Janice Meredith: A Story of the American RevolutionFord, Paul Leicester
History
Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution
Ford, Paul Leicester
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
At Greenwood she found her mother still suffering from the
fright and the blow too much to allow the girl to tell her own
troubles, or to ask counsel for the future, and the occupation of
trying to make the sufferer more comfortable was in fact a
good diversion, exhausted though she was with her fruitless
journey.
Before Mrs. Meredith was entirely recovered, or any news of
the squire had reached the household, fresh trouble was upon
them. Captain Bagby and two other men drove up the third
morning after the incursion, and, without going through the.
form of knocking, came into the parlour.
"You'll get ready straight off to go to Philadelphia," the
officer announced.
"For what?" demanded Mrs. Meredith.
"The Congress's orders is that any one guilty of seeking to
communicate with the enemy is to be put under arrest, and
sent to Philadelphia to be examined."
"But we have n't made the slightest attempt, nor so much
as thought of it," protested the matron.
"Oh, no!" sneered Joe; "but, all the same, we intercepted
a letter last night written to you by your old Tory husband,
and--"
"Oh, prithee," broke in Janice, without a thought of anything
but her father, "was he well, and where is he?"
"He was smarting a bit when he wrote," Bagby remarked
with evident enjoyment, "but he's got safe to his friends on
Staten Island, so we are n't going to let you stay where you can
be sneaking news to the British through him. I'll give you
just half an hour to pack, and if you are n't done then, off you
goes."
Protests and pleadings were wholly useless, though Joe
yielded so far as to suggestively remark in an aside to the girl,
that "there was one way that you know of, for fixing this
thing." Getting together what they could in the brief time
accorded to them, and with vague directions to Peg and Sukey
as to the care of all they were forced to leave behind, the two
women took their places in the waggon, and with only one man
to drive them, set out for their enforced destination.
How little of public welfare and how much of private spite
there was in their arrest was proven upon their arrival the following
day in the city of brotherly love. The escort, or captor,
first took them to the headquarters of the general in command
of the Continental forces of the town, only to find that
he was inspecting the forts down the Delaware. Leaving the
papers, he took his charges to the Indian King Tavern, and
after telling them that they 'd hear from the general "like as
not to-morrow," he departed on his return to Brunswick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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