This room had but a single window, the shutters of which were kept
closed when it was not in use, and there was no entrance to it except
through the door which opened from the parlor. The door was quickly
closed, and Tempe stood with her horse in the darkness.
When the soldiers reached the farm, they went to the barn. They examined
the outhouses, visited the pasture fields, and made a thorough search,
high and low, near and far; but no sign of a horse could they find. Of
course, the notion that the animal was concealed in the house did not
enter their minds, and the only way in which they could account for the
total disappearance of the horse was, that Tempe had ridden off with
him--where they knew not. We do not know how long they waited for the
sight of a hungry horse coming home to his supper, but we do know that
while there was the slightest danger of her dear horse being taken away
from her, that animal remained a carefully attended guest in the spare
room of the Wick house; and the tradition is, that he staid there three
weeks. There Tempe waited on him as if he had been a visitor of high
degree; and if she was afraid to go to the barn to bring him hay and
oats, she doubtless gave him biscuit and soft bread,--dainties of which
a horse is very fond, especially when they are brought to him by such a
kind mistress as Tempe.
When the cavalry moved away from their camp near Morristown, no one of
them rode on that fine horse on which they had seen a girl gayly
cantering, and which, when they had been about to put their hands upon
it, had flown away, like a butterfly from under the straw hat of a
schoolboy. When the troops were gone, the horse came out of the guest
chamber and went back to his stall in the stable; and that room in which
he passed so many quiet days, and the door through which the horse
timidly stepped under the shadow of that hospitable roof, are still to
be seen at the old Wick house, which stands now, as it stood then, with
its shaded yard and the great willow tree behind it, on the pleasant
country road by which we may drive from Morristown to Mendham by the way
of Washington Corner.
THE STORY OF FORT NONSENSE.
During three years of the Revolution the American army, under General
Washington, wintered in New Jersey. Of course, we understand, that, when
an army goes into winter quarters, it does so because the weather
prevents operations in the field; and although Washington did not in the
least object to fighting in the cold weather if a good opportunity
showed itself, as we know from the fact that he fought the battle of
Trenton on Christmas Day, still the winters in New Jersey were for the
most part periods of inactivity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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