THANKFUL BLOSSOM
by BRET HARTE
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I
The time was the year of grace 1779; the locality, Morristown, NewJersey.
It was bitterly cold. A northeasterly wind had been stiffening themud of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's wayfaring onthe Baskingridge road. The hoof-prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left bybaggage-wagons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery, lay stark andcold in the waning light of an April day. There were icicles on the fences,a rime of silver on the windward bark of maples, and occasional bare spotson the rocky protuberances of the road, as if Nature had worn herself outat the knees and elbows through long waiting for the tardy spring. A fewleaves disinterred by the thaw became crisp again, and rustled in the wind,making the summer a thing so remote that all human hope and conjecturefled before them.
Here and there the wayside fences and walls were broken down ordismantled; and beyond them fields of snow downtrodden and discolored,and strewn with fragments of leather, camp equipage, harness, and cast-offclothing, showed traces of the recent encampment and congregation ofmen. On some there were still standing the ruins of rudely constructedcabins, or the semblance of fortification equally rude and incomplete. Afox stealing along a half-filled ditch, a wolf slinking behind an earthwork,typified the human abandonment and desolation.
One by one the faint sunset tints faded from the sky; the far-off crestsof the Orange hills grew darker; the nearer files of pines on the WhatnongMountain became a mere black background; and, with the coming-on ofnight, came too an icy silence that seemed to stiffen and arrest the verywind itself. The crisp leaves no longer rustled; the waving whips of alderand willow snapped no longer; the icicles no longer dropped a coldfruitage from barren branch and spray; and the roadside trees relapsed intostony quiet, so that the sound of horse's hoofs breaking through the thin,dull, lustreless films of ice that patched the furrowed road, might havebeen heard by the nearest Continental picket a mile away.
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Either a knowledge of this, or the difficulties of the road, evidentlyirritated the viewless horseman. Long before he became visible, hisvoice was heard in half-suppressed objurgation of the road, of his beast, ofthe country folk, and the country generally. \"Steady, you jade!\" \"Jump,you devil, jump!\" \"Curse the road, and the beggarly farmers that durstnot mend it!\" And then the moving bulk of horse and rider suddenlyarose above the hill, floundered and splashed, and then as suddenlydisappeared, and the rattling hoof-beats ceased.
The stranger had turned into a deserted lane still cushioned withuntrodden snow. A stone wall on one hand--in better keeping andcondition than the boundary monuments of the outlying fields-- bespokeprotection and exclusiveness. Half-way up the lane the rider checked hisspeed, and, dismounting, tied his horse to a wayside sapling. This done,he went cautiously forward toward the end of the lane, and a farm-housefrom whose gable window a light twinkled through the deepening night.Suddenly he stopped, hesitated, and uttered an impatient ejaculation.The light had disappeared. He turned sharply on his heel, and retracedhis steps until opposite a farm-shed that stood a few paces from the wall.Hard by, a large elm cast the gaunt shadow of its leafless limbs on the walland surrounding snow. The stranger stepped into this shadow, and atonce seemed to become a part of its trembling intricacies.
At the present moment it was certainly a bleak place for a tryst. Therewas snow yet clinging to the trunk of the tree, and a film of ice on its bark;the adjacent wall was slippery with frost, and fringed with icicles. Yet inall there was a ludicrous suggestion of some sentiment past andunseasonable: several dislodged stones of the wall were so disposed as toform a bench and seats, and under the elm-tree's film of ice could still beseen carved on its bark the effigy of a heart, divers initials, and the legend,\"Thine Forever.\"
The stranger, however, kept his eyes fixed only on the farm-shed andthe open field beside it. Five minutes passed in fruitless expectancy.Ten minutes! And then the rising moon slowly lifted herself over theblack range of the Orange hills, and looked at him, blushing a little, as ifthe appointment were her own.
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The face and figure thus illuminated were those of a strongly built,handsome man of thirty, so soldierly in bearing that it needed not the buffepaulets and facings to show his captain's rank in the Continental army.Yet there was something in his facial expression that contradicted themanliness of his presence,--an irritation and querulousness that wereinconsistent with his size and strength. This fretfulness increased as themoments went by without sign or motion in the faintly lit field beyond,until, in peevish exasperation, he began to kick the nearer stones againstthe wall.
\"Moo-oo-w!\"
The soldier started. Not that he was frightened, nor that he had failedto recognize in these prolonged syllables the deep-chested, half-drowsylow of a cow, but that it was so near him--evidently just beside the wall.If an object so bulky could have approached him so near without hisknowledge, might not she--\"Moo-oo!\"
He drew nearer the wall cautiously. \"So, Cushy! Mooly! Comeup, Bossy!\" he said persuasively. \"Moo\"--but here the low unexpectedlybroke down, and ended in a very human and rather musical little laugh.
\"Thankful!\" exclaimed the soldier, echoing the laugh a trifle uneasilyand affectedly as a hooded little head arose above the wall.
\"Well,\" replied the figure, supporting a prettily rounded chin on herhands, as she laid her elbows complacently on the wall,--\"well, what didyou expect? Did you want me to stand here all night, while you skulkedmoonstruck under a tree? Or did you look for me to call you by name?did you expect me to shout out, 'Capt. Allan Brewster--'\"
\"Thankful, hush!\"
\"Capt. Allan Brewster of the Connecticut Contingent,\" continued thegirl, with an affected raising of a low, pathetic voice that was, however,inaudible beyond the tree. \"Capt. Brewster, behold me,-- your obleegedand humble servant and sweetheart to command.\"
Capt. Brewster succeeded, after a slight skirmish at the wall, inpossessing himself of the girl's hand; at which; although still struggling,she relented slightly.
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\"It isn't every lad that I'd low for,\" she said, with an affected pout, \"andthere may be others that would not take it amiss; though there be fineladies enough at the assembly halls at Morristown as might think ithoydenish?\"
\"Nonsense, love,\" said the captain, who had by this time mounted thewall, and encircled the girl's waist with his arm. \"Nonsense! you startledme only. But,\" he added, suddenly taking her round chin in his hand, andturning her face toward the moon with an uneasy half-suspicion, \"why didyou take that light from the window? What has happened?\"
\"We had unexpected guests, sweetheart,\" said Thankful: \"the count justarrived.\"
\"That infernal Hessian!\" He stopped, and gazed questioningly intoher face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was assweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two inconstantsunderstood each other.
\"Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian, but an exiled gentleman fromabroad,--a nobleman--\"
\"There are no noblemen now,\" sniffed the trooper contemptuously.\"Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal.\"
\"But they are not, Allan,\" said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in herbrows: \"even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was dropped lastnight by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose mother come by herselfin a ship from Surrey? Do they look equal?\"
\"Titles are but breath,\" said Capt. Brewster doggedly. There was anominous pause.
\"Nay, there is one nobleman left,\" said Thankful; \"and he is my own,--my nature's nobleman!\"
Capt. Brewster did not reply. From certain arch gestures andwreathed smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied herstatement, it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stoodbefore her was the nobleman alluded to. At least, he so accepted it, andembraced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle clinging around hisneck. In this attitude they remained quiet for some moments, slightlyrocking from side to side like a metronome; a movement, I fancy,
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peculiarly bucolic, pastoral, and idyllic, and as such, I wot, observed byTheocritus and Virgil.
At these supreme moments weak woman usually keeps her wits abouther much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal; and, whilethe gallant captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips, Miss Thankfuldistinctly heard the farm-gate click, and otherwise noticed that the moonwas getting high and obtrusive. She half released herself from thecaptain's arms, thoughtfully and tenderly--but firmly. \"Tell me all aboutyourself, Allan dear,\" she said quietly, making room for him on the wall,--\"all, everything.\"
She turned upon him her beautiful eyes,--eyes habitually earnest andeven grave in expression, yet holding in their brave brown depths a sweet,childlike reliance and dependency; eyes with a certain tender, deprecatingdroop in the brown-fringed lids, and yet eyes that seemed to say to everyman who looked upon them, \"I am truthful: be frank with me.\" Indeed, Iam convinced there is not one of my impressible sex, who, looking inthose pleading eyes, would not have perjured himself on the spot ratherthan have disappointed their fair owner.
Capt. Brewster's mouth resumed its old expression of discontent.
\"Everything is growing worse, Thankful, and the cause is lost.Congress does nothing, and Washington is not the man for the crisis.Instead of marching to Philadelphia, and forcing that wretched rabble ofHancock and Adams at the point of the bayonet, he writes letters.\"
\"A dignified, formal old fool,\" interrupted Mistress Thankfulindignantly; \"and look at his wife! Didn't Mistress Ford and MistressBaily, ay, and the best blood of Morris County, go down to hisExcellency's in their finest bibs and tuckers, and didn't they find my ladyin a pinafore doing chores? Vastly polite treatment, indeed! As if thewhole world didn't know that the general was taken by surprise when mylady came riding up from Virginia with all those fine cavaliers, just to seewhat his Excellency was doing at these assembly balls. And fine doings,I dare say.\"
\"This is but idle gossip, Thankful,\" said Capt. Brewster with thefaintest appearance of self-consciousness; \"the assembly balls are
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conceived by the general to strengthen the confidence of the townsfolk,and mitigate the rigors of the winter encampment. I go there myselfrarely: I have but little taste for junketing and gavotting, with my countryin such need. No, Thankful! What we want is a leader; and the men ofConnecticut feel it keenly. If I have been spoken of in that regard,\"added the captain with a slight inflation of his manly breast, \"it is becausethey know of my sacrifices,--because as New England yeomen they knowmy devotion to the cause. They know of my suffering--\"
The bright face that looked into his was suddenly afire with womanlysympathy, the pretty brow was knit, the sweet eyes overflowed withtenderness. \"Forgive me, Allan. I forgot-- perhaps, love--perhaps,dearest, you are hungry now.\"
\"No, not now,\" replied Captain Brewster, with gloomy stoicism; \"yet,\"he added, \"it is nearly a week since I have tasted meat.\"
\"I--I--brought a few things with me,\" continued the girl, with a certainhesitating timidity. She reached down, and produced a basket from theshadow of the wall. \"These chickens\"--she held up a pair of pullets--\"thecommander-in-chief himself could not buy: I kept them for MYcommander! And this pot of marmalade, which I know my Allan loves,is the same I put up last summer. I thought [very tenderly] you mightlike a piece of that bacon you liked so once, dear. Ah, sweetheart, shallwe ever sit down to our little board? Shall we ever see the end of thisawful war? Don't you think, dear [very pleadingly], it would be best togive it up? King George is not such a very bad man, is he? I've thought,sweetheart [very confidently], that mayhap you and he might make it allup without the aid of those Washingtons, who do nothing but starve one todeath. And if the king only knew you, Allan,--should see you as I do,sweetheart,--he'd do just as you say.\"
During this speech she handed him the several articles alluded to; andhe received them, storing them away in such receptacles of his clothing aswere convenient--with this notable difference, that with HER the act wasgraceful and picturesque: with him there was a ludicrousness of suggestionthat his broad shoulders and uniform only heightened.
\"I think not of myself, lass,\" he said, putting the eggs in his pocket,
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and buttoning the chickens within his martial breast. \"I think not ofmyself, and perhaps I often spare that counsel which is but little heeded.But I have a duty to my men--to Connecticut. [He here tied the marmaladeup in his handkerchief.] I confess I have sometimes thought I might,under provocation, be driven to extreme measures for the good of thecause. I make no pretence to leadership, but--\"
\"With you at the head of the army,\" broke in Thankful enthusiastically,\"peace would be declared within a fortnight.\"
There is no flattery, however outrageous, that a man will not acceptfrom the woman whom he believes loves him. He will perhaps doubt itsinfluence in the colder judgment of mankind; but he will consider that thispoor creature, at least, understands him, and in some vague way representsthe eternal but unrecognized verities. And when this is voiced by lips thatare young and warm and red, it is somehow quite as convincing as thebloodless, remoter utterance of posterity.
Wherefore the trooper complacently buttoned the compliment over hischest with the pullets.
\"I think you must go now, Allan,\" she said, looking at him with thatpseudo-maternal air which the youngest of women sometimes assume totheir lovers, as if the doll had suddenly changed sex, and grown to man'sestate. \"You must go now, dear; for it may so chance that father isconsidering my absence overmuch. You will come again a' Wednesday,sweetheart; and you will not go to the assemblies, nor visit Mistress Judith,nor take any girl pick-a- back again on your black horse; and you will letme know when you are hungry?\"
She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain pretty trouble inthe brow, and such a searching, pleading inquiry in her glance, that thecaptain kissed her at once. Then came the final embrace, performed bythe captain in a half-perfunctory, quiet manner, with a due regard for thefriable nature of part of his provisions. Satisfying himself of the integrityof the eggs by feeling for them in his pocket, he waved a military salutewith the other hand to Miss Thankful, and was gone. A few minutes laterthe sound of his horse's hoofs rang sharply from the icy hillside.
But, as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled suddenly from
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the shadow of the roadside, and bade him halt.
\"Capt. Brewster, if this moon does not deceive me?\" queried theforemost stranger with grave civility.
\"The same. Major Van Zandt, I calculate?\" returned Brewsterquerulously.
\"Your calculation is quite right. I regret Capt. Brewster, that it is myduty to inform you that you are under arrest.\"
\"By whose orders?\"
\"The commander-in-chief's.\"\"For what?\"
\"Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior officers.\"
The sword that Capt. Brewster had drawn at the sudden appearance ofthe strangers quivered for a moment in his strong hand. Then, sharplystriking it across the pommel of his saddle, he snapped it in twain, and castthe pieces at the feet of the speaker.
\"Go on,\" he said doggedly.
\"Capt. Brewster,\" said Major Van Zandt, with infinite gravity, \"it is notfor me to point out the danger to you of this outspoken emotion, exceptpractically in its effect upon the rations you have in your pocket. If Imistake not, they have suffered equally with your steel. Forward,march!\"
Capt. Brewster looked down, and then dropped to the rear, as thediscased yolks of Mistress Thankful's most precious gift slid slowly andpensively over his horse's flanks to the ground.
II
Mistress Thankful remained at the wall until her lover haddisappeared. Then she turned, a mere lissom shadow in that uncertainlight, and glided under the eaves of the shed, and thence from tree to treeof the orchard, lingering a moment under each as a trout lingers in theshadow of the bank in passing a shallow, and so reached the farmhouseand the kitchen door, where she entered. Thence by a back staircase sheslipped to her own bower, from whose window half an hour before shehad taken the signalling light. This she lit again and placed upon a chest of
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drawers; and, taking off her hood and a shapeless sleeveless mantle shehad worn, went to the mirror, and proceeded to re-adjust a high horn combthat had been somewhat displaced by the captain's arm, and otherwiseafter the fashion of her sex to remove all traces of a previous lover. It maybe here observed that a man is very apt to come from the smallestencounter with his dulcinea distrait, bored, or shame- faced; to forget thathis cravat is awry, or that a long blond hair is adhering to his button. Butas to Mademoiselle--well, looking at Miss Pussy's sleek paws and spotlessface, would you ever know that she had been at the cream-jug?
Thankful was, I think, satisfied with her appearance. Small doubt butshe had reason for it. And yet her gown was a mere slip of floweredchintz, gathered at the neck, and falling at an angle of fifteen degrees towithin an inch of a short petticoat of gray flannel. But so surely is thecomplete mould of symmetry indicated in the poise or line of any singlemember, that looking at the erect carriage of her graceful brown head, orbelow to the curves that were lost in her shapely ankles, or the little feetthat hid themselves in the broad-buckled shoes, you knew that the rest wasas genuine and beautiful.
Mistress Thankful, after a pause, opened the door, and listened. Thenshe softly slipped down the back staircase to the front hall. It was dark; butthe door of the \"company-room,\" or parlor, was faintly indicated by thelight that streamed beneath it. She stood still for a moment hesitatingly,when suddenly a hand grasped her own, and half led, half dragged her,into the sitting-room opposite. It was dark. There was a momentaryfumbling for the tinder-box and flint, a muttered oath over one or twoimpeding articles of furniture, and Thankful laughed. And then the lightwas lit; and her father, a gray wrinkled man of sixty, still holding her hand,stood before her.
\"You have been out, mistress!\"\"I have,\" said Thankful.
\"And not alone,\" growled the old man angrily.
\"No,\" said Mistress Thankful, with a smile that began in the corners ofher brown eyes, ran down into the dimpled curves of her mouth, andfinally ended in the sudden revelation of her white teeth,--\"no, not alone.\"
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\"With whom?\" asked the old man, gradually weakening under herstrong, saucy presence.
\"Well, father,\" said Thankful, taking a seat on a table, and swingingher little feet somewhat ostentatiously toward him, \"I was with Capt. AllanBrewster of the Connecticut Contingent.\"
\"That man?\"\"That man!\"
\"I forbid you seeing him again.\"
Thankful gripped the table with a hand on each side of her, toemphasize the statement, and swinging her feet replied,--\"I shall see him as often as I like, father.\"\"Thankful Blossom!\"\"Abner Blossom!\"
\"I see you know not,\" said Mr. Blossom, abandoning the severelypaternal mandatory air for one of confidential disclosure, \"I see you knownot his reputation. He is accused of inciting his regiment to revolt,--ofbeing a traitor to the cause.\"
\"And since when, Abner Blossom, have YOU felt such concern for thecause? Since you refused to sell supplies to the Continental commissary,except at double profits? since you told me you were glad I had notpolities like Mistress Ford--\"
\"Hush!\" said the father, motioning to the parlor.
\"Hush,\" echoed Thankful indignantly. \"I won't be hushed!Everybody says 'Hush' to me. The count says 'Hush!' Allan says'Hush!' You say 'Hush!' I'm a-weary of this hushing. Ah, if there wasa man who didn't say it to me!\" and Mistress Thankful lifted her fine eyesto the ceiling.
\"You are unwise, Thankful,--foolish, indiscreet. That is why yourequire much monition.\"
Thankful swung her feet in silence for a few moments, then suddenlyleaped from the table, and, seizing the old man by the lapels of his coat,fixed her eyes upon him, and said suspiciously. \"Why did you keep mefrom going in the company-room? Why did you bring me in here?\"
Blossom senior was staggered for a moment. \"Because, you know,
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the count--\"
\"And you were afraid the count should know I had a sweetheart? Well,I'll go in and tell him now,\" she said, marching toward the door.
\"Then, why did you not tell him when you slipped out an hour ago? eh,lass?\" queried the old man, grasping her hand. \"But 'tis all one, Thankful:'twas not for him I stopped you. There is a young spark with him,--ay,came even as you left, lass,--a likely young gallant; and he and the countare jabbering away in their own lingo, a kind of Italian, belike; eh,Thankful?\"
\"I know not,\" she said thoughtfully. \"Which way came the other?\" Infact, a fear that this young stranger might have witnessed the captain'sembrace began to creep over her.
\"From town, my lass.\"
Thankful turned to her father as if she had been waiting a reply to along-asked question: \"Well?\"
\"Were it not well to put on a few furbelows and a tucker?\" queried theold man. \"'Tis a gallant young spark; none of your country folk.\"
\"No,\" said Thankful, with the promptness of a woman who waslooking her best, and knew it. And the old man, looking at her, acceptedher judgment, and without another word led her to the parlor door, and,opening it, said briefly, \"My daughter, Mistress Thankful Blossom.\"
With the opening of the door came the sound of earnest voices thatinstantly ceased upon the appearance of Mistress Thankful. Twogentlemen lolling before the fire arose instantly, and one came forwardwith an air of familiar yet respectful recognition.
\"Nay, this is far too great happiness, Mistress Thankful,\" he said, witha strongly marked foreign accent, and a still more strongly marked foreignmanner. \"I have been in despair, and my friend here, the Baron Pomposo,likewise.\"
The slightest trace of a smile, and the swiftest of reproachful glances,lit up the dark face of the baron as he bowed low in the introduction.Thankful dropped the courtesy of the period,--i. e., a duck, withsemicircular sweep of the right foot forward. But the right foot was sopretty, and the grace of the little figure so perfect, that the baron raised his
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eyes from the foot to the face in serious admiration. In the one rapidfeminine glance she had given him, she had seen that he was handsome; inthe second, which she could not help from his protracted silence, she sawthat his beauty centred in his girlish, half fawn-like dark eyes.
\"The baron,\" explained Mr. Blossom, rubbing his hands together as ifthrough mere friction he was trying to impart a warmth to the receptionwhich his hard face discountenanced,--\"the baron visits us underdiscouragement. He comes from far countries. It is the custom ofgentlefolk of--of foreign extraction to wander through strange lands,commenting upon the habits and doings of the peoples. He will find inJersey,\" continued Mr. Blossom, apparently appealing to Thankful, yetreally evading her contemptuous glance, \"a hard-working yeomanry, everready to welcome the stranger, and account to him, penny for penny, forall his necessary expenditure; for which purpose, in these troublous times,he will provide for himself gold or other moneys not affected by theselocal disturbances.\"
\"He will find, good friend Blossom,\" said the baron in a rapid, volubleway, utterly at variance with the soft, quiet gravity of his eyes, \"Beauty,Grace, Accom-plishment, and--eh--Santa Maria, what shall I say?\" Heturned appealingly to the count.
\"Virtue,\" nodded the count.
\"Truly, Birtoo! all in the fair lady of thees countries. Ah, believe me,honest friend Blossom, there is mooch more in thees than in thoss!\"
So much of this speech was addressed to Mistress Thankful, that shehad to show at least one dimple in reply, albeit her brows were slightlyknit, and she had turned upon the speaker her honest, questioning eyes.
\"And then the General Washington has been kind enough to offer hisprotection,\" added the count.
\"Any fool--any one,\" supplemented Thankful hastily, with a slightblush--\"may have the general's pass, ay, and his good word. But what ofMistress Prudence Bookstaver?--she that has a sweetheart inKnyphausen's brigade, ay,--I warrant a Hessian, but of gentle blood, asMistress Prudence has often told me,--and, look you, all her letters stoppedby the general, ay, I warrant, read by my Lady Washington too, as if 'twere
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HER fault that her lad was in arms against Congress. Riddle me that,now!\"
\"'Tis but prudence, lass,\" said Blossom, frowning on the girl. \"'Tis thatshe might disclose some movement of the army, tending to defeat theenemy.\"
\"And why should she not try to save her lad from capture orambuscade such as befell the Hessian commissary with the provisions thatyou--\"
Mr. Blossom, in an ostensible fatherly embrace, managed to pinchMistress Thankful sharply. \"Hush, lass,\" he said with simulatedplayfulness; \"your tongue clacks like the Whippany mill.--My daughterhas small concern--'tis the manner of womenfolk--in politics,\" heexplained to his guests. \"These dangersome days have given her soreaffliction by way of parting comrades of her childhood, and others whomshe has much affected. It has in some sort soured her.\"
Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as it escaped him,lest it should lead to a revelation from the truthful Mistress Thankful ofher relations with the Continental captain. But to his astonishment, and, Imay add, to my own, she showed nothing of that disposition she hadexhibited a few moments before. On the contrary, she blushed slightly,and said nothing.
And then the conversation changed,--upon the weather, the hard winter,the prospects of the Cause, a criticism upon the commander- in-chief'smanagement of affairs, the attitude of Congress, etc., between Mr.Blossom and the count; characterized, I hardly need say, by thatpositiveness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In anotherpart of the room, it so chanced that Mistress Thankful and the baron weretalking about themselves; the assembly balls; who was the prettiest womanin Morristown; and whether Gen. Washington's attentions to Mistress Pynewere only perfunctory gallantry, or what; and if Lady Washington's hairwas really gray; and if that young aide-de-camp, Major Van Zandt werereally in love with Lady or whether his attentions were only the zeal of asubaltern,--in the midst of which a sudden gust of wind shook the house;and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, came back with the
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announcement that it was snowing heavily.
And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished eyes the wholeface of nature had changed. The moon was gone, the sky hidden in ablinding, whirling swarm of stinging flakes. The wind, bitter and strong,had already fashioned white feathery drifts upon the threshold, over thepainted benches on the porch, and against the door-posts.
Mistress Thankful and the baron had walked to the rear door--thebaron with a slight tropical shudder--to view this meteorological change.As Mistress Thankful looked over the snowy landscape, it seemed to herthat all record of her past experience had been effaced: her very footprintsof an hour before were lost; the gray wall on which she leaned was whiteand spotless now; even the familiar farm-shed looked dim and strange andghostly. Had she been there? had she seen the captain? was it all a fancy?She scarcely knew.
A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them with a crash, andsent Mistress Thankful, with a slight feminine scream, forward into theouter darkness. But the baron caught her by the waist, and saved herfrom Heaven knows what imaginable disaster; and the scene ended in ahalf-hysterical laugh. But the wind then set upon them both with amalevolent fury; and the baron was, I presume, obliged to draw her closerto his side.
They were alone, save for the presence of those mischievousconfederates, Nature and Opportunity. In the half-obscurity of the stormshe could not help turning her mischievous eyes on his. But she wasperhaps surprised to find them luminous, soft, and, as it seemed to her atthat moment, grave beyond the occasion. An embarrassment utterly newand singular seized upon her; and when, as she half feared yet halfexpected, he bent down and pressed his lips to hers, she was for a momentpowerless. But in the next instant she boxed his ears sharply, andvanished in the darkness. When Mr. Blossom opened the door to the baronhe was surprised to find that gentleman alone, and still more surprised tofind, when they re-entered the house, to see Mistress Thankful enter at thesame moment, demurely, from the front door.
When Mr. Blossom knocked at his daughter's door the next morning it
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opened upon her completely dressed, but withal somewhat pale, and, if thetruth must be told, a little surly.
\"And you were stirring so early, Thankful,\" he said: \"'twould havebeen but decent to have bidden God-speed to the guests, especially thebaron, who seemed much concerned at your absence.\"
Miss Thankful blushed slightly, but answered with savage celerity,\"And since when is it necessary that I should dance attendance upon everyforeign jack-in-the-box that may lie at the house?\"
\"He has shown great courtesy to you, mistress, and is a gentleman.\"\"Courtesy, indeed!\" said Mistress Thankful.
\"He has not presumed?\" said Mr. Blossom suddenly, bringing his coldgray eyes to bear upon his daughter's.
\"No, no,\" said Thankful hurriedly, flaming a bright scarlet; \"but--nothing. But what have you there? a letter?\"
\"Ay,--from the captain, I warrant,\" said Mr. Blossom, handing her athree-cornered bit of paper: \"'twas left here by a camp-follower.Thankful,\" he continued, with a meaning glance, \"you will heed mycounsel in season. The captain is not meet for such as you.\"
Thankful suddenly grew pale and contemptuous again as she snatchedthe letter from his hand. When his retiring footsteps were lost on thestairs she regained her color, and opened the letter. It was slovenlywritten, grievously misspelled, and read as follows:-- \"SWEETHEART: A tyranous Act, begotten in Envy and Jealousie,keeps me here a prisoner. Last night I was Basely arrested by ServileHands for that Freedom of Thought and Expression for which I havealready Sacrifized so much--aye all that Man hath but Love and Honour.But the End is Near. When for the Maintenance of Power, the Libertiesof the Peoples are subdued by Martial Supremacy and the Dictates ofAmbition the State is Lost. I lie in Vile Bondage here in Morristownunder charge of Disrespeck--me that a twelvemonth past left a home andRespectable Connexions to serve my Country. Believe me still your ownLove, albeit in the Power of Tyrants and condemned it may be to thescaffold.
\"The Messenger is Trustworthy and will speed safely to me such as
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you may deliver unto him. The Provender sanktified by your Hands andmade precious by yr. Love was wrested from me by Servil Hands and theEggs, Sweetheart, were somewhat Addled. The Bacon is, methinks bythis time on the Table of the Comr-in-Chief. Such is Tyranny andAmbition. Sweetheart, farewell, for the present.
ALLAN.\"
Mistress Thankful read this composition once, twice, and then tore itup. Then, reflecting that it was the first letter of her lover's that she hadnot kept, she tried to put together again the torn fragments, but vainly, andthen in a pet, new to her, cast them from the window. During the rest ofthe day she was considerably distraite, and even manifested more temperthan she was wont to do; and later, when her father rode away on his dailyvisit to Morristown, she felt strangely relieved. By noon the snow ceased,or rather turned into a driving sleet that again in turn gave way to rain.By this time she became absorbed in her household duties,--in which shewas usually skilful,--and in her own thoughts that to-day had a novelty intheir meaning. In the midst of this, at about dark, her room being in therear of the house, she was perhaps unmindful of the trampling of horsewithout, or the sound of voices in the hall below. Neither wasuncommon at that time. Although protected by the Continental armyfrom forage or the rudeness of soldiery, the Blossom farm had alwaysbeen a halting-place for passing troopers, commissary teamsters, andreconnoitring officers. Gen. Sullivan and Col. Hamilton had wateredtheir horses at its broad, substantial wayside trough, and sat in the shade ofits porch. Miss Thankful was only awakened from her daydream by theentrance of the negro farm-hand, Caesar.
\"Fo' God, Missy Thankful, them sogers is g'wine into camp in the road,I reckon, for they's jest makin' theysevs free afo' the house, and they's anofficer in the company-room with his spurs cocked on the table, readin' abook.\"
A quick flame leaped into Thankful's cheek, and her pretty brows knitthemselves over darkening eyes. She arose from her work no longer themoody girl, but an indignant goddess, and, pushing the servant aside,swept down the stairs, and threw open the door.
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An officer sitting by the fire in an easy, lounging attitude that justifiedthe servant's criticism, arose instantly with an air of evidentembarrassment and surprise that was, however, as quickly dominated andcontrolled by a gentleman's breeding.
\"I beg your pardon,\" he said, with a deep inclination of his handsomehead, \"but I had no idea that there was any member of this household athome--at least, a lady.\" He hesitated a moment, catching in the raising ofher brown-fringed lids a sudden revelation of her beauty, and partly losinghis composure. \"I am Major Van Zandt: I have the honor of addressing--\"
\"Thankful Blossom,\" said Thankful a little proudly, divining with awoman's swift instinct the cause of the major's hesitation. But hertriumph was checked by a new embarrassment visible in the face of theofficer at the mention of her name.
\"Thankful Blossom,\" repeated the officer quickly. \"You are, then, thedaughter of Abner Blossom?\"
\"Certainly,\" said Thankful, turning her inquiring eyes upon him. \"Hewill be here betimes. He has gone only to Morristown.\" In a new fearthat had taken possession of her, her questioning eyes asked, \"Has he not?\"
The officer, answering her eyes rather than her lips, came toward hergravely. \"He will not return to-day, Mistress Thankful, nor perhaps evento-morrow. He is--a prisoner.\"
Thankful opened her brown eyes aggressively on the major. \"Aprisoner--for what?\"
\"For aiding and giving comfort to the enemy, and for harboring spies,\"replied the major with military curtness.
Mistress Thankful's cheek flushed slightly at the last sentence: arecollection of the scene on the porch and the baron's stolen kiss flashedacross her, and for a moment she looked as guilty as if the man before herhad been a witness to the deed. He saw it, and misinterpreted herconfusion.
\"Belike, then,\" said Mistress Thankful, slightly raising her voice, andstanding squarely before the major, \"belike, then, I should be a prisonertoo; for the guests of this house, if they be spies, were MY guests, and, as
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my father's daughter, I was their hostess; ay, man, and right glad to be thehostess of such gallant gentlemen,--gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insulta defenceless girl; gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on thetable, or turn an honest farmer's house into a tap-room.\"
An expression of half pain, half amusement, covered the face of themajor, but he made no other reply than by a profound and graceful bow.Courteous and deprecatory as it was, it apparently exasperated MistressThankful only the more.
\"And pray who are these spies, and who is the informer?\" saidMistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with one hand truculently placed onher flexible hip, and the other slipped behind her. \"Methinks 'tis onlyhonest we should know when and how we have entertained both.\"
\"Your father, Mistress Thankful,\" said Major Van Zandt gravely, \"haslong been suspected of favoring the enemy; but it has been the policy ofthe commander-in-chief to overlook the political preferences of non-combatants, and to strive to win their allegiance to the good cause byliberal privileges. But when it was lately discovered that two strangers,although bearing a pass from him, have been frequenters of this houseunder fictitious names--\"
\"You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo,\" said Thankfulquickly,--\"two honest gentlefolk; and if they choose to pay their devoirs toa lass--although, perhaps, not a quality lady, yet an honest girl--\"
\"Dear Mistress Thankful,\" said the major with a profound bow andsmile, that, spite of its courtesy, drove Thankful to the verge of wrathfulhysterics, \"if you establish that fact,--and, from this slight acquaintancewith your charms, I doubt not you will,--your father is safe from furtherinquiry or detention. The commander- in-chief is a gentleman who hasnever underrated the influence of your sex, nor held himself averse to itsfascinations.\"
\"What is the name of this informer?\" broke in Mistress Thankfulangrily. \"Who is it that has dared--\"
\"It is but king's evidence, mayhap, Mistress Thankful; for the informeris himself under arrest. It is on the information of Capt. Allan Brewsterof the Connecticut Contingent.\"
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Mistress Thankful whitened, then flushed, and then whitened again.Then she stood up to the major.
\"It's a lie,--a cowardly lie!\"
Major Van Zandt bowed. Mistress Thankful flew up stairs, and inanother moment swept back again into the room in riding hat and habit.
\"I suppose I can go and see--my father,\" she said, without lifting hereyes to the officer.
\"You are free as air, Mistress Thankful. My orders and instructions,far from implicating you in your father's offences, do not even suggestyour existence. Let me help you to your horse.\"
The girl did not reply. During that brief interval, however, Caesarhad saddled her white mare, and brought it to the door. Mistress Thankful,disdaining the offered hand of the major, sprang to the saddle.
The major still held the reins. \"One moment, Mistress Thankful.\"\"Let me go!\" she said, with suppressed passion.\"One moment, I beg.\"
His hand still held her bridle-rein. The mare reared, nearly upsettingher. Crimson with rage and mortification, she raised her riding-whip, andlaid it smartly over the face of the man before her.
He dropped the rein instantly. Then he raised to her a face calm andcolorless, but for a red line extending from his eyebrow to his chin, andsaid quietly,--\"I had no desire to detain you. I only wished to say that when yousee Gen. Washington I know you will be just enough to tell him that MajorVan Zandt knew nothing of your wrongs, or even your presence here, untilyou presented them, and that since then he has treated you as became anofficer and a gentleman.\"
Yet even as he spoke she was gone. At the moment that her flutteringskirt swept in a furious gallop down the hillside, the major turned, and re-entered the house. The few lounging troopers who were witnesses of thescene prudently turned their eyes from the white face and blazing eyes oftheir officer as he strode by them. Nevertheless, when the door closedbehind him, contemporary criticism broke out:--\"'Tis a Tory jade, vexed that she cannot befool the major as she has the
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captain,\" muttered Sergeant Tibbitts.
\"And going to try her tricks on the general,\" added Private Hicks.
Howbeit both these critics may have been wrong. For as MistressThankful thundered down the Morristown road she thought of many things.She thought of her sweetheart Allan, a prisoner, and pining for HER helpand HER solicitude; and yet--how dared he--if he HAD really betrayed ormisjudged her! And then she thought bitterly of the count and the baron,and burned to face the latter, and in some vague way charge the stolen kissupon him as the cause of all her shame and mortification. And lastly shethought of her father, and began to hate everybody. But above all andthrough all, in her vague fears for her father, in her passionate indignationagainst the baron, in her fretful impatience of Allan, one thing was everdominant and obtrusive; one thing she tried to put away, but could not,--the handsome, colorless face of Major Van Zandt, with the red welt of herriding-whip overlying its cold outlines.
III
The rising wind, which had ridden much faster than MistressThankful, had increased to a gale by the time it reached Morristown. Itswept through the leafless maples, and rattled the dry bones of the elms.It whistled through the quiet Presbyterian churchyard, as if trying toarouse the sleepers it had known in days gone by. It shook the blank,lustreless windows of the Assembly Rooms over the Freemasons' Tavern,and wrought in their gusty curtains moving shadows of those amplypetticoated dames and tightly hosed cavaliers who had swung in \"SirRoger,\" or jigged in \"Money Musk,\" the night before.
But I fancy it was around the isolated \"Ford Mansion,\" better knownas the \"headquarters,\" that the wind wreaked its grotesque rage. It howledunder its scant eaves, it sang under its bleak porch, it tweaked the peak ofits front gable, it whistled through every chink and cranny of its square,solid, unpicturesque structure. Situated on a hillside that descended rapidlyto the Whippany River, every summer zephyr that whispered through theporches of the Morristown farm-houses charged as a stiff breeze upon theswinging half doors and windows of the \"Ford Mansion\"; every wintry
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wind became a gale that threatened its security. The sentry who pacedbefore its front porch knew from experience when to linger under its lee,and adjust his threadbare outer coat to the bitter north wind.
Within the house something of this cheerlessness prevailed. It had anascetic gloom, which the scant firelight of the reception-room, and thedying embers on the dining-room hearth, failed to dissipate. The centralhall was broad, and furnished plainly with a few rush-bottomed chairs, onone of which half dozed a black body-servant of the commander-in-chief.Two officers in the dining-room, drawn close by the chimney-corner,chatted in undertones, as if mindful that the door of the drawing-room wasopen, and their voices might break in upon its sacred privacy. Theswinging light in the hall partly illuminated it, or rather glanced gloomilyfrom the black polished furniture, the lustreless chairs, the quaint cabinet,the silent spinet, the skeleton-legged centre- table, and finally upon themotionless figure of a man seated by the fire.
It was a figure since so well known to the civilized world, since socelebrated in print and painting, as to need no description here. Its rarecombination of gentle dignity with profound force, of a set resoluteness ofpurpose with a philosophical patience, have been so frequently deliveredto a people not particularly remarkable for these qualities, that I fear it hastoo often provoked a spirit of playful aggression, in which the deeperunderlying meaning was forgotten. So let me add that in manner,physical equipoise, and even in the mere details of dress, this figureindicated a certain aristocratic exclusiveness. It was the presentment of aking,--a king who by the irony of circumstances was just then waging waragainst all kingship; a ruler of men, who just then was fighting for theright of these men to govern themselves, but whom by his own inherentright he dominated. From the crown of his powdered head to the silverbuckle of his shoe he was so royal that it was not strange that his brotherGeorge of England and Hanover--ruling by accident, otherwise impiouslyknown as the \"grace of God\"--could find no better way of resisting hispower than by calling him \"Mr. Washington.\"
The sound of horses' hoofs, the formal challenge of sentry, the gravequestioning of the officer of the guard, followed by footsteps upon the
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porch, did not apparently disturb his meditation. Nor did the opening ofthe outer door, and a charge of cold air into the hall that invaded even theprivacy of the reception-room, and brightened the dying embers on thehearth, stir his calm pre-occupation. But an instant later there was thedistinct rustle of a feminine skirt in the hall, a hurried whispering of men'svoices, and then the sudden apparition of a smooth, fresh-faced youngofficer over the shoulder of the unconscious figure.
\"I beg your pardon, general,\" said the officer doubtingly, \"but--\"\"You are not intruding, Col. Hamilton,\" said the general quietly.
\"There is a young lady without who wishes an audience of yourExcellency. 'Tis Mistress Thankful Blossom,--the daughter of AbnerBlossom, charged with treasonous practice and favoring the enemy, nowin the guard-house at Morristown.\"
\"Thankful Blossom?\" repeated the general interrogatively.
\"Your Excellency doubtless remembers a little provincial beauty and afamous toast of the country-side,--the Cressida of our Morristown epic,who led our gallant. Connecticut captain astray--\"
\"You have the advantages, besides the better memory of a youngerman, colonel,\" said Washington, with a playful smile that slightlyreddened the cheek of his aide-de-camp. \"Yet I think I HAVE heard ofthis phenomenon. By all means, admit her--and her escort.\"
\"She is alone, general,\" responded the subordinate.
\"Then the more reason why we should be polite,\" returned Washington,for the first time altering his easy posture, rising to his feet, and lightlyclasping his ruffled hands before him. \"We must not keep her waiting.Give her access, my dear colonel, at once; and even as she came,--ALONE.\"
The aide-de-camp bowed and withdrew. In another moment the half-opened door swung wide to Mistress Thankful Blossom.
She was so beautiful in her simple riding-dress, so quaint and originalin that very beauty, and, above all, so teeming with a certain vitalearnestness of purpose just positive and audacious enough to set off thatbeauty, that the grave gentleman before her did not content himself withthe usual formal inclination of courtesy, but actually advanced, and, taking
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her cold little hand in his, graciously led her to the chair he had justvacated.
\"Even if your name were not known to me, Mistress Thankful,\" saidthe commander-in-chief, looking down upon her with grave politeness,\"nature has, methinks, spared you the necessity of any introduction to thecourtesy of a gentleman. But how can I especially serve you?\"
Alack! the blaze of Mistress Thankful's brown eyes had becomesomewhat dimmed in the grave half-lights of the room, in the graver,deeper dignity of the erect, soldier-like figure before her. The brightcolor born of the tempest within and without had somehow faded from hercheek; the sauciness begotten from bullying her horse in the last half-hour's rapid ride was so subdued by the actual presence of the man she hadcome to bully, that I fear she had to use all her self-control to keep downher inclination to whimper, and to keep back the tears, that, oddly enough,rose to her sweet eyes as she lifted them to the quietly critical yet placidglance of her interlocutor.
\"I can readily conceive the motive of this visit, Miss Thankful,\"continued Washington, with a certain dignified kindliness that was morereassuring than the formal gallantry of the period; \"and it is, I protest, toyour credit. A father's welfare, however erring and weak that father maybe, is most seemly in a maiden--\"
Thankful's eyes flashed again as she rose to her feet. Her upper lip,that had a moment before trembled in a pretty infantine distress, nowstiffened and curled as she confronted the dignified figure before her. \"Itis not of my father I would speak,\" she said saucily: \"I did not ride herealone to-night, in this weather, to talk of HIM; I warrant HE can speak forhimself. I came here to speak of myself, of lies--ay, LIES told of me, apoor girl; ay, of cowardly gossip about me and my sweetheart, Capt.Brewster, now confined in prison because he hath loved me, a lass withoutpolities or adherence to the cause--as if 'twere necessary every lad shouldask the confidence or permission of yourself or, belike, my LadyWashington, in his preferences.\"
She paused a moment, out of breath. With a woman's quickness ofintuition she saw the change in Washington's face,--saw a certain cold
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severity overshadowing it. With a woman's fateful persistency--apersistency which I humbly suggest might, on occasion, be honorablycopied by our more politic sex--she went on to say what was in her, evenif she were obliged, with a woman's honorable inconsistency, to unsay itan hour or two later; an inconsistency which I also humbly protest mightbe as honorably imitated by us--on occasion.
\"It has been said,\" said Thankful Blossom quickly, \"that my father hasgiven entertainment knowingly to two spies,--two spies that, begging yourExcellency's pardon, and the pardon of Congress, I know only as twohonorable gentlemen who have as honorably tendered me their affections.It is said, and basely and most falsely too, that my sweetheart, Capt. AllanBrewster, has lodged this information. I have ridden here to deny it. Ihave ridden here to demand of you that an honest woman's reputation shallnot be sacrificed to the interests of politics; that a prying mob ofragamuffins shall not be sent to an honest farmer's house to spy and spy--and turn a poor girl out of doors that they might do it. 'Tis shameful, so itis; there! 'tis most scandalous, so it is: there, now! Spies, indeed! whatare THEY, pray?\"
In the indignation which the recollection of her wrongs had slowlygathered in her, from the beginning of this speech, she had advanced herface, rosy with courage, and beautiful in its impertinence, within a fewinches of the dignified features and quiet gray eyes of the greatcommander. To her utter stupefaction, he bent his head and kissed her,with a grave benignity, full on the centre of her audacious forehead.
\"Be seated, I beg, Mistress Blossom,\" he said, taking her cold hand inhis, and quietly replacing her in the unoccupied chair. \"Be seated, I beg,and give me, if you can, your attention for a moment. The officerintrusted with the ungracious task of occupying your father's house is amember of my military family, and a gentleman. If he has so farforgotten himself--if he has so far disgraced himself and me as--\"
\"No! no!\" uttered Thankful, with feverish alacrity, \"the gentleman wasmost considerate. On the contrary--mayhap--I\"--she hesitated, and thencame to a full stop, with a heightened color, as a vivid recollection of thatgentleman's face, with the mark of her riding- whip lying across it, rose
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before her.
\"I was about to say that Major Van Zandt, as a gentleman, has knownhow to fully excuse the natural impulses of a daughter,\" continuedWashington, with a look of perfect understanding; \"but let me now satisfyyou on another point, where it would seem we greatly differ.\"
He walked to the door, and summoned his servant, to whom he gavean order. In another moment the fresh-faced young officer who had atfirst admitted her re-appeared with a file of official papers. He glancedslyly at Thankful Blossom's face with an amused look, as if he had alreadyheard the colloquy between her and his superior officer, and hadappreciated that which neither of the earnest actors in the scene hadthemselves felt,--a certain sense of humor in the situation.
Howbeit, standing before them, Col. Hamilton gravely turned over thefile of papers. Thankful bit her lips in embarrassment. A slight feelingof awe, and a presentiment of some fast-coming shame; a new and strangeconsciousness of herself, her surroundings, of the dignity of the two menbefore her; an uneasy feeling of the presence of two ladies who had insome mysterious way entered the room from another door, and whoseemed to be intently regarding her from afar with a curiosity as if shewere some strange animal; and a wild premonition that her whole futurelife and happiness depended upon the events of the next few moments,--sotook possession of her, that the brave girl trembled for a moment in herisolation and loneliness. In another instant Col. Hamilton, speaking tohis superior, but looking obviously at one of the ladies who had entered,handed a paper to Washington, and said, \"Here are the charges.\"
\"Read them,\" said the general coldly.
Col. Hamilton, with a manifest consciousness of another hearer thanMistress Blossom and his general, read the paper. It was couched inphrases of military and legal precision, and related briefly, that upon thecertain and personal knowledge of the writer, Abner Blossom of the\"Blossom Farm\" was in the habit of entertaining two gentlemen, namely,the \"Count Ferdinand\" and the \"Baron Pomposo,\" suspected enemies ofthe cause, and possible traitors to the Continental army. It was signed byAllan Brewster, late captain in the Connecticut Contingent.
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As Col. Hamilton exhibited the signature, Thankful Blossom had nodifficulty in recognizing the familiar bad hand and equally familiar mis-spelling of her lover.
She rose to her feet. With eyes that showed her present trouble andperplexity as frankly as they had a moment before blazed with herindignation, she met, one by one, the glances of the group who nowseemed to be closing round her. Yet with a woman's instinct she felt, Iam constrained to say, more unfriendliness in the silent presence of thetwo women than in the possible outspoken criticism of our much-abusedsex.
\"Of course,\" said a voice which Thankful at once, by a woman'sunerring instinct, recognized as the elder of the two ladies, and thelegitimate keeper of the conscience of some one of the men who werepresent,--\"of course Mistress Thankful will be able to elect which of herlovers among her country's enemies she will be able to cling to for supportin her present emergency. She does not seem to have been so special inher favors as to have positively excluded any one.\"
\"At least, dear Lady Washington, she will not give it to the man whohas proven a traitor to HER,\" said the younger woman impulsively.\"That is--I beg your ladyship's pardon\"--she hesitated, observing in thedead silence that ensued that the two superior male beings present lookedat each other in lofty astonishment.
\"He that is trait'rous to his country,\" said Lady Washington coldly, \"isapt to be trait'rous elsewhere.\"
\"'Twere as honest to say that he that was trait'rous to his king wastrait'rous to his country,\" said Mistress Thankful with sudden audacity,bending her knit brows on Lady Washington. But that lady turneddignifiedly away, and Mistress Thankful again faced the general.
\"I ask your pardon,\" she said proudly, \"for troubling you with mywrongs. But it seems to me that even if another and a greater wrongwere done me by my sweetheart, through jealousy, it would not justify thisaccusation against me, even though,\" she added, darting a wicked glanceat the placid brocaded back of Lady Washington, \"even though thataccusation came from one who knows that jealousy may belong to the
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wife of a patriot as well as a traitor.\" She was herself again after thisspeech, although her face was white with the blow she had taken andreturned.
Col. Hamilton passed his hand across his mouth, and coughed slightly.Gen. Washington, standing by the fire with an impassive face, turned toThankful gravely:--\"You are forgetting, Mistress Thankful, that you have not told me howI can serve you. It cannot be that you are still concerned in Capt.Brewster, who has given evidence against your other--FRIENDS, andtacitly against YOU. Nor can it be on their account, for I regret to saythey are still free and unknown. If you come with any informationexculpating them, and showing they are not spies or hostile to the cause,your father's release shall be certain and speedy. Let me ask you a singlequestion: Why do you believe them honest?\"
\"Because,\" said Mistress Thankful, \"they were--were--gentlemen.\"\"Many spies have been of excellent family, good address, and fairtalents,\" said Washington gravely; \"but you have, mayhap, some otherreason.\"
\"Because they talked only to ME,\" said Mistress Thankful, blushingmightily; \"because they preferred my company to father's; because\"-- shehesitated a moment--\"because they spoke not of politics, but-- of--thatwhich lads mainly talk of--and--and,\"--here she broke down a little,--\"andthe baron I only saw once, but he\"--here she broke down utterly--\"I knowthey weren't spies: there, now!\"
\"I must ask you something more,\" said Washington, with gravekindness: \"whether you give me the information or not, you will consider,that, if what you believe is true, it cannot in any way injure the gentlemenyou speak of; while, on the other hand, it may relieve your father ofsuspicion. Will you give to Col. Hamilton, my secretary, a fulldescription of them,--that fuller description which Capt. Brewster, forreasons best known to yourself, was unable to give?\"
Mistress Thankful hesitated for a moment, and then, with one of hertruthful glances at the commander-in-chief, began a detailed account of theoutward semblance of the count. Why she began with him, I am unable
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to say; but possibly it was because it was easier, for when she came todescribe the baron, she was, I regret to say, somewhat vague and figurative.Not so vague, however, but that Col. Hamilton suddenly started up with alook at his chief, who instantly checked it with a gesture of his ruffledhand.
\"I thank you. Mistress Thankful,\" he said quite impassively, \"but didthis other gentleman, this baron--\"
\"Pomposo,\" said Thankful proudly. A titter originated in the group ofladies by the window, and became visible on the fresh face of Col.Hamilton; but the dignified color of Washington's countenance wasunmoved.
\"May I ask if the baron made an honorable tender of his affections toyou,\" he continued, with respectful gravity,--\"if his attentions were knownto your father, and were such as honest Mistress Blossom could receive?\"
\"Father introduced him to me, and wanted me to be kind to him, He--he kissed me, and I slapped his face,\" said Thankful quickly, with cheeksas red, I warrant, as the baron's might have been.
The moment the words had escaped her truthful lips, she would havegiven her life to recall them. To her astonishment, however, Col.Hamilton laughed outright, and the ladies turned and approached her, butwere checked by a slight gesture from the otherwise impassive figure ofthe general.
\"It is possible, Mistress Thankful,\" he resumed, with undisturbedcomposure, \"that one at least of these gentlemen may be known to us, andthat your instincts may be correct. At least rest assured that we shallfully inquire into it, and that your father shall have the benefit of thatinquiry.\"
\"I thank your Excellency,\" said Thankful, still reddening under thecontemplation of her own late frankness, and retreating toward the door.\"I--think--I--must--go--now. It is late, and I have far to ride.\"
To her surprise, however, Washington stepped forward, and, againtaking her hands in his, said with a grave smile, \"For that very reason, iffor none other, you must be our guest to-night, Mistress Thankful Blossom.We still retain our Virginian ideas of hospitality, and are tyrannous enough
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to make strangers conform to them, even though we have but perchancethe poorest of entertainment to offer them. Lady Washington will notpermit Mistress Thankful Blossom to leave her roof to-night until she haspartaken of her courtesy as well as her counsel.\"
\"Mistress Thankful Blossom will make us believe that she has at leastin so far trusted our desire to serve her justly, by accepting our poorhospitality for a single night,\" said Lady Washington, with a statelycourtesy.
Thankful Blossom still stood irresolutely at the door. But the nextmoment a pair of youthful arms encircled her; and the youngergentlewoman, looking into her brown eyes with an honest frankness equalto her own, said caressingly, \"Dear Mistress Thankful, though I am but aguest in her ladyship's house, let me, I pray you, add my voice to hers. Iam Mistress Schuyler of Albany, at your service, Mistress Thankful, asCol. Hamilton here will bear me witness, did I need any interpreter to yourhonest heart. Believe me, dear Mistress Thankful, I sympathize with you,and only beg you to give me an opportunity to-night to serve you. Youwill stay, I know, and you will stay with me; and we shall talk over thefaithlessness of that over-jealous Yankee captain who has proved himself,I doubt not, as unworthy of YOU as he is of his country.\"
Hateful to Thankful as was the idea of being commiserated, shenevertheless could not resist the gentle courtesy and gracious sympathy ofMiss Schuyler. Besides, it must be confessed that for the first time in herlife she felt a doubt of the power of her own independence, and a strangefascination for this young gentlewoman whose arms were around her, whocould so thoroughly sympathize with her, and yet allow herself to besnubbed by Lady Washington.
\"You have a mother, I doubt not?\" said Thankful, raising herquestioning eyes to Miss Schuyler.
Irrelevant as this question seemed to the two gentlemen, Miss Schuyleranswered it with feminine intuition: \"And you, dear Mistress Thankful--\"
\"Have none,\" said Thankful; and here, I regret to say, she whimperedslightly, at which Miss Schuyler, with tears in her own fine eyes, bent herhead suddenly to Thankful's ear, put her arm about the waist of the pretty
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stranger, and then, to the astonishment of Col. Hamilton, quietly swept herout of the august presence.
When the door had closed upon them, Col. Hamilton turned half-smilingly, half-inquiringly, to his chief. Washington returned his glancekindly but gravely, and then said quietly,--\"If your suspicions jump with mine, colonel, I need not remind youthat it is a matter so delicate that it would be as well if you locked it inyour own breast for the present; at least, that you should not intimate tothe gentleman whom you may have suspected, aught that has passed thisevening.\"
\"As you will, general,\" said the subaltern respectfully; \"but may Iask\"--he hesitated--\"if you believe that anything more than a passing fancyfor a pretty girl--\"
\"When I asked your silence, colonel,\" interrupted Washington kindly,laying his hand upon the shoulder of the younger man, \"it was because Ithought the matter sufficiently momentous to claim my own private andespecial attention.\"
\"I ask your Excellency's pardon,\" said the young man, reddeningthrough his fresh complexion like a girl; \"I only meant--\"
\"That you would ask to be relieved to-night,\" interrupted Washington,with a benign smile, \"forasmuch as you wished the more to showentertainment to our dear friend Miss Schuyler, and her guest; a waywardgirl, colonel, but, methinks, an honest one. Treat her of your own quality,colonel, but discreetly, and not too kindly, lest we have Mistress Schuyler,another injured damsel, on our hands;\" and with a half playful gesturepeculiar to the man, and yet not inconsistent with his dignity, he half led,half pushed his youthful secretary from the room.
When the door had closed upon the colonel, Lady Washington rustledtoward her husband, who stood still, quiet and passive, on the hearthstone.
\"You surely see in this escapade nothing of political intrigue--notreachery?\" she said hastily.
\"No,\" said Washington quietly.
\"Nothing more than an idle, wanton intrigue with a foolish, vaincountry girl?\"
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\"Pardon me, my lady,\" said Washington gravely. \"I doubt not wemay misjudge her. 'Tis no common rustic lass that can thus stir thecountry side. 'Twere an insult to your sex to believe it. It is not yet surethat she has not captured even so high game as she has named. If she has,it would add another interest to a treaty of comity and alliance.\"
\"That creature!\" said Lady Washington,--\"that light-o'-love with herConnecticut captain lover! Pardon me, but this is preposterous;\" andwith a stiff courtesy she swept from the room, leaving the central figure ofhistory--as such central figures are apt to be left--alone.
Later in the evening Mistress Schuyler so far subdued the tears andemotions of Thankful, that she was enabled to dry her eyes, and re-arrange her brown hair in the quaint little mirror in Mistress Schuyler'schamber; Mistress Schuyler herself lending a touch and suggestion hereand there, after the secret freemasonry of her sex. \"You are well rid of thisforsworn captain, dear Mistress Thankful; and methinks that with hair asbeautiful as yours, the new style of wearing it, though a modish frivolity,is most becoming. I assure you 'tis much affected in New York andPhiladelphia,--drawn straight back from the forehead, after this manner, asyou see.\"
The result was, that an hour later Mistress Schuyler and MistressBlossom presented themselves to Col. Hamilton in the reception- room,with a certain freshness and elaboration of toilet that not only quiteshamed the young officer's affaire negligence, but caused him to open hiseyes in astonishment. \"Perhaps she would rather be alone, that she mightindulge her grief,\" he said doubtingly, in an aside to Miss Schuyler, \"ratherthan appear in company.\"
\"Nonsense,\" quoth Mistress Schuyler. \"Is a young woman to mopeand sigh because her lover proves false?\"
\"But her father is a prisoner,\" said Hamilton in amazement.
\"Can you look me in the face,\" said Mistress Schuyler mischievously,\"and tell me that you don't know that in twenty-four hours her father willbe cleared of these charges? Nonsense! Do you think I have no eyes inmy head? Do you think I misread the general's face and your own?\"
\"But, my dear girl,\" said the officer in alarm.
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\"Oh! I told her so, but not WHY,\" responded Miss Schuyler with awicked look in her dark eyes, \"though I had warrant enough to do so, toserve you for keeping a secret from ME!\"
And with this Parthian shot she returned to Mistress Thankful, who,with her face pressed against the window, was looking out on the moonlitslope beside the Whippany River.
For, by one of those freaks peculiar to the American springtide, theweather had again marvellously changed. The rain had ceased, and theground was covered with an icing of sleet and snow, that now glitteredunder a clear sky and a brilliant moon. The northeast wind that shook theloose sashes of the windows had transformed each dripping tree and shrubto icy stalactites that silvered under the moon's cold touch.
\"'Tis a beautiful sight, ladies,\" said a bluff, hearty, middle-aged man,joining the group by the window. \"But God send the spring to us quickly,and spare us any more such cruel changes! My lady moon looks fineenough, glittering in yonder treetops; but I doubt not she looks down uponmany a poor fellow shivering under his tattered blankets in the campbeyond. Had ye seen the Connecticut tatterdemalions file by last night,with arms reversed, showing their teeth at his Excellency, and yet notdaring to bite; had ye watched these faint-hearts, these doubting Thomases,ripe for rebellion against his Excellency, against the cause, but chieflyagainst the weather,--ye would pray for a thaw that would melt the heartsof these men as it would these stubborn fields around us. Two weeks moreof such weather would raise up not one Allan Brewster, but a dozen suchmalcontent puppies ripe for a drum-head court-martial.\"
\"Yet 'tis a fine night, Gen. Sullivan,\" said Col. Hamilton, sharplynudging the ribs of his superior officer with his elbow. \"There would belittle trouble on such a night, I fancy, to track our ghostly visitant.\" Bothof the ladies becoming interested, and Col. Hamilton having thus adroitlyturned the flank of his superior officer, he went on, \"You should know thatthe camp, and indeed the whole locality here, is said to be haunted by theapparition of a gray-coated figure, whose face is muffled and hidden in hiscollar, but who has the password pat to his lips, and whose identity hathbaffled the sentries. This figure, it is said, forasmuch as it has been seen
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just before an assault, an attack, or some tribulation of the army, isbelieved by many to be the genius or guardian spirit of the cause, and, assuch, has incited sentries and guards to greater vigilance, and has to someseemed a premonition of disaster. Before the last outbreak of theConnecticut militia, Master Graycoat haunted the outskirts of the weather-beaten and bedraggled camp, and, I doubt not, saw much of thatpreparation that sent that regiment of faint-hearted onion-gatherers toflaunt their woes and their wrongs in the face of the general himself.\"
Here Col. Hamilton, in turn, received a slight nudge from MistressSchuyler, and ended his speech somewhat abruptly.
Mistress Thankful was not unmindful of both these allusions to herfaithless lover, but only a consciousness of mortification and woundedpride was awakened by them. In fact, during the first tempest of herindignation at his arrest, still later at the arrest of her father, and finally atthe discovery of his perfidy to her, she had forgotten that he was her lover;she had forgotten her previous tenderness toward him; and, now that herfire and indignation were spent, only a sense of numbness and vacancyremained. All that had gone before seemed not something to be regrettedas her own act, but rather as the act of another Thankful Blossom, who hadbeen lost that night in the snow-storm: she felt she had become, within thelast twenty-four hours, not perhaps ANOTHER woman, but for the firsttime a WOMEN.
Yet it was singular that she felt more confused when, a few momentslater, the conversation turned upon Major Van Zandt: it was still moresingular that she even felt considerably frightened at that confusion.Finally she found herself listening with alternate irritability, shame, andcuriosity, to praises of that gentleman, of his courage, his devotion, and hispersonal graces. For one wild moment Thankful felt like throwingherself on the breast of Mistress Schuyler, and confessing her rudeness tothe major; but a conviction that Mistress Schuyler would share that secretwith Col. Hamilton, that Major Van Zandt might not like that revelation,and, oddly enough associated with this, a feeling of unconquerableirritability toward that handsome and gentle young officer, kept her mouthclosed. \"Besides,\" she said to herself, \"he ought to know, if he's such a
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fine gentleman as they say, just how I was feeling, and that I don't meanany rudeness to him;\" and with this unanswerable feminine logic poorThankful to some extent stilled her own honest little heart.
But not, I fear, entirely. The night was a restless one to her: like allimpulsive natures, the season of reflection, and perhaps distrust, came toher upon acts that were already committed, and when reason seemed tolight the way only to despair. She saw the folly of her intrusion at theheadquarters, as she thought, only when it was too late to remedy it; shesaw the gracelessness and discourtesy of her conduct to Major Van Zandt,only when distance and time rendered an apology weak and ineffectual. Ithink she cried a little to herself, lying in the strange gloomy chamber ofthe healthfully sleeping Mistress Schuyler, the sweet security of whosemanifest goodness and kindness she alternately hated and envied; and atlast, unable to stand it longer, slipped noiselessly from her bed, and stoodvery wretched and disconsolate before the window that looked out uponthe slope toward the Whippany River. The moon on the new-fallen, frigid,and untrodden snow shone brightly. Far to the left it glittered on thebayonet of a sentry pacing beside the river-bank, and gave a sense ofsecurity to the girl that perhaps strengthened another idea that had grownup in her mind. Since she could not sleep, why should she not rambleabout until she could? She had been accustomed to roam about the farmin all weathers and at all times and seasons. She recalled to herself thenight--a tempestuous one--when she had risen in serious concern as to thelying-in of her favorite Alderney heifer, and how she had saved the life ofthe calf, a weakling, dropped apparently from the clouds in the tempest, asit lay beside the barn. With this in her mind, she donned her dress again,and, with Mistress Schuyler's mantle over her shoulders, noiselessly creptdown the narrow staircase, passed the sleeping servant on the settee, and,opening the rear door, in another moment was inhaling the crisp air, andtripping down the crisp snow of the hillside.
But Mistress Thankful had overlooked one difference between herown farm and a military encampment. She had not proceeded a dozenyards before a figure apparently started out of the ground beneath her, and,levelling a bayoneted musket across her path, called, \"Halt!\"
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The hot blood mounted to the girl's cheek at the first imperativecommand she had ever received in her life: nevertheless she haltedunconsciously, and without a word confronted the challenger with her oldaudacity.
\"Who comes there?\" reiterated the sentry, still keeping his bayonetlevel with her breast.
\"Thankful Blossom,\" she responded promptly.
The sentry brought his musket to a \"present.\" \"Pass, ThankfulBlossom, and God send it soon and the spring with it, and good- night,\" hesaid, with a strong Milesian accent. And before the still-amazed girlcould comprehend the meaning of his abrupt challenge, or his equallyabrupt departure, he had resumed his monotonous pace in the moonlight.Indeed, as she stood looking after him, the whole episode, the oddunreality of the moonlit landscape, the novelty of her position, the morbidplay of her thoughts, seemed to make it part of a dream which the morninglight might dissipate, but could never fully explain.
With something of this feeling still upon her, she kept her way to theriver. Its banks were still fringed with ice, through which its dark currentflowed noiselessly. She knew it flowed through the camp where lay herfaithless lover, and for an instant indulged the thought of following it, andfacing him with the proof of his guilt; but even at the thought she recoiledwith a new and sudden doubt in herself, and stood dreamily watching theshimmer of the moon on the icy banks, until another, and, it seemed to her,equally unreal vision suddenly stayed her feet, and drove the blood fromher feverish cheeks.
A figure was slowly approaching from the direction of the sleepingencampment. Tall, erect, and habited in a gray surtout, with a hoodpartially concealing its face, it was the counterfeit presentment of theghostly visitant she had heard described. Thankful scarcely breathed.The brave little heart that had not quailed before the sentry's levelledmusket a moment before now faltered and stood still, as the phantom witha slow and majestic tread moved toward her. She had only time to gainthe shelter of a tree before the figure, majestically unconscious of herpresence, passed slowly by. Through all her terror Thankful was still true
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to a certain rustic habit of practical perception to observe that the tread ofthe phantom was quite audible over the crust of snow, and was visible andpalpable as the imprint of a military boot.
The blood came back to Thankful's cheek, and with it her old audacity.In another instant she was out from the tree, and tracking with a lightfeline tread the apparition that now loomed up the hill before her.Slipping from tree to tree, she followed until it passed before the door of alow hut or farm-shed that stood midway up the hill. Here it entered, andthe door closed behind it. With every sense feverishly alert, Thankful,from the secure advantage of a large maple, watched the door of the hut.In a few moments it re-opened to the same figure free of its grayenwrappings. Forgetful of every thing now, but detecting the face of theimpostor, the fearless girl left the tree, and placed herself directly in thepath of the figure. At the same moment it turned toward her inquiringly,and the moonlight fell full upon the calm, composed features of Gen.Washington.
In her consternation Thankful could only drop an embarrassedcourtesy, and hang out two lovely signals of distress in her cheeks. Theface of the pseudo ghost alone remained unmoved.
\"You are wandering late, Mistress Thankful,\" he said at last, with apaternal gravity; \"and I fear that the formal restraint of a militaryhousehold has already given you some embarrassment. Yonder sentry, forinstance, might have stopped you.\"
\"Oh, he did!\" said Thankful quickly; \"but it's all right, please yourExcellency. \"He asked me 'Who went there,' and I told him; and he wasvastly polite, I assure you.\"
The grave features of the commander-in-chief relaxed in a smile. \"Youare more happy than most of your sex in turning a verbal compliment topractical account. For know then, dear young lady, that in honor of yourvisit to the headquarters, the password to- night through this encampmentwas none other than your own pretty patronymic,--'Thankful Blossom.'\"
The tears glittered in the girl's eyes, and her lip trembled; but, with allher readiness of speech, she could only say, \"Oh, your Excellency.\"
\"Then you DID pass the sentry?\" continued Washington, looking at her
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intently with a certain grave watchfulness in his gray eyes. \"And doubtlessyou wandered at the river-bank. Although I myself, tempted by the night,sometimes extend my walk as far as yonder shed, it were a hazardous actfor a young lady to pass beyond the protection of the line.\"
\"Oh! I met no one, your Excellency,\" said the usually truthful Thankfulhastily, rushing to her first lie with grateful impetuosity.
\"And saw no one?\" asked Washington quietly.
\"No one,\" said Thankful, raising her brown eyes to the general's.
They both looked at each other,--the naturally most veracious youngwoman in the colonies, and the subsequent allegorical impersonation oftruth in America,--and knew each other lied, and, I imagine, respectedeach other for it.
\"I am glad to hear you say so, Mistress Thankful,\" said Washingtonquietly; \"for 'twould have been natural for you to have sought an interviewwith your recreant lover in yonder camp, though the attempt would havebeen unwise and impossible.\"
\"I had no such thought, your Excellency,\" said Thankful, who hadreally quite forgotten her late intention; \"yet, if with your permission Icould hold a few moments' converse with Capt. Brewster, it would greatlyease my mind.\"
\"'Twould not be well for the present,\" said Washington thoughtfully.\"But in a day or two Capt. Brewster will be tried by court-martial atMorristown. It shall be so ordered that when he is conveyed thither hisguard shall halt at the Blossom Farm. I will see that the officer incommand gives you an opportunity to see him. And I think I canpromise also, Mistress Thankful, that your father shall be also presentunder his own roof, a free man.\"
They had reached the entrance to the mansion, and entered the hall.Thankful turned impulsively, and kissed the extended hand of thecommander. \"You are so good! I have been so foolish--so very, verywrong,\" she said, with a slight trembling of her lip. \"And yourExcellency believes my story; and those gentlemen were NOT spies, buteven as they gave themselves to be.\"
\"I said not that much,\" replied Washington with a kindly smile, \"but no
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matter. Tell me rather, Mistress Thankful, how far your acquaintancewith these gentlemen has gone; or did it end with the box on the ear thatyou gave the baron?\"
\"He had asked me to ride with him to the Baskingridge, and I--hadsaid--yes,\" faltered Mistress Thankful.
\"Unless I misjudge you, Mistress Thankful, you can without greatsacrifice promise me that you will not see him until I give you mypermission,\" said Washington, with grave playfulness.
The swinging light shone full in Thankful's truthful eyes as she liftedthem to his.
\"I do,\" she said quietly.
\"Good-night,\" said the commander, with a formal bow.\"Good-night, your Excellency.\"
IV
The sun was high over the Short Hills when Mistress Thankful, thenext day, drew up her sweating mare beside the Blossom Farm gate. Shehad never looked prettier, she had never felt more embarrassed, as sheentered her own house. During her rapid ride she had already framed aspeech of apology to Major Van Zandt, which, however, utterly fled fromher lips as that officer showed himself respectfully on the threshold. Yetshe permitted him to usurp the functions of the grinning Caesar, and helpher from her horse; albeit she was conscious of exhibiting the awkwardtimidity of a bashful rustic, until at last, with a stammering, \"Thank ye,\"she actually ran up stairs to hide her glowing face and far too consciouseyelids.
During the rest of that day Major Van Zandt quietly kept out of theway, without obtrusively seeming to avoid her. Yet, when they metcasually in the performance of her household duties, the innocent MistressThankful noticed, under her downcast penitential eyelids, that the eyes ofthe officer followed her intently. And thereat she fell unconsciously toimitating him; and so they eyed each other furtively like cats, and rubbedthemselves along the walls of rooms and passages when they met, lestthey should seem designedly to come near each other, and enacted the
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gravest and most formal of genuflexions, courtesies, and bows, when theyaccidentally DID meet. And just at the close of the second day, as theelegant Major Van Zandt was feeling himself fast becoming a drivellingidiot and an awkward country booby, the arrival of a courier fromheadquarters saved that gentleman his self-respect forever.
Mistress Thankful was in her sitting-room when he knocked at herdoor. She opened it in sudden, conscious trepidation.
\"I ask pardon for intruding, Mistress Thankful Blossom,\" he saidgravely; \"but I have here\"--he held out a pretentious document--\"a letterfor you from headquarters. May I hope that it contains good news,--therelease of your father.--and that it relieves you from my presence, and anespionage which I assure you cannot be more unpleasant to you than it hasbeen to myself.\"
As he entered the room, Thankful had risen to her feet with the fullintention of delivering to him her little set apology; but, as he ended hisspeech, she looked at him blankly, and burst out crying.
Of course he was in an instant at her side, and holding her cold littlehand. Then she managed to say, between her tears, that she had beenwanting to make an apology to him; that she had wanted to say ever sinceshe arrived that she had been rude, very rude, and that she knew he nevercould forgive her; that she had been trying to say that she never couldforget his gentle forbearance: \"only,\" she added, suddenly raising her tear-fringed brown lids to the astonished man, \"YOU WOULDN'T EVER LETME!\"
\"Dear Mistress Thankful,\" said the major, in conscience-strickenhorror, \"if I have made myself distant to you, believe me it was onlybecause I feared to intrude upon your sorrow. I really--dear MistressThankful--I--\"
\"When you took all the pains to go round the hall instead of throughthe dining-room, lest I should ask you to forgive me,\" sobbed MistressThankful, \"I thought--you--must--hate me, and preferred to--\"
\"Perhaps this letter may mitigate your sorrow, Mistress Thankful,\" saidthe officer, pointing to the letter she still held unconsciously in her hand.
With a blush at her pre-occupation, Thankful opened the letter. It
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was a half-official document, and ran as follows:-- \"The Commander-in-Chief is glad to inform Mistress ThankfulBlossom that the charges preferred against her father have, upon fairexamination, been found groundless and trivial. The Commander-in-Chief further begs to inform Mistress Blossom that the gentleman knownto her under the name of the 'Baron Pomposo' was his Excellency DonJuan Morales, Ambassador and Envoy Extraordinary of the Court of Spain,and that the gentleman known to her as the 'Count Ferdinand' was SenorGodoy, Secretary to the Embassy. The Commander-in-Chief wishes toadd that Mistress Thankful Blossom is relieved of any further obligationof hospitality toward these honorable gentlemen, as the Commander-in-Chief regrets to record the sudden and deeply-to-be-deplored death of hisExcellency this morning by typhoid fever, and the possible speedy returnof the Embassy.
\"In conclusion, the Commander-in-Chief wishes to bear testimony tothe Truthfulness, Intuition, and Discretion of Mistress Thankful Blossom.
\"By order of his Excellency,
\"Gen. GEORGE WASHINGTON.\"ALEX. HAMILTON, Secretary.
\"To Mistress THANKFUL BLOSSOM, of Blossom Farm.\"
Thankful Blossom was silent for a few moments, and then raised herabashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A single glance satisfied her that heknew nothing of the imposture that had been practised upon her,--knewnothing of the trap into which her vanity and self-will had led her.
\"Dear Mistress Thankful,\" said the major, seeing the distress in herface, \"I trust the news is not ill. Surely I gathered from the sergeant that--\"
\"What?\" said Thankful, looking at him intently.
\"That in twenty-four hours at furthest your father would be free, andthat I should be relieved--\"
\"I know that you are a-weary of your task, major,\" said Thankfulbitterly: \"rejoice, then, to know your information is correct, and that myfather is exonerated--unless--unless this is a forgery, and Gen. Washingtonshould turn out to be somebody else, and YOU should turn out to be
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somebody else--\" And she stopped short, and hid her wet eyes in thewindow-curtains.
\"Poor girl!\" said Major Van Zandt to himself. \"This trouble hasundoubtedly frenzied her. Fool that I was to lay up the insult of one thatsorrow and excitement had bereft of reason and responsibility! 'Twerebetter I should retire at once, and leave her to herself,\" and the young manslowly retreated toward the door.
But at this moment there were alarming symptoms of distress in thewindow-curtain; and the major paused as a voice from its dimity depthssaid plaintively, \"And YOU are going without forgiving me!\"
\"Forgive YOU, Mistress Thankful,\" said the major, striding to thecurtain, and seizing a little hand that was obtruded from its folds,--\"forgiveyou? rather can you forgive me for the folly--the cruelty of mistaking--of--of\"--and here the major, hitherto famous for facile compliments, utterlybroke down. But the hand he held was no longer cold, but warm andintelligent; and in default of coherent speech he held fast by that as thethread of his discourse, until Mistress Thankful quietly withdrew it,thanked him for his forgiveness, and retired deeper behind the curtain.
When he had gone, she threw herself in a chair, and again gave way toa passionate flood of tears. In the last twenty-four hours her pride hadbeen utterly humbled: the independent spirit of this self-willed little beautyhad met for the first time with defeat. When she had got over her womanlyshock at the news of the sham baron's death, she had, I fear, only a selfishregard at his taking off; believing that if living he would in some wayshow the world-- which just then consisted of the headquarters and MajorVan Zandt-- that he had really made love to her, and possibly didhonorably love her still, and might yet give her an opportunity to rejecthim. And now he was dead, and she was held up to the world as theconceited plaything of a fine gentleman's masquerading sport. That herfather's cupidity and ambition made him sanction the imposture, in herbitterness she never doubted. No! Lover, friend, father-- all had beenfalse to her, and the only kindness she had received was from the men shehad wantonly insulted. Poor little Blossom! indeed, a most prematureBlossom; I fear a most unthankful Blossom, sitting there shivering in the
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first chill wind of adversity, rocking backward and forward, with the skirtof her dimity short- gown over her shoulders, and her little buckled shoesand clocked stockings pathetically crossed before her.
But healthy youth is re-active; and in an hour or two Thankful wasdown at the cow-shed, with her arms around the neck of her favorite heifer,to whom she poured out much of her woes, and from whom she won anintelligent sort of slobbering sympathy. And then she sharply scoldedCaesar for nothing at all, and a moment after returned to the house withthe air and face of a deeply injured angel, who had been disappointed insome celestial idea of setting this world right, but was still not aboveforgiveness,--a spectacle that sunk Major Van Zandt into the dark depthsof remorse, and eventually sent him to smoke a pipe of Virginia with hismen in the roadside camp; seeing which, Thankful went early to bed, andcried herself to sleep. And Nature possibly followed her example; for atsunset a great thaw set in, and by midnight the freed rivers and brookswere gurgling melodiously, and tree and shrub and fence were moist anddripping.
The red dawn at last struggled through the vaporous veil that hid thelandscape. Then occurred one of those magical changes peculiar to theclimate, yet perhaps pre-eminently notable during that historic winter andspring. By ten o'clock on that 3d of May, 1780, a fervent June-like sunhad rent that vaporous veil, and poured its direct rays upon the gaunt andhaggard profile of the Jersey hills. The chilled soil responded but feeblyto that kiss; perhaps a few of the willows that yellowed the river-bankstook on a deeper color. But the country folk were certain that spring hadcome at last; and even the correct and self-sustained Major Van Zandtcame running in to announce to Mistress Thankful that one of his men hadseen a violet in the meadow. In another moment Mistress Thankful haddonned her cloak and pattens to view this firstling of the laggard summer.It was quite natural that Major Van Zandt should accompany her as shetripped on; and so, without a thought of their past differences, they ran likevery children down the moist and rocky slope that led to the quaggymeadow. Such was the influence of the vernal season.
But the violets were hidden. Mistress Thankful, regardless of the wet
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leaves and her new gown, groped with her fingers among the witheredgrasses. Major Van Zandt leaned against a bowlder, and watched herwith admiring eyes.
\"You'll never find flowers that way,\" she said at last, looking up to himimpatiently. \"Go down on your knees like an honest man. There aresome things in this world worth stooping for.\"
The major instantly dropped on his knees beside her. But at thatmoment Mistress Thankful found her posies, and rose to her feet. \"Staywhere you are,\" she said mischievously, as she stooped down, and placed aflower in the lapel of his coat. \"That is to make amends for my rudeness.Now get up.\"
But the major did not rise. He caught the two little hands that hadseemed to flutter like birds against his breast, and, looking up into thelaughing face above him, said, \"Dear Mistress Thankful, dare I remind youof your own words, that 'there be some things worth stooping for'? Thinkof my love, Mistress Thankful, as a flower,--mayhap not as gracious toyou as your violets, but as honest and--and--and--as--\"
\"Ready to spring up in a single night,\" laughed Thankful. \"But no;get up, major! What would the fine ladies of Morristown say of yourkneeling at the feet of a country girl,--the play and sport of every finegentleman? What if Mistress Bolton should see her own cavalier, themodish Major Van Zandt, proffering his affections to the disgracedsweetheart of a perjured traitor? Leave go my hand, I pray you, major,--if you respect--\"
She was free, yet she faltered a moment beside him, with tearsquivering on her long brown lashes. Then she said tremulously, \"Rise up,major. Let us think no more of this. I pray you forgive me, if I haveagain been rude.\"
The major struggled to rise to his feet. But he could not. And then Iregret to have to record that the fact became obvious that one of hisshapely legs was in a bog-hole, and that he was perceptibly sinking out ofsight. Whereat Mistress Thankful trilled out a three-syllabled laugh,looked demure and painfully concerned at his condition, and then laughedagain. The major joined in her mirth, albeit his face was crimson. And
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then, with a little cry of alarm, she flew to his side, and put her armsaround him.
\"Keep away, keep away, for Heaven's sake, Mistress Blossom,\" he saidquickly, \"or I shall plunge you into my mishap, and make you asridiculous as myself.\"
But the quick-witted girl had already leaped to an adjacent bowlder.\"Take off your sash,\" she said quickly; \"fasten it to your belt, and throw itto me.\" He did so. She straightened herself back on the rock. \"Now,all together,\" she cried, with a preliminary strain on the sash; and then thecords of her well- trained muscles stood out on her rounded arms, and,with a long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together, she landed themajor upon the rock. And then she laughed; and then, inconsistent as itmay appear, she became grave, and at once proceeded to scrape him off,and rub him down with dried leaves, with fern-twigs, with herhandkerchief, with the border of her mantle, as if he were a child, until heblushed with alternate shame and secret satisfaction.
They spoke but little on their return to the farm-house, for MistressThankful had again become grave. And yet the sun shone cheerily abovethem; the landscape was filled with the joy of resurrection and new andawakened life; the breeze whispered gentle promises of hope, and thefruition of their hopes in the summer to come. And these two fared onuntil they reached the porch, with a half-pleased, half-frightenedconsciousness that they were not the same beings who had left it a half-hour before.
Nevertheless at the porch Mistress Thankful regained something of herold audacity. As they stood together in the hall, she handed him back thesash she had kept with her. As she did so, she could not help saying,\"There are some things worth stooping for, Major Van Zandt.\"
But she had not calculated upon the audacity of the man; and as sheturned to fly she was caught by his strong arm, and pinioned to his side.She struggled, honestly I think, and perhaps more frightened at her ownfeelings than at his strength; but it is to be recorded that he kissed her in amoment of comparative yielding, and then, frightened himself, releasedher quickly, whereat she fled to her room, and threw herself panting and
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troubled upon her bed. For an hour or two she lay there, with flushedcheeks and conflicting thoughts. \"He must never kiss me again,\" she saidsoftly to herself, \"unless\"--but the interrupting thought said, \"I shall die ifhe kiss me not again; and I never can kiss another.\" And then she wasroused by a footstep upon the stair, which in that brief time she hadlearned to know and look for, and a knock at the door. She opened it toMajor Van Zandt, white and so colorless as to bring out once more thefaint red line made by her riding-whip two days before, as if it had risenagain in accusation. The blood dropped out of her cheeks as she gazed athim in silence.
\"An escort of dragoons,\" said Major Van Zandt slowly, and withmilitary precision, \"has just arrived, bringing with them one Capt. AllanBrewster, of the Connecticut Contingent, on his way to Morristown to betried for mutiny and treason. A private note from Col. Hamilton instructsme to allow him to have a private audience with you--if YOU so wish it.\"
With a woman's swift and too often hopeless intuition, Thankful knewthat this was not the sole contents of the letter, and that her relations withCapt. Brewster were known to the man before her. But she drew herself upa little proudly, and, turning her truthful eyes upon the major, said, \"I DOso wish it.\"
\"It shall be done as you desire, Mistress Blossom,\" returned the officerwith cold politeness, as he turned upon his heel.
\"One moment, Major Van Zandt,\" said Thankful swiftly.
The major turned quickly; but Thankful's eyes were gazingthoughtfully forward, and scarcely glanced at him. \"I would prefer,\" shesaid timidly and hesitatingly, \"that this interview should not take placeunder the roof where--where--where--my father lives. Half-way downthe meadow there is a barn, and before it a broken part of the wall,fronting on a sycamore-tree. HE will know where it is. Tell him I willsee him there in half an hour.\"
A smile, which the major had tried to make a careless one, curled hislip satirically as he bowed in reply. \"It is the first time,\" he said dryly,\"that I believe I have been honored with arranging a tryst for two lovers;but believe me, Mistress Thankful, I will do my best. In half an hour I
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will turn my prisoner over to you.\"
In half an hour the punctual Mistress Thankful, with a hood hiding herpale face, passed the officer in the hall, on the way to her rendezvous.An hour later Caesar came with a message that Mistress Thankful wouldlike to see him. When the major entered the sitting-room, he wasshocked to find her lying pale and motionless on the sofa; but as the doorclosed she rose to her feet, and confronted him.
\"I do not know,\" she said slowly, \"whether you are aware that the manI just now parted from was for a twelvemonth past my sweetheart, and thatI believed I loved him, and KNEW I was true to him. If you have notheard it, I tell you now, for the time will come when you will hear part ofit from the lips of others, and I would rather you should take the wholetruth from mine. This man was false to me. He betrayed two friends ofmine as spies. I could have forgiven it, had it been only foolish jealousy;but it was, I have since learned from his own lips, only that he mightgratify his spite against the commander-in-chief by procuring their arrest,and making a serious difficulty in the American camp, by means of whichhe hoped to serve his own ends. He told me this, believing that Isympathized with him in his hatred of the commander-in-chief, and in hisown wrongs and sufferings. I confess to my shame, Major Van Zandt,that two days ago I did believe him, and that I looked upon you as a merecatch-poll or bailiff of the tyrant. That I found out how I was deceivedwhen I saw the commander-in-chief, you, major, who know him so well,need not be told. Nor was it necessary for me to tell this man that he haddeceived me: for I felt that--that--was--not--the--only reason-- why I couldno longer return--his love.\"
She paused, as the major approached her earnestly, and waved himback with her hand. \"He reproached me bitterly with my want of feelingfor his misfortunes,\" she went on again: \"he recalled my past protestations;he showed me my love-letters; and he told me that if I were still his truesweetheart I ought to help him. I told him if he would never call me bythat name again; if he would give up all claim to me; if he would neverspeak, write to me, nor see me again; if he would hand me back myletters,--I would help him.\" She stopped: the blood rushed into her pale
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face. \"You will remember, major, that I accepted this man's love as ayoung, foolish, trustful girl; but when I made him this offer--he--heaccepted it.\"
\"The dog!\" said Major Van Zandt. \"But in what way could you helpthis double traitor?\"
\"I HAVE helped him,\" said Thankful quietly.\"But how?\" said Major Van Zandt.
\"By becoming a traitor myself,\" she said, turning upon him almostfiercely. \"Hear me! While you were quietly pacing these halls, whileyour men were laughing and talking in the road, Caesar was saddling mywhite mare, the fleetest in the country. He led her to the lane below.That mare is now two miles away, with Capt. Brewster on her back.Why do you not start, major? Look at me. I am a traitor, and this is mybribe;\" and she drew a package of letters from her bosom, and flung themon the table.
She had been prepared for an outbreak or exclamation from the manbefore her, but not for his cold silence. \"Speak,\" she cried at last,passionately. \"Speak! Open your lips, if only to curse me! Order inyour men to arrest me. I will proclaim myself guilty, and save yourhonor. But only speak!\"
\"May I ask,\" said Major Van Zandt coldly, \"why you have twicehonored me with a blow?\"
\"Because I loved you; because, when I first saw you I saw the onlyman that was my master, and I rebelled; because, when I found I could nothelp but love you, I knew I never had loved before, and I would wipe outwith one stroke all the past that rose in judgment against me; because Iwould not have you ever confronted with one endearing word of mine thatwas not meant for you.\"
Major Van Zandt turned from the window where he had stood, andfaced the girl with sad resignation. \"If I have in my foolishness, MistressThankful, shown you how great was your power over me, when youdescended to this artifice to spare my feelings by confessing your ownlove for me, you should have remembered that you were doing that whichforever kept me from wooing or winning you. If you had really loved me
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your heart, as a woman's, would have warned you against that which myheart, as a gentleman's, has made a law of honor; when I tell you, as muchfor the sake of relieving your own conscience as for the sake of justifyingmine, that if this man, a traitor, my prisoner, and your recognized lover,had escaped from my custody without your assistance, connivance, oreven knowledge, I should have deemed it my duty to forsake you until Icaught him, even if we had been standing before the altar.\"
Thankful heard him, but only as a strange voice in the distance, as shestood with fixed eyes, and breathless, parted lips before him. Yet even thenI fear that, womanlike, she did not comprehend his rhetoric of honor, butonly caught here and there a dull, benumbing idea that he despised her,and that in her effort to win his love she had killed it, and ruined himforever.
\"If you think it strange,\" continued the major, \"that, believing as I do, Istand here only to utter moral axioms when my duty calls me to pursueyour lover, I beg you to believe that it is only for your sake. I wish toallow a reasonable time between your interview with him, and his escape,that shall save you from any suspicion of complicity. Do not think,\" headded with a sad smile, as the girl made an impatient step toward him, \"donot think I am running any risk. The man cannot escape. A cordon ofpickets surrounds the camp for many miles. He has not the countersign,and his face and crime are known.\"
\"Yes,\" said Thankful eagerly, \"but a part of his own regiment guardsthe Baskingridge road.\"
\"How know you this?\" said the major, seizing her hand.\"He told me.\"
Before she could fall on her knees, and beg his forgiveness, he haddarted from the room, given an order, and returned with cheeks and eyesblazing.
\"Hear me,\" he said rapidly, taking the girl's two hands, \"you know notwhat you've done. I forgive you. But this is no longer a matter of duty,but my personal honor. I shall pursue this man alone. I shall returnwith him, or not at all. Farewell. God bless you!\"
But before he reached the door she caught him again. \"Only say you
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have forgiven me once more.\"
\"I do.\"\"Guert!\"
There was something in the girl's voice more than this first utteranceof his Christian name, that made him pause.
\"I told--a--lie--just--now. There is a fleeter horse in the stable thanmy mare; 'tis the roan filly in the second stall.\"
\"God bless you!\"
He was gone. She waited to hear the clatter of his horse's hoofs inthe roadway. When Caesar came in a few moments later, to tell the newsof Capt. Brewster's escape, the room was empty; but it was soon filledagain by a dozen turbulent troopers.
\"Of course she's gone,\" said Sergeant Tibbitts: \"the jade flew with thecaptain.\"
\"Ay, 'tis plain enough. Two horses are gone from the stable besidesthe major's,\" said Private Hicks.
Nor was this military criticism entirely a private one. When thecourier arrived at headquarters the next morning, it was to bring the reportthat Mistress Thankful Blossom, after assisting her lover to escape hadfled with him. \"The renegade is well off our hands,\" said Gen. Sullivangruffly: \"he has saved us the public disgrace of a trial. But this is badnews of Major Van Zandt.\"
\"What news of the major?\" asked Washington quickly.
\"He pursued the vagabond as far as Springfield, killing his horse, andfalling himself insensible before Major Merton's quarters. Here he becamespeedily delirious, fever supervened, and the regimental surgeon, after acareful examination, pronounced his case one of small-pox.\"
A whisper of horror and pity went around the room. \"Another gallantsoldier, who should have died leading a charge, laid by the heels by abeggar's filthy distemper,\" growled Sullivan. \"Where will it end?\"
\"God knows,\" said Hamilton. \"Poor Van Zandt! But whither washe sent,--to the hospital?\"
\"No: a special permit was granted in his case; and 'tis said he wasremoved to the Blossom Farm,--it being remote from neighbors,--and the
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house placed under quarantine. Abner Blossom has prudently absentedhimself from the chances of infection, and the daughter has fled. Thesick man is attended only by a black servant and an ancient crone; so that,if the poor major escapes with his life or without disfigurement, prettyMistress Bolton of Morristown need not be scandalized or jealous.\"
V
The ancient crone alluded to in the last chapter had been standingbehind the window-curtains of that bedroom which had been ThankfulBlossom's in the weeks gone by. She did not move her head, but stoodlooking demurely, after the manner of ancient crones, over the summerlandscape. For the summer had come before the tardy spring was scarcegone, and the elms before the window no longer lisped, but were eloquentin the softest zephyrs. There was the flash of birds in among the bushes,the occasional droning of bees in and out the open window, and aperpetually swinging censer of flower incense rising from below. Thefarm had put on its gayest bridal raiment; and looking at the old farm-house shadowed with foliage and green with creeping vines, it wasdifficult to conceive that snow had ever lain on its porches, or iciclesswung from its mossy eaves.
\"Thankful!\" said a voice still tremulous with weakness.
The ancient crone turned, drew aside the curtains, and showed thesweet face of Thankful Blossom, more beautiful even in its paleness.
\"Come here, darling,\" repeated the voice.
Thankful stepped to the sofa whereon lay the convalescent Major VanZandt.
\"Tell me, sweetheart,\" said the major, taking her hand in his, \"whenyou married me, as you told the chaplain, that you might have the right tonurse me, did you never think that if death spared me I might be sodisfigured that even you, dear love, would have turned from me withloathing?\"
\"That was why I did it, dear,\" said Thankful mischievously. \"I knewthat the pride, and the sense of honor, and self-devotion of some people,would have kept them from keeping their promises to a poor girl.\"
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\"But, darling,\" continued the major, raising her hand to his lips,\"suppose the case had been reversed: suppose you had taken the disease,that I had recovered without disfigurement, but that this sweet face--\"
\"I thought of that too,\" interrupted Thankful. \"Well, what would youhave done, dear?\" said the major, with his old mischievous smile.
\"I should have died,\" said Thankful gravely.\"But how?\"
\"Somehow. But you are to go to sleep, and not ask impertinent andfrivolous questions; for father is coming to-morrow.\"
\"Thankful, dear, do you know what the trees and the birds said to meas I lay there tossing with fever?\"
\"No, dear.\"
\"Thankful Blossom! Thankful Blossom! Thankful Blossom iscoming!\"
\"Do you know what I said, sweetheart, as I lifted your dear head fromthe ground when you reeled from your horse just as I overtook you atSpringfield?\"
\"No, dear.\"
\"There are some things in life worth stooping for.\"And she winged this Parthian arrow home with a kiss.
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