“You’d do well to come out here, Aunt Martha.”

A Heroine of 1812

A Maryland Romance

BY

AMY E. BLANCHARD

Illustrated by Ida Waugh

W. A. WILDE COMPANY

BOSTON CHICAGO

Copyright, 1901,
By W. A. Wilde Company.
All rights reserved.

A Heroine of 1812.

To My Brother

THE GRANDSON OF AN “OLD DEFENDER”
I LOVINGLY DEDICATE THIS STORY OF
HIS MARYLAND AND MINE

A. E. B.

Contents.

Illustrations.

A HEROINE OF 1812.

CHAPTER I.

When the Ship Came In.

A warm evening in early June of the year 1812 showed the streets of Baltimore city gay with groups of people crowding the steps of the houses, or sauntering up and down from corner to corner. Slender girls with arms around each other, circles of children merrily piping out some ring-around-a-rosy, young men stopping before this or that door for a few minutes’ chat,—all served to make a lively scene.

Lettice Hopkins, in short-waisted gown of sprigged muslin, stood with one slippered foot tapping impatiently the marble step before her uncle’s door. “Is yuh see him, Miss Letty?” asked a little colored boy who stopped his occupation of sliding down the cellar door to make his inquiry.

“No, I don’t,” Lettice returned petulantly, “and poor old Mrs. Flynn is moaning and going on because her Patrick is aboard the vessel, and she thinks he’s drowned. Run to the corner, Danny, and see if there is a sign of your master.” She sat down on the step and looked anxiously in the direction of the street corner toward which Danny was making his way, taking time in doing so, and stopping frequently to switch a chip from the running water in the gutter, or to send a pebble hopping over the cobblestones.

“It certainly is warm for so early in June,” Lettice remarked, as she vigorously fanned herself. “You’d do well to come out here, Aunt Martha,” she continued, addressing some one in the hall behind her. “There is a breath outside, but little indoors. Don’t you think uncle must be here soon? He surely cannot be at the wharf all this time.”

“Perhaps he is,” her aunt answered. “It is a week since the vessel was due, and in good weather that is too long. It is nothing of a run from here to Boston and back, and your uncle has reason to be somewhat anxious, especially in these days.”

“These days,” Lettice repeated; “that is what father is always saying, as if these were not good enough days.”

Mrs. Hopkins did not answer, but instead, asked, “Where is your father?”

“Down at the Fountain Inn, I suppose; it is where he always goes of an evening. They have a deal to talk about, it seems, down there.”

“They have, indeed, but isn’t that your uncle coming now?” Mrs. Hopkins had come out upon the step and was peering out into the dimly lighted street.

“To be sure it is,” Lettice replied. “I will go to meet him, for Mr. Gilmore will stop him if I don’t get him over on this side of the street.” She started off with rapid step, her light scarf floating from her shoulders as she walked.

“She’s in!” shouted Danny, who came running on ahead of his master.

At this news Lettice slackened her pace and walked soberly forward to meet her uncle. “Good news, I hear, Uncle Tom,” she said as she came up to him.

“Ye-es,” he returned, “so far as I am concerned, but—”

“What?” Lettice interrupted. “Hurry and tell me, Uncle Tom. What’s wrong? Did anything happen to the vessel?”

“Not to the vessel, except that she was stopped by a British cruiser, and three of our men were carried off as British subjects.”

“Oh! And who were they? Not Patrick Flynn, I hope. His mother declares that something has happened to him, for she has had a certain dream three nights in succession,—a dream which she insists forebodes ill.”

“Poor Patrick, indeed; one of the best hands aboard, and born on American soil, though his brogue is rich enough for any son of the Emerald Isle.”

“Alas, poor Patrick! Who will tell his mother?”

“I will, of course,” her uncle quietly replied. And Lettice hesitating to enter the house, he passed in before her, spoke a few words to his wife, and then walked back to where a long garden showed borders abloom with the roses of June glimmering faintly from out the dusky green.

Presently arose sounds of wailing and lamenting, and Lettice, unable to restrain her sympathies, rushed back to see poor old Mrs. Flynn rocking back and forth, wringing her hands, and making her moan over the capture of her son.

“There, Winnie, there,” Lettice heard her uncle say. “After all, it is not as bad as it would seem. Pat will find his way back, or I’m mistaken, and there are plenty of persons who will tell you he should be proud to serve in the British navy.”

“Ah, but they’ll be battherin’ the life out av ’im, sorr, an’ be markin’ up his poor back wid the cat, an’ indade, sorr, I’m thinkin’ he’d betther be dead than alive.”

“Pshaw! not a bit of it. Pat’s too good a hand for that, and Mr. Joe gave him a word to make no cause for offence, but to do his duty by the ship he is on, just the same as if she were the Delight.”

“’Tis a hard day, sorr, when our min must be dragged from their proper places an’ be put to wurruk for thim as has no right to be dhrivin’ thim. Not that I’m so down on the ould counthry, sorr, but I’m not upholdin’ thim British min stealers, Misther Tom, sorr, an’ it goes agin me grain for a son o’ mine to be slavin’ for the inimy av the counthry where he was born.”

Lettice sat down on the step beside the old woman and began softly to stroke the wrinkled hand which was nervously fingering the hem of Mrs. Flynn’s gingham apron. “Never mind, Mrs. Flynn,” the girl said; “it will be no time before Patrick will be back again. Why, if he had gone on a long cruise from this port, you’d not see him for years, maybe, and this is no worse. Cheer up, now. Ah, there is Cousin Joe. I’ll bid him come out here. I think my father is with him.”

The two men approached, gesticulating excitedly. “It is an outrage,” Lettice’s father was saying, “and one that Americans will not stand much longer. Odious servitude for our citizens! impressed into a service they despise! our commerce impeded! insults, injuries of all kinds heaped upon us! We will not stand it. There will be a war, sir, for, as the wise Benjamin Franklin so aptly said, ‘Our War of Independence has yet to be fought.’”

“Nonsense, William, what was our war of the Revolution?” put in Mr. Hopkins.

“It was the Revolution. We are not yet free, if indignity can be offered us which we must accept silently.”

“Ah, Masther Joe, dear,” whined Winnie, “ye let thim steal me bhy.” Joseph Hopkins, a tall young fellow, sunburnt and stalwart, looked down at her with kindly eyes. “Indeed, Winnie, I did my best to save him and two others, but it was no use.”

“Tell us about it, Cousin Joe,” said Lettice.

“I have told the tale more than once, cousin, but since you and Winnie will likely give me no peace till I tell it again, I’ll spin you my yarn. We were just turning into the bay, after having had to go out of our way to escape from the clutches of more than one British cruiser, when we saw a sail which gave us chase, and though the Delight was in her own waters, our pursuers were within gunshot in a short time. Then they demanded to search us for deserters. At first I refused, as I knew father would have me do; but we were scarcely prepared to fight a ship of the size of the enemy, and discretion being the better part of valor, and to save a whole skin for the majority of my crew, at last it seemed best to submit to the demand. So poor Patrick, Johnny Carter, as good an Eastern-shoreman as ever lived, and Dick Bump, who never saw the plank of a British ship before, were carried off. Every mother’s son of them was born on American soil, and they were claimed as British subjects. It is an outrage! But trust to Pat, Mrs. Flynn, he’ll be with us again before long, or my name’s not Joe Hopkins. I saw Uncle Edward in Boston, mother,” he went on to say, “and he promised to come on with the next ship.”

Leaving Mrs. Flynn somewhat comforted, the others took their way again to the front steps, where the men plunged into a discussion of the questions of the day, and Lettice, who cared little for letters-of-marque and general reprisals, sat watching the passers-by, once in a while putting a question when the talk became particularly exciting.

She had come up from the Eastern shore of Maryland but a few months before, and had hardly yet become accustomed to life in a big city, having always lived upon the plantation now managed by her eldest brother. The marriage of this big brother had eventually brought about the change which made of Lettice a city girl, for her father concluded to join his brother in Baltimore, and Lettice must perforce accompany him. It was not altogether a happy arrangement for the girl; her uncle’s wife was a New England woman, and did not understand her husband’s light-hearted little niece, over whom she was disposed to exert an authority which Lettice, if she had been less sweet-tempered, would have resented. Then, too, Aunt Martha did not like negro servants, and Lettice knew no others. Nevertheless, she made friends with old Mrs. Flynn, who reigned over the kitchen, and the other maids did not count, she told her father.

She sat on the step, her thoughts travelling to her old home. How pleasant it must be there this hot night, she reflected, with the bay in sight, and the moon shining down upon it. She would like to be dashing down the long level road upon her pretty bay mare, and after a while to come in and find Mammy waiting for her with some cooling drink, and Lutie ready to undress her. She wished Aunt Martha would let her have Lutie, or she wished her father would let her keep house for him and have the old servants about her. Perhaps he would in another year, for she would be seventeen then.

She was aroused from her revery by her father saying: “War? yes, war say I. Joe, I told you, didn’t I, of our meeting at Fountain Inn, and of our resolutions upon the subject? ‘No alternative between war and degradation’ we decided.”

“Oh, father,” put in Lettice, “is there really to be war? I thought it was only talk.”

“Pray God not. There’s been too much talk; now is the time for action.”

“And shall you go and fight? And Cousin Joe and Uncle Tom, will they go too?”

“If we are needed, yes. I can answer for all of us.”

Lettice slipped her arm across the back of her father’s chair. “Oh, father, dear, you’ll not go and leave me all alone?”

“Not all alone, with your Aunt Martha and the servants,” spoke up her Uncle Tom.

Lettice looked down a little confused, but her Cousin Joe changed the subject by saying, “They are not for war in Boston, Uncle William.”

“So I am told; and that Massachusetts, so valiant in the Revolution, should be willing tamely to submit to England’s insults, is beyond my belief. I cannot understand her indifference.”

“A war with England would touch her pocket-book too nearly,” Joe replied, laughing.

“Yes, it would interfere with her trade, and she has not the other resources that we have,” said Mr. Tom Hopkins, reflectively. “I suspect that you had more than one controversy with Edward, Joe.”

“That I did; and he’ll soon be on his way here to resume the argument.”

“Does he bring Rhoda with him?” asked Mrs. Hopkins.

“Yes, so he said.”

“She’ll be a companion for you, Lettice,” said Mrs. Hopkins. “She is but a year older. We must try to keep her here for a good long visit. I’ve not seen Rhoda for five years, but she was a very good child then, and I have no doubt will be a useful influence for you.”

Lettice touched her cousin’s arm. “Come, walk to the corner with me,” she said. “I’m tired of sitting still, and you all talk nothing but politics.”

“You’d rather the subject would be dress, I fancy,” Mrs. Hopkins remarked, with a little severity.

“To be sure I would,” Lettice laughed, as she walked off. “Sometimes I feel as if I must be saucy to Aunt Martha,” she said to her cousin. “Tell me about Rhoda, Cousin Joe. Is she pretty? What does she look like?”

“She is fair, with light hair and blue eyes. She is rather slight, and is quiet in her manner. She does not talk very much unless she is deeply interested, and then she is very earnest.”

“Then there will be a chance for my chatter,” returned Lettice, the dimples showing around her rosy mouth. “Does she wear her hair in curls, as I do, Cousin Joe?”

“No, she wears it quite plainly.”

“And is she tall?”

“Yes, rather so.”

“Taller than I?”

“Yes; you are not above what I should call medium height.”

“I may grow.”

“True; there is time for that.”

“Should you like me better then?” Lettice gave a side glance, and then dropped her curly black lashes over her big blue eyes.

Her cousin laughed. “You would coquet even with me, I verily believe; with me, who am as good as married.”

The violet eyes opened wide. “I am not trying to at all. Would I coquet with my blood cousin, who, moreover, is a double cousin?”

“Perhaps not, if you could help it; but you do coquet even with Pat Flynn.”

“Now, Cousin Joe, you are trying to tease me.”

“And with Mrs. Flynn,” Joe continued, “and your father and your brothers.”

“My brothers—That reminds me, Cousin Joe, that if there is going to be a war, I suppose they will want to fight too. Alas! I’ve a mind to turn Yankee and cry down war.”

“And let Patrick go unavenged, after all the sweet looks you have cast on him and the honeyed words to his mother?”

“Quit your nonsense, sir. You know I would never give soft glances to a common sailor.”

“Thank you, and what am I?”

“No common sailor, but an uncommonly pert young gentleman. You may walk to Julia Gittings’s with me, and there leave me; I’ll warrant her brother will see me home.”

“I warrant he will if I give him a chance, but I’ve no notion of deserting you, Cousin Lettice. You asked me to walk with you, and I’ll complete my part of the contract.”

Lettice gave him a soft little dab with her white fingers, and another moment brought them to a standstill before one of the comfortable houses fronting the square below their own home. They found Miss Julia surrounded by a bevy of young gentlemen in short-waisted coats, and by as many young ladies in as short-waisted gowns.

“Law, Lettice, is it you?” cried Julia. “Have you heard the news? They say we’ll surely have war. Won’t it be exciting! Howdy, Mr. Joe. Come sit here and tell me of your exploits. Mr. Emery has just been trying to fool us by relating a story of your being overhauled by the British.”

“It is true. Isn’t it, Joe?” spoke up one of the young men.

“True enough, as three of my boys have sad reason to know,” Joe replied. And then again must an account of his experiences be given, amid soft ejaculations from the girls and more emphatic ones from the young men. It was not a specially new theme, but one that had not come home to them before, and not a youth that did not walk away toward his home that night with a determination to avenge the outrage at the first opportunity. The next day came the news that war was declared.

CHAPTER II.

The Work of a Mob.

Within the week Rhoda Kendall arrived with her father from Boston. As her Cousin Joe had described her, Lettice was not surprised to meet a quiet, reserved girl. By the side of Lettice’s dark hair, pink and white complexion, and deep blue eyes, Rhoda’s coloring seemed very neutral, yet the New England girl was by no means as supine as her appearance would indicate, as Lettice soon found out; for before twenty-four hours were over she was arguing with her new acquaintance in a crisp, decided manner, and was so well-informed, so clever with facts and dates, that Lettice retired from the field sadly worsted, but with the fire of an ambitious resolve kindled within her.

“She made me feel about two inches high,” she told her father, “and I appeared a perfect ignoramus. Why don’t I know all those things about politics and history, father?”

“Go along, child,” he replied. “Deliver me from a clever woman! Learn to be a good housewife, and be pretty and amiable, and you’ll do.”

“No, but I’ll not do,” Lettice persisted. “I am not going to let that Boston girl make me feel as small as a mouse, and I don’t mean to sit as mum as an owl while she entertains the gentlemen with her knowledge of affairs. She’ll be having them all desert our side yet.”

Her father laughed. “That’s the way the crow flies, is it? My little lass is like to be jealous, and she’ll have no one stealing her swains from her. I see. Well, my love, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know why we shouldn’t have war. When I listen to Rhoda, she fairly persuades me that we would be a blundering, senseless lot, to war with a great nation like England. She has such a big navy, and we have none to speak of, Rhoda says, and she laughs when I say we won’t let ourselves be beaten. We will not, will we, father?”

“No, we will not,” he emphasized; “and as for our navy, we have not a bad record. Their ships can sail no faster and are no better manned than ours.”

“I’d like to see any one manage a vessel better than you or Uncle Tom, and even Brother William or Brother James, and Cousin Tom can do anything with one of our clippers. Why, they are as much at home on the water as on the land.”

“To be sure. There are no better seamen anywhere than America can produce, and we can show fight. At all events, daughter, we do not mean to be bullied, and though New England has little mind to help us, we’ll make our fight on righteous grounds of complaint.”

“But won’t our trade be spoiled? Rhoda says so.”

“You let me talk to Rhoda,” said Mr. Hopkins, rising, “and leave politics alone, little one. Run along and help your aunt.”

“She doesn’t want any help, and she doesn’t like me to be in the kitchen. Father, dear, when shall I be old enough to keep house for you, and have Aunt Dorky, and Lutie, and all of them for our servants?”

He put his arm around her caressingly. “We cannot think of such things till this war matter is settled, my pet. I must be on hand to serve if need be, and I couldn’t leave my little girl alone, you know.”

“I wish I could fight,” said Lettice, solemnly.

Her father smiled. “Pray heaven that you’ll never see fight,” he said.

But Lettice was soon to see the first effects of war, for the following evening Rhoda’s father came in and pulled a paper out of his pocket as he sat down to the table. “What do you think of this, Tom?” he said. “There’s a level-headed man for you!” and he read: “We mean to use every constitutional argument and every legal means to render as odious and suspicious to the American people, as they deserve to be, the patrons and contrivers of this highly impolitic and destructive war, in the full persuasion that we shall be supported and ultimately applauded by nine-tenths of our countrymen, and that our silence would be treason to them.”

“What do I think of that?” said Mr. Hopkins, “I think that Mr. Hanson is laying up trouble for himself, for I suppose that is the Federal Republican you have there.”

“It is, and I fully agree with Mr. Hanson, if he is the editor.”

“You of Massachusetts may, but we of Maryland do not,” returned Mr. Hopkins, with some heat; “and Mr. Hanson will find out to his cost that he cannot disseminate such a publication without endangering himself and his property.”

Sure enough, on the following Monday evening a party of indignant citizens destroyed the type, presses, paper, etc., of the Federal Republican, and razed the house to its foundations, following out Mr. Hopkins’s predictions.

“Outrageous!” cried Rhoda, when she heard the reports. “What a lawless set you are here.”

“Almost as much so as you were up in Boston some forty years ago,” retorted her Cousin Joe, lazily, at which Rhoda’s pale blue eyes flashed, and she set her lips defiantly.

“You are talking nonsense!” she said. “That was for our liberty, and this is but the furthering an unnecessary conflict which will ruin the country our fathers so bravely fought for.”

“And for which our fathers will bravely fight again, won’t they, Cousin Joe?” Lettice broke in. “Mine will, I know, although I don’t suppose yours will, Rhoda.”

“Sh! Sh!” cried Mrs. Hopkins. “Don’t quarrel, children. I hoped you two girls would be good friends, but you are forever sparring. You are not very polite, Lettice. You’ll be sending Rhoda home with a poor opinion of Southern hospitality.”

This touched Lettice to the quick. She looked up archly from under her long lashes. “Then I’ll be good, Rhoda,” she said. “Come, we’ll go to market for aunt. I want you to see our Marsh market. Strangers think it is a real pretty one.” And the two girls departed, Lettice with basket on arm, curls dancing, and step light; Rhoda with a deep consciousness of the proprieties, giving not so much as a side glance to the young blades who eyed them admiringly as they passed down Market Street. But Lettice dimpled and smiled as this or that acquaintance doffed his hat, so that presently Rhoda said sarcastically, “It is plain to see why you like to come to market, Lettice.”

“And why?” asked Lettice, opening her eyes.

“Because of the many pretty bows you receive.”

Lettice gave her head a little toss, and then asked, a trifle wickedly, “Is it then a new experience to you to count on receiving a bow from a gentleman?”

“No,” returned Rhoda, somewhat nettled; “but from so many.”

“Oh, so many; then you girls in Boston cannot account your acquaintances by the dozen.”

“We don’t want to,” returned Rhoda, shortly. “We are not so lavish of our smiles as to bestow them upon every masculine we meet.”

“It is plain to see why you like to come to market.”

“That’s where you lose a great deal,” replied Lettice, suavely. “Now, I’ve been taught to be sweetly polite to everybody, and my father would bow as courteously to Mrs. Flynn as to Mrs. Dolly Madison, and so would my brothers.”

“You have two brothers, I believe,” said Rhoda, changing the subject.

“Yes; one has not been long married and lives at our old home in eastern Maryland.”

“A farm?”

“A tobacco plantation, although we raise other crops. My younger brother, James, lives there, too.”

“And how old is he?”

“Old enough to be a very fitting beau for you,” laughed Lettice.

Rhoda frowned, to Lettice’s delight. “Why don’t you say, Such frivolity! that is what Aunt Martha always says when I mention beaux. One would suppose it a wicked thing to marry or to receive a gentleman’s attention. I wonder how Aunt Martha ever brought herself to the point of becoming Uncle Tom’s second wife; but I believe she says he carried her by storm, and she was surprised into saying yes. How do the young men carry on such things up your way, Rhoda? Do they sit and tweedle their thumbs and cast sheep’s eyes at you, as some of our country bumpkins do? or do they make love to the mother, as I have heard is the custom in some places?”

“Nonsense, Lettice, how your thoughts do run on such things! Is that the market?”

“Yes, and now you will see as fine a display as you could wish.”

A moment after Lettice had become the careful housewife, selecting her various articles with great judgment, tasting butter, scrutinizing strawberries to be sure their caps were fresh and green, lifting with delicate finger the gills of a fish to see if they were properly red, and quite surprising Rhoda by her knowledge of and interest in articles of food.

“One would suppose you were the housekeeper,” she said to Lettice. “How did you learn all those things?”

“My mother taught me some, and our old cook others. My mother considered certain matters of housekeeping the first for a girl to learn, and I hope to keep house for my father in another year, if this wretched war is over then.”

“War!” replied Rhoda, scornfully. “It is so absurd to talk of war.” But not many days after came the first ominous outburst of the future storm. It was on July 27, about twilight, that Lettice and Rhoda, who were slowly sauntering up and down the pavement, saw a crowd beginning to gather before a respectable-looking house on Charles Street.

“I wonder what can be the matter,” said Lettice, pausing in her account of a fox-hunt. “Do you see yonder crowd, Rhoda?”

“Yes, let us go and find out what it means.”

“Oh, no!” And Lettice, who had surprised Rhoda by telling how she could take a ditch, was not ready to cross the street to join the crowd.

“There can’t be any danger,” said Rhoda.

“Oh, but there is. See there, Rhoda, they are throwing stones at the windows. Oh, I see, it is the house which Mr. Hanson now occupies, since they tore down his printing-press. Oh, this is dreadful! Come, Rhoda, run, run; the crowd is growing larger; we’ll be caught in the midst of it.”

But Rhoda still hesitated. “Is that the gentleman whose paper my father commended?”

“Mr. Hanson? Yes, it is; he is the editor of the Federal Republican, and it is evident that he has written something to enrage his enemies. Come, Rhoda, do come. I am afraid we shall be hurt, and anyhow, we must not mingle in such a rabble. I’m going to run,” and suiting the action to the word, she ran swiftly along the street toward home, Rhoda following at a slower gait.

They met their Cousin Joe hurrying toward them. “Oh, Cousin Joe, Cousin Joe,” cried Lettice, grasping his arm, “there is something dreadful going on! Take us home! I am scared! I don’t want to see or hear what they are doing. They are throwing stones at Mr. Hanson’s house, and are breaking the windows, and yelling and howling like mad! Listen! What do they mean to do? Why are they so fierce? I am so afraid some one will be killed.”

“It means that war has begun,” said her cousin, slowly.

“But what a way to do it!” said Rhoda, indignantly. “A rabble like that, to attack a few innocent people!”

“Innocent from your point of view, but not from the mob’s.”

“You uphold the mob?”

“No; but I don’t uphold the utterances of the Federal Republican. Come home, girls, and don’t poke your noses out of doors, or at least don’t leave our own front doorstep.”

“I’ll not,” cried Lettice, clinging to him. “I will go out into the garden and sit there. Where are my father and Uncle Tom?”

“They have gone down to see Major Barney, to inquire what can be done about this disturbance. I will keep you informed about what goes on.”

“Don’t go back into that mob, Cousin Joe,” Lettice begged. “You might get killed.”

“I must see what is going on, but I will take no part in violence.”

“But what would Patsey say?” Lettice asked half archly.

Joe looked down at her with a little smile. “If she is the brave girl I take her for, she’ll trust to my good sense to look out for myself.”

“But they are firing from the house. Listen! you can hear the reports.”

Joe listened, and then he said, “I will not go too near, little cousin. I promise you that. Run in now.”

“You’ll come back and tell us if anything more serious happens,” said Rhoda. “I wish my father were not in Washington.”

“He’s better off there,” Joe assured her. “For my part, I am thankful he is not here.”

The girls retired to the garden at the back of the house. Danny with wide-open eyes peeped out of one of the lower windows. “What’s de matter, Miss Letty?” he asked in a loud whisper. “Is dey fightin’?”

“Yes; at least there is a riot out there. Some people are attacking the house where Mr. Hanson is—Mr. Wagner’s house on Charles Street. It began by a rabble of boys throwing stones and calling names.”

“Golly, but I wisht I’d been there!”

“Danny, go back to bed, and don’t get up again,” his mistress ordered.

Danny crawled reluctantly down from his place on the window-sill. “Whar Mars Torm?” he asked.

“He has gone down town,” Lettice informed him.

Danny still hung back. “Miss Letty,” he whispered. She went a few steps toward him, despite her aunt’s reproving voice, “You and your Uncle Tom ruin that boy, Lettice.”

“What is it, Danny?” Lettice asked.

“Ef anythin’ tur’ble happen, I skeered you all gwine leave me hyar.”

Lettice laughed. “There isn’t anything terrible going to happen to this house, and if there should, I’ll let you know, you needn’t be scared, Danny.”

The noise in the street increased. As yet no military appeared to quell the mob. Mrs. Flynn, worked up into a great state of excitement, trotted from corner to corner, coming back so often to report that it would seem as if she would wear herself out. “There be a gintleman addhressin’ the crowd, Mrs. Hopkins, mum,” she said.

“They do say they’ll be rig’lar foightin’ nixt. Glory be to Pether! but hear thim cracks av the goons!” And back she trotted to return with: “Howly mother av Moses! they’re murtherin’ the payple in the streets. A gintleman, be name Dr. Gale, is kilt intoirely, an’ siveral others is hurthed bad, an’ the crowd is runnin’ in ivery direction. Do ye hear thim drooms a-beatin’? I’ll be afther seein’ what’s that for.” And out she went again.

“Come, girls, go to bed,” said Mrs. Hopkins. “It is near midnight, and you can do no good by sitting up. I wish Mr. Hopkins would come in.”

But neither Mr. Tom Hopkins nor his brother appeared that night, and all through their troubled slumbers the girls heard groans and hoarse cries, and the sound of a surging mass of angry men bent on satisfying their lust for revenge. Even with the dawn the horrors continued to be carried on throughout the day.

It was not till late in the afternoon that Mr. Tom Hopkins returned home. He looked pale and troubled. “We have heard terrible reports, Uncle Tom,” said Rhoda. “Is it really true that some of your most respectable citizens have been murdered by a brutal horde of lawless villains, and that they have been tortured and almost torn limb from limb?”

“I fear there is much truth in it,” he replied gravely.

“Oh!” The tears welled up into Letty’s eyes. “Is General Lingan killed, and General Lee? Oh, Uncle Tom, is it so dreadful as that? And where is my father?”

“He is with Major Barney. General Lingan, I fear, is killed. General Lee, I am not so sure about. I hope he is safe. There has been much wrong done, and an ill-advised mob is hard to quell, especially when it is a principle rather than a personal grudge which is involved, because it is the whole mind of the party which works with equal interest. I regret exceedingly the manner of their opposition to Mr. Hanson’s paper, but—” He frowned and shook his head.

Rhoda fired up. “It is a disgrace. I should think you would feel it to be a blot on your city and state, that such things have been allowed by the authorities. I wish I had never come to this place, peopled by a set of villanous murderers.”

“Rhoda!” Her aunt spoke reprovingly.

“I don’t care.” Rhoda’s cheeks were flushed. “It is true. It is a dreadful, dreadful thing to murder men for saying they will not countenance a war with England.”

“It is a dreadful thing,” returned her uncle, “but we have many wrongs to avenge. Our poor seamen have been flogged to death, have been as brutally treated as this mob has treated the Federalists, and a desire for vengeance which will not be satisfied with less than an eye for an eye, is the motive power which has controlled these late horrible scenes. It is the first battle of our war for freedom, ill-advised as it is.”

Lettice was sobbing nervously. “I want to go home, too,” she cried, “I don’t want to stay here, either. I want to go home, Uncle Tom. I am afraid more dreadful things will happen.”

“I am afraid so, too, and I think you would all be safer and more at ease down in the country. I think, Martha, you had better take the girls and go down to Sylvia’s Ramble as soon as you can get off.”

“And leave you?”

“I am safe enough; at least, if need comes, you know what I shall do.”

Mrs. Hopkins sighed and shook her head.

“At all events,” continued Mr. Hopkins, “you all will be better off in the country, and I will come down as soon as I can feel free to do so.”

Then Lettice dried her eyes, and while Rhoda was protesting that she could not go away in the absence of her father, Mr. Kendall walked in.

CHAPTER III.

On the Bay.

The curiously indented shore of the Chesapeake Bay presents a country so full of little rivers and inlets that it is oftener easier to cut across a narrow channel by boat than to drive from one place to another. Especially is this true of the Eastern shore: in consequence, the dwellers thereon are as much at home on the water as on the land, and are famous sailors. This Rhoda soon discovered, and was filled with amazement to find that Lettice could manage a sailing vessel nearly as well as could her brothers.

It was much against Rhoda’s will that she finally made ready to accompany her aunt and Lettice to the country. Her father informed her that he must return to Washington, and though she begged to be allowed to go with him, he said she would be better off in the hands of her aunt, and he would join her at Sylvia’s Ramble a little later.

Mr. Tom Hopkins’s plantation lay next to his brother’s. The two formed part of an original tract granted by Lord Baltimore to an ancestor of the Hopkins family. Part of the land lay along the bay, and one or two small creeks ran up from the larger body of water, so that when one approached the houses, it seemed as if a vessel must be moored in the back yard, for tall spars shot up behind the chimneys, seemingly out of a mass of green. Rhoda’s puzzled look upon being told that their destination was the next place made Lettice ask what was wrong.

“What in the world is it that looks so curious?” said Rhoda. “Aunt Martha tells me that the house is the next one, and surely that is a vessel behind it? Do you use ships for barns?”

Lettice laughed. “You will see when we get there. We don’t land in the creek. Uncle Tom has a landing this side, on the bay shore. Just there it is.”

Their little sailing vessel was gliding in, having passed Kent Island on the left. The fresh breeze had brought them down in a comparatively short time, and Lettice was soon scanning the small wharf to see who stood to meet them. “There’s Brother James,” she cried; “and I do believe it is Patsey Ringgold herself, Cousin Joe. Yes, there she sits on her white horse.” And almost before the boat had touched the sands, Lettice was ashore, crying: “Howdy, Brother James! Howdy, Patsey. Here we are, safe and sound, and so glad to get here.”

A warm color came into the face of the girl sitting on her horse ready to welcome them, and she slid down, before James could help her, to be heartily kissed and embraced by Lettice, who said: “I am dying to hear the neighborhood news, and, Patsey dear, there is so much to tell you, and I have brought a new sleeve pattern, and oh, tell me, have the gowns come home yet?”

“They are on the way,” Patsey told her. “Who is the young lady, Lettice?”

“That is Rhoda Kendall, my Aunt Martha’s niece, from Boston. I see Brother James is already making his manners to her.”

“Yes, I have heard of her,” returned Patsey; “but I wonder that she should come down here just now.”

“Her father is obliged to be in Washington, and thought it safer that she should come down here with us, since there are such troubles in the city.”

“Troubles, yes; and there are like to be more of them, if what we hear is true. Every one is talking of the war, and the planters are making ready for defence.”

“And they are sending out vessels from Baltimore to chase the British cruisers; Cousin Joe—” Lettice paused, for Patsey cast an apprehensive look at the tall figure then stepping over the side of the vessel. “Cousin Joe,” Lettice repeated, “will tell you all about it.”

Up toward a white house set in a grove of locust trees, they all took their way, attended by an escort of negroes, big and little, who lugged along whatever was portable. Lettice linked her arm in that of her brother, when her Cousin Joe joined Patsey, and this youngest pair fell behind the rest. “You’ll take me straight home, Jamie dear, won’t you?” Lettice coaxed. “I do so want to see Sister Betty and the baby, and Brother William, and oh, so many things! You don’t know how glad I am to get back! Does Betty make a good housekeeper, and has she changed the place much?”

“No, very little,” her brother made reply; “and, yes, she is a fair housekeeper; perhaps not so good as our mother was, but Betty has some years before she will need to have great things expected of her. How is father? and what is this I hear of his going to join the troops? Joe says Uncle Tom is talking of going, too.”

Lettice gave a little start. “I knew they talked of it, but I didn’t know it meant that they would go soon. Do they really mean to join the army at once?”

“So Joe says.”

“And will you go? and Brother William?” Lettice asked in visible distress.

“If we are needed. They are getting up companies everywhere, to protect the state.”

Lettice gave a deep sigh, and clung closer to him. He was a pleasant-looking lad of eighteen, with curling, ruddy brown locks and fearless blue eyes, and with such a winning, careless, happy nature as caused many a little lass to give her smiles to him. “So you don’t want to stay under Aunt Martha’s wing any longer,” he said, smiling.

“No, I’d rather be under Betty’s. Does she know I am coming?”

“She expects you, and is in a twitter of delight over having you back again with us.”

“Then don’t let us tarry.” And, indeed, she cut her good-bys very short, and with her brother was soon cutting across fields to her old home, there to be welcomed joyously by Sister Betty and the servants.

“I declare, Letty, you grow like a weed!” was Betty’s greeting as, with her baby in her arms, she came into her sister-in-law’s room that evening, to watch her make her evening toilet. “Have you many pretty things?”

“A few. Aunt Martha doesn’t encourage extravagance in dress.” Lettice drew down the corners of her mouth and dropped her eyes in a little prim way, while Betty laughed.

“Nonsense! she is an old Puritan. It is natural for girls to like pretty things, just as it is for babies to want to catch at something bright. Isn’t it, my pretty?” And Betty gave her cooing baby a hug, as he vainly tried to clutch the shining chain his mother had been dangling before him. Lettice smiled and surveyed her dainty little figure complacently, then held out her hands for the baby.

“No, don’t take him now,” said Betty; “he’ll rumple your pretty frock. He’d rather be with his mammy than either of us, anyhow.”

“Is dear old Dorcas his mammy?”

“Yes, of course; ‘she done nuss de whole mess o’ Hopkins, an’ she right spry yet,’” replied Betty, laughing. “Come, let’s go find her. William will be coming in pretty soon, and I must be ready to meet him, and oh, Lettice, I remembered how fond you were of buttermilk, and I told Randy to put a bucket of it down the well to keep cool for you.”

Lettice gave a sigh of content and followed her sister-in-law down the broad stairway. It was so good to be at home again; to see the table set with the familiar dishes, and Speery standing there with a green branch beating away the flies. Speery giggled gleefully as she caught sight of the figure which had paused before the door. “Law, Miss Letty, yuh is a gran’ young lady, sho ’nough,” she said. “I mos’ skeered to speak to yuh.”

“You needn’t be, Speery,” Lettice replied, her eyes wandering over the dark mahogany furniture, and returning to take in the details of old silver and India china upon the table. “Is that one of Miss Betty’s wedding presents—that pitcher? How pretty it is.”

“Yass, miss, dat one o’ ’em. I done fergit who given it to ’er.”

“Don’t forget my buttermilk, Speery,” said Lettice, as she turned away.

“Naw, miss,” giggled Speery. And then Lettice went out on the porch to be hugged and kissed by her big brother, she declaring that even though she could no longer lay claim to being the baby of the family, she meant to be as much of a pet as ever.

But at the table the talk became very serious, and a cloud settled on Betty’s fair brow as her husband questioned minutely as to the trouble in the city, and when, after supper, they all gathered on the porch to get the cool breezes from the bay, Betty drew very close to William, and, despite the gladness of her home-coming, Lettice felt that she was not beyond an atmosphere of anxious dread, even here in this quiet corner of the world.

Rhoda chafed at being obliged to remain in a community of fire-eaters, as she called them, to James’s amusement. The lad loved to tease, and more than once brought tears of rage to Rhoda’s eyes. She liked him, too; perhaps that was the reason he could so easily annoy her. His curly head was wont to appear very often over the railing of the porch at Sylvia’s Ramble, and his greeting was usually, “Howdy, Miss Rhoda, have you heard the news?”

“No,” Rhoda invariably returned, looking around sharply. And then James would lean indolently against the porch and gaze up at her with a beguiling expression in his eyes, and would make some such remark as, “They say Massachusetts is getting ready to secede.”

Then Rhoda would turn away with a fling and say, “I don’t believe a word of it!”

“If she does, you’ll stay down here with us, won’t you, Miss Rhoda?” James would say, giving her one of his fetching glances. Then Rhoda would look confused, and say that she would call her aunt.

Once or twice they quarrelled in good earnest, for Rhoda pretended to despise everything which savored of the South, while James never failed to sound Maryland’s praises. “You know,” he said one day, “Maryland is mighty plucky. She stood out against you all in 1778, when the question of setting a limit to Western lands came up. You know she wouldn’t yield an inch, and was the only one of the states that stood up for the public good against all odds. She just wouldn’t, and she wouldn’t join the confederation of states unless they’d come around to her way of thinking.”

“Pshaw!” returned Rhoda, but half convinced. “I never heard so much talk about nothing. We never hear that discussed up our way.”

“Course not,” James answered. “Good reason why. Massachusetts was one of the states that held Western lands. When did she ever want to give up anything for the public good?”

“When did she? You are crazy to talk so! You forget Lexington and Bunker Hill.”

“Humph!” James’s eyes twinkled. “That’s what you always say. One would think you all up there had won the independence of the colonies by your two or three little skirmishes. The real battles took place farther south than New England. Precious little she suffered compared to the Southern states! We’d never have won if the South hadn’t given Washington, and hadn’t sent their troops and their supplies and their help of all kinds to get you out of your scrape up there. I think you are right-down ungrateful to us. Why, laws, child, you didn’t know anything about fighting up there. They didn’t get at it hot and heavy till the war left Massachusetts soil. You have no reason to be stuck up over your little old Bunker Hill.”

“We began the war, anyhow,” retorted Rhoda.

“You flatter yourselves. The Regulators in North Carolina did the starting.”

“That wasn’t till after our Stamp Act riot.”

“Sure enough; you score one there. At all events, you would still be under England’s dominion if we hadn’t come to your aid; though from the looks of it, that’s where you want to be, and your Bunker Hill will go for nothing.”

Then Rhoda arose in a towering rage. “You are a detestable creature! I wish I had never seen you. If I were a man, I’d—I’d fight a duel with you, and—”

“Kill me?” said James, leaning toward her. “You can slay me now with your killing glances if you will. ’Deed, Miss Rhoda, I do love to make you mad. You are always running down Maryland, you know, and calling us fire-eaters, and it just does me good to make the sparks fly. Look around here—please look.”

But Rhoda persistently kept her head turned away, perhaps to hide the tears of anger standing in her eyes. She was not to be mollified by any soft speeches.

“What are you up to, James?” called his aunt. “How you do love to tease. I don’t think you will give Rhoda a very good idea of Southern gallantry.”

James looked properly repentant. “’Deed, Miss Rhoda,” he said softly, “I’m sorry, I’m dreadfully sorry. You’re not crying?” in troubled surprise.

“No, I’m not,” snapped Rhoda. And, getting up, she passed him swiftly, with head up, to enter the house.

“Sho!” exclaimed James, looking after her, “I’ve been and gone and done it this time, Aunt Martha. She’ll never forgive me, will she?”

“I am sure I don’t know; she oughtn’t to,” returned Mrs. Hopkins. “You have no right to berate her native state in that way; it is very rude, to say the least.”

“So it is, for a fact. It’s right-down mean of me. I’ll have to find some way to make up for it.”

And find a way he did. First his special messenger, black Bounce, came over that afternoon with a basket of the finest peaches that Rhoda had ever seen, and next Lettice was seen galloping up the lane on her bay mare. She stopped in front of the porch where Rhoda sat sedately sewing. “Rhoda, Rhoda,” cried she, “put down your work; we are going fishing, and will take supper with us, and Mr. Sam Osborne is going to let us have a dance in his new barn this evening.”

Rhoda made no response, but sewed quietly on.

Lettice slipped down from her horse, and, still holding the bridle, tapped on the step with her whip. “Don’t you hear, you sober sides?” she cried. “We’re going fishing, and we’re going to Mr. Sam Osborne’s new barn for a dance. Old Hank is going to bring his fiddle. How I do love to dance! I assure you there are few things I like better. Hurry up and get ready.”

“I?”

“‘I?’ Of course you. Jamie will be here in a minute for you. He begged me to offer his excuses for sending so sudden an invitation—we only had the message from Mr. Osborne a few minutes ago—and Jamie asks that he may be your escort.”

“No, he may not,” Rhoda answered in a very dignified tone.

“And why, pray?”

“Because I don’t choose to give him the opportunity to abuse my state and to mock me.”

“Did he do that? He didn’t mean it; he was only teasing. Law me, Rhoda, he’s teased me nearly to death ever since I was born. There never was such a tease, nor such a dear boy, so all the girls say. No one can stay angry with him very long. He would be distressed to death if he thought he had really hurt your feelings. I never can stay angry with him.”

“I can.”

“Oh, well, I’ll ride back and tell him. Becky Lowe will be glad enough that you are not going. I will stop by for Becky, and we can all go together.”

She again mounted her horse, calling back as she rode off: “Better change your mind. You’ll miss a lot of fun.” At the gate which a little darkey scrambled to open for her, she stopped and called again, “Rhoda, Rhoda, come to the steps.” Rhoda hesitated, but came slowly forward. “Somebody said she’d bet a sixpence that you wouldn’t go with James,” Lettice said.

“Who was it?”

“Becky Lowe.” And Lettice rode off, leaving Rhoda half angry, and wholly uncertain as to whether she did not regret her decided refusal.

Within the next half-hour she was sure that she did regret it. There was something very fascinating in this pleasure-seeking life of these care-free Marylanders, who gave little thought for the morrow, and gathered their delights without any compunctions, and never questioned whether, for the sake of practising self-denial, it was a duty to stay at home from any entertainment which might offer. “No one will care whether I stay or not,” Rhoda told herself. “They will call me stiff and unsociable, and will be glad they are rid of me, perhaps; but—I needn’t have had much to say to James if I had gone, and indeed, I might have found a way to punish him.” She sighed, and sat with rather a melancholy expression, looking out upon the sparkling blue waters of the bay.

Her revery was broken in upon by a voice saying cheerily, “Hurry up, Miss Rhoda, I’m afraid I’m late, but I had to go around by the mill.”

Rhoda arose. “Didn’t Lettice tell you?” she asked in some confusion.

“That you didn’t mean to go? Yes, but I knew you wouldn’t be so hard-hearted as to cheat me out of an evening’s pleasure, not but that it would be a very great pleasure to stay here with you.”

“Why, what do you mean?”

“If you don’t go, I shan’t, that’s all.”

“Oh!” Rhoda looked at him, to see determination written on every feature, but withal a most tenderly pleading look in his eyes. “I’ll go,” she said faintly.

CHAPTER IV.

The Barn Frolic.

If Rhoda doubted James’s chivalric attitude toward her, she had reason to change her mind before the day was over. Her escort was all attention, and when it became evident that Becky Lowe had lost her wager, Lettice cast a merry glance at Rhoda, giving her a nod of approval. In spite of the fact that Becky was a neighbor, Lettice felt that she must champion her uncle’s guest. As they stepped aboard the little vessel which was to take them on their short sail, she whispered to Patsey, “We must make Rhoda have a good time.” And Patsey gave a responsive smile.

Patsey had been a little jealous of Rhoda on Joe’s account, but the evident devotion of his Cousin James rather relieved her feelings in that direction, and she confessed to herself that Joe had paid Rhoda only such attentions as were becoming that he should show to a visitor in his father’s house.

“Now what are we going to do?” asked Becky, when they were all safely aboard the graceful sailboat which, with canvas set, was speeding toward Love Point.

“We’re going to Kent Island, you know,” Lettice told her. “We are not going anywhere else first, are we, Birket?” She turned to address a very young gentleman at her side.

“No, miss,” he returned, “so Joe Hopkins says. I was over at the Ringgold’s, and Joe asked me to come along.”

“But you didn’t come without knowing where we were going, did you, Birket?”

The young man murmured something unintelligible, and gave his attention to the jib-boom which threatened to annihilate Rhoda, who was not used to a sailing vessel.

“You don’t go sailing up your way much, do you, Miss Kendall?” Becky said. “We all down here go about on the water as much as we do on the land.”

“We don’t have to,” Rhoda returned, a trifle defiantly. She was on the defensive since her late talk with James. She had scarcely spoken to the young man since they had started from home, but had managed to seat herself near Patsey and Joe.

“No, they don’t have to up there,” spoke up James. “They have good roads, and go straight at a thing instead of driving over roundabout ways for miles to a place not a mile off, as we have to do. I tell you that is a fine harbor they have there at Boston, Miss Rhoda! Ever been there, Becky?”

“No, you know I haven’t!” she returned with some vexation.

“And it’s a beautiful coast,” James went on; “rocky, you know; not sandy like ours. It certainly seems right pretty after our level country, where we go miles on a stretch without so much as one little hill to break the monotony.”

Becky was silenced for the time, but she had shafts in reserve. She resented the presence of this fair-haired Northern girl. What business had she down there usurping Becky’s own right to an admirer? Lettice watched the manœuvres of Miss Becky with sly glances at Patsey. Lettice herself was entirely heart-free. She was too young to be greatly troubled by affairs of sentiment, although she had twice imagined herself violently in love; once with a young gentleman who had passed an evening at her uncle’s, and who had made himself particularly agreeable to her; even now she liked to think about him, wondering if she should ever see him again. He was from New York, she remembered, and she became so absorbed in her recollections of him, that she did not notice the youthful cavalier who stood waiting to help her ashore.

“Lettice is going to stay where she is,” laughed Becky; “she doesn’t care to dance, you know, nor does she care for supper.”

“Don’t I?” cried Lettice, on her feet at once. “I do care. Your hand, Birk, and I’ll be ashore before any one;” which indeed she was, and stood laughing to greet the others as each made the landing.