that the Haswell family were eventually left the sole occupants of
the place. Ex-Lieutenant Haswell was loyal to his king, and his house
was a constant resort for the British naval and military commanders.
Small skirmishes sometimes took place near the village, and one
day, during an action in the vicinity, a wounded redcoat, a member
of Major Tupper's brigade, was brought to the door on a stretcher by
some of his comrades, with the request that he be given shelter. Into
the southeast room the family had him carried and laid on the great
four-poster. There Susanna tended him through the morning hours,
bandaging his wounds with soft homespun and ministering to his wants.
It was a never-to-be-forgotten day, often referred to in after-years,
and it made a deep impression on the heart of the sensitive girl.
Bending over him, she received his last confidences. He was Daniel
Carnagon, twenty-six years old, the only son of a clergyman in the
north of England. When his breath grew feebler her stepmother brought
out the family Bible and read in a low voice words of comfort. Death
came to him as he dreamed of his native heath and a happy boyhood. When
the dusk began to fall Susanna helped her father dig a grave in the
garden. There they laid him to rest with the last sunbeams staining
his poor clay like a heavenly benediction. Some rose-bushes and an
apple-tree covered his resting-place. The latter is still standing
alone, a faithful watcher over dust neglected and forgotten. Little has
been written of Susanna's grenadier, but we know that she who made the
whole of her generation weep with "a tale of truth" wept over him in
the twilight of a long-dead day.

When the Revolution was nearing its close the Haswell family removed
from Massachusetts to Halifax, a favorite gathering-place for
loyalists. Susanna was then nearing womanhood, and, owing to the low
state of her father's pecuniary resources, she was forced to separate
from dearly loved brothers and sail for England. There she obtained a
situation as governess in a noble family, which she retained until her
health failed. In 1786 she married Mr. William Rowson in London. This
gentleman was then engaged in the hardware business and also acted as
trumpeter in the Royal Horse-Guards. He was the son of an armorer to
George III., and was noted for his personal beauty and accomplishments.
It has been recorded that no one who heard could ever forget "the
sublime and spirit-stirring tones" of his trumpet when he played for
the Boston Handel and Haydn Society. When he trumpeted "The trumpet
shall sound and the dead shall be raised" he thrilled his hearers into
imagining the last hour was close at hand.

Shortly after entering the bonds of wedlock Mrs. Rowson published
her first work, "Victoria," under the patronage of the Duchess of
Devonshire, the famous Carlton House beauty known to history as the
friend of Charles Fox. Among the subscribers are such names as Sarah
Siddons, General John Burgoyne, Sir Charles Middleton, and our own
Samuel Adams. The duchess seems to have conceived a warm attachment
for her, and arranged that she should be presented to no less a
personage than "Prince Florizel." Soon she found a place in the
brilliant galaxy of ladies headed by "The Blue-Stocking Club," and in
1790, when "Charlotte Temple" was published, she became one of the
leading literary lights of the day.

"Charlotte Temple" was the heart-toucher of her generation, and
countless thousands sorrowed over her fate. Her story, as Mrs. Rowson
gave it to the world, was the greatest success of the day, and it is
said that more editions were printed of it than of any other novel
written in the eighteenth century. About the life of the real heroine
the years have woven a web some parts of which can never be unravelled.
Tradition says that she was Charlotte Stanley, a young lady of great
personal beauty and the daughter of a clergyman related to the Earl of
Derby. Mrs. Rowson wrote of her that

  "Her form was faultless, and her mind,
    Untainted yet by art,
  Was noble, just, humane, and kind,
    And Virtue warm'd her heart.
    But, ah! the cruel spoiler came."

Montreville, her lover, was in reality Colonel John Montrésor, an
engineer in the service of the British army. His name is given as one
of the managers of the famous Meschianza. It is said that he was a
connection of the Haswell family, and it is a significant fact that the
author's youngest brother, who distinguished himself in the war with
Tripoli, bore his name.

The story on which Mrs. Rowson founded her romance was that Colonel
Montrésor persuaded Miss Stanley to leave her boarding-school and elope
with him to America at the opening of the Revolutionary War. She sailed
in his companionship some time in the year 1774. On the same vessel was
his brother, a fellow-engineer. Arriving at New York City, Montrésor
secured a small cottage for her at Morrisania, a few miles distant
from the city proper and near to the Boston post-road. The house she
occupied--a primitive affair--is remembered as standing until 1850.

In the book we read,--

 "Montreville gave her one female attendant and supplied her with what
 money she wanted; but business and pleasure so entirely occupied his
 time that he had but little to devote to the woman whom he had brought
 from all her connections and robbed of innocence. Sometimes, indeed,
 he would steal out at the close of evening and pass a few hours with
 her; and then so much was she attached to him that all her sorrows
 were forgotten while blessed with his society; she would enjoy a walk
 by moonlight, or sit by him in a little arbor at the bottom of the
 garden, and play on the harp, accompanying it with her plaintive,
 harmonious voice. But often, very often, did he promise to renew
 his visits, and, forgetful of his promise, leave her to mourn her
 disappointment. What painful hours of expectation would she pass! She
 would sit at a window which looked toward a field he used to cross,
 counting the minutes and straining her eyes to catch the first glimpse
 of his person, till, blinded with tears of disappointment, she would
 lean her head on her hands and give free vent to her sorrow; then,
 catching at some new hope, she would again renew her watchful position
 till the shades of evening enveloped every object in a dusky cloud."

[Illustration: CHARLOTTE TEMPLE IN HER GARDEN

From an old print]

In one of the old editions of the work there is a quaint picture of
the neglected girl seated in a mournful attitude in a formal garden
evidently much more pretentious than the primitive spot that the real
heroine knew. The house in New York City generally accepted as the
place where she died formerly stood at the corner of Pell and Doyer
Streets and was known as the "Old Tree House." Her grave is in Trinity
Church-yard; but even that is unauthenticated, some people having gone
so far as to state that the head-stone that bears her name is a
fiction. It is still the resort of the sentimental, and it is to be
hoped that time cannot prove that Montrésor never sorrowed there over
the girl Mrs. Rowson made famous as she herself did many years before
on the grave of her British Grenadier.

  THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD
  STATEN ISLAND MANOR

 THE GHOSTS OF AN OLD STATEN ISLAND MANOR

In the green old village of Tottenville, on Staten Island, there is
still standing the antiquated Bentley manor-house, erected during
the reign of Queen Anne. It is built of stone, and reposes on a high
flowery slope overlooking the waters of Staten Island and the Raritan
River. The walls are several feet thick and the gable roof is almost
grotesquely high and steep, giving the building a very picturesque
appearance. From its quaint little upper-story casements one can gaze
over the Sound to St. Michael's Church at Perth Amboy with its quiet
graveyard, where some of the Billops are sleeping. There they rest in
peace, we hope; but, according to "Perth Towne" tradition, the fairest
in life of that silent company is an unruly shade, and once a year
during the first quarter of the spring-time moon comes back to her
neglected garden to keep a tryst and a vow.

Christopher Billop, the first owner of the house, played a very
interesting minor part in American history. When the Duke of York
conveyed New Jersey to Lord Berkeley Carteret, a question arose as to
whether Staten Island was included in the grant. To settle a discussion
which threatened to assume grave proportions, it was decided that
all islands in the harbor should belong to New York if they could be
circumnavigated in twenty-four hours. Christopher Billop, who owned
a little vessel called the "Bentley," sailed around Staten Island in
that time, and the duke gave him the tract of land, on part of which
the house is built, for his services.

This first Christopher Billop died very long ago. His only daughter
married a Thomas Farmar, who changed his name to Billop, thereby
acquiring the estate. It is with the son of this couple that the tales
of the old house deal. The Billop family, like most of the islanders,
were loyalists, and during the Revolution sided with their king. When
the war broke out the second Christopher, a man of decided views and
morose temperament, was reigning over the plantation. Many years before
1775 he had married a beautiful island belle by the name of Seaman and
taken her home to his dreary house. An interesting tradition says of
her that the month before she married she was courted by three lovers:
the Englishman she married, a Huguenot, and a descendant of the pious
Waldeneses.

The nuptial coach which bore her away did not bring her to the road
of happiness, for the love between the husband and wife was never what
it should have been. Her parents had sent her to a gilded cage. Soon
her lord and master began to neglect her for his horses and dogs or his
field work, and she was left alone in her great rooms to sigh and weep
for the happy times she knew in her girlhood before Fate bound her an
unwilling prisoner. The fine brocades and taffetas which formed her
wedding portion no longer delighted her, for there was seldom any one
but her sullen husband or the black women to gaze upon them. In vain
she implored him to receive her friends, but he would not gratify her.
Life ran smoothly enough for his liking, and he needed neither fiddles
nor the flutter of fashion to enhance his happiness. Often on clear
nights she would gaze from her chamber window on the lights in the
castles over the water. How brightly they shone! and in her imagination
seemed to beckon her. Then to her mind would come a flood of memories.
She would see herself in Love Grove, dancing on the green of a fair
day, with all the populace of the little capital assembled to behold
the frolics of the quality. Now the Governor gives her a garland of
flowers, for she is queen of a spring-time revel. In the ballroom of
Edinborough Castle, the home of the Johnstone family, she flits. Over
the memoried voices of violins would come the picture of a score of
cavaliers bending low to the belle from a sister isle, and often the
face of a boy would haunt her,--a boy more dashing and gayer than all
the others. They were in the lantern-hung Watson garden the night the
nephew of the old Scotch painter gave a fête when his penurious uncle
was away at Woodbridge, and youthful Amboy entered into the frolic with
zest. It was a sweet revenge for past injuries to feast on the miser's
hoard. When a raid on the wine-cellar was planned, she stayed on alone
with him in the garden. The laughter in his mocking eyes died away;
he was urging her to fly with him to England. Beyond the wall of green
which shut away the cliff a merchantman was anchored, and on board her
were his travelling chests, for he was sailing back to his father's
home on the morrow. He loved her, and would she go with him? Out into
the tangle of green he led her down to the road overlooking the river.
The night was very still, and through the sweet-scented darkness fresh
with the breath of June they wandered hand in hand. Suddenly before
their eyes spread the line of the town and beyond lay the sea of molten
silver. Just below them the dark ship rested in a shadowy pool. She
could not sail away with him to an unknown land. Fear overcame her
love, and later in the night she tearfully wished him God-speed on his
journey, and for a time he was forgotten.

The river before her would become a dream-river bearing her away
through the portals of the past. The commonplace fabric of her days
was forgotten. She was like one of those rare flowers that give their
greatest beauty to the night. Without her visions life would have been
a maddening monotone; and so she went about the duties of a colonial
wife.

The early portion of 1776 was a poor thing full of dreariness to Mrs.
Billop. She was leaving her girlhood far behind in her walk with
Time. Each year was a repetition of the one past. The plantation
of one thousand five hundred acres was a little world of its own,
and she rarely went beyond its gates. Most of her working hours she
spent in her garden, and under her fostering care it became a spot of
loveliness. In the circles of roses flanked by humbler flowers and the
tall line of lilies that crept like a stately band of pure-souled fairy
sentinels down to the riverside she planted some of her own fragrant
heart. Sometimes her garden was to her like an only child, and then,
again, the relationship was changed, and the garden was the tender
mother and she herself the weary thing that sought peace there on a
breast of green. But one day a wonderful thing happened. Awakened by
the sunlight gilding the narrow panes of her bedroom windows, she
heard shouts in the barley-field. "Dey am coming! dey am coming!" the
household slaves were calling in merry voices. Mrs. Billop, drawing her
curtains, saw in the path leading to the house a body of scarlet-coated
cavaliers mounted on mettlesome steeds. It came to her mind that a
horseman had dashed over from Richmond a week before, telling of
General Howe's arrival. These horsemen must be some of his officers
making a tour of the island, she thought. For the first time in many
years gentlemen were coming to stop at the manor. A smile crept over
her face as she gazed upon them, and then she softly let down the
curtain.

When the day had advanced another hour by the sundial outside the
boxwood grotto a vision stood on the landing at the top of the
stairs and spread out the panniers of a long-unused gown. The hall
below was filled with the badinage of masculine voices, and the surly
Christopher, forced into playing the host, seemed to be performing
the part with no poor grace. Black women in India print dresses were
passing bowls of summer punch, and from the kitchen came the pungent
scents of limes and the redolence of roasting corn.

From her vantage-point the wife viewed it all, and then began slowly
to descend. As the rustle of the brocade became louder and the odor of
attar of roses more perceptible, the noise stopped all of a sudden, and
every eye was focussed on the woman garbed as if going to a Franklin
ball. Little they knew that she was wearing her wedding attire that had
lain folded many years in her mother's cedar chest brought from home.

High towered her hair of the brown-red color of autumn leaves, and
rouge and black lustre helped bring out the charms of her face. White
as the white-thorn bush in the garden was her sweeping brocade, and on
her arm a love-knot caught a tiny Bambini fan.

"Good-morning, sirs," she called, in a voice that charmed all the
company, as they bowed low, save her husband, who gazed at her with
astonishment and rage. But she did not heed his angry looks. Before
her at the foot of the stairs there stood a gallant youth by the name
of Harry Fairleigh. He alone held her eyes. Where had she seen that
strong face tanned by the ocean wind? In an instant she knew. He was
the embodiment of a dream--her boy lover grown older--the cherished
girlhood vision of her true mate. The Revolution had brought him to
America again and Fate led him to her very doorstep. Something seemed
to be swaying her. She caught his eyes and read in them that he knew
her. As he came forward to kiss her hand, she seemed filled with
an awful joy,--a feeling that tortured and hurt as it swept over
her,--for she knew that he had come too late.

The islanders welcomed the British gladly. Soon General Howe's brother
arrived with an additional force of twenty thousand men, and General
Clinton, repulsed at Charleston, hurried north with a re-enforcement
of three thousand more, making the combined forces somewhere near
thirty-three thousand. At the Rose and Crown Tavern near New Dorp,
the Black-Horse at Richmond, the Ship near Prince's Bridge, and in
farmhouses from end to end of the island hundreds of the soldiers had
their quarters. In that month of July the interest of the colonists
was centred on Staten Island. Every Tory maid who dreamt of scarlet
coats and golden epaulets thought with envy of those fortunate fair
ones surrounded by such multitudes of would-be admirers. Many a modern
household descended from loyalist settlers retains tokens of that gala
period. Now it is a chair that some visiting genius made when off
duty, perhaps a paste buckle, or a miniature which witnessed some story
woven in a summer month before the wheels of the Revolution began to
move swiftly.

No longer could Mrs. Billop complain of lacking company. Her husband,
under the influence of his foreign guests, was becoming a changed
man, and the fame of his hospitality was known even in New York. All
through the war there was a constant stream of visitors. Among the
famous ones could be mentioned Major André, General Knyphausen, Sir
Henry Clinton, and General Robertson. Many times Fairleigh would ride
over from Richmond to take part in some festivity. His manly beauty
always made him a noted figure, and his admirers called him the English
Apollo. Billop, by some strange intuition, seemed to hate him, and
longed to forbid him the house. One night his rage obtained mastery
over his prudence, and he rushed into his garden, where a dance was
in progress, and demanded that he stop his minuet with Mrs. Billop and
leave the company. Those were days of hot words and flashing steel,
and soon the moon shone on the glint of crossing swords. The wife,
terrified that harm should come to the young soldier on her account,
threw herself between the combatants, and, in the face of her husband's
threats, it is said that she promised to dance with Fairleigh again
at some future time. But she reckoned not with war. Soon the drum and
fife notes sounded in every part of the island, and the gallant young
soldier marched away with his regiment, carrying what was left of the
heart of the beautiful Mrs. Billop.

On the bloody field of Monmouth Fairleigh fell in the thick of the
fight, and Mrs. Billop's promise was never to be fulfilled in life.
Evil days fell upon the Bentley manor. Christopher Billop was dragged
away to Burlington to languish chained to the jail floor, if we are
to believe Elias Boudinot's stern order to the keeper of the jail,
written in November, 1779. In one of the rooms General Howe met the
peace envoys after the disastrous battle of Long Island, and later the
Billops were forced to flee, as the property was declared confiscated
by the new government.

Years afterwards, when the house was in the hands of aliens, the
story goes that one of the new-comers was startled on a July night by
the appearance of two ghostly figures that seemed to come out of the
boxwood grotto and dance a stately minuet along the garden paths. Every
year, it is said, they still come back. When the trees are in their
fullest foliage and the earth carpeted with flowers, the shades of the
unhappy wife and the laughing-eyed soldier she could have loved haunt
the neglected garden, and with only a sighing wind for music, they bow
and sway through the tangled paths until the morning stains the dreary
faces of the decaying castles across the water.

  MAJOR ANDRÉ'S LAST LOVE

 MAJOR ANDRÉ'S LAST LOVE

At the foot of Broadway, New York City, there is a little plot of
grass, surrounded by a rusted iron railing, which is a part of the
one-time Bowling Green. In old Knickerbocker days and up to the time
of the Revolutionary War it played an important part in the history of
the Colony. When the British occupied the city it was often used as a
romping-ground by the neighborhood's Tory children and the waifs of the
alley-ways.

There in the summer of 1779 a happy-faced youth with sparkling dark
eyes and hair lightly powdered would sometimes be seen sketching a
group of frolicsome urchins as they rolled their hoops or played
games among the bushes. He was Major John André, then acting as an
aide-de-camp to General Clinton and living at his head-quarters.

One bright May day after the capture of Stony Point, when sweet airs
were stealing over from the fragrant wilderness Paulus Hook, and the
road Broadway was like a glittering golden ribbon drawn through a world
of summer time, Major André loitered near his favorite seat on the
greensward. Toying with his pencil, he glanced up to see a chair pass
by on its way up from Whitehall. By its side walked three cavaliers
dressed in the height of fashion and looking as if they might have just
stepped out of Court Alley. Its window-panels were down to let in the
air, and as it rounded the green the young soldier from his point of
view caught a glimpse of one of the fairest faces he had viewed during
his American career. Soft brown hair rolled high above eyes of the
same shade and a complexion as beautiful as the apple-blossoms of old
Derbyshire.

Who the maiden was he longed to inquire, but no one was by, and in an
instant the chair had passed. His eyes followed it, and as it turned in
its triumphal course into one of the upper streets he saw a white hand
rest for an instant above the door and wave the end of a fichu. All day
long the memory of the lovely face and the waving fichu stayed with him.

Looking out of a window of Sir Henry Clinton's drawing-room at
nightfall, he saw the same chair on its homeward way, followed by
another. Then he learned from some of his brother officers that the
vision of the morning was Sally Townsend, a belle of Long Island.

General Sir Henry Clinton was then occupying the mansion No. 1
Broadway. It was a spacious house with a garden extending to the river.
Only a portion of his time was spent there, for when the weather grew
extremely warm he departed with his household for the Beekman mansion
at Turtle Bay. In the garden of the former place, one of the noted
pleasure-spots in the city, Major André is said to have composed his
poem "The Cow Chase." These quaint verses would perhaps be forgotten
to-day if the one who penned them had not been immortalized by calamity.

[Illustration: THE TOWNSEND GARDEN]

Although the British officers made New York a theatre of amusement
in which the candles never flickered or died out for a space of many
months, the dashing André could not have found it as agreeable a spot
as Philadelphia. In that city he planned the famous Meschianza in
honor of jovial Sir William Howe, and was acclaimed the hero of the
hour. Fame to him seems to have been an instinctive passion, and
although of a family humbler than most of those of his scarlet-coated
compatriots, he rose like a meteor above the shackles of environment
and became the favorite of his regiment. It is small wonder that a
youth who could correspond with the learned Anna Seward, as he did at
the age of eighteen, should have hated his work in the mercantile shop
of old Warnford Court. Looking back over the years to-day, he appears
to us a paragon. That the "Cher Jean" of that humble home circle at
Litchfield should be described by all his faithful biographers in most
glowing colors is singular proof that he could not have fallen far
short of their eulogiums. Of unusual personal beauty, a poet, artist,
linguist, and musician, he lives for us again the handsome limner the
belle of Long Island waved to on an early summer's day.

The love-affairs of Major André have always created as much discussion
as the justice of his lamented fate. Whether he was true to that
paragon of virtues, Honora Sneyd, as has often been written, or
forgot her for Peggy Chew, Rebecca Redman, or any of the host of
colonial beauties whose names have been linked with his, can never be
answered. This we know, that after she was married to another, "the
endless Mr. Edgeworth," André still wore her miniature, and he himself
tells us that he secreted it in his mouth when taken a prisoner at
Quebec. His affection for her was pure and lofty, and in his sprightly
and characteristic letters to Anna Seward, her foster-sister, who
corresponded with him under the pseudonym of "Julia," we obtain
glimpses of a hopeless passion; of a lover who truly loved and longed,
but was never an accepted suitor. In the fall-time of 1769 he writes
to "Julia" from the midst of the implements of "quill-driving" in the
London establishment:

[Illustration: MAJOR JOHN ANDRÉ.]

 "Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob
 wig, a rough beard, in snuff-colored clothes, grasping a guinea
 in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable
 pigtail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of
 Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded with
 types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopias that disembogue their
 stores upon his head; Mercuries reclin'd upon bales of goods; Genii
 playing with pens, ink, and paper, while in perspective his gorgeous
 vessels launched on the bosom of the silver Thames, are wafting to
 distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus all the
 mercantile glories crowd on my fancy, emblazoned in the most effulgent
 coloring of an ardent imagination. Borne on her soaring pinions, I
 wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my labors
 with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to receive
 me; I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fiddlers, and poets,
 and builders protected and encouraged; and when the fabrick is pretty
 nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes around and
 find John André by a small coal fire in a gloomy compting house in
 Warnford Court, nothing so little as what he has been making himself,
 and in all probability never to be much more than he is at present.
 But, oh! my dear Honora! it is for thy sake only I wish wealth."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The men were laughing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly he spoke:

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

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

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

She was smiling at his chagrin.

There was a silence for a few minutes.

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

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

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

André saw the horror in her face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS,
  AN AMERICAN MONTAGU

 PINDERINA SCRIBBLERUS, AN AMERICAN MONTAGU

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: A LADY OF OLD AMBOY]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"AN EPIGRAM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: THE WALK TO MRS. BELL'S MANSION]

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

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

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

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

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

  "Yours,
  "E. K."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcriber's Notes:

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

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