Chapter VIII: News and Plans

FOR several days Caspar lay in Deborah Whitecar's best bed, very weak and languid and comfortable, and decidedly indisposed to any greater mental or physical exertion than that of taking his broth and answering the doctor's questions, or speculating idly on the bit of landscape and river which he could see out of his window.

Then he began to recover rapidly, to feel a profound interest in the dinner-hour, to sit up while his bed was made, and at last, to Kitty's great delight, to be dressed and walk to the window. His mind was now quite clear as to all that had happened up to the time when Recompense Joake visited him in his room and showed him how he might escape. After that, everything was in a fog. He dimly remembered hearing voices about him, especially Kitty's, and being well cared for, but that was all. His nurse, though kindness itself, was very peremptory and would not allow him to talk, and even Kitty would only answer all his inquiries by laying her small finger on her lip, and, if he persisted, by vanishing from the room.

One day, he was sitting by his window looking out at the winding river and the pretty village, of which he could see a bit on the other side. He was feeling more than commonly downhearted and lonely. He had never been seriously ill in all his life before; he did not know what to make of the weakness which oppressed him; and, like most men under similar circumstances, he thought he should never be any better. He had heard no public news, and nobody had given him a hint as to what was to be done with him. In this mournful case he was sitting, leaning both elbows on the window-sill with his head on his hands, when he was aroused by a cheerful voice behind him:

"Well, this is an improvement on the last time I saw you, but you would hardly handle a sledge as well as at our first meeting."

Caspar looked round to see a gentleman whose face he seemed dimly to remember, though he could not at first tell where they had met.

"You are in a fog, I see," said the stranger, smiling. "Don't you remember the Mischianza and the assistant Major André found for you?"

"And you are Jonathan Elmer?" said Caspar, shaking the hand the other held out to him.

"Yes, and your friend Kitty's father. I little thought, when we parted in Philadelphia that night, how we should meet again. How are you feeling?"

"Very much better, thank you, if only I could gain strength."

"You will soon do that when you are able to get out of doors. Do you feel equal to a little talk about your own and public affairs?"

"Oh yes, indeed!" answered Caspar, eagerly. "I have so longed to hear some news! But first tell me how you escaped."

"Easily enough," answered Captain Elmer. "In fact, I had no need to escape, for no one had thought of suspecting me. I went home to my lodging, and the next morning, having gained all the information I wanted, I walked away as I had come, made a circuit, and joined my regiment. And now, in return for my story, tell me how you came hither, for I don't suppose you came 'on purpose' to drive away the bear, as Kitty says."

Caspar replied by detailing the circumstances with which the reader is already acquainted.

"Then you really were a spy as well as myself, though not so successful. I remember that fine Major André saying that you would do good service in that line."

"It was not Major André, but one of our own officers, to whom I was indebted," said Caspar. "I had no choice, you know: I had to obey orders."

"That is of course. But what do you mean to do now?"

"That is not for me to say. I am a prisoner, and I suppose under sentence of death."

"Hardly as bad as that," said Captain Elmer, smiling. "It is true that death is usually the portion of a detected spy, but circumstances alter cases. In the first place, you saved my own life and my child's. In the second, you have acquired no information; and if you had, you have had no chance to communicate it, and it would be of no use to your commander as things are at present. Neither do I suppose you are possessed of any knowledge which would be of use to us."

"If I have, I would not give it you," said Caspar. "I have no wish to return to the British service, but nothing shall induce me to act against my old comrades."

"There is no need," said Captain Elmer. "I suppose you have heard no public news."

"Not a word."

"Then you don't know that Sir Henry Clinton has evacuated Philadelphia a month ago, and been beaten by the American forces on his way across the Jerseys?"

"Beaten!" Caspar's face expressed the surprise he felt.

"Why, yes, it amounted to that. The Americans encamped upon the ground, and Sir Henry ran away in the night. That looks like being beaten, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does; and yet I hardly know how to believe it. I wonder what old Von Falkenstein said?"

"I fancy there were plenty of hard things said on both sides. The triumph would have been much greater only for Lee's conduct."

"And the Americans are in Philadelphia?" said Caspar, as if he could not yet believe the news.

"Yes, and a good many of your own countrymen besides."

"Prisoners?"

"No; deserters. It was curious to see the poor fellows creeping out of every hole and corner, some of them half-starved. There have been still more desertions on the line of march."

"I can hardly blame my countrymen, though I could not make up my own mind to desert," said Caspar. "I don't very well see how I can return now if I wish it ever so much."

"Under other circumstances you might be exchanged," said Captain Elmer. "As it is, such a move might provoke inconvenient inquiries. My serious advice to you, Reinhart, is to remain where you are till your strength returns, and then go to work at your trade. You will find no trouble in supporting yourself and laying up money.—I think you said you had a wife and family?"

"Yes; I have, or had, a wife and four children at home."

"Well, this war cannot last for ever, and it can end only in one way," said Captain Elmer, who, like most Americans, had not the slightest doubt of the success of his country's cause. *

* This hopeful spirit was never stronger than in the darkest days of
the Revolution.

"By that time, you may probably have enough beforehand to send for your wife and children, and settle yourselves comfortably where your boys can grow up in a free country and be as good as anybody."

Caspar drew a deep breath.

"That sounds very nice," said he; "but—"

"Well, but what?"

"I can hardly tell," said Caspar, "but the future looks dark to me. I fear I shall never do a day's work again."

"Nonsense! You will be as well as ever in a month."

"And where shall I find work, supposing I am able to do it?"

"Where shall you not find it, you might better say," returned Captain Elmer, with a little impatience. "Anywhere! Here in Greenwich—up in Bridgeton, where the greatest fool that ever slung a sledge is worth his weight in gold, let alone a clever workman like yourself. There is my uncle's forge suffering for want of a journeyman this minute. Don't be so downhearted, man!"

"See here, Jonathan Elmer: if it wasn't interfering with thy arrangements, I should say thee was making Caspar talk more than was good for him, considering that he has been sitting up all the morning without anything to eat. Hadn't thee better stop now and let him have something?" said Recompense Joake, appearing at the door with his usual long face and a tray filled with good things for his patient.

"I dare say you are right," said Captain Elmer.—"Reinhart, why didn't you tell me I was tiring you to death?"

"If thee wasn't inexperienced in the ways of sick folks, I should say that was a foolish question," said Recompense, who seemed to find it necessary to put all his propositions hypothetically, as the logicians say. As he spoke, he quietly and quickly brought a small stand to the side of Caspar's arm-chair, arranged his provisions thereon, and brought the patient a basin of cool water to refresh his face and hands before eating.

"I declare, Recompense, you are a jewel!" said the captain, struck with admiration. "You are as handy as an old woman. You ought to be head-nurse in a hospital."

"My mother used to say there was a corner for every crooked stick if it could only be found," answered Recompense, busily cutting a delicate little broiled chicken into pieces of convenient size and pouring out a fragrant cup of spearmint tea. "I was always reckoned handy about sick folks, though I ain't very smart other ways. Thee 'd better come away now and let the man eat his dinner in peace. He has had talk enough for one day."

"He is getting on pretty well, isn't he?" asked Captain Elmer as they descended the stairs from Caspar's room.

"Well, middling," answered Recompense, with a true nurse's unwillingness to say that his patient was improving. "I've seen them get on faster, and I've seen them not so fast."

"I'm sorry he is so downhearted."

"Oh, thee needn't mind that. He will feel quite different when he has eaten his dinner and had a nap. Thee gave him rather too great a dose of talk with thy news and thy plans."

"I dare say I was stupid," said the captain, apologetically, "but I had thought it all over so many times, and he never said he was tired."

"Of course he didn't. Sick folks hardly ever do; and there's where well folks have got to look out for them. However, I don't think there's any harm done.—Has thee settled his matters, think?"

"Oh yes. There won't be any trouble, seeing that Clinton is out of the way and all Jersey is in our hands for the present," answered Captain Elmer. "There is nothing to hinder his going to work at his trade either here in Greenwich or at Bridgeton, but I should advise the latter, as being rather more out of the way."

"And thee thinks he won't be liable to be taken and hung for a deserter?"

"Not unless he takes a great deal of pains to bring it about. Clinton would have his hands fuller than they are now if he should undertake to catch and hang all the men that have deserted in his march across Jersey. Reinhart might go to Philadelphia without danger, but I believe he will do as well, or better, in Bridgeton."

As Recompense had predicted, Caspar was ready to take a brighter view of his circumstances after he had eaten his broiled chicken. The prospect which his friend held out to him was certainly alluring. The trade of war was utterly hateful to him, and particularly so the business of war and oppression, in which his countrymen were so largely engaged. He enjoyed the thought of returning to his old trade and living in peace with all mankind once more. Money, it was true, was likely to be scarce in the colonies, but it would go hard but he would lay up enough to purchase a bit of land, build himself a house, and make a home ready for his wife and the children against the time when he could send for them.

The thought of never seeing Nonnenwald again gave him for the present little concern. He had no near relatives; both his brothers had been killed in the Seven Years' War, into which they had been forced as he had been into his late situation. He could not be expected to feel very much loyalty toward his sovereign. No; he would make a home in this New World for himself and his family—such a house as he could see from his window on the other side of the river. He would buy a cow or two, and—But here the cows began to multiply themselves unaccountably, and the landgrave of Hesse to appear on the scene in the shape of a fat pig urgently begging not to be sold to Joses Dandy. In short, Caspar fell sound asleep in the midst of his day-dreams, and awoke mightily refreshed and able to take as reasonable a view of matters as his friend could desire.

The next day he was taken out for a drive, and the next he crept out for a little walk round the garden, leaning on the arm of his faithful nurse and accompanied by Kitty, whose delight at the recovery of her friend was unbounded. She had quite made up her quarrel with Recompense Joake, though they now and then had a little passage-at-arms. Caspar found much to admire and wonder at, and his companions had enough to do to answer his questions. The walk did him no harm, and the next day he was able to go down to the river-side.

Caspar now gained strength rapidly, and began to try his hand at little bits of work. He made a fine cradle for Kitty's doll. He mended all the hinges about the place, and treated a case of complicated disorder in the head of Deborah's spinning-wheel to the admiration of everybody. He took lessons in English, and read all the books in the house, and told stories about things in the old country, till Kitty clapped her hands with delight, and Recompense declared that if it were not a sin to repine, he should feel to be discontented at having seen so little of the world. Nay, it is said that worthy was actually heard to laugh aloud, thereby contradicting the notion prevalent among his friends that he did not know how to perform that operation.

Before the end of the summer months Caspar was settled in Bridgeton, and as busily engaged in shoeing horses and mending disabled wheels as he had ever been at his forge in Nonnenwald. He found, indeed, that he had a good deal to learn of American ways and customs, but in return he was able to give some valuable hints to his employer. He found that he was not so strong as he had been, and that the sledge-hammer was rather heavy. He cast about for some lighter work, and, discovering a good lathe which was disused because its former owner had been killed in the army, he bought it, put it in order, and proposed to his friend and employer that they should set up the business of making and repairing spinning-wheels, reels, and so forth. The venture was prosperous. He found his hands full of work, and seemed likely to become rich enough before long to purchase the place which he had already in his eye.

He had only one serious trouble, and it was a very great one: he had never heard a word from his family. He had written again and again, and Captain Elmer had given his letters to some of his friends among the French officers, on the chance of their going through France, but all in vain. Not a word came in reply. There was no such thing possible as going home. All that could be done was to wait with what patience and fortitude he could muster for that "end of the war" which every one prophesied, and which seemed every year to be farther off than ever. He was not without his comforts by the way, as who is who walks through the wilderness of this world with his eyes fixed on the Zion to which he has set his face?

It was a comfort to conquer the good-will of his neighbours, who, it must be confessed, were at first much disposed to treat him as a suspicious character, if not as a downright enemy. It was a comfort to make the first payment on the little wooden house with its tall upper story and picturesque cool "summer kitchen," characteristic of West Jersey houses, and to go over the same and plan out little additions to its beauty and convenience—to plant grapevines and currant-bushes and rose trees and yellow honeysuckles to fill the air with fragrance; to make a neat fence and plant a row of linden trees before the door, and to whitewash everything with snowy shell-lime in true West Jersey fashion.

By and by, he found a still greater comfort. There were in the neighbourhood of Bridgeton several German families who had come in and taken up small pieces of land shortly before the war. They were very poor and ignorant, and the children were growing up utterly wild and untrained. It occurred to Caspar that here was a place to do something for that Master who had done so much for him. It was perhaps too late to do very much with the parents, but there were the children—such a flock of them! Might they not be got together in some sort of school and taught to read their Bibles and to speak good English? It was not easy at first to gain the confidence of the children or the consent of their parents to any such plan, but the common language was a great help, and at last Caspar carried his point.

Sunday-schools, in the present sense, were unknown, but Caspar succeeded after a while in collecting together the urchins of the settlement for an hour or more on Sunday afternoon to teach them to read and to read to them out of the Bible. Presently, the spirit of ambition was roused, and some of them began to be eager to make more progress than was possible with a lesson once a week. Caspar could not be spared in the daytime, but his evenings were free. Three times a week he walked through the woods to the little settlement to hold an evening-school among his German friends.

There were not wanting some who smiled at his zeal, and others who plainly hinted that Caspar was not likely to take so much trouble for nothing, and that, most probably, some kind of plot was forming—perhaps to bring the Hessians down and burn the town. But in general, people had learned to believe in him, and his school proceeded in peace and increased in usefulness day by day.

On the nineteenth of October, 1781, the English forces at Yorktown under Lord Cornwallis surrendered, and the war was virtually at an end, but it was not till the twentieth of January, 1783, that the treaty of peace was formally and finally signed at Paris. The news reached Congress on the twenty-third of March, and soon spread through the country.

When Caspar heard that peace was proclaimed, he felt that he could wait no longer. He must obtain news of his family at any risk. He resolved to go to Philadelphia, and if needful to New York, find out some vessel sailing to Europe, and proceed at least to some point near his former home from which he could communicate with his family. He had abundance of money for the purpose, and only waited till he could leave his former employer and present partner without too much inconvenience, and find a suitable tenant for his house to keep it in order till his return.