Chapter II: Over the River

He followed shuffling footsteps down an interminably long hall, with the smell of stale furnishings in his nostrils and his drums cracking from the surcease of the storm. He could hear it battering furiously at every shutter and door as if trying to break through the habitation and surround him again with its ice-like fingers. Relieved from that frigid embrace he began to feel uncomfortably warm; his ears and fingers burned and his eyes stung. His guide turned a corner and opened a door, leaving him poised in the darkness with an admonitory whisper.

“Wait till I throw a blanket over the win’ow. Pryin’ eyes—”

The fellow moved away, shuffling. Boards creaked and something fluttered; another door opened and presently the man returned with a guttering candle and set it on a table.

“I wish ye hadna come,” he growled. “Aye, I wish it infernally strong ye hadna come. The countryside is a nest o’ traitorous dogs that ’ud sell a neighbor to the gallows fer a shillin’.”

By the feeble beam of light Peale saw him to be a thin, undersized man with a narrow face and a crooked nose, dressed like some slovenly servant. Furtive eyes met him and glanced away as if afraid of the contact.

“’Tis beyant me why I’m served up with so many night birds. Three in the last month. Too many, too many. I’m suspected now. Lud, I c’n feel the halter on my neck every blessed hour. I suppose,” he said, averting his face, “ye’ll be wantin’ to cross ower?”

“That’s the idea,” replied Peale, settling into a chair. “Day’s about come, though, so I’ll have to lay by until night. Y’ve got a plain citizen’s suit for me—and a cot I can catch a bit of sleep on?”

The man wrung his bony fingers.

“So I’ve got to harbor ye in the house twelve hours? ——, why didna ye come sooner? I could’ve put ye across an’ washed my hands of ye. ’Tis bad—bad. D’ye unnerstand? There was a file of redjackets in the neighborhood this very mornin’!”

“’Tis a risk we must run,” returned Peale wearily.

“Ye mean a risk _I_ run, young man.” The fellow stared gloomily at the table. “Well, ye’re hankerin’ fer a bit o’ somethin’ to eat, I’ll vow.”

“I could manage it.”

“’Twon’t be much. Sit still.”

The man rose and slipped through the door. In another part of the house Peale heard him throwing wood on the fire. He leaned back in his chair, on the point of falling asleep. By and by the man called softly through the hall.

“Asa, Asa, come down an’ take a horse to the barn. Hurry now, there’s a crack o’ light comin’ ower the eastern line. Ye’ll bury saddle an’ bridle beneath the hay.”

Peale shook his head, feeling sorry for these people. They lived a life of extreme uncertainty, never sure but that the British might not pack them off for summary punishment or, on the other hand, that overzealous patriots, enraged by their apparent Toryism, would harry them out of house and home. It was not so much the actual danger, great though that was, but the suspense hanging over them. The furtive, suspicious look on the man’s face was plain enough evidence of the strain. Peale opened his eyes suddenly, hearing a voice at his side.

“’Tis scant fare, friend, but the tea’s hot an’ plentiful. I keep the fireplace burnin’ all the night fer visits like this. Say yer grace an’ eat.”

Peale fell to without ceremony. A pot of cheese, sour bread and bitter tea made his meal, with his host brooding over him.

“Ye’ll take my bed. ’Tis time I was up. In my closet is a fine suit with a fawnskin waistcoat fit for any gentleman. I save it fer such occasions. Ye’ll wear that well, though I doubt not it’ll be a mite strict on yer shoulders. They shouldna send men with such unusual carriage on a mission, for when a man commands attention he’s cramped in his business.”

“There’s a tavern somewhere across the stream?”

“A place fer every villain in the county —a scant mile above the English picket lines. The Red Boar, they call it. Aye, a precious pack of scoundrels infest it. It’s direct across the river from me, beyant the shore a quarter mile, on the Albany Post Road.”

Peale reached into his pocket and brought out five gold pieces which he shoved across the table without explanation. His host took them each between his fingers, rubbing the surface in a half-greedy manner.

“Well, ’tis some consolation. Now, come. Ye’d better sleep while ye may. At dark tonight we’ll row across. My boat’s floatin’ on the tide in the bushes at foot o’ the cliff.”

Peale followed the man through the hall and into a frowsy bedroom. He was tremendously tired and promptly sat on the mattress and shed his boots. His host muttered something about “pryin’ eyes” again and snuffed out the candle, retreating. There was a gray light slipping through the shutters as Peale drew the blankets over him. Next moment he was profoundly asleep.

* * * * *

Somewhere during the afternoon Peale woke from his heavy sleep. The storm seemed to have lost its vigor and now only shook the house with occasional gusts. Daylight penetrated the shutters, and he rolled over, knowing that it would do no good to rise before dusk and that an extra hour’s rest would give him that much more power of body for whatever befell during the coming night. So he slept again.

When he woke the second time it was with a vague feeling of apprehension. There was no one in the semi-dark room and no sound in the cold house. Outside, evening was settling and the storm had subsided, leaving a silence over the countryside that seemed to Peale to contain a threat. Under the propulsion of this inexplicable feeling he got up, pulled on his boots and gained the malodorous hallway.

Across the way was the kitchen with a fire burning brightly on the stones and something of savory smell steaming in a kettle on the crane. But of his host, nothing could be seen or heard. He moved through the kitchen to another room, and thence to the funereal parlor he had first sat in, before dawn. Going back to the hall, he came to the stairway and called, softly—

“What’s up, friend?”

The hollow echo of his voice trembled in the air and evoked no reply. Now, thoroughly roused, he started for the front door and was on the point of opening it and going out to the barn when a sense of caution stayed his hand. Instead, he turned to the nearest window and peered through the curtains.

It was the last of a gray, bleak day, but there was enough of light for Peale to see through a lane of trees to the dull black surface of the North River. Beyond, masked in the settling fog, was Manhattan Isle. Peale’s sharply scanning eyes made out a dim beam of light from the farther shore—some farmer’s lantern, no doubt, bobbing across a meadow. Farther down the Isle and shut from his view by the intervening trees was New York town, headquarters of the British forces in America—his destination.

A dog barked, shattering the unnatural stillness of the darkening night and Peale turned his attention to the immediate foreground. At the extreme right of his vision was the barn, and around its edges wound a path that he judged must lead down the bluff to the river’s edge. Then he caught sight of a figure moving out of the trees, so slowly as to seem prompted by stealth. As long as he was in the deeper shadows, Peale could make nothing of his countenance or costume, but within a dozen strides the man got to clear ground and then the young officer had a vague outline of British accouterments and a trailing musket. Almost at the same instant he saw others breaking from the thicket at the other extremity of his vision.

He left his vantage point and ran to the door, shooting the bolt into the catch. Retreating to the bedroom, he swept his arm through the closet and brought out a handful of clothes from which he had to choose his suit almost by sense of touch. Ripping off his uniform he donned the civilian garments. Beneath his coat he buckled securely the brace of pistols.

Clapping on hat and cloak, he rolled up his own uniform, thrust it under the bed and hurried back to the window. In the fast-thickening fog the four or five advancing Englishmen were hardly more than silhouettes against the darker mass of woods. Even as he turned a last glance at them, some one mounted the flagstone steps and resolutely knocked at the door, saying in a bold, ringing voice—

“Open, farmer, ’tis king’s soldiers.”

Peale ran back through the hall on his toes. A rear door promised exit somewhere in the darkness, but it seemed to him probable that it might be guarded. He swayed on his toes, debating courses, while the front portal shivered under the butt of a gun and the challenging voice rose to a more irate pitch.

“Open or I’ll break this cursed thing from its hinges!”

At that Peale made up his mind. Drawing pistol, he raised the latch of the rear door very cautiously and then flung it open at one sudden, unexpected movement. A figure twisted around to meet him, growling:

“Oh, no ye don’t! Stand fast or I’ll stick ye somethin’ ’orrible!”

His pistol went in a true arc and struck the sentry on the head; the man fell with a small, expiring breath, sloshing in the muddy earth. Peale looked about him, half expecting other opposition. None developed. He ran behind a stone house, passed another intervening stretch to a shed and thence across twenty yards to the thicket.

It had all been accomplished without commotion or general discovery. But he could hear the man at the back door groaning and knew it would be but a moment before the unconscious sentry would be discovered. He turned riverward and, parting the sodden brush before him, skirted the house and barn. Scrambling down a rather sharp slope, he reached a path that descended still more abruptly over the face of a rock palisade. As he lowered himself, loose rocks shot away from his feet, crashed through brush and reached the river’s surface with a plunking sound.

Here in the gorge a small wintry wind scoured upward and numbed his exposed members. He groped along the dark stairs with all the speed possible, leaving the sound of the British soldiery behind and at last putting his feet on level ground. Before him water rippled against the stony beach and bushes rustled lightly in the breeze.

The farmer had mentioned his boat tied to bushes, and Peale, on exploring forward, found it so.

“Oars, bailing pot and rope,” said he, untying the skiff and shoving off. “Having been so unceremoniously left, I shall have to be my own guide. ’Tis the gentleman’s own loss that he’s not here to bring his boat back from the other shore. I strongly suspect he deserted the house at the very first smell of a trap and left me to meet the amiable hirelings of Hanover. Ah, well, I should not too strongly condemn the poor devil. Now let’s try our luck.”

It seemed no great matter to keep abreast the current and land on the opposite shore somewhere in the latitude of the tavern. He pulled steadily, muffling his stroke as much as possible; water gurgled gently against the skiff’s snout. From the river he looked upward along the Jersey Palisades, trying to distinguish his recent shelter, but that area was swathed in the same darkness that fell about the river.

In midstream or beyond—he had no way of knowing just where—he heard the knock of oars and the boiling of water. He rested, trying to fathom the whereabouts of the other craft. Of a sudden it slid within pistol’s range, so near that he could hear a man’s heavy breathing. Some one spoke with a gibing inflection:

“Wot did ye say ’er name was? Amaryllis, hey? Aye, I know the trull. Lad, ye didn’t think to be the only man—”

The sentence was muffled by the fog; the boat passed beyond a heavy wall of it and Peale heard only a heavy coughing and a rough expletive. Then silence.

He took up his course again and redoubled his efforts to regain lost headway in the stream. Ten minutes later the bottom of the boat grated on gravel and stopped. He climbed out and, as a precaution, shoved the craft again into the stream. The farmer was out one stout skiff; that was the fortune of war.

“Now if I’ve held with the current, I should be in a straight line with that tavern,” he murmured.

He moved forward, crossing a rocky strip of beach and coming against a line of bushes. A bank appeared to hedge him from the rolling land of the island. It was useless to seek a path in the darkness, so he worked himself between the thicket and climbed straight forward. It was stout labor, but presently he left the slope behind him and stood erect on the edge of some kind of field. For the first time he saw lights glimmering dimly in the southward—lights of New York town.

“Straight eastward, my lad,” he cautioned himself. “The road should be hard by.”

A creek splashed along its course on his left, and against the metal-black sky he saw the faint tracery of tree branches. Passing onward, he arrived at a fence, surmounted it and became engaged in heavy woods. At almost the same time he heard, from the immediate foreground, the creaking of a carriage and the urging of a driver’s voice. This was the reassurance he needed.

Stumbling from one abrupt depression to another, he fought his way from the trees, well soaked, and embarked upon the highway, sinking deep in the mud. It was villainous stuff that laid a score of traps for him, yet within a hundred yards he was rewarded by the sight of a dim, diffused light ahead.

It was a feeble beacon, nor did it become much brighter as he progressed. When he stood within a few yards of the place he found a smudged window winking at him; from within the place came a bawling voice. It was a tavern, and undoubtedly that unsavory hostelry known as the Red Boar. Peale stood a moment at the door, listing to the groan of the tavern shingle in the fitful wind. Then, drawing a pistol, he pushed through the door with the abrupt haste of a man seeking trouble.

It was an evil-smelling place, with furniture scarred by many brawls and the floor littered with straw. A dozen candles gave it but half enough light and a fire smoked dismally on the hearth. In the far corner were two men who had kicked back their chairs at his entrance and looked about to fall upon him. In all his travels he had never entered an inn more charged with the atmosphere of illicit trade and violence. He had no doubt that it was the rendezvous of every renegade in the countryside and, since it was so close to the British pickets, that scores of deserters had made it their stopping place. He waved the weapon at the two glowering fellows and spoke crisply.

“Sit down, you rascals and stop that infernal staring at a gentleman. Where’s the master of this inn?”

Hardly had he finished the question when an inner door flew open and a tremendously fat creature with a perspiring brow entered.

“Eh, eh?” he grumbled, “that be no way to talk to my customers, sir. ’Tis an honest trade I have.”

“Honest?” cried Peale angrily. “—— of an honest place! Not a quarter mile back I was set upon by a brace of ruffians and lost a sound horse and saddlebags! I had the voice of one and, by Godfrey, if I hear him again I’ll know him well enough to send a ball through his cowardly body! You—” pointing to the nearest of the men at the table, “—speak a word! Let’s have your voice.”

“D’ye take me fer—”

“Enough,” broke in Peale. “Now your partner!”

“I’m minded to break yer face, my fine—”

The inn keeper clapped his hands together.

“No, no, Job! Hold yer tongue! The gentleman’s well roused and apt to do violence. Sir, ye’ve come to the wrong place, I do swear. D’ye think I’d harbor birds of that feather?”

“I have your reputation,” said Peale somberly. “’Tis none too savory. A pity to me the general doesn’t sweep this island clean o’ such rascals. Dash me, I’ll take it out on some one for that miserable half-mile I walked!”

“’Tis but a like distance to the pickets,” assured the inn keeper in a soothing voice.

“An’ d’ye think I’d go another step in this mud on foot? I’ve got a better way. Tell me, d’ye know any of those pickets?”

“I know half the royal army,” boasted the tavern keeper. “They favor me with their trade—when a little innocent fun is wanted.”

“You’ll make a fine guide. Bring around a couple horses and guide me through the lines.”

“Oh, no, sirrah,” objected the tavern keeper. “A gentleman couldn’t ask that much. Perhaps one of these boys—”

“Cursed if I want either of the rascals!” broke in Peale, blowing through his nose. “I want a man to explain my lookin’ like a cursed rebel spy! Ye’ll go if I’ve got to drag you by the queue. Come, don’t purse your lips at me. If it’s a sweetener ye want—here.”

He took a crown from his pocket and tossed it at the fat one’s outstretched hand. The latter caught it with astonishing agility and a change came over his face. The two at the table exchanged a significant glance, which Peale observed.

“If ye’ve thought to waylay me, ye’ll do well to think of safer robbery. I’m not a man to tamper with. Come, Benedick, get your horses out, and bring a lantern. I dislike waiting.”

The tavern keeper bowed.

“If the gentleman puts it that way, I’m bound to give. A moment, sir, while I saddle up. Ye’ll have a drink?”

“Y’ve made your profit off me,” said Peale. “Now go along. I don’t drink such bilge-water as ye’d likely serve.”

The tavern keeper took the insolence without protest. He had dealt with many great gentlemen with tongues just as sharp as this one owned. In particular, he had been favored with the company of some of the British officers when they were sweeping the island for deserters, and he knew the quality of their scorn only too well. So he ducked his head and left the room, while Peale stood wrathfully in the center of the place, eyeing the two at the table.

They remained silent, cowed by his steady gaze. In a short while the tavern keeper hallooed from the road, and Peale went out to find the man in the saddle, holding a spare horse by the reins and carrying a lantern. Peale swung up; they pressed forward.

“I hope ye won’t be sayin’ too much about the rascals that set upon you,” offered the tavern keeper humbly. “At least ’twould be kind if ye didn’t say it was close to my place. The high gentleman officers in town look queerly my way. Any excuse would be good enough for them to harry me out. Oh, I’ll not say I don’t treat the boys well and mebbe there’s a bit of mischief that goes on. But ye’ll allow it would be injustice in this case.”

“It’s a —— outrage that a gentleman can’t travel from Philip’s Manor to New York without being took by a pack o’ brigands,” growled Peale.

Whereupon the tavern keeper fell silent.

The scattered lights of the city grew closer and the road turned to another quarter. Quite before Peale was aware of it they were being challenged, and the tavern keeper had slipped from his saddle and was advancing, lantern swinging from side to side. Peale heard him speaking in a low, amiable tone.

“—a misfortune to the gentleman. ’Tis you, Rob? Gad, that’s luck! Ye’ll pass him out o’ favor? Should he be kept till daylight I fear he’d tell the general. Then I’d suffer. A matter o’ favor.”

The guard muttered a half inaudible phrase.

“’Tis after enterin’ hours. But let him come on. It’s a raw, cold night, ye old rascal.”

By the light, Peale saw a bottle pass. The innkeeper returned, chuckling.

“Go right on, sir. About the horse, now—”

“Come with me till we strike the cobblestones,” said Peale, “and you shall have your horse back.”

Thus they passed through and were enveloped in momentary darkness. Without further conversation they traveled until the houses began to scatter along the way, some dark and some with lights a-twinkle in their windows. In another twenty minutes they reached a street lamp and here Peale drew up and dropped from the saddle.

“Y’re an amiable villain,” he said, handing over the reins. “I shall say nothing about the affair.”

“Thanks to ye, sir. ’Tis not every gentleman— There’s a patrol, by ——! I’d best be goin’.”

He turned and made off, leaving Peale in the street. Somewhere in another block came the steady tread of feet. In the silence of this outer section Peale heard a brief command and then the challenging of guards. Without listening further, he swung down an alley and passed from the radius of the light.

“So far luck has run strong with me,” he murmured, “but, when it comes time to leave—ah, that may be another story.”

He had been well coached as to his destination, and within another ten minutes he stood at the door of an imposing stone house through the windows of which came a cheerful light. He tapped on the knocker, and by the glow emanating from the interior began to survey his muddy boots and soaked apparel. The door opened suddenly and a girl with corn-colored hair and a grave white face stood silhouetted by the rays of a hall light. She spoke with a slow, rising inflection—

“Yes?”

“I have been told, madam,” said he, after a sharp inspection of her face, “that I might find lodging here. I’ve traveled a great distance this day and had the misfortune to lose my horse.”

She was silent for a long interval, the wind blowing the folds of a voluminous skirt about her. One hand rose toward her face as if to fend off a stray lock of hair.

“I’m sorry, but the house is full,” she replied at last.

“The river is deep,” said he, making a gesture with his arm.

“Ah! Come in.”