"Come back now, and finish setting the table; and if John will stay to supper, he will be welcome."
John was only too glad, for he took keen pleasure in the society of Susanna, and was fond of the quaint old house where his kinsman lived. He rose and went into the inner room, where Hannah received him with a smile and a nod.
Susanna would have asked him what special news had reached the town that day, but the sound of approaching feet outside warned her of the return of her father with the friends he was bringing to supper. She flew to the kitchen for the first relay of dishes, and Hannah left her to dish them up, whilst she went to meet the guests.
Jack and the maidservant a.s.sisted Susanna at the stove, and a few minutes pa.s.sed before they entered the supper room, where the company had a.s.sembled. When they did so, the girl was surprised to note that her mother was standing between two tall strangers, one of whom had his arm about her, and that she was weeping silently yet bitterly.
Susanna put down her dishes on the table and crept to her father"s side.
"What is the matter?" she asked timidly.
"Matter enough to bring tears to all our eyes--ay, tears of blood!"
answered Ashley sternly. "These two men are your mother"s brothers, who arrived today--just a short while back--as I hoped with pleasant tidings. Now have we learned a different tale. Their old father and Charles"s wife and children have been brutally murdered by Indians, and he himself escaped as by a miracle. We have been telling the tale to the a.s.sembly this very afternoon. Ah, it would have moved hearts of stone to hear Charles"s words! I pray Heaven that something may soon be done. It is fearful to think of the sufferings which our inaction is causing to our settlers in the west!"
"It is a shame--a disgrace!" exclaimed Jack hotly, and then he turned his glance upon the two other men who were seated at the table, taking in the whole scene in silence.
Both wore the look of travellers; both were tanned by exposure, and were clad in stained and curious garments, such as betokened the life of the wilderness. Jack was instantly and keenly interested.
He himself would willingly have been a backwoodsman had he been able to adopt that adventurous life.
Ashley saw the look he bent upon the travellers, and he made them known to one another.
"These friends have travelled far from the lands of the south, and have been friends in need to our kinsmen yonder. Fritz Neville and Julian Dautray are their names.
"Susanna, set food before them. Your mother will not be able to think of aught just now. We must let her have her cry out before we trouble her."
The rest of the party seated themselves, whilst in the recess by the window Hannah stood between the brothers she had parted from ten years ago, listening to their tale, and weeping as she listened.
Ashley turned to his two guests, who were eating with appet.i.te from the well-filled platters placed before them, and he began to speak as though taking up a theme which had lately been dropped.
"It is no wonder that you are perplexed by what you hear and see in this city. I will seek to make the point at issue as clear to you as it may be. You have doubtless heard of the Penn family, from whom this colony takes its name. Much we owe to our founder--his wisdom, liberality, and enlightenment; but his sons are hated here.
They are absent in England, but they are the proprietaries of vast tracts of land, and it is with regard to these lands that the troubles in the a.s.sembly arise. The proprietaries are regarded as renegades from the faith; for the a.s.sembly here is Quaker almost to a man. They hate the feudalism of the tenure of the proprietaries, and they are resolved to tax these lands, although they will not defend them, and although no income is at present derived from them."
"Have they the power to do so?" asked Julian.
"Not without the consent of the Governor. That is where the whole trouble lies. And the Governor has no power to grant them leave to tax the proprietary lands. Not only so, but he is expressly forbidden by the terms of his commission to permit this taxation.
But the a.s.sembly will not yield the point, nor will they consent to furnish means for the defence of the colony until this point is conceded. That is where the deadlock comes in. The Governor cannot yield; his powers do not permit it. The a.s.sembly will not yield.
They hate the thought of war, and seem glad to shelter themselves behind this quibble. For a while many of us, their friends, although not exactly at one with them in all things, stood by them and upheld them; but we are fast losing patience now. When it comes to having our peaceful settlers barbarously murdered, and our western border desolated and encroached upon; when it becomes known that this is the doing of jealous France, not of the Indians themselves, then it is time to take a wider outlook. Let the question of the proprietary lands stand over till another time; the question may then be settled at a less price than is being paid for it now, when every month"s delay costs us the lives of helpless women and children, and when humanity herself is crying aloud in our streets."
Ashley, although he had long been on most friendly terms with the Quaker population of the town, was not by faith a Quaker, and was growing impatient with the a.s.sembly and its stubborn policy of resistance. He felt that his old friend Franklin should know better, and show a wider spirit. He had acted with promptness and patriotism earlier in the year, when Braddock"s luckless expedition had applied to him for help. But in this warfare he was sternly resolved on the victory over the Governor, and at this moment it seemed as though all Philadelphia was much more eager to achieve this than to defend the borders of the colony.
Hitherto the danger had not appeared pressing to the eastern part of the colony. They were in no danger from Indian raids, and they had small pity for their brethren on the western frontier. Between them and the encroaching Indians lay a population, mostly German, that acted like a buffer state to them; and notwithstanding that every post brought in urgent appeals for help, they pa.s.sed the time in wrangling with the Governor, in drawing up bills professing to be framed to meet the emergency, but each one of them containing the clause through which the Governor was forced to draw his pen.
Governor Morris had written off to England stating the exceeding difficulty of his position. His appeals to the a.s.sembly to defend the colony were spirited and manly. He was anxious to join with the other colonies for an organized and united resistance, but this was at present extremely difficult. Others before him had tried the same policy, but it had ended in failure. Petty jealousies did more to hold the colonies apart than a common peril to bind them together. Political and religious strife was always arising. There was nothing to bind them together save a common, though rather cold, allegiance to the English King. Now and again, in moments of imminent peril, they had united for a common object; but they fell apart almost at once. Each had its own pet quarrel with its Governor, which was far more interesting to the people at the moment than anything else.
Julian and Fritz listened in amaze as Ashley, who was a well-informed man and a shrewd observer, put before them, as well as he was able, the state of affairs reigning in Pennsylvania and the sister states.
"I am often ashamed of our policy, of our bickerings, of our tardiness," concluded the good man; "yet for all that there is stuff of the right sort in our people. We have English blood in our veins, and I always maintain that England is bound to be the dominant power in these lands of the west. Let them but send us good leaders and generals from the old country, and I will answer for it that the rising generation of New England will fight and will conquer, and drive the encroaching French back whence they came!"
Chapter 4: An Exciting Struggle.
It was an exciting scene. Susanna stood at the window, and gazed eagerly along the street, striving hard to obtain a sight of the seething crowd in the open square.
She could see the tall, haggard form of her Uncle Charles, as she called him. He was standing upon a little platform that his friends had erected for him in front of the a.s.sembly Rooms, and he was speaking aloud to the surging crowd in accents that rang far through the still air, and even reached the ears of the listeners at the open window.
For once Hannah made no protest when the girl thrust out her head.
She herself seemed to be striving to catch the echoes of the clear, trumpet-like voice. Her colour came and went in her cheeks; her breast heaved with the emotion which often found vent in those days in a fit of silent weeping.
"Mother dear, do not weep; they shall be avenged! n.o.body can listen to Uncle Charles and not be moved. Hark how they are shouting now--hark! I can see them raising their arms to heaven. They are shaking their fists in the direction of the windows of the a.s.sembly House. Surely those cowardly men must be roused to action; they cannot hear unmoved a tale such as Uncle Charles has to tell!"
"Yet even so the dead will not be restored to life; and war is a cruel, bitter thing."
"Yes, but victory is glorious. And we shall surely triumph, for our cause is righteous. I am sure of that. And Julian Dautray says the same. I think he is a very good man, mother; I think he is better than the Quakers, though he does not talk as if he thought himself a saint.
"O mother, there is Uncle Humphrey looking up at us! I pray you let me go down to him. I long so greatly to hear what Uncle Charles is saying. And I shall be safe in his care."
"I think I will come, too," said Hannah, whose interest and curiosity were keenly aroused; and after signalling as much to Humphrey, they threw on their cloaks and hoods, and were soon out in the streets, where an excited crowd had gathered.
"The posts have come in," said Humphrey, as they made their way slowly along, "and there is news of fresh disasters, and nearer. In a few minutes we shall have more news. Men have gone in who promise to come out and read us the letters. But the bearers themselves declare that things are terrible. The Germans have been attacked. A Moravian settlement has been burnt to the ground, and all its inhabitants butchered. Families are flying from the border country, naked and dest.i.tute, to get clear of the savages and their tomahawks. Every where the people are calling aloud upon the a.s.sembly to come to their succour."
The crowd in the street was surging to and fro. Some were Quakers, with pale, determined countenances, still holding to their stubborn policy of non-resistance to the enemy, but of obstinate resistance to the Governor and the proprietaries. The sight of these men seemed to inflame the rest of the populace, and they were hustled and hooted as they made their way into the a.s.sembly; whilst the Governor was cheered as he went by with a grave and troubled face, and on the steps of his house he turned and addressed the people.
"My friends," he said, "I am doing what I can. I have written to the proprietaries and to the government at home. I have told them that the conduct of the a.s.sembly is to me shocking beyond parallel.
I am asking for fresh powers to deal with this horrible crisis. But I cannot look for an answer for long; and meantime are all our helpless settlers in the west to be butchered? You men of the city, rise you and make a solemn protest to these obstinate rulers of yours. I have spoken all that one man may, and they will not hear.
Try you now if you cannot make your voice heard."
"We will, we will!" shouted a hundred voices; and forthwith knots of influential men began to gather together in corners, talking eagerly together, and gesticulating in their excitement.
And all this while Charles, wild-eyed and haggard, was keeping his place on the little platform, and telling his story again and again to the shifting groups who came and went. Men and women hung upon his words in a sort of horrible fascination. Others might talk of horrors guessed at, yet unseen; Charles had witnessed the things of which he spoke, and his words sent thrills of horror through the frames of those who heard. Women wept, and wrung their hands, and the faces of men grew white and stern.
But upon the opposite side of the square another orator was haranguing the crowd. A young Quaker woman had got up upon some steps, moved in spirit, as she declared, to denounce the wickedness of war, and to urge the townsmen to peaceful methods. Her shrill voice rose high and piercing, and she invoked Heaven to bless the work of those who would endure all things rather than spill human blood.
But the people had heard something too much of this peaceful gospel. For long they had upheld the policy of non-resistance. They had their shops, their farms, their merchandise; they were prosperous and phlegmatic, more interested in local than in national issues. They had been content to be preached at by the Quakers, and to give pa.s.sive adhesion to their policy; but the hour of awakening had come. The agonized cries of those who looked to them for aid had pierced their ears too often to be ignored.
Humanity itself must rise in answer to such an appeal. They were beginning to see that their peace policy was costing untold human lives, amid scenes of unspeakable horror.
They let the woman speak in peace; they did not try to stop her utterances. But when a brother Quaker took her place and began a similar harangue, the young men round raised a howl, and a voice cried out:
"Duck him in the horse pond! Roll him in a barrel! Let him be tarred and feathered like an Indian, since he loves the scalping savages so well. Who"s got a tomahawk? Let"s see how they use them.
Does anybody know how they scalp their prisoners? A Quaker would never miss his scalp; he always has his hat on!"
A roar of laughter greeted this sally; and a rush was made for the unlucky orator, who showed a bold front enough to the mob. But at that moment public attention was turned in a different direction by the appearing upon the steps of the a.s.sembly Rooms of a well-known citizen of high repute, who had until latterly been one of the peace party, but who of late had made a resolute stand, insisting that something must be done for the protection of the western settlers, and for the curbing of the ambitious encroachments and preposterous claims of France.
This grave-faced citizen came out with some papers in his hand, and the crowd was hushed into silence.
Overhead anxious faces could be seen looking out at the window. It was not by the wishes of the a.s.sembly that such letters were made public; but many of them had been addressed to James Freeman himself, and they could not restrain him from doing as he would with his own.
"My friends," he said, and his voice rose distinct in the clear air, "we have heavy tidings today. You shall hear what is written from some sufferers not far from Fort c.u.mberland, where forty white men, women, and children were barbarously murdered a few days back.