Roger Davis, Loyalist Part 1

Roger Davis, Loyalist.

by Frank Baird.

Chapter I

The Outbreak

It was Duncan Hale, the schoolmaster, who first brought us the news.

When he was half-way from the gate to the house, my mother met him. He bowed very low to her, and then, standing with his head uncovered--from my position in the hall--I heard him distinctly say, 'Your husband, madam, has been killed, and the British who went out to Lexington under Lord Percy have been forced to retreat into Boston, with a loss of two hundred and seventy-three officers and men.'

The schoolmaster bowed again, one of those fine, sweeping, old-world bows which he had lately been teaching me with some impatience, I thought; then without further speech he moved toward the little gate.

But I had caught a look of keen anxiety on his face as he addressed my mother. Once outside the garden, he stooped forward, and, breaking into a run, crouching as he went as though afraid of being seen, he soon disappeared around a turn in the road.

My mother stood without speaking or moving for some moments. The birds in the blossom-shrouded trees of the garden were shrieking and chattering in the flood of April sunlight; I felt a draught of perfumed air draw into the hall. Then a mist that had been heavy all the morning on the Charles River, suddenly faded into the blue, and I could see clearly over to Boston, three miles away.

I shall not soon forget the look on my mother's face as she turned and came toward me. I have wondered since if it were not born of a high resolve then made, to be put into effect later. She was not in tears as I thought she would be. There were no signs of grief on her face, but instead her whole countenance seemed illuminated with a strangely n.o.ble look. I was puzzled at this; but when I remembered that my mother was the daughter of an English officer who was killed while serving under Wolfe at Quebec, I understood.

In a firm voice she repeated to me the words I had already heard, then she pa.s.sed up the stairs. In a few moments I heard her telling my two sisters Caroline and Elizabeth--they were both younger than myself--that it was time to get up. After that I heard my mother go to her own room and shut the door. In the silence that followed this I fell to thinking.

Was my father really dead? Could it be that the British had been repulsed? Duncan Hale had been telling me for weeks that war was coming, but I had not thought his prophecy would be fulfilled. Now I understood why he had come so often to visit my father; and why, during the past month, he had seemed so absent-minded in school. My preparation for going to Oxford in the autumn, over which he had been so enthusiastic, appeared to have been completely pushed out of his mind. I had once overheard my father caution him to keep his visits to Lord Percy strictly secret. I was wondering if the part he had played might have any ill consequences for him and for us, when my mother's footsteps sounded on the stairs. She came at once to where I had been standing for some moments, caught me in her arms, and, without speaking, held me close for a moment, and then pressed a kiss on my forehead.

'Go, Roger,' she said, 'and find Peter and Dora. Bring them to the library, and wait there till I come with your sisters.'

I was turning to obey, when I caught a glimpse through the hall doorway of two rebel soldiers galloping up. They had evidently come from Boston. At sight of my mother, one of them addressed her with an unmannerly shout that sent the blood pulsing up to my cheeks in anger.

What my mother had been thinking I did not know; but from that moment a great pa.s.sion seized me. That shout which almost maddened me, had, I can see in looking back over it all, much to do in making me a Loyalist, and in sending me to Canada.

The soldiers looked in somewhat critically, but pa.s.sed. They were rough looking men, poorly mounted and badly dressed. My mother withdrew from the doorway and went upstairs, as I proceeded to seek out our two faithful coloured servants. I delivered to each the bare message given me by my mother, and returned at once to the library.

Everything in the room suggested my father. On his desk lay an unfinished letter to my brother, who had enlisted in the King's forces some six months before. I had read but a few lines of this when the door opened, and my mother entered with Caroline and Elizabeth. In a moment I saw that the spirit of my mother had pa.s.sed on to my sisters.

I was sure they knew the worst; and although I could see Caroline struggle with her feelings, both girls maintained a brave and sensible silence. A moment later Peter and Dora entered, each wide-eyed and apprehensive, but still ignorant of the great calamity that had now befallen our recently happy household.

The east window of the library looked toward Boston. To this my mother went, and stood looking out for some time; then she turned and began to speak.

'Your master,' she said, addressing Peter and Dora, 'has been killed.

We are here to make plans for the future.'

Dora threw up both hands, giving a little shriek as she did so. Peter lifted his great eyes to the ceiling, and slid to his knees; a little later he pressed his hands hard over his heart as though to prevent it from beating its way through. He found relief in swaying backward and forward, and uttering a long, low moan, which finally shaped into, 'Poor Ma.s.sa killed.' He kept repeating this, until we were all on the point of giving way to our smothered emotion. But my mother's voice recalled us.

'What are we to do, Roger?' she said.

Instantly the thought of a new and great responsibility flashed upon me. Was my mother to relinquish the leaders.h.i.+p? Did her question mean that I was to step at once into the place of my fallen father? Had she forgotten that I was but sixteen? I glanced at my sisters, but I found I could not look long upon them in their helplessness, and retain my self-control.

With a hurried glance at the servants, who now sobbed audibly in spite of all efforts at suppression of grief, my eyes came again to the face of my mother. The look of n.o.ble fort.i.tude had gone, and I saw that I must no longer delay in coming to her a.s.sistance.

She motioned me to my father's empty chair; I took it at once, and, though I felt all eyes in the room turn upon me, prompted by a rush of heroic feeling, I neither flinched nor blushed under their gaze. But in spite of my pretended composure nature had her way. My sister Elizabeth, breaking into a flood of tears, rushed across the floor to my mother's arms, and soon all were weeping uncontrollably. Mastering my rising feelings, I began thinking what was best to be done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE MOTIONED ME TO MY FATHER'S EMPTY CHAIR.]

I knew the King's cause had many sympathisers on the farms that lay about us. What effect the real shedding of blood and the defeat of the British would have I could not determine, but, while I knew that the country would soon be swarming with rebels, I was equally sure that we would not be absolutely alone, if we resolved to declare ourselves in favour of the King and his government in the colony. At first, it occurred to me to advise fleeing at once inside the protected limits of Boston. But the thought of the value of my father's property turned me from this course. That we were in danger, I was certain. My father, owing to his trade relations with the colonists of all types, had not openly espoused the royal cause; on many occasions rebels had claimed him as a sympathiser; but I knew that now all would be revealed. The jeer of the soldiers half convinced me that all was known already. Had these simply gone by that they might return with others to carry us off prisoners?

At that moment, on glancing through the window, I was startled to see several buildings on fire away toward Boston. The rebels had evidently begun the work of destruction; but the thought that it had suddenly come to this, that our quiet, happy, and thriving country-side was to be devastated by fire and sword as during old wars of which I had read in history, made me, for a moment, wonder if it were not all a horrible dream. Recalling myself, however, to the situation in which I was placed, as the defender of my mother and sisters, I turned from the window, and, when a silence fell in the sobbing, said, 'I shall see Duncan Hale; he will help us.'

The painful day wore slowly on. It was evident that the whole country was deeply stirred. Not a single soldier of the King could be seen, but rebels were everywhere. On horseback and on foot; in rough carriages and farm wagons; armed and unarmed; singly and in crowds; cheering, shouting, swearing, threatening--all day long these rough, leaderless, untrained farmer soldiers kept pa.s.sing and re-pa.s.sing, in what seemed to be wild, purposeless confusion. Now and then the sound of distant firing came from the direction of Boston; occasionally a column of smoke arose from the country round, telling its own story of destruction.

I wondered if a similar fate awaited our fine old house, with its fluted Corinthian corners, and its air of English solidity. I recalled the peculiar pride with which my father had shown visitors through and around it. The big hallway running from front to back, and on either side the lofty square rooms; the high wainscotting, the deeply recessed window seats, and queer, old-fas.h.i.+oned mouldings that bordered the ceilings; the wide fire-places with their curiously-wrought andirons; the two magnificent lindens before the door, planted by my grandmother when a bride some sixty years ago; the wide garden with shaded walks, and the hundred acres of rich, valuable land, all took on a new interest to me that day. It came to me that these things could not be given up without a pang.

The day--it was the twentieth of April, 1775--proved gloriously fine until the end; this, with the unusual gaiety of the birds in the lindens, the bursting of the buds in the gardens, and other a.s.surances of spring, were in striking contrast with all that had been taking place in the world of men. But the consequences of the events that had preceded that day were to be infinitely greater than any contrast could be. I can see now, as I did not then, that rightly looked at, the skirmish at Lexington where my father fell, had within it the beginnings of two nations--and one of them was Canada. But of this, later in the story.

That night I was again in the library in consultation with my mother and sisters, regarding the possible recovery of my father's body, when a low knocking at the door startled us. A few moments later Duncan Hale and Doctor Canfield, minister of the parish, were seated among us.

In a few softly spoken words the good clergyman expressed his sincere sympathy for us in our sudden affliction. Doctor Canfield was one of Harvard's most brilliant sons; he had travelled much; was directly descended from a n.o.ble English family; he was possessed of means; many of the foremost men of letters were his correspondents; he was tall and military in bearing; graceful and eloquent in speech; the soul of courtesy and honour; and withal, he was a master of the fine art of manners. It was Doctor Canfield and others like him who made separation from England difficult, standing, as they did, for the only refinement that the provinces knew, peopled as these were mainly with rough, plain tradespeople and farmers. As he talked with my mother, I could not help setting his fineness over against the coa.r.s.eness of the many men I had seen through the day.

Duncan Hale sat silent, until Doctor Canfield, turning to him, asked him to relate what he knew of the events of the previous day. As this was a matter to which our minds had been constantly reverting since the reported death of my father, we gave him willing audience.

'Three days ago it became known to General Gage, madam,' he said, rising and addressing my mother, 'that a considerable quant.i.ty of rebel stores had been collected at the village of Lexington, some fourteen miles from Boston. The General decided, in the interests of His Majesty's government and of peace, that these should be destroyed.

Accordingly he ordered Major Pitcairn to march with eight hundred men to Lexington, and destroy or seize the rifles and ammunition there stored. Guided by your excellent husband, who knew the country as the officers did not, the soldiers succeeded in destroying the stores, but, when they were on the point of returning to Boston, they were attacked by thousands of the rebels, who, having been previously made acquainted with the intention of our soldiers by means of spies riding out from Boston, one Paul Revere being chief, were fully armed and well prepared. Seeing themselves so overwhelmingly outnumbered, and being informed that the whole country for fully fifty miles around was in arms, the English officers, after consulting with Lord Percy, who had gone out later in the day, agreed to fall back upon Boston.'

The schoolmaster finished and sat down. There was a strangely agitated look on his face. I was wondering what this could mean, when a sharp whistle sounded at the door.

Instantly we were on our feet. Duncan Male's face went suddenly white.

The next moment a dozen or more of the rough rebel soldiers I had seen through the day, burst into the room.

'Spy!' the leading man shouted, springing toward the schoolmaster. But a door that had been un.o.bserved by the rebels, and therefore unguarded by them before their attack, opened from the library upon the verandah.

Through this Duncan sprang, and in the shaft of light that shot from the room, I saw him leap into the darkness. The door shut with a spring lock in the face of his pursuer.

Chapter II

Among Enemies

The next morning I boldly resolved to ride out into the country. A double purpose moved me to this course. I was anxious first, to recover, if possible, my father's body, and secondly, I knew that by mingling with the rebels, I would gather information that might be of service to me and to my mother in making our future plans. The invasion of our home by the soldiers and the sudden and dramatic disappearance of my friend and schoolmaster, Duncan Hale, to whom I had intended to look for advice, threw me quite upon my own resources. As to Dr. Canfield, much as he might wish to be of service to us, I was aware that his position, as well as his p.r.o.nounced sympathy with the King's cause, would render it almost impossible for him to obtain information except regarding the Royalist side. I saw at once that if information was to be gained, I must gain it myself.

I knew that there were many in the country around who had taken no part in the long controversy that had preceded the shedding of blood. There were the quiet farmer people, with whom my father had traded so long, and whom until yesterday I had seen for years almost daily go in towards Boston with produce. I was sure that these could not in a day have become strong and violent partizans for either side. Then, there were those who were opposed to war, because it was wicked, and violated the teaching of Scripture. Taking our day-school to reflect the mind of the community, I concluded that there must even yet be great diversity of views regarding what was right and what was wrong.

My father had warned me against declaring myself on either side. When, in our home, Duncan Hale had fiercely engaged in denouncing the rebels, he had urged upon him the necessity of a more cautious att.i.tude. The events of the previous night led me to think that Duncan had not fully taken to heart the advice my father had given him. But I was sure that, if he had offended, I had not. At any rate I resolved to go out into the country.

I found Peter, and told him to saddle the horse he used about the farm and garden; then having dressed myself to look like one of the many farmer boys I had seen pa.s.sing our home, I rode off toward Lexington.

It was still early, but there were many coming and going. I soon learned that I had been quite successful in disguising myself. A fellow a little older than myself galloped up beside me.

'Goin' to enlist?' he asked.

'I am going out to Lexington to learn the truth about what happened there,' I said. 'Where are you from?'

'Out Concord way. I come from there last night, an' am on my way back.