Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. [Illustration] The Tory Maid By HERBERT BAIRD STIMPSON New York Dodd, Mead and Company [Illustration: (decorative borders)] Copyright, 1898, by H. B. STIMPSON. _To Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Hall Harrison this volume is affectionately inscribed by the Author_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. WE START FOR THE WAR 1 II. WE MEET THE MAID 10 III. A FLASH OF STEEL 24 IV. THE RED COCKADE 34 V. SIR SQUIRE OF TORY DAMES 44 VI. A TALE IS TOLD 55 VII. THE DEFIANCE OF THE TORY 68 VIII. THE BLACK COCKADE 77 IX. THE RED TIDE OF BLOOD 89 X. THE HARRYING OF THE TORY 107 XI. THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY 118 XII. THE VETO OF A MAID 132 XIII. THE GREETING OF FAIR LIPS 146 XIV. THE RETURN OF THE TORY 156 XV. THE FLAG OF TRUCE 166 XVI. THE BALL OF MY LORD HOWE 176 XVII. AN EXCHANGE OF COURTESIES 187 XVIII. THE CROSSING OF SWORDS 196 XIX. THE SANDS OF MONMOUTH 206 XX. IN THE LINES OF THE ENEMY 222 XXI. THE PASSING OF YEARS 230 XXII. THE COMING OF THE MAID 238 The Tory Maid CHAPTER I WE START FOR THE WAR I, James Frisby of Fairlee, in the county of Kent, on the eastern shore of what was known in my youth as the fair Province of Maryland, but now the proud State of that name, growing old in years, but hearty and hale withal, though the blood courses not through my veins as in the days of my youth, sit on the great porch of Fairlee watching the sails on the distant bay, where its gleaming waters meet the mouth of the creek that runs at the foot of Fairlee. A julep there is on the table beside me, flavoured with mint gathered by the hands of John Cotton early in the morning, while the dew was still upon it, from the finest bank in all Kent County. So with these old friends around me, with the julep on my right hand and the paper before me, I sit on the great porch of Fairlee to write of the wild days of my youth, when I first drew my sword in the Great Cause. To write, before my hand becomes feeble and my eyes grow dim, of the strange things that I saw and the adventures that befell me, of the old Tory of the Braes, of the fair maid his daughter, and of the part they played in my life during the War of the Deliverance. To write so that those who come after me, as well as those who are growing up around my knees, may know the part their grandfather played in the stirring times that proclaimed the birth of a mighty nation.