Chapter IV: Part 4

Later in the day he pictures his Honora and a few of her friends forming a snug circle about her dressing-room fireplace, and gives vent to the wish that he were with them. Then comes the closing hour of the "compting house," and he writes, "I am about to jog to Clapton on my own stumps; musing as I homeward plod my way--Ah! need I name the subject of my contemplation?"

Although Honora Sneyd was the grand passion of André's life, he had a gay and volatile temperament, and many a pretty face caught his fancy after donning the king's livery; and so we find him in the days that followed his meeting with the belle of Long Island journeying to her home in Oyster Bay.

The house where Sally Townsend resided still stands on the main street. The old building was erected by Samuel Townsend in 1740, and is little changed since the day Sally's gallant British admirers used to hurry over from wind-swept Fort Hill in search of her. The Townsends were among the first Long Island settlers, having purchased land in this village in 1661. One of the early daughters of the family, by the name of Freelove, married the famous pirate, Tom Jones, as dreaded by Long Islanders as Captain Kidd was farther south. Their house at Massapequa, known as "the pirate's house," remained standing until well into the last century. An interesting tradition is often told of it. When the pirate lay on his death-bed a great black bird hovered over the roof, circling about the chimney. As his breath was ceasing it flew through the western wall, and no one ever succeeded in closing the hole that its strong wings made, the bricks and mortar always tumbling out as fast as put in place.

Tom Jones had long been a troubled shade, if we credit the tales of ghost-hunters, when Major André first came to Oyster Bay. Colonel Simcoe, commander of the Queen's Rangers, was then quartered at the Townsend house, and General Clinton's aide, on his week's leave of absence from New York, knew he would receive a warm welcome from him. It was noonday when he and two of his fellows arrived at the village; a market lad directed them to the house. Wilting under the rays of the hot sun, they were longing for the cool strip of Quogue's beach.

André was inwardly lamenting his foolhardiness in coming such a long distance simply to get a closer view of a maiden who had waved a kerchief at him. As they approached the wide gray shadow of the Townsend dwelling the noise of some disturbance from within met their ears. There was a clatter of china-ware, deep, boisterous laughter, and a woman's voice in shrill accents. "Don't!" and "Lud!" and then "Keep it up!" floated out through the windows. André parted the plumes of a high peony-bush, stood on tiptoe, and gazed in at the scene. A girl, dodging a line of lusty youths pursuing her about a table filled with steaming viands, stopped in her flight.

For a moment she gazed at the man's head and shoulders rising out of the plant in the garden. To both their minds came the picture of a patch of grass at the foot of Broadway and the memory of a waving bit of white gauze. The girl blushed and so did the man over the peonies. The noise was still going on about her. For a moment she hesitated, then, rushing to the window, she merrily called, "Help! Help!" One of the young soldiers had also caught a glimpse of André and recognized him.

"'Tis John André, Clinton's aide, coming," he said; but the words had no more than left his mouth when a biscuit hit the spot from whence they came.

"Take that, and that," the rescuer cried, as he aimed the crispy balls at the ungallant youths. "Shame on you! Four lads to one maid!"

The men were laughing.

The girl had become silent and her cheeks were flaming scarlet. "'Twas a game of forfeits, sir," she cried, "and they took advantage. I shall call the others of your tribe, gentlemen," she said, turning to her tormentors. There was scorn in her voice, but her eyes smiled on André.

Later in the day André sat at the feet of Sally Townsend, as she shelled peas in a grotto at the back of the house. Almost up to the entrance of the spot which she herself had planned in imitation of a Ranleagh grotto marched an army of radiant blooms. Over their fragrant faces hovered a band of butterflies, and now and then a brigand bee droned of his thefts to a heedless world. Every Simcoe redcoat was away drilling in a distant field. The house seemed like some great white bird asleep in the sun. The man and the girl under the cool arch of cedar boughs were facing each other. Even the brook in the distance had stopped its murmuring.

"And why did you wave to me that morn on Broadway as you journeyed to your Aunt's?" André asked.

"'Twas all a mistake, I told you. I took you for some one else," the girl replied.

"Tell me, was he much like me?" he began again.

The girl smiled. "Why press me, Major André?" she said.

The peas were flying through her rosy fingers. The young soldier by her side reached out to a gaudy poppy and broke it from its frail stem. Now he was playing with it. A shaft of sunlight had strayed over from the flower field and was loitering on his unpowdered hair, beating it into gold.

Suddenly he spoke:

"I came all the way from York to obtain another view of you, Miss Townsend. The face by the chair window was so wonderfully sweet. Won't you tell me why you waved?"

The girl bent her head over the pea-pods. The bees, for a moment deep in the honeyed hearts of the flowers, were silent. The hot world seemed like a colored print in a picture-book, brilliant but without life.

"If you must know," she said, hesitatingly, "I thought for a moment you were the man I love. The color of the coat showed me my mistake."

She was smiling at his chagrin.

There was a silence for a few minutes.

"Where is your rebel to-day?" he said, when he had cast his dream away.

A look of sadness came over her face and tears choked her voice as she answered, "God knows!"

It was the calls of old Miss Townsend for her evening vegetables which broke up the visions of the two. The girl's last words had brought to André's mind a picture of his Honora separated from him by miles and miles of ocean. Did she care whether he followed this new beauty? he asked himself. No; she had forgotten him. He looked at Sally. Where were her eager thoughts now? With some slender youth tramping along a Jersey road, perhaps. She was following him through the dark forest where he walked with bleeding feet. Camp-fires glowed before her eyes as he ate his starvation rations, the wind whistled in her ears with its shriek of musketry and deep roar of cannon. Now she gazed upon him wounded and creeping over the mossy turf to some stream to quench his thirst of death. The agony of it was awful.

André saw the horror in her face.

"Poor girl," he whispered, "he is safe somewhere, I know; my heart feels sure of it."

Sally rose and he carried her basket into the kitchen, where a slave woman took it, murmuring protestations of thanks. There was no room in the house for him to sleep, but Sally assured him that he could find a lodging at the tavern.

"May I come and see you to-night?" he said, when they reached the garden gate.

"You had better not," she answered. "You know me only as a hoyden with silly wits. I should hate all of you redcoats!"

"Let me come and I will talk only of him," he whispered.

"Then come," she said. "King George has the whole village in his power, and besides," she added, "you somehow make me think of Jack." And her eyes followed him as he walked down the street, turning often to bow to her until the night folded him in her arms.

"André hath captured the belle," was the verdict of every Simcoe officer quartered at Townsend's. They had become firm friends. The gay young officer had journeyed into the country in search of a pretty face and had found a good heart. André settled in his mind that the waving fichu was but the caprice of a moment; the act of a young and thoughtless girl who never hoped to see him again. Did he really look like Jack? he often asked himself. From Sally he heard of that youth's good parts, and soon began to feel a strange sympathy for him. Before the war he was the master of the village school. He was a dreamer and a writer of sweet verses who should have had naught to do with battle.

In a little vine-covered cot by the king's highway his mother dwelt, breeding doves and rarer birds for a livelihood. There were few sales for her now. André passed her sometimes, seated by her doorstep, her wrinkled old face turned towards the west road where she had followed her best beloved to the turnpike one bright morning two years before. Her eyes were like those of a troubled parent bird, as she often sat there brooding. Once he went to see her with Sally. The girl had told him more of her lover. In a burst of confidence she had informed him that they were not even betrothed; his poverty forbade him the house. André sighed with her over the tale of no letters. There was one who never wrote to him, too, but alas! from choice. Once he showed this younger woman her miniature. He was growing to love Sally as a brother would. They were so alike with their smiles and their laughter, yet each with a sad secret. At Philadelphia and York, where gayety was rife, the image of his Honora did not come before him as often as it did in this quiet village.

With Sally, André would leave the house ostensibly to walk over to the camp, but, once away from prying eyes, they would wander off through the pines to heathy wastes where the golden-rod tossed its tassels knee high, and through fields green and riant, filled with the very passion of ripe summer. It was on these walks that they entered into the closest communion. All their superficialities seemed to vanish. André forgot the many beauties the God of Love had led his footsteps to in America, and for the time was the simple "Cher Jean" of younger days. The girl by his side felt stronger with him. Jack must be safe, for he said so. "You will find him again and happiness," he would often tell her. "The world cannot be all made up of dreary days." And a smile always followed the sigh.

On the fifth day of André's stay in Oyster Bay he wandered with Sally as usual beyond the outskirts of the township. Starting for home when the sunbeams were beginning to fade along the roadway, they came upon a fisherman's wife driving an empty cart. The woman was all excitement, and in a jumbled Dutch dialect tried to tell them of something that had happened, pointing often to the village. She evidently feared André, for her eyes resting on him were filled with hatred. Sally was used to seeing the woman pass by the Townsend gate. What could she mean by her queer actions? She was evidently trying to tell them that something had been taken from her.

"Her fish may have been seized by the soldiers, poor thing!" the girl said, as, still gesticulating wildly, they watched her drive away. When she was out of sight the two hurried on.

The sun left the tree-tops and sank into a misty grave. Gray vapors stole over the meadows. The day was dying sadly. The dew came suddenly upon the countryside and drenched all its varicolored beauty in tears. The wings of a storm could be heard in the distance. André seized his companion's hand and they ran laughingly with the wind.

The girl paused for breath. Her face changed. "Major André," she said, "what do you think the woman meant?"

"'Twas her fish," he said, to comfort her.

Nature's swift transition coming upon them so silently gave him a strange foreboding of impending trouble.

They were entering the street; the storm was at their backs. The day was stifled in a sable pall. There was a roll of thunder and a swift flash of lightning illumined the sky. Then out of the sullen blackness loomed the house, a sheet of fire, candles glowing in every room. A group of townspeople were about the door. Sally ran from André's side. Old Miss Townsend sat on the doorstep weeping, with her head in her apron. Sally looked at her and then at the faces about her. Most of the people were Tories, and there was little in their eyes but curiosity. Two or three neighbors glanced at her tenderly, and one stepped forward as if to speak, then checked herself. Inside there was the murmur of many voices. One that lived ever in her heart now came to her ears like an evil dream. Her face blanched. André was by her side in an instant.

"'Tis Jack," she whispered. In the hall she saw him bound and bleeding. His face was thin and haggard. There were bayonets all about him.

"You cannot enter here yet a while," a sentinel called out; but her ears were heedless. In André's arms she had swooned. The few who remained by the door were bending over her; about them roared the storm.

Sally's lover had been captured that afternoon in a rye field a mile from his home. He was dressed in a cheap, soiled homespun, and would have passed as a farmer's lad if a townsman vigilant in the service of King George had not recognized him. The youth was free after a long incarceration in a British warehouse prison in New York City. Many a weary mile he had skirted homeward bound. His one thought was to reach his mother's cool little cot again. The fever was still in his veins. He was nearing the road to rest when the soldiers ran out upon him. To his distraught fancy they seemed like red devils eager to drag him back to hades. Off over the fields he could see the roof of Sally's home. How glad she would be to see him again! Farther on was the little house he loved so well. The storm-clouds were beginning to form over it. His mother was no doubt bringing in the birds now from the willow garden house. Hark! was that the faint call of Rollin, his own pet bluewing?

"Yes, he belongs to the rebel forces," he heard a voice cry out. "He must be here spying." Grim faces pressed closer to him. Cruel hands bound him. Death was whispering to him--mocking. A thoughtless youth who carried a flute began to play the doleful music of "The Rogues' March." On they went to the tribunal.

Colonel Simcoe, who was kind at heart, could not condemn the young prisoner to death when there was little proof that he was a spy. His men had searched him for possible papers, but none were to be found. "Still, he may be a clever trickster," he mused. After consulting with his chief officers, it was decided to give out a mock sentence that he was to die on the morrow, to see whether aught could be learned from him. Then Major André, who had helped old Miss Townsend carry the prostrate Sally to her chamber, stood by the door from whence emanated justice when the verdict was reached. "If he is hung it will kill the poor maid," he thought. Through the ante-room he saw the prisoner. His head was drooping; the very attitude of his body betokened abject despair. "Poor lad," he said; "can Simcoe mean to carry out the murder?"

The storm was ceasing. So grave were the affairs over which the little world in the Townsend house were concerned that the night was on them unawares. The hour was long past the usual evening meal-time. The sentence of death sickened the hearts of all of those not in the plot. The court was about to break up when the prisoner asked permission to speak with Colonel Simcoe.

For the last hour they had been trying to wring from him that which he knew not. Was this a confession? The thought of death was a compelling force. A hush fell upon the room, broken only by the sputter of a candle.

"Colonel Simcoe," he said, "as this is to be my last night on earth, I ask of you a favor." He had suddenly grown pale like one arisen from a weary couch of sickness. "'Tis a great boon to ask, sir, and I have naught to give in exchange but my word. I came to this place to-day solely with the thought of seeing my old mother--and one other," he added, hesitatingly. "This has cost me my life, and I beg that you will let me go to her just for an hour or two, and I promise to come back again. Half a mile down the road is our house. She is thinking of me now, poor soul!" His voice had sunk into a whisper. "The bird woman; perhaps you know her, sir. You must trust me to go, and go alone. The knowing I am a prisoner would kill her. Do I ask too much?"

The officer looked at the youth. 'Twas a prodigious request, but bespoke honesty. The words touched a hidden part of his nature. The fair white face before him with the eager eyes brought back to him dead faces dreaming under cypress-trees. "I will set you free for two hours," he said, "on your promise to come back."

"I promise to return by all that I hold sacred," the youth answered.

The cords that bound his swelling arms were loosened. The great hall door swung back for freedom, and he staggered out into the garden. The storm was over. After the brightness of the room his eyes could not penetrate the darkness. A dash against a drenched rose-bush brought a cloud of raindrops and loosened petals on his head. The dampness and the faint odor of the flowers awakened him. A wind was arising, making a low murmur among the bushes.

Suddenly it came over him that he was leaving Sally's house. Only the Townsends had white garden-posts. Sally! How sweet the name! Long, long ago it was that he bade her good-by in the meadow. He felt her kiss on his cheek now. Then the wind sighed, "You are to die!--to die!"

A chill was creeping over him--he was to go back to the great house. No, it was not right. He was young; he was free; he could escape to the forest, and they would never know. For a moment he turned and looked at it, then hurried off into the road.

He began to run slowly at first, gradually increasing his pace until his strength was taxed to its utmost. He was a wild, hunted thing that the forces of the world were about to drown. A wet blanket was over the earth. Watery trees touched him with their wet arms, making him shudder. Deep pools in the middle of the roadway showed him his shadow. Dark, wet things flew out at him from coverts and joined his mad course. The wind was at his heels, growing louder and more insistent. "You are to die!--to die!" it shrieked. Now he was battling with it. "I cannot die!--I shall not die!" his soul said. On he plunged.

It was his own log school-house overlapping the road that stopped him. Close to his path it stood like some grim sentinel. Before it he paused, his breath coming in short gasps. "You must go back," it whispered. "You have promised." "I cannot die," he answered; but he lingered by it as if afraid to go on. The wind was lessening; it no longer challenged him. In its sweep he now heard the voices of children. "Here you taught us the meaning of faith and honor." Over the years he saw them all. A long line of eager little forms were stealing through a gate whose latch was rusted. Where were they all to-night: the merry boys who dreamed of playtimes over dull books; the girls with their flowers and apples for the master? No longer would he guide them. They were gone forever from him. The wind had caught their droning voices. A lad who wore the dunce-cap often was before him. He saw him stolid and indifferent in the corner of the dreary room; then again, awakened by the call of war, he was by his side, a drummer-boy, charging the heights of Bergen. The dunce was not afraid to die. "You will go back," the voices wailed, and he answered, "Yes!"

The moon was throwing off the mist veils, and her first pale beams sent earthward showed him his mother's cot. There were no lights in the windows. He approached the door and stood by it shivering. An awful fear came over him that perhaps she was away. A fourth of his time was already gone. What if he could not see her again? He longed to feel her tender arms about him, and yet he knew that the agony of leaving them would be more than he could bear. He dared not knock, but crept softly to an open window. In the old stole-band rocking-chair she was seated close to a dying fire, her eyes closed by sleep. The worn strip of wool rag carpet he knew so well was smooth beneath her feet. A pair of finches were twittering softly in their cage by the south window. Over the broad sill he climbed as in the days of his boyhood. To her side he crept and began to stroke her calloused, tired hands. His touch brought her back from her visionary realm. "Is he dead?" her waking lips murmured, and then she saw her son.

At the Townsend house none of the officers knew that the youth who left them was anything to Sally. It was proper for a tender-hearted maid to swoon at a danger. After the door closed upon him there were calls for the hostess. Was she revived? Then André stepped forward and told the officers what the condemned youth was to her. In his graphic way he repeated the simple love-story. The eyes of all in the room, expressing varying emotions, were still centred on his face when a faint rustle of women's garments was heard in the hall. André stopped speaking. In their midst stood Sally, pale and with anguish in her eyes. Miss Townsend was near her, wringing her hands.

"Sirs," the girl said, "you have been here nigh a month, and we have given you of our best, hiding naught, although you are not of our color." Her voice was breaking. "I," she continued, "have worked for you, amused you, laughed for you, and now I want my pay. You must give me an innocent man's life. The one you have condemned to death is not a spy. I swear it before God!"

Bluff and hearty Colonel Simcoe, in the act of drawing a goblet of port, lowered the glass a few inches at each of the girl's passionate outbursts. He began to feel of his wig to see if it were awry. "Lud, here is a pretty to do," he murmured to himself. The lady was a fine creature and her words were true. He placed the heavy cut piece on the table and then he spoke. "His death-sentence was but a mock one," he said. "'Tis our mind to set him free, yet 'twas necessary to find out if he knew aught."

"Oh, sir, let me have his life! Write it on a paper that you set him free." The girl's tones were entreating. "I must go to him, and now."

For a moment the commander hesitated; then André's voice rang out. "Those who are for Sally unsheath their swords," he cried. The room was full of flashing steel. The pardon was in Sally's hand.

"Come," she said, as she turned and faced the group of excited men.

The next moment she was out in the night, followed by a line of supperless redcoats.

The moon, grown round and full, smiled on the procession. Sally and André headed the company splashing through the wet road. So intent were they on their errand that scarcely any one spoke.

They were nearing the lights of the cottage when Sally paused. Placing her finger to her mouth to enjoin silence, she said, "You must turn back, friends. The sight of you all might kill his mother. 'Twas thoughtless in asking you to come with me. André," she whispered, "you must stay to bring me home."

"Brave little Sally!" a youth's lusty voice rang out. The men surrounded her. One by one they asked to kiss her hand, then crept off through the dripping foliage. All the while she was gazing at the house. Rain-drops glistened in her hair and her garments hung limp about her knees. André stood by her side seemingly lost in thought. He was dreaming of days that were dead. Softly she touched his shoulder.

"André," she said, "I am afraid to go in."

The crashing of twigs under foot died away in the distance; the clouds were all swept out of the heavens and the night seemed one vast ambient plain of loneliness. The girl and the man in the middle of the roadway drew closer to each other. Tenderly he caught her trembling hands in his. "Do not be afraid, Sally," he said; "you will find happiness." His voice was breaking. "Two hearts will always beat for you--one belongs to the man in yonder cot and the other to John André." Softly she crept from him to the door which opened into her earthly Paradise.

PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS,
AN AMERICAN MONTAGU

PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS, AN AMERICAN MONTAGU

When the great Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu was receiving the _bas-bleus_ of London in her Hill Street drawing-room there arose across the water a little American salon which reflected in a degree the spirit of the famous gatherings Admiral Boscawen named after the slovenly Dr. Stillingfleet's gray stockings. It is only recently that historians have taken a marked interest in the literature which followed in the wake of the Revolutionary War and the world has learned that in the newly-formed States there were a few bright spirits whose lives and aspirations reflected the culture of Europe. One of the most interesting of these was Elizabeth Kearny, _née_ Lawrence, a daughter of Judge Lawrence, of Burlington, and a half-sister of Captain James Lawrence of "Don't give up the ship" fame. She formed a literary circle which flourished for a few years in old Perth Amboy, Jersey's fallen capital.

Elizabeth Lawrence passed her early youth in Burlington, where she pursued the study of Greek and Latin, to the mild astonishment of the community. Over her father's library table in the Lawrence mansion, still existing impervious to the encroachments of time, she chatted as a girl with the Tory satirist Jonathan Odell. She must have imbibed some of his sarcasm, for in later years her loquacious tongue was barbed with a wit almost Walpolian in its acrid cleverness. At nearby Philadelphia she met the famous Peggy Chew, and formed an intimacy with Anne Willing, better known as Mrs. William Bingham. The "dazzling Bingham" she made the subject of some animated verses, entitled,--

"LINES ON MRS. BINGHAM'S RECALL OF A SUPPER INVITATION.

"Just in from the country, with nothing to wear,
At Bingham's to-night I am bidden repair.
My one silken pelisse is all in a tangle,
And I know I have lost my Parisian bangle:
Not a whif of hair-powder to light up my head--
Methinks 'twould be better to get into bed!
My slippers the parrot has quite eaten up--
Oh! why am I bidden to come in to sup?
Now, Rebecca, do try make the child stop its wailing;
At the thought of the company courage is failing!
There's a chair going past and a coach with a clatter.
If I go as I am--pray, what does it matter?
Here give me some Rose-Bloom to ease up my face,
And a patch on my chin would give it a grace.
My new brilliant necklace, my white turkey wrapping,
Ah, now I am ready; but who is that tapping?
A word from the Binghams--you say a postponement:
An illness--alas, 'tis a hurried atonement,
With nothing to wear and nothing to eat!
Come blow out the candles and gaze on the street."

There are very few records of this remarkable woman's girlhood still extant. Her brother John, for whom she cherished a strong attachment, was born after her marriage to Mr. Michael Kearny, "the beloved noble Michael," who erected her Perth Amboy cottage. There she lived as "the scribbling Mrs. Kearny, occupying the highest seat on Parnassus," a power in her world. Argus-eyed she evidently was, for nothing seems to have escaped her facile quill. There was scarcely a subject too great or too small for her to digress upon, and she wrote in the morning of "the shameful performance of certain gentlemen in Congress" and at night of "the sorrow she felt on finding a slave under the influence of pernicious rum."

About some of the streets of the city named in honor of the "passionately proud" Earl of Perth there lingers an air of decayed opulence. Although old Amboy of the scarlet coats died long ago, a few of her echoes live on undrowned by the din of new voices. In Mrs. Kearny's day many a stately garden crept down to the water-front. The great houses overlooking the smooth Raritan still sheltered a few of the noble Scotch and Irish families who had unwillingly relinquished their king and remained in the New World. In the letters of Sophia Brown, who lodged with the mother of William Dunlap, the art historian, there are glimpses of this society. The frail and aristocratic Misses Parker with their tea-drinkings, the gallant Captain Love, and other charming figures, look out at us from pages filled with the trivialities of every-day life. A child dreaming beside a broad pane overlooking the quiet street, where trees stood in line as if awaiting the call of Orpheus, saw many things. Now a youthful pair sauntered by in the spring-time of love, now an ancient crone in worn satin shoes that had once touched ever so lightly a king's feet in a long-forgotten dance, and now a tired veteran of the Revolution murmuring to himself of battles still unwon. Suddenly would come the rush of many footsteps. Off in the distance the bell of St. Peter's tolls. People of condition are to be married. Ladies in faded silk or humble erminetta mince past gentlemen in desay suits. Then the music creeps out of the chancel,--the faint, sweet air of an old English wedding-march. Even the sombre fronts of the houses seem to be ravished with it. The voices of the gentle choir may not be as pure as they were in the days of George III., but to the girl who listened then they were like strains from Paradise.

The city which had received its charter one day after New York was at that period beginning to lose its importance in the eyes of the Western world. No longer chariots drawn by white horses carried a supercilious nobility to the resort of the Knickerbockers. No longer big-wigs talked over the commercial supremacy of Perth Amboy in the Sweeting's Alley Coffee House. No longer were there stately minuets and revels at the Governor's palace. The old days were gone forever; but although the leading actors and the lights had fled, the stage remained unchanged. That sad-faced baggage Poverty loitered behind and came often to once proud dwelling-places. Pinderina heard the sighs of her friends, and decided to enliven the situation. In the Kearny Cottage, whose rooms seem to widen mysteriously as one enters, she held her gatherings of sympathetic souls. These affairs differed somewhat from the parties given at an earlier date by Mrs. Hugh Ferguson and Mrs. Richard Stockton, two other literary lights of the time, for the hostess suffered from a slender purse. Her guests came only for the pleasure of conversation, without the "stomach compensation" Mrs. Montagu and her American imitators thought so necessary.

One of the most distinguished frequenters of Mrs. Kearny's Blue-Stocking Club was Philip Freneau, whose mother had made a second matrimonial venture and wedded Captain James Kearny, of Kearny Port, a relative of the Perth Amboy family. "Small but well formed, his blue eyes sparkling with poetic fire," it is easy to imagine him the lion of Mrs. Kearny's evenings. Whenever the old sloop "King William"--changed to "Liberty"--sailed into Amboy, bringing Mr. Freneau to pass the night with his friends before journeying to Monmouth, there was always great excitement in the town. Mrs. Kearny's black Rebecca was sent forth in haste to inform the chosen few of the neighborhood that their leader bade them to her drawing-room. The seven romping Kearny boys were hurried up to the attic to bed, the furniture rearranged, and Madam Scribblerus, as her world called her, slipped on her brocade gown to be in readiness for the battle of wits sure to ensue. A happy woman was this quaint personage when footfalls began to sound on the gallery steps. The rap-tap of the knocker made her spirits buoyant, and each greeting took her farther away from the cares of a commonplace existence. Although she was a lover of nature, she too could have said with Mr. Robinson, the father of Mrs. Montagu, that living in the country was like sleeping with one's eyes open. Each breath of the world beyond Amboy brought new life to her.

We can picture to ourselves the evening. About the oddly-shaped room, on hard-seated, fiddle-backed chairs, sits Pinderina's little court. By the wide fireplace on the settle old Judge Nevill, the editor of the first American magazine, is blinking at the embers. Mr. Freneau has finished telling some of his recent adventures in New York City. Now Mrs. Kearny begins the story of Captain Kidd's black cat, which lived on long after her master had been condemned to death in Old Bailey, and for these two hundred years has haunted the spot where the bold adventurer is said to have buried some of his chests of rupees. Sleepy eyes grow wider as she advances in her narrative. Timid ladies feel for each other's hands in the flickering light. The hostess is in her element.

Taking a penetrating look at the company over the years, they are not as we would at first imagine them. There are holes in Mr. Freneau's wrist ruffles, and the worn brocade gown of the hostess no longer gives forth even faint protesting rustle as she walks. In this respect the circle is true-blue,--for Oliver Goldsmith went to Mrs. Montagu's in darned stockings and a laced coat, and the immortal Johnson and many of his confrères were naturally careless in their attire, or were helped to the state by the lack of pence.

The one great ambition of Elizabeth Kearny's life was to write like her "admired Mr. Freneau," and her many mild plagiarisms of his poems, if they failed in their object, were no doubt regarded by him as flattering homage to his genius. Theirs was an unusual friendship of which the world knows very little, but mute testimonials remain of it to-day in her letters and her autographs fading under those of Philip Freneau's in many of his favorite volumes. She could have written of him as Mrs. Montagu once wrote, thinking no doubt of her faithful Dr. Beattie:

"Many guests my heart has not admitted; such as there are do it honor, and a long and intimate acquaintance has preceded their admittance; they were invited in it by its best virtues; they passed through the examination of severity, nay, even answered some questions of suspicion that inquired of their constancy and sincerity; but now they are delivered over to the keeping of constant faith and love; for doubt never visits the friends entirely, but only examines such as would come in, lest the way should be too common."

When Philip Freneau lived for a short period over a little shop in the Fly-Market, New York City, and edited _The Time Piece_, Mrs. Kearny became one of its constant contributors. Among that sentimental group of female poets, numbering a Saraperina, Edena, Cynthea, Clara, Carolina, and a Petronella, her effusions--generally under the _nome de guerre_ of "Scribelra"--stand forth in bold type. Turning the musty pages of a bound volume of the paper, we find

"LINES BY A LADY ON HEARING THE FROGS SING ON THE 17TH OF MARCH.

"Hail! pleasing harbingers of spring,
Who in the ponds so jocund sing;
And with a merry roundelay
Do usher in St. Patrick's day;
Some think your music rather hoarse,
Nay that 'tis altogether coarse;
Others ever fond of joking,
Swear your singing is but croaking.
Yet I declare it is to me
A pleasing, perfect harmony.
For in your varying notes I trace
The counter, treble, tenor, bass.
Should _some_ reply too _base_ indeed,
Such rude sarcasms pray don't heed,
But in your old accustomed way
Still celebrate St. Patrick's day;
Whether to hail the saint you sing
Or joy for the returning spring,
Which doth your tribe from jail release,
Let not your annual tribute cease."

Although the merit of this poem lies much below mediocrity, in subject it is delightfully grotesque. Her style was varied and her pen strangely moody, judging from her productions extant. The following _jeu d'esprit_ was written at the beginning of Jefferson's administration:

"AN EPIGRAM.

"Says William to Thomas I'll hold you a bet,
That the French are confoundedly frighted;
They thought that our Federal ships had o'erset,
But they find that they staunch are, and righted.

"They slighted our Pleno's and made a demand
That we a shameful tribute should pay them,
Or else (as they plundered at sea) on the land
Neither Rapine nor Murder should stay them!

"But those who are born in the woods can't be scared
By the croaking of Bull-frogs in ditches.
Nor will we of Frenchmen at all be afraid,
A people who're _sans_ honor, _sans_ breeches.

"They've taken our coats from our backs, and say too
That they will have our shirts and our smocks, sir;
But faith if they try it the project they'll rue,
For we'll give them some flesh-burning knocks, sir!

"They've tried every art which deception could frame,
But our Congress too wise were to heed them,
They've Heaven defied, and have put aside shame,
And have gone all lengths the Devil would lead them."

Among her poems are some pleasing verses, entitled "A Whim." These also appeared in _The Time Piece_, unsigned, and we have nothing to show whether they were a copy or the child of her own muse:

"I gave--'twas but the other day--
My Kate a ticket for the play,
'Tis love such tricks imparts;
When holding up the card to me,
She laughed and said, the emblem see,
And show'd the Knave of Hearts.

"Amaz'd I cry'd, what means my dear?
A knave will lie, will steal, will swear;
I pray, your words define.
She smiled and said, nay never start.
He's sure a knave that steals a heart,
And you have stolen mine!"

There was one yearly occasion when the world of Amboy did not flock with acceleration to the Kearny Cottage, and that was the anniversary of Michael Kearny's death. Mrs. Kearny was always fond of writing epitaphs to embellish the tombstones of departed Amboyites, but as the years progressed she developed a very morbid strain. To commemorate the demise of her husband she wrote poems of several hundred verses and then assembled her satellites to weep with her. Woe to the indifferent ones whose tears of sorrow were dry. They were pretty sure of indignant visits from her, or, worse still, her far-reaching pen was capable of dealing them swift retribution. She never spared the most loyal of her friends. When one of the distinguished men of the city came to her under the effects of toddy, she celebrated his fall from grace by lines which must have always rankled in his breast.

Mrs. Kearny longed to have her work admired for its worth alone, and, like Miss Burney, who visited the bookseller Mr. Lownes as a chance purchaser of "Evelina" to learn his opinion of its author, "Pinderina" was in the habit of calling upon her friends with her manuscripts, coyly reading them, and then requesting their criticism on the latest compositions she had copied from the _Gazette_. Tradition says that this plan did not always meet with pleasant results. Descending upon a Mrs. Golightly, a new-comer to Perth Amboy, with a batch of her poems, she was told that the productions were far from those of a genius and must have been written by some very foolish female. Pinderina, placidly awaiting praise, was astounded at the intelligence. Recovering herself, she informed the unfortunate woman that her own pen had given birth to the verses, and left her house in high indignation.

A new book was an event in the Perth Amboy world at the beginning of the century. When Simeon Drake, who received the mail from Woodbridge three times a week, brought a packet to the door of Mrs. Andrew Bell, the wealthiest member of the circle, a flutter of envy arose in every breast. What anxious hours were passed before it started on its round from house to house. Ofttimes an impatient dame sent her little Abigail to gaze through the low windows of Mrs. Bell's study, where the lady usually sat reading, to see if she were nearly through with the volume. When the first month of its Amboy life was over, how it had been discussed! The golden urns and garlands of roses which decorated the cover were already worn. To-day high up in the dust of dim attics the books of old Amboy are content to rest neglected and forgotten. The love that was given to them was stronger and truer than that bestowed upon their modern kindred. Through the long years of summer suns and wintry rains they had been happy in the thought of a mission fulfilled. When the wind creeps through the cracks in the casements and stirs their musty pages, one can almost fancy that they are whispering to the ghosts of the long ago.

A letter written by Mrs. Kearny to Mrs. Bell has been preserved:

"I am much obliged to you Madam for your Books. The scriptural essays are very good; the author seems to have been fully inspired by his subject. Rather enthusiastically so (I think) when he prefers the story of Ruth to that of Lavinia. I have long thought that Mr. Thomson had taken that sacred history for his model but had no idea that any one would say--the Paraphrase is inferior to the original. The story of the unfortunate lovers, very interesting--Carolina but so, so quite middling; I read it through without being able to approve of it. Allow me to mention a few remarks I made when reading it--It, in my opinion, wants two essential qualities Style and Reason; qualities which you know are capable of making any story pleasing--interesting, however fictitious we suppose the circumstances to be.

"Ovid's metamorphoses are not more wonderful than some of the turns of fortune in the history of Carolina. I will instance the sudden and total transformation of the Count of Wolstein. That one who nature had designed for a tall and well proportioned man should by a few months' studying become hunchbacked--and by having a scar on his face, one eye lost, and a limp in his gait, should be so deformed as to be called a monster! and that Carolina a young lady who had been two months at court and likely had some idea of politeness should when introduced to the Count instantly hide her eyes with her hands, give a piercing shriek and disappear like a flash of lightning at midnight is demanding too much from our credulity. We know pretty well what effect the loss of an eye, the scar, and the limp might have had but we cannot otherwise account for his other deformity than by supposing that he sat in a remarkably uneasy posture, or studied much more intently than any of our modern statesmen do: not one of whom, I believe, have broken their backs by studying politics however their minds may be deformed by it. Don't you think that the Canoness should have been totally deaf, as well as nearly blind, whilst the Pavilion was building in her garden?

"I can't for my part see the necessity of obliging Carolina to HAVE it built; as, had it been already there. In adding the embellishments would have been a sufficient surprise to her dear mama. In short, I am of opinion that the author did not require his readers to have common sense. Excuse the liberty which I have taken with your Book and believe me to be much obliged to you for the favor.

"Yours,
"E. K."

The close of Mrs. Kearny's life was blighted and narrowed by adversity. Money matters estranged her from many of her old intimates, and she wrote pathetically to each member of the circle after a lawsuit with Richard Stevens: "Have you too entered the lists against me?" Unlike Mrs. Montagu, of whom Wraxall recorded that she wore glittering jewels to dazzle those her reputation failed to astound, Mrs. Kearny's last years were tinctured by the plaintiveness of homespun.

In the fall-time of the year 1799 the Amboyites who wandered past the wide lawns of Franklin Palace often saw by one of the windows of Kearny Cottage a figure bent low over a writing-table. It was Mrs. Kearny working industriously. Soon the rumor went abroad that Pinderina was completing her works for publication. No one dared question her. Covert glances were bestowed upon her when she entered her pew in old St. Peter's on a Sabbath morning. The thoughts of their former leader were to be handed down to posterity in print. Betsey Parker, one of the sisters at the castle who had scoffed her effusions in secret, decided to call at the cottage as soon as etiquette would permit. Feuds over money matters seemed trivial things after this great news.

Pinderina's star was again in the ascendancy. She smiled fondly on the pages of finely-written manuscript she was putting together. A glorious triumph seemed near at hand. One morning Mr. Freneau was seen leaving Kearny Cottage. After him trotted a black boy, bearing aloft a heavy bundle. Curious eyes watched him from behind the partly closed shutters of many a sedate-looking building facing the green. The gossips felt sure that the fruit of Mrs. Kearny's genius was being borne away for the approval of the New York publishers. They circulated the tale industriously. The élite of the town had not been so excited since the day an irate Mrs. Franklin broke all the mirrors of the palace on finding that her husband had been made a prisoner of war.

Three times the "Liberty" sailed into Amboy. On each occasion bevies of ladies found it necessary to transact business near the wharf. A case of fine nabobs, which had lain at old John's for a fortnight, was suddenly discovered. Captain Goelet had brought home some necklaces of Indian sea-shells. Anything plausible was used as an excuse to parade along the water-front.

And after all the weary watching Mr. Freneau arrived by coach. A gray mist enveloped the roadway that night, as if to keep his return a secret. But it was decreed that he should be observed. A member of the circle, who lived close by the cottage, chanced to bring out on her balcony a plant thirsting for rain. She recognized the figure which alighted from the mud-bespattered vehicle before Mrs. Kearny's door. The wind spread wide his great-coat. Its fluttering folds guarded from view the package of manuscript which had been rejected by the lords of New York's Printing House Lane. The woman on the balcony saw him enter the house; then she ran into her own dwelling. It took but a few moments to find the Hanway umbrella and the lantern. Excitement overcoming her timidity, she hurried out into the night to share her news with the neighbors.

An hour later a few courageous souls were wending their way to Pinderina's. Each carried some peace-offering. A bowl of white jelly, an ounce of Mr. Stebben's snuff, an orange that had colored in some sunlit Amboy window were hidden beneath wet garments. Before the worn door, which the darkness and the rain made grim and sinister looking, they huddled together. Suddenly there was a noise inside. A thrill went over the company as it swung back and showed Pinderina holding a candle aloft in her hands. "I know why you are here," she said, gazing at them mockingly. "It is not true. The villains have refused my work." Some faithful member of the circle started to speak, then stopped. "As the poetess of Perth Amboy I have lived, and as the poetess of Perth Amboy I shall die," she continued. There were smiles in the darkness,--the smiles akin to tears.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation mistakes have been corrected.
Page 131, missing opening quotation mark added before "Close along
the..."
Page 221, illustration caption: "Andre" changed to "André."

End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Gates of Old Romance, by W. Jay Mills