'TIS monstrous fine," said Mehitable Condit, out of a long silence, "only—think you the left eye is not a trifle higher than the right?"
The little old man to whom she spoke leaned back upon his stool at this, the better to stare anxiously at a wooden sign propped upon a rush-bottomed chair facing him. Mehitable's younger sister, Charity, a slender, pretty girl standing behind him, gazed worriedly at the sign, too. A moment passed while critical inspection of the rather crude painting—that of a horse's head—held them motionless. They made a quaint group, for this was in the year of 1779, and brave was the little old man in blue velvet breeches, wine-colored vest, lace ruffles to his shirt sleeves and with a comical pigtail so tightly braided it stood straight out from the back of his head. The two girls were more soberly clad in plain, homespun gowns and long, heavy capes, back-flung over their shoulders, while an old lady, cozily ensconced in an arm chair near-by, benignly watching the artist over a pair of gray socks she was knitting, was also garbed in homespun. It was a comfortable scene. Only the fire in the great fireplace seemed to roar defiance to the snow-threatening sky outside the window.
Finally, the old man, sighing, took up his paint brush once more and applied it gingerly to the painting. Then, leaning back, he squinted professionally through his half-closed fist. Soberly, the two sisters imitated him, though they could not see that it helped in the least. One eye of the horse most assuredly was out of place—no amount of squinting could alter that!
At last, Dame Wright startled everyone. At her merry laugh, the three hands dropped and three sheepish faces turned to meet her quizzical glance.
"Ma faith—an yo' knew hoo queerlike yo' all looked!" she chuckled. "A body wad think yo' were a' at sea, makin' spyglasses oot o' yer hands sae!"
Her husband looked over at her reproachfully. "Noo, Mither," he answered in an injured tone, "'tis thus the real artists always do! Dinna yo' ken we were doin' nobbut lookin' at you sign sic Hitty, here, said ain eye o' the horse were higher than t'other!" Leaning forward, he dabbed hastily for a moment, then he glanced triumphantly at Mehitable. "Noo, Hitty—hoo be it?"
By some happy chance, he had gotten the misfit eye to respond to his coaxing brush. Mehitable clapped her hands.
"Well done, Master Wright!" she cried cordially. "Indeed," she hurried on, while Charity smilingly added her little chirp of praise, "I know not how ye thought o' such a clever sign for the Horse's Neck Tavern!"
A flush of pride suffused the old man's face; but he shook his head. "It be nowt!" he answered, with false modesty. "Gin yo' do a thing lang enough, lassie, yo' canna help doin' it weel! Like Mither tendin' her geese," he added slyly. "A bonnier flock nor a more expert goose girl yo' will search far to find. And why? Experience, Hitty, time and patience—I ha' been a-paintin' signs and Mither ha' been tendin' her geese for many, many years! Time and patience can do all things, they say. Aiblins they be richt!'"
Master Wright turned and looked away, as though he could see, through the walls of his kitchen, that little village in old Scotland where his apprenticeship had been served under a hard taskmaster whose "weel done" he had never heard because, with youthful impatience, he had run away.
"Time and patience!" he repeated, sighing. "I might hae been a court painter, who knows, 'stead o' a struggling farmer and occasional sign painter an I had had a smattering o' either, wi' a little sense, besides!"
But Mehitable moved impatiently. "Aye, mayhap," she shrugged, sensing a reproof beneath his words, for she well knew her impetuous ways were criticized by the old Scotch couple. "Mayhap—yet patience was ne'er a favorite o' mine, so I fear me I shall excel in nothing—not even geese-tending!"
As usual, gentle Charity hastened to smooth over her sister's words. "Is't true, sir," she interposed in her quiet little voice, "that the Horse's Neck Tavern between Newark and Paulus Hook was quite destroyed by the British?"
"Aye." Master Wright, who had been staring not overly pleased at Mehitable, turned with a brightening face to Charity. "It be true." He fell busily to work again. "It all happened from a silly brawl—the Hessians, as is their custom each time at bread-baking time, brought some o' their camp women to coax, or coerce, the Jersey wives to bestow half o' their bakin' upon them. But mine host had grown tired o' the custom and refused—foolishly, yo' ken. So they burned his tavern to the ground. Noo this sign be for his new home, though the gude mon, e'en wi' his neighbors' help, hae scarcely finished it. Yet I shall be busy wi' my spring plantin' aiblins when he wants it, sae I be doin' it noo. And hoo does yer fayther get on wi' his work?"
"Oh, he be ever busy, an not outside, then inside!" It was Mehitable who answered her host's question; but her tone was absent. She was staring out of the window at the snowflakes which were beginning to drift down from the leaden sky. "Cherry, what say ye! Had we not better start? I fear me there be a bad storm brewing!"
"Aye, 'tis true!" Charity, too, gave an anxious glance out at the snowflakes as she pulled her heavy cape up over her shoulders and followed her sister to Dame Wright's chair to make her manners before departure.
"Not goin' to bide a wee wi' us!" exclaimed the old lady, laying down her knitting. "Think yo' better not bide till the storm be over?" she queried hospitably.
"Nay!" laughed Mehitable. "The storm might last for a day or so, good Mistress Wright. And our mother would be worried, forsooth!"
"Weel, then,"—Dame Wright leaned forward in her chair and reached for a little rash-woven basket which stood upon an adjacent table—"weel, then, gie this to your mother, my dear. It be nobbut a wee bit o' Scotch cake, for which she asked the receipt. See—I ha' written it and placed it upon the bottom o' the basket." She lifted the napkin and showed the girls the recipe. "Nay," she smilingly waved away their thanks, "it be nowt."
"But, truly, it be nice!" insisted Mehitable, curtseying as she took the basket. "It has been so long since Mother used the bake oven—it needs mending, and we have had naught but hoecakes baked in the ashes for ever so long. Not," she added to herself, "that we would get cake an it were mended!"
As though she had read her young guest's thought, Mistress Wright blushed a little. "I feel guilty every time I mak' ma cake," she said in her soft old voice. "But Feyther must hae his bit o' sweetie, and sae I knit, knit, knit socks for oor poor men at Morris Town to mak' up for it."
Impulsively, Mehitable bent her dark head to kiss the ancient cheeks, which were yet as smooth and pink and white as a baby's. "Nay," she cried, feeling ashamed of the criticism she had allowed to creep into her gaze, "let the young people be the ones to sacrifice!"
Mistress Wright followed them to the door and watched them rather anxiously as Mehitable boosted Charity into the pillion on old Dulcie and, lightly as a boy, leaped into the saddle in front.
"Think yo' they will get hame before the storm?" she asked her husband over her shoulder, replying to Mehitable's wave as horse and girls disappeared around a bend in the lane.
"I hae ma doots," answered John Wright. He reached over and jerked his buckskin coat from the chair back. "Do 'ee close the door, Mither," he mumbled, struggling into it. "Lettin' out ma' gude heat, thus!"
But Dame Wright paused in the open doorway to watch her geese waddling home before the storm. "Yo' canna deny they be a bonnie sicht, Feyther!" she observed proudly.
"Aye—though the older ain do be growin' rather pert, I'm thinkin'!" replied old John's voice behind her.
Dame Wright turned around and stared at him. "Wha!" she exclaimed. "Wha, Feyther?"
"Why, 'tis Hitty I speak of," said Master Wright, in equal surprise, appearing at her side. "Were yo' not sayin' summat aboot Samuel Condit's lassies?"
Dame Wright burst into laughter. "Nay!" she gasped, when she could speak. "'Twas the geese, John!"
"A' the same," grinned John Wright, "geese and lassies—a' the same!"
"Now, Feyther!" protested his wife, chuckling, however. "Dinna be sae mean."
And the heavy door closed upon the two merry old faces.
Mehitable and Charity, meanwhile, trotted on through a storm which was fast increasing in violence; but so absorbed were they in that vast subject which concerned everyone—the war—for this was the exciting, perilous time of the American Revolution—that they did not notice the bitter wind or the sting of the sleety snow. The Revolution had dragged on for four long years. Long since had the Minute Men repelled the British at Lexington and Concord, long since had Washington crossed the Delaware at Trenton. The American army had passed the first winter at Morris Town and that dreary winter at Valley Forge. Soldiers and civilians alike were beginning the terrific winter of 1779–80 with grim dread and grimmer fortitude, lonely hearths with gaps in the family circles once occupied by fathers and sons were becoming more common, now, and the two girls were speaking mournfully of their brother, John Condit, who was a surgeon under Washington, and whom they had not seen for months, when all at once Mehitable exclaimed in a startled tone. They had descended abruptly from the lane into a meadow already white with snow!
"Why, Cherry, I vow 'tis a blizzard which hath swept o'er the Orange Mountain upon us!" She tried to peer through the baffling curtain of snowflakes. "We be off the lane and in someone's field, but whose, I know not! And which way lies the lane, I know not, either!"
"Oh, Hitty!" Charity, frail and timid, tried to repress the fright she felt. "Are ye not feared?" She shuddered. "Oh, I wish we were home."
"Nay, Cherry," Mehitable spoke chidingly, "do ye not remember what our father and John have often told us about being lost in a storm?"
"Aye." Charity's face brightened. "Give the steed his head in case o'"
"Exactly!" said Mehitable triumphantly, throwing the reins down upon Dulcie's neck. "Let the steed guide us, in case we know not which way lies home. I have, mayhap, been guiding her entirely in the wrong direction. See," she added with a laugh, as the old horse turned completely around and started off briskly in the opposite direction, "it was so!"
A few minutes more found them back upon the road. But an hour or so later, Mehitable was not laughing. Instead, she was very, very sober, for night, settling down drearily upon them, found them still struggling on through the snow. It was slow going, indeed, for poor Dulcie, with her double burden! At last, feeling her sister shivering behind her, Mehitable turned in her saddle.
"Art so cold, Cherry?" she asked pityingly.
"No," answered Charity bravely. Then, an instant later, she burst into tears. "Ah, yes, Hitty, I am co-old! Oh, it be so dark and co-old!"
Mehitable longed to tear aside that harassing, blinding curtain of snow. If only she could see a shelter, any sort of a shelter, she thought wistfully, as she heard Charity's teeth chattering together and felt her slight body shivering against her own stout one. But it was another hour before she cried out.
"Cherry, I think—nay, I be sure we are nearing a building at last! There, to our right!" Mehitable gestured excitedly, then picking up the reins, she guided Dulcie in that direction, and soon they were halting before a plain stone structure beside the road. "Why, it be the Ranfield Tavern!" she announced.
A figure, shapeless from many bundlings and wrappings, approaching them from the lee of the building, Mehitable made out the tavern host, himself.
"Ho, Master Ranfield!" she called.
"Good even to ye, mistress," answered Master Ranfield uncertainly, then, as he came nearer, his tone changed. "'Tis little Mistress Condit! Why, what be ye doing out in such weather as this? Here, let me help ye down!"
"Nay, I can assist myself!" laughed Mehitable, declining his proffered hand and leaping lightly to the snow-covered ground. She pointed to the drooping figure upon the pillion seat. "I fear it be Cherry who needs your help!" she continued, a note of anxiety in her cheerful young voice.
Charity, however, straightened her weary back as Master Ranfield, with an exclamation of concern, turned toward her. "Nay, I need no help, either!" she said. "I was—was but waiting for ye to get down, Hitty—that be why I did not move and—and—I had my head bent because the snow kept getting into my mouth!"
In spite of her brave words, though, it was a stiffened, staggering little maid whom the tavern host lifted to the ground the next instant. "There," he bade kindly, "run into the house wi' ye! I will care for the nag!"
Protecting, as best they could, their faces from the icy wind and the sleety particles of snow, which hurt, the two girls made for the door and entered the taproom. But there they paused uncomfortably. Mistress Ranfield, they had just remembered, was reputed to be a Tory!
"Nay," whispered Charity, "let us not enter, Hitty!"
"We must!" returned Mehitable desperately. "Hush—there she is!"
A sallow-faced woman, standing idly before the fire, looked up peevishly as the door swung shut behind the girls. But she came forward civilly enough to help them remove their wet capes and to fetch the bootjack for the high boots which their mother sensibly made them wear in winter. It was only when Mehitable, stamping her aching feet, knelt to help Charity with her clinging boots that, glancing up shyly, she caught a malevolent expression in Mistress Ranfield's eyes. Flushed and uncomfortable, Mehitable kept on with her task. At last the inn mistress spoke acidly.
"I wonder your mother allowed ye to be out in such weather as this!"
"We were upon an errand to Dame Wright's—we do love to call upon the dear old people!—and our mother gave us permission to do so this day!" explained Charity eagerly. "And—and the storm was upon us before we knew it!"
"Before ye knew it! H'm! Yet it hath been threatening for hours!" sniffed Mistress Ranfield disdainfully. "The Whigs talk o' saving and conserving! Yet do they risk their children's lives thus rashly, taking then the care and time o' a doctor who might be serving i' their wonderful army! All talk, say I—Whigs and talk which means nothing! 'Tis actions which speak! What good does it to gi' sons to fight an they take up the time o' someone else who might he helping their fine cause!"
Both girls turned scarlet, for they felt the enmity toward their mother—a brave and patriotic woman—which surrounded the tavern mistress's words, and Mehitable, especially, had hard work to control her unruly tongue. But she conquered the impulse to give utterance to the bitter words which might have caused trouble—perhaps a glance toward the snow-dimmed window helped her to do so—and after a little, Mistress Ranfield, her face dark and sullen, caught up the wet capes and boots and stalked from the room.
"Oh, Hitty," whispered Charity, creeping closer to her, "I do wish we had not stopped here! That woman be in favor wi' the British—her inn hath never been touched! And, indeed, Mistress Katurah Harrison did tell our mother that, for a certainty almost, 'tis known she accepts recompense from the enemy for information she gets by prying and spying. Why, she be naught but a British spy—and the worst kind, for she takes money for her loyalty. She be as bad as the Hessians who fight for hire!"
"This be a public tavern, licensed as such, and here I intend to remain, welcome or not, until the storm permits our going on!" answered Mehitable loudly.
The door into the kitchen, at that, was pulled shut with a slam, and Mehitable chuckled rather naughtily to herself. But both girls turned with relief when their host, shaking himself at the entrance, came into the taproom from the inn yard and, closing the heavy door, approached the fire with smiling mien. He was a kindly mannered, good-natured man, neither Whig nor Tory, who was far more popular in the neighborhood than his shrill-voiced helpmate.
"Forsooth, ye came at just the right time—supper-time!" he told his young guests jokingly, holding out his great red hands to the heat. "Crimini, it be cold! Think, 'tis not yet the holidays! All signs point to a hard winter, and certes, this be a fine beginning!"
A knock interrupted him, then, as stamping feet proclaimed the arrival of more guests, and Master Ranfield started away from the fireplace to answer the loud summons of a second thundering upon the door, the sisters had just barely time to retreat to a corner nook when the door was flung open and three men entered the public room. Replying briefly to thieir host's pleased greeting—for he had anticipated a loss of business from the storm—the newcomers made directly for the warmth of the fireplace. Much bustling ensued, then—there was unwrapping of capes and great coats, of woolen mufflers and shawls, during which both host and hostess, with a grinning black or two, were kept busy carrying away the wet clothing and bringing back mugs of warm ale, ordered at once, from the kitchen fire. Mistress Ranfield's face was all smiles, now, and there was no lack of cordiality in her manner of helping one of the new guests, at least—a handsome, strapping youth in the silks and laces of adandy. The other guests were older men, dressed richly but more soberly.
Mehitable and Charity watched the scene silently from their corner. At last, the eyes of the two girls met suddenly, significantly.
"Is that not Hawtree?" whispered Charity noiselessly, her gaze full of horror, for the man, Hawtree, was a notorious Tory whom they had reason both to fear and to dislike.
At that instant, as though he felt their eyes upon him, Hawtree whirled around, and his cold, level glance rested upon them. There was no sign of recognition in it, however, and a second later he turned away with apparent indifference.
Charity's face was white, and she clutched at Mehitable spasmodically. "The other," she whispered, pointing wildly, "the other be Jaffray! Is it so?"
Mehitable stared, then her cheeks, too, paled. But she lifted her chin. "It be so, Cherry," she whispered steadily, "yet I defy them both!"
Charity, however, as she gazed at a villain into whose power the fortune of war had once thrown her, wrung her hands. "Three years, and here they return!" she panted. "Heaven forgi' me—I—had hoped they were both dead!"
Fortunately, amid the preparations for supper, her panic was unnoticed. The long table in the center of the room was covered by a snowy linen cloth—Mistress Ranfield, Tory or no Tory, was a notable housewife and cook—and spread with pewter dishes and flagons of ale and cider. A platter of chicken pie graced the center of the board, and when that had been brought in, steaming, host and guests drew up their chairs hungrily. Only Mehitable and Charity, like shy country mice, remained in the background. Mistress Ranfield, at one end of the table, paid them not the slightest attention; but finally her husband, glancing up from his plate, spoke in surprise.
"How now?" he ejaculated. "Like ye not the food or the company, young mistresses? Which be it?"
"Neither, sir," answered Mehitable politely. She hesitated. "'Tis just that we feel our mother would—would not like us to eat wi' strangers in a public room," she tried to explain.
There was a sniff from Mistress Ranfield's end of the table, a mutter of "Fiddlesticks!" and Charity looked as though she were about to weep from embarrassment. Fortunately, however, the other guests were much too engrossed in the platter of chicken, which had begun to circulate about the board, to notice the little scene, and Master Ranfield, with true kindliness and a reproachful glance at his wife, soon had the two girls supplied with a little table of their own, with an ample and goodly supply of food to grace it which, despite Mistress Ranfield's scowl, the sisters proceeded to enjoy.
After supper, the three masculine guests, the younger one of whom was now casting eyes in the girls' direction, drew up their chairs before the fireplace. In doing so, they showed not the least bit of consideration for Mehitable and Charity, completely cutting off the heat from their corner. Moreover, as time passed and more ale was consumed, they waxed quarrelsome, a phase which Master Ranfield and his wife were discreet enough not to notice.
Mehitable, perceiving the young dandy's blackeyed gaze upon her whenever she lifted her own eyes, at last grew uneasy. Master Ranfield, she felt sure, though affable and good-natured, was not one to interfere in case of unpleasantness, while his wife, the girl noticed indignantly, far from helping the disagreeable situation, was egging on the foolish youth with knowing smiles and glances.
Finally, discovering Charity nodding in her chair and feeling as though her last defence had crumpled, Mehitable stumbled to her feet and moved to a window near the door, both to escape the obnoxious stares with which the young dandy was favoring her and to discover whether the snow had stopped falling. To her joy and relief, upon clearing a portion of a pane of glass by rubbing the steam from it, she perceived that the weather was clearing, and she was about to turn away to tell Charity so when she felt, rather than saw, someone stop beside her. The next instant, before she could speak, she was drawn roughly into an embrace and pressed smotheringly against a broad chest.
"Let me go, sir!" With blazing eyes, Mehitable spoke as soon as she was partially released. But the dandy, who had sneaked after her to the window and who had snatched her into his arms half in fun, merely simpered down into her face.
"What'll ye gi' me an I do?" he asked, after awhile, keeping his arm around her waist.
"Naught!" returned Mehitable shortly. "Release me, sir, I prithee!"
"'Tis not thus we play at forfeits!" The young man's tone was gravely injured and complaining. "Pay me a forfeit and I will let ye go, pretty spitfire!"
"Never!" Mehitable straightened her slender figure defiantly, which only made the other laugh.
"Alas!" he said lazily, with a prodigious sigh of mock patience. "Then must we stand here all night!"
Mehitable twisted herself in his grasp to glance despairingly around the room. Strangely enough, neither tavern host nor hostess were to be seen—poor Mehitable had not noticed Mistress Ranfield motioning her puzzled husband into the kitchen a few moments before, Charity was fast asleep in her chair, worn out by her hard afternoon, and the two men who had accompanied Mehitable's annoyer were engaged in a noisy game of cards by the fire. The youth's gaze following hers, he burst into teasing laughter.
"No help anywhere, ye see, mistress!" he taunted. And indeed, he and the girl might have been ghosts and not visible to mortal eye for all the attention paid them by the gamesters.