Tom Trask, and the girl was a stranger to her; small and delicately formed, with a beautiful cameo face and shining red hair. Under their scrutiny Tom stood up. Some men would have been embarrassed, but not he. He scooped the girl to her feet and led her forward.

“Well,” he greeted them, “so it’s Kit herself, and _Private_ Malory. I’d like you to meet Jeanie Morrison.” He looked down at the red-haired girl, and there was a tender merriment in his eye.

“I kissed with all the girls some,” he continued. “But I always knew I’d marry Jean.”

“Listen to the man!” trilled Jeanie. She gave him an enchanting smile that showed a dimple in her cheek.

“Jeanie come down from Derryfield with my wife a few days back,” explained the colonel, sensing some tension in the air he could not understand. “She came to see Tom and bring him his gun. A Brown Bess, British made, one of the best guns in the army.”

“Aye,” said Tom mockingly. “I got my own gun. You can have your blunderbuss back, Kitty. I’ll bring it to the hospital tomorrow.”

“Don’t bother,” said Kitty, but Gerry’s eyes lighted.

“Is there any way we could get it tonight?” he asked.

Kitty knew what he was thinking, and she saw the rightness of it. He meant to go to Plymouth, armed with the Plymouth blunderbuss.

Tom shrugged, “If you want it that bad,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I brought it with me. You’ll find it standing among the lilacs to the right of the front door.”

After they had retrieved the old weapon and taken their leave of Colonel Stark, they walked quietly through the streets of Medford hand in hand.

Kitty should have been relieved that she would have no painful scene with Tom, but she could not help feeling rueful at the knowledge that he had preferred red-haired Jeanie all the time.

“You’re lucky,” Gerry assured her. “I wish--I wish I could get out of it so easy with Sally Rose.”

He kissed her on the steps of the Fulton house.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back, Kitty,” he said. “It may take me a long time to make my own way. And you--now your grandmother’s dead, where will you go?”

“I think I’ll go back to her old house and wait till you come for me. You’ve never been to Newburyport, but you can find the way. You’ll be gone tomorrow, and I’m going to Cambridge and get old Timothy and take him home.”

“Will Sally Rose go with you?” he asked.

“What do you think?” said Kitty. “Look there!” She pointed to the parlor window just to the left of the front door.

Sally Rose was standing inside the parlor. She was smiling up into the eyes of a tall young captain who wore the blue and white of the Connecticut line. She let her lashes veil her eyes and opened her pretty lips. “We’ve none such handsome lads in Massachusetts--” she said.

Gerry Malory swallowed. Then he began to laugh. “Where, oh where,” he exclaimed, “have I heard those words before?”

After he had left her, Kitty slipped into the house and up to the little chamber that she shared with Sally Rose. She went to the window and stood there, looking at the still town, and the moonlit river, the campfires on Winter Hill, the lights of the warships far down the dim bay.

Less than three months back, it was, that they had all played hide-and-seek in Newburyport, but they would never play hide-and-seek again. Never again would they be that young.

Even she and Sally Rose, Gran had said, would be great-grandmothers some day. How glad she was that Gran had had that last cup of tea.

She turned from the window and began to undress, laughing as she remembered the struggle to get Sally Rose out of the stays. Never again, she thought, would they be as young as that.

She was just climbing into bed when Sally Rose opened the chamber door.

“Kitty,” she said, “there’s going to be handsome men in uniform about for ages. Captain Davenport was just telling me that he expects a long war. He says that since Bunker Hill, the word’s been in everybody’s mouth that we’re going to live free or die--and that will take a long time.”

“Live free or die? What does that mean?” asked Kitty, bewildered.

“Well, I don’t understand it myself,” said Sally Rose, taking the ribbon out of her curls, “but I have an idea of one man who might know. I think you’ll be likely to find out if you go and speak to Tom Trask.”

Kitty lay in the wide bed and watched her cousin slip out of her dainty garments and fling them carelessly across a chair. Yes, she thought, there was, after all, some sort of unconscious wisdom about the pretty featherbrain. Hanging and wiving goes by destiny, Colonel Stark had said, and she had known that Gerry was her destiny, almost from the day she had seen him first from the door of the Bay and Beagle as he marched past with the prisoners’ cart. And she would not have it otherwise, for she loved Gerry. He would be as good an American as most others, some day. He had many virtues, and she would rejoice and be proud of them all her life, most likely. But when it came to a matter of living free, Sally Rose was right. Tom Trask was the man who would know.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.