Instantly the men sprang for their rifles and accoutrements. Inured to danger and alarms, the women were as quick to act as their husbands.
Some of them ran to the stables and led forth the horses, which they saddled hastily, ready for service; while others gathered up whatever objects of value they could carry. With marvelous celerity the men placed the women and servants on the horses by twos and threes, bidding them to betake themselves to neighbors who were more remote from the main road. They themselves had scarcely time for concealment in a deep thicket and swamp which bordered one extremity of the farm before the British videttes were in sight. These halted upon the brow of a hill for the approach of the main body, and then in complete order advanced to the plantation.
After reconnoitering the premises, and finding no one present, but all appearances of the hasty flight of the occupants, the dragoons dismounted, tethered their horses and detailed a guard. Some sumpter-horses were harnessed to farm wagons, and some of the troopers began to load them with various products of the fields; while military baggage wagons under charge of a rear guard gradually arrived, and were employed in the gathering of the new corn, carrying off stacks of oats and the freshly pulled corn fodder.
Enjoying the prospect of free living the soldiers shouted joyously among their plunder. Separate parties, regularly detailed, shot down and butchered the hogs and calves, while others hunted and caught the poultry of different descriptions. In full view of this scene stood the commander of the British forces, a portly, florid Englishman, one hand on each side the doorway of the farmhouse, where the officers were partaking of the abundant provisions provided for the guests of Mistress Sevier.
Meanwhile Peggy, who had been mounted behind Grandma Sevier, for so she had learned to call Mistress Egan"s mother, discovered that lady in tears.
"Grandma," she cried with concern, "what is it? Is thee frightened?"
"It"s my Bible," wailed the old lady. "The Scottish translation of the Psalms is bound in with it, and they say the British burn every Bible they find like that. Oh, I"ll never have another! My mother gave it to me when William and me was married. The births and deaths of my children are in it-oh, I"d rather everything on the place was took than that."
"Stop just a minute, please," spoke Peggy. Then, as the surprised woman brought the horse to a standstill, the maiden slipped to the ground.
"I"m going back for the Bible," she cried, and darted away before any of them guessed her intention.
"Peggy, Peggy," called several voices after her, but the girl laughed at them and disappeared among the bushes.
"The British won"t hurt me," she rea.s.sured herself as she came in sight of the dwelling. "I am just a girl, and can do them no harm. I"m just going to have that Bible for grandma. "Tis a small thing to do for her when she hath been so good to me."
And so saying, she stepped out from the bushes where she had paused for a moment, and marched boldly up to the commander in the doorway.
"Sir," she said, sweeping him a fine curtsey, "I wish thee good-day."
"Well, upon my life, what have we here?" exclaimed he, astounded at this sudden apparition.
"If thee pleases, good sir, I live here," returned Peggy.
"And I do please," he cried. "Come in, mistress. Your pardon, but we have made somewhat free with the premises, but if it so be that you are a loyal subject of King George, you shall have ample recompense for whatever we take."
"I thank thee," she said, ignoring the question of loyalty. "I will enter, if I may. Grandma wishes her Bible, and that, sir, can surely be given her?"
"Of a truth," he cried, stepping aside for her to pa.s.s. ""Tis a small request to refuse such beauty. Take the Bible and welcome, my fair Quakeress."
"I thank thee," spoke the girl, with quaint dignity. Sedately she pa.s.sed into the dwelling and went directly to Mistress Sevier"s chamber, where the Bible lay on a small table. Clasping it close, Peggy again went through the living-room, where the astonished officers awaited her coming curiously.
"You are not going to be so unmannerly as to leave us, are you?" asked the captain.
"Sir," spoke the girl, facing him bravely, "I pray thee, permit me to pa.s.s unmolested. We have left thee and thy soldiers at liberty to possess yourselves of our belongings. Show at least this courtesy."
"Methinks," he began, tugging at his moustache thoughtfully, "that such leniency deserves something at your hands. I doubt not "tis a Presbyterian Bible, and we have orders to destroy all such. Methinks--"
But Peggy was out and past him before he had finished speaking. There was a shorter way into the swamp if she would go through the orchard where the horses were tethered, and she sped across the lawn in that direction. As she darted among the animals the book slipped from her clasp and she stooped to recover it. As she rose from her stooping position she felt the soft nose of a horse touch her cheek gently, and a low whinny broke upon her ear. The girl gave one upward glance, and then sprang forward, screaming:
"Star!" In an ecstasy of joy she threw her arms about the little mare"s neck, for it was in reality her own pony. "Oh, Star! Star! have I found thee again?"
Caress after caress she lavished on the pony, which whinnied its delight and seemed as glad of the meeting as the girl herself. A number of soldiers, drawn by curiosity, meanwhile gathered about the maiden and the horse, and among them was the commanding officer. Peggy had forgotten everything but the fact that she had found Star again, and paid no heed to their presence.
"It seems to be a reunion," remarked the officer at length dryly. "May I ask, my little Quakeress, what claim you have on that animal?"
Peggy lifted her tear-stained face.
"Why, it"s my pony that my dear father gave me," she answered. "It"s Star!"
"That cannot be," he told her. "I happen to know that this especial horse came down from New York City on one of the transports with Sir Henry Clinton. So you see that it cannot be yours."
"But it is, sir," cried she. "I came down at the same time with my cousin Colonel Owen and his daughter Harriet on the "Falcon." Our horses, Harriet"s and mine, were put on one of the transports."
"Then why are you not in Charleston with the others?" he demanded.
"Why, they were lost at sea," she replied, turning upon him a startled look. "We took to the boats, but ours was caught by the current and swept away from the schooner. It must have gone down afterward."
"I see," he said. "Then if all this is true, and you came down with Sir Henry and his company, you must be a loyalist? In that case, of course, you may have the horse."
"It is indeed truth that I came here in that manner," reiterated Peggy.
"And the horse is truly mine."
"But are you loyal?" he persisted. "If you will say so you may take the beast, and aught else you wish on the premises."
Peggy leaned her head against Star"s silky mane and was silent. It would be so easy to say. She could not part with Star now that she had found her. Would it be so very wrong? Just a tiny fib! The girl gave a little sob as the temptation a.s.sailed her and tightened her clasp of the pony convulsively. It was but a moment and then, stricken with horror at the thought which had come to her, Peggy raised her head.
"Sir," she said, "I am not loyal to the king. I am a strong patriot. In sooth," speaking more warmly than she would have done had it not been for that same temptation, "in sooth, I don"t believe there is a worse rebel to His Majesty anywhere in these parts; but for all that thee shan"t have Star. Thee shall kill me first."
And so saying she picked up the Bible from the ground where it had fallen, and sprang lightly into the saddle.
The captain had smiled in spite of himself as she flung him her defiance. Peggy aroused was Peggy adorable. With eyes flashing, color mantling cheek and brow, the crushed creamy blossom nestling caressingly in her dark hair, the maiden made a picture that would bring a smile from either friend or foe. But as she sprang to the saddle the officer seized the rein which she had unknotted from the tree, exclaiming:
"You have spirit, it seems, despite your Quaker speech. The horse is yours for one--"
At this instant there came a shout from the soldiers who had resumed the chase of the poultry during the colloquy between their officer and the maiden. Some of their number had struck down some beehives formed of hollow gum logs ranged near the garden fence. The irritated insects dashed after the men, and at once the scene became one of uproar, confusion and lively excitement.
The officer loosed his clasp on the bridle, and turned to see the cause of the clamor. The attention of the guard was relaxed for the moment, and taking advantage of the diversion Peggy struck her pony quickly. The mare bounded forward; the captain uttered an exclamation and sprang after her just as the sharp crack of a dozen rifles sounded.
When the smoke lifted the captain and nine men lay stretched upon the ground, and Peggy was flying toward cover as fast as Star could carry her. Immediately the trumpets sounded a recall, but by the time the scattered dragoons had collected, mounted and formed, a straggling fire from a different direction into which the concealed farmers had extended showed the unerring aim of each American marksman, and increased the confusion of the surprise.
Perfectly acquainted with every foot of the ground, the farmer and his friends constantly changed their position, giving in their fire as they loaded so that it appeared to the British that they were surrounded by a large force. The alternate hilly and swampy grounds and thickets, with woods on both sides the road, did not allow efficient action to the horses of the dragoons, and after a number of the troopers had been shot down they turned and fled. The leading horses in the wagons were killed before they could ascend the hill and the road became blocked up. The soldiers in charge, frantic at the idea of being left behind, cut loose some of the surviving animals, and galloped after their retreating comrades.
"They didn"t find it so easy to get pickings up here as they did down at my house," chuckled Henry Egan as the hidden farmers came forth after the skirmish, without the loss of a man. "I reckon, pa, you"d better get the women back here. Some of these men need attention. I wonder where Peggy went? The daring little witch! I was scared clean out of my senses when she sa.s.sed that captain. Find where she is, pa."
It was not long before the women were back, and with them came Peggy, tearful but joyous, leading Star by the bridle.
CHAPTER x.x.x-AN INTERRUPTED JOURNEY
"I still had hoped ...
Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I heard, of all I saw."