Maid Sally Part 26

"The man who gave you his card, my dear maiden, was your father's own cousin, and I feel sure he once felt great love for your mother. He told me of having seen a young maid who was so much the image of a beloved friend of the past that he desired to know her name. And tears filled his eyes when I showed him a small painted picture of your mother that had lain in Mistress Brace's little trunk. For she would have us find the trunk and see what was hiding inside."

"There!" again exclaimed Sally, "I have said to my Fairy, 'How know I but Mistress Cory Ann hath things that were my mother's and should belong to me?'"

"There was a cape of finest needlework," continued the parson, "probably the one you saw, also a letter of importance, as it told the name of your mother's family, and a few articles beside money, of value to you, found in the little trunk. Here is the picture of your poor mamma."

Sally gazed with curious eyes at the little painting that was so like her own face as seen in the mirror, that she exclaimed:

"It is like my own face!" and suddenly she kissed it, a quick, warm kiss.

"I wonder what made me do that?" she asked, with a feeling of confusion.

"I think it was your warm French blood," said Parson Kendall.

"And what was my mother's name?" asked Sally.

"Earlscourt. She was of the same house as Lady Gabrielle, wife of Sir Percival Grandison, although well removed. Officer Duquesne of the British army thought your mother lost money through some of her relatives, who have died, so nothing can be proved."

"Enough has been proved!" cried Maid Sally.

Parson Kendall smiled.

"There speaketh your good Fairy," he said; "enough _has_ been proved.

You are of n.o.ble blood on your father's side, and the Earlscourts hold themselves to be of the best, as no doubt they are. What better could'st thou wish?"

Sally was speechless.

She had not taken in the whole truth of the last fact until it was thus plainly set before her.

Of kin to her Fairy Prince!

Could it be true? Yet here sat Parson Kendall, who had heard the story from her father's own cousin, a man who knew root and branch all the truth as to her kindred and relations.

"I think I had better go away and be alone by myself," said Sally, her face crimson, a feverish light in her eyes.

"We will say nothing of this outside the house for the present," advised the parson. "Officer Duquesne is one of the king's men,--and by the way, we had but until lately a fort of that name,--and he quite likely will acquaint Lady Grandison with the fact that she hath a young kinswoman in the town. But, my dear damsel, she would, I fear, look but coldly just now on one whom she would regard as a little rebel."

"Then her son is a rebel, too," said Sally, with dimples plumping in.

"Yes, and hath been aided in helping the rebel army, by his young kinswoman, Sara Duquesne," laughed Parson Kendall with quiet glee.

"I must go away by myself awhile," again said Maid Sally.

"And take thy good Fairy with thee," said the parson. "But return from wherever thou goest in an hour, for Goodwife Kendall and myself go to Cloverlove plantation to dine, and we go by stage, which pa.s.ses there and will not return until near evening.

"I have lessons for thee to learn, and would not have thee dwell too much on the knowledge that hath come to thee, and is indeed very pleasant."

"I think the world has turned topsyturvy," said the maiden, with the look of one who dreams.

"And Fairies are but bright fancies of very human creatures," said the parson, in a low, kind voice.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE BATTLE OF GREAT BRIDGE

It would seem that the knowledge Maid Sally now carried under the burning gold of her thick tresses was making a woman of her.

Very gay and glad at heart was she, for, had not the dearest dream of her life come true? She was a high-born damsel, and--could it be true?--the blood of her Fairy Prince was also in her veins.

But instead of being filled with foolish pride because of these things, she said wisely to herself:

"Now must I study yet more, for I would not shame in any way the people who are my people although they know me not. Some day they may know me well."

And so the maiden plunged into her books anew, and also grew skilled in embroidery, even copying the pattern on her mother's dainty cape, and copying it well too, on a skirt of fine India muslin that had lain in Mistress Brace's trunk.

A few weeks after the young Virginians had started for Boston there had come a hard battle, even the battle of Bunker Hill.

And Hotspur had borne his young master to the distant colony barely in time to take part in it, after first meeting his friends at the turnpike.

In July, Sir Percival Grandison received from his son an account of the hard contest. He told how all night he and his comrades, delicately nurtured young men all, with soft hands and lions' hearts, had worked with pick and shovel, and with the rank and file, in throwing up breastworks. And so quietly was the work done that neither a sailor in the near harbor, nor the British sentry but a little away, had heard a sound.

"Although not a great victory for us," Lionel wrote, "we yet showed what kind of men the British have to fight, and our untrained men put to flight soldiers of long experience and training. We feel sure of victory in the end."

One balmy night in August, Sally saw Mammy Leezer trundling up the road, her red and yellow rabbit's ears, or points of her bandanna turban, c.o.c.ked high and important, her white cotton skirt stiff as starch could make it, and her pipe no doubt in a deep pocket.

Mammy was the only person at Ingleside who had known anything about Sally at Slipside Row. But it will be remembered she also knew something of her father, and always declared she "nebber b'long'd in dat Row, nohow."

Sally answered Mammy's cheerful greeting, and then asked, gaily:

"Going to war, Mammy?"

"Goin' to war?" cried Mammy, with a fearful rolling of eyes. "Now what you take me fo', honey? But I spect you heer'd de news. Dat Mars' Lion, he comin' home soon. Mars' Perc'val, he talkin' o' goin' to Inglan'

'fore long, and Mars' Lion, he hev to come back to Virginny and look affer de plantation and we at de cabins."

Then Mammy lowered her voice, and asked, with a mysterious air:

"Hev you done heer'd 'bout dat Hotspur helpin' Mars' Lion get away to Bosting town?"

"How was that?" asked Sally, for indeed not a word of gossip had she heard about the affair.

Mammy went on:

"Ob course Mars' Perc'val won't hev a word said to him on de subjec', and I doan't b'leeve he know what to tink ob tings. But shor's yore born, honey, I b'leeve de folks up at de house tried in some way to keep Mars' Lion from goin' to Bosting with dose odder boys he done go with.

"And, honey,"--Mammy Leezer held up a dark finger to make more dreadful her solemn air,--"one night las' May, dat Hotspur, he done gone from his outside box, and needer hoof, head, or tail ob him lef'. And dar warn't no _man_ come for dat hoss! Bill, he wor awake all night, and lil Jule, she hev a mis'ry in her lil stummick, so I'se up 'bout all night, and no one come round dat stable we knows dat night, yet, in de mornin', dat Hotspur, he clean gone."