Part 1 (1/2)

Roger Davis, Loyalist.

by Frank Baird.

Chapter I

The Outbreak

It was Duncan Hale, the schoolmaster, who first brought us the news.

When he was half-way from the gate to the house, my mother met him. He bowed very low to her, and then, standing with his head uncovered--from my position in the hall--I heard him distinctly say, 'Your husband, madam, has been killed, and the British who went out to Lexington under Lord Percy have been forced to retreat into Boston, with a loss of two hundred and seventy-three officers and men.'

The schoolmaster bowed again, one of those fine, sweeping, old-world bows which he had lately been teaching me with some impatience, I thought; then without further speech he moved toward the little gate.

But I had caught a look of keen anxiety on his face as he addressed my mother. Once outside the garden, he stooped forward, and, breaking into a run, crouching as he went as though afraid of being seen, he soon disappeared around a turn in the road.

My mother stood without speaking or moving for some moments. The birds in the blossom-shrouded trees of the garden were shrieking and chattering in the flood of April sunlight; I felt a draught of perfumed air draw into the hall. Then a mist that had been heavy all the morning on the Charles River, suddenly faded into the blue, and I could see clearly over to Boston, three miles away.

I shall not soon forget the look on my mother's face as she turned and came toward me. I have wondered since if it were not born of a high resolve then made, to be put into effect later. She was not in tears as I thought she would be. There were no signs of grief on her face, but instead her whole countenance seemed illuminated with a strangely n.o.ble look. I was puzzled at this; but when I remembered that my mother was the daughter of an English officer who was killed while serving under Wolfe at Quebec, I understood.

In a firm voice she repeated to me the words I had already heard, then she pa.s.sed up the stairs. In a few moments I heard her telling my two sisters Caroline and Elizabeth--they were both younger than myself--that it was time to get up. After that I heard my mother go to her own room and shut the door. In the silence that followed this I fell to thinking.

Was my father really dead? Could it be that the British had been repulsed? Duncan Hale had been telling me for weeks that war was coming, but I had not thought his prophecy would be fulfilled. Now I understood why he had come so often to visit my father; and why, during the past month, he had seemed so absent-minded in school. My preparation for going to Oxford in the autumn, over which he had been so enthusiastic, appeared to have been completely pushed out of his mind. I had once overheard my father caution him to keep his visits to Lord Percy strictly secret. I was wondering if the part he had played might have any ill consequences for him and for us, when my mother's footsteps sounded on the stairs. She came at once to where I had been standing for some moments, caught me in her arms, and, without speaking, held me close for a moment, and then pressed a kiss on my forehead.

'Go, Roger,' she said, 'and find Peter and Dora. Bring them to the library, and wait there till I come with your sisters.'

I was turning to obey, when I caught a glimpse through the hall doorway of two rebel soldiers galloping up. They had evidently come from Boston. At sight of my mother, one of them addressed her with an unmannerly shout that sent the blood pulsing up to my cheeks in anger.

What my mother had been thinking I did not know; but from that moment a great pa.s.sion seized me. That shout which almost maddened me, had, I can see in looking back over it all, much to do in making me a Loyalist, and in sending me to Canada.

The soldiers looked in somewhat critically, but pa.s.sed. They were rough looking men, poorly mounted and badly dressed. My mother withdrew from the doorway and went upstairs, as I proceeded to seek out our two faithful coloured servants. I delivered to each the bare message given me by my mother, and returned at once to the library.

Everything in the room suggested my father. On his desk lay an unfinished letter to my brother, who had enlisted in the King's forces some six months before. I had read but a few lines of this when the door opened, and my mother entered with Caroline and Elizabeth. In a moment I saw that the spirit of my mother had pa.s.sed on to my sisters.

I was sure they knew the worst; and although I could see Caroline struggle with her feelings, both girls maintained a brave and sensible silence. A moment later Peter and Dora entered, each wide-eyed and apprehensive, but still ignorant of the great calamity that had now befallen our recently happy household.

The east window of the library looked toward Boston. To this my mother went, and stood looking out for some time; then she turned and began to speak.

'Your master,' she said, addressing Peter and Dora, 'has been killed.

We are here to make plans for the future.'

Dora threw up both hands, giving a little shriek as she did so. Peter lifted his great eyes to the ceiling, and slid to his knees; a little later he pressed his hands hard over his heart as though to prevent it from beating its way through. He found relief in swaying backward and forward, and uttering a long, low moan, which finally shaped into, 'Poor Ma.s.sa killed.' He kept repeating this, until we were all on the point of giving way to our smothered emotion. But my mother's voice recalled us.

'What are we to do, Roger?' she said.

Instantly the thought of a new and great responsibility flashed upon me. Was my mother to relinquish the leaders.h.i.+p? Did her question mean that I was to step at once into the place of my fallen father? Had she forgotten that I was but sixteen? I glanced at my sisters, but I found I could not look long upon them in their helplessness, and retain my self-control.

With a hurried glance at the servants, who now sobbed audibly in spite of all efforts at suppression of grief, my eyes came again to the face of my mother. The look of n.o.ble fort.i.tude had gone, and I saw that I must no longer delay in coming to her a.s.sistance.

She motioned me to my father's empty chair; I took it at once, and, though I felt all eyes in the room turn upon me, prompted by a rush of heroic feeling, I neither flinched nor blushed under their gaze. But in spite of my pretended composure nature had her way. My sister Elizabeth, breaking into a flood of tears, rushed across the floor to my mother's arms, and soon all were weeping uncontrollably. Mastering my rising feelings, I began thinking what was best to be done.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE MOTIONED ME TO MY FATHER'S EMPTY CHAIR.]