Chapter VII: Blind Man’s Buff

They crouched beneath the shelter of an oak, watching the glint of a farm house light some hundred yards away. Both were drenched, for the passage of the river was a tempestuous affair and the unchecked wind drove the raindrops through their clothes like so many knives. The ascent of the palisades on the western side was almost as difficult, and they wandered like lost children until a rugged pathway presented itself in the ever blackening night.

Overhead the tree branches cracked ominously, and now and again a weaker member came dashing down. The girl stood beside the trunk of the oak, shielded thus and by Peale’s body.

“There is our next point of attack,” he decided, indicating the farm light. “Give me your hand. I believe I can make out a path ahead.”

“The rain is slacking, or else the wind’s dying.”

It seemed so, for as they stumbled toward the beacon the wind ripped less gustily across the parapets of the palisades. Peale waded boot-high through grass and came to a very muddy yard—the yard between barn and house most probably. Going onward at a sedate pace, he listened for dogs, blessing the tumult of the evening as he did so.

The light was of a sudden cut off from their view; passing onward, they again met it and stopped. The door of the place was directly in front of them. Peale left the girl with a whisper and advanced to the adjoining window. Between the drapes he had a view of a man sitting alone before the kitchen blaze, head bowed a little and lips moving soundlessly over the passages of a book. He was well past middle age, as evidenced from his very gray hair, and he seemed to be quite settled of conscience, else he would have closed his shutters long ago. Peale, sweeping the place with a curious eye, returned to the girl and led her to the door, rapping vigorously on the panels.

It came wide open after a brief moment. The farmer stood across the threshold, holding a candle high and shielding it with a palm. Before either of them could say so much as an apology he was speaking gravely.

“Come in to the fire.”

The fugitives passed through to the kitchen while their host shot the door’s bolt. Peale reached for the girl’s cloak and held it near the fire; water began to puddle on the stones. The farmer removed the book he had been reading from the chair—Peale saw it to be the Bible—and beckoned the girl to sit.

“Drenchin’ wet, the both o’ ye. Let me knock up a stronger blaze. ’Tis well I let the coffee kettle simmer. Nawt a minute now an’ y’ll both have a hot drink o’ it.”

It struck Peale a little odd. He noted that when he removed his own cloak the farmer gave the British uniform but one short glance, after which his placid face changed not a whit. Certainly he was either a bold man or a very discreet one. At any rate, he poked the fire and presently had poured them both coffee, well mixed with cream.

“Sugar,” said he, offering the drink, “I can’t offer ye—and well ye should know why, with both armies payin’ its weight a’most in gold. Anyhow, it’ll sarve to keep off the chills. My lady, y’d best draw a little closer to the heat.”

“You are very obliging,” remarked Peale. “One would think we were expected.”

“Ain’t it the Lord’s command to entertain strangers?”

“Tory and rebel alike?” parried Peale.

The farmer’s mild face set in rather resolute lines.

“That’s a distinction the Bible knows nawthin’ about.”

“I vow,” said Peale, “but you are a strange gentleman. Do you not run the risk of being called easy in politics?”

“Easy?” The farmer’s temper was roused. “Nawt a bit of it! I have politics a-plenty. Reckon I could ask the same o’ ye.”

“You see the uniform,” replied Peale, pointing to his borrowed regimentals.

“Eh! What of it? Is it likely a British officer would be flounderin’ around this unsettled country in the dark o’ night—an’ afoot?”

“Then let’s consider the other side of the case,” said Peale. This mild looking farmer was a great deal shrewder than first appearance indicated. “If my politics are doubtful it is the same with most Jersey civilians.”

“True enough,” agreed the farmer. “An’ why? Because, friend, we’re harried first by one side, then t’other. Never a sure day do we know, nor a peaceful night do we own. ’Tis all right for the soldier inside his camp to speak ill of the citizen for not holdin’ a faster allegiance. Put yourself in between fire for a month and y’ll see the reason we _seem_ fickle.”

“To come to business,” said Peale, “have you got a team and wagon?”

The farmer hesitated, then with some reluctance admitted he had.

“We need it,” continued Peale, “with you to guide us. We must put ourselves well to westward before daylight.”

It was not a pleasant prospect for the farmer and he mulled it over in his mind at great length, finally coming to a mild dissent. The weather was vile, the streams they had to cross were badly swollen and at any juncture they might be taken up by partisan troops.

“You see,” broke in Peale with a trace of irony, “I am discovering your politics after all. As for discomfort and danger, look you to this lady. Are you less able to share such adventures than she? If you are a patriot, you will go of your own free will. But if you are comfortably Tory then I must confess I’ll have to induce you with other weapons than persuasion.”

The farmer shrugged his shoulders.

“If ye put it thataway, I’m your man. We’ll hitch up. Ma’am, I’m a widower. If y’ll go into the bedroom and raise the chest cover y’ll find all my ol’ woman’s clothes. Better put on suthin’ warm.”

Peale accompanied him to the barn and held the lantern while the team was hitched.

Some twenty minutes later they were traveling over a black, uncertain road toward the Hackensack River. It was nothing more than a flat, springless farm wagon, uncomfortable in every respect and open to the steady fall of rain which now came straight down out of the sky. Peale and the farmer sat in the seat; behind and below this a place had been made for the girl, shielded by their bodies and wrapped in a piece of ship’s canvas.

Peale held a well shrouded lantern for emergencies.

“Bear off to the right,” he directed. “’Tis not discretion to take the road through Bergen or New Ark.”

“So I’m to travel every cow path an’ git stuck in every mire?” grumbled the farmer. “Well, y’ll not make great progress.”

“Bear off.”

The farmer had some confidence the first few miles and they jolted away from the Hudson at a brisk pace. Peale lost sense of time; the night turned to a more impenetrable black, the water sluiced about them. Nothing was said, save that at long intervals the farmer urged his horse on with a “G’yup, Leader—Pull, —— ye, Prince.”

And after what appeared to be six miles, but could not have been much more than three, he halted the team and clambered down from the seat with a very brief comment.

“Hackensack.” He vanished beyond for some minutes, reappearing with a word of encouragement. “Luck’s with ye, my boy. Tide’s out an’ the ford won’t be so bad. Ma’am if you don’t want to git wetter—”

Peale abandoned the seat and lifted the girl into it. The farmer set the brakes; they slid down a sharp embankment, wheels skidding. Water muttered through the spokes and as the driver released the brakes he began to berate the horses:

“G’yup—Prince—Leader! Tarnation ain’t ye ever been in water afore? _G’yup!_”

The river slapped the wagon bed and surrounded Peale’s boots. They were swung downstream, team and all. The farmer, unmindful of his company, swore roundly and lashed out with his whip. Perched thus between defeat and victory, the horses struck a sand bar and dug in. The wagon came to a halt that very nearly knocked all of them into the water. The whip lashed again and then they were splashing to the shore. They climbed the far bank and once more settled to a steady gait.

“Dangerous chances ye take by keepin’ to the back roads,” warned the farmer. “That ford now—we made it by no more’n a lick an’ a promise.”

“’Tis plenty. We got across,” replied Peale quite simply.

In something less than an hour they reached the Passaic; here a very rude bridge spanned the stream, the work of the near-by settlers. They crossed gingerly, feeling the rush of current sway the whole structure. Once beyond, Peale was offered the choice of a main highway to Morristown or a lesser road that swung south. He chose the latter and they jolted onward, silence settling.

They had now entered a land of great uncertainty, situated between the outposts of both armies and belonging to neither. Each week saw some raid, British or American; no man knew just when a company of dragoons might swoop down, confiscate a few supplies, overturn a wagon train and dash back for shelter. And when hoofs drummed in the distance it was always uncertain until the party came to view which side was to present itself. The inhabitants, accustomed to these swift, unexpected forays, had long past learned to conceal all livestock and all grain; and they hid their true allegiance behind countenances either artful or suspicious.

It was a strip of territory full of peril for the fugitives. At no place, short of their own outguards, could they show their faces without the risk of betrayal. They could count on absolutely no help, and at every hint of traffic on the roads, were under the necessity of hiding.

Jeffry Peale grew more and more apprehensive as the night wore on and the wagon made increasingly poor progress over the abominable highways. The farther they went, the greater appeared the farmer’s caution. Perhaps two hours beyond the crossing of the Passaic he stopped his wagon and crawled down, taking the lantern with him. When he returned from a short reconnaissance of the road he offered Peale another choice of directions.

“Reached the hills. If ye go on straight it’s nigh fifteen miles to Morristown, with the Passaic to cross again. Er ye can branch south to’rd Springfield. What’s in yer mind?”

“South. My destination’s—” Peale was about to announce the location of his brigade’s headquarters, but checked himself. It helped nothing to give the man his true course. So he contented himself with repeating. “Turn south. And press the team a little faster. We’ve made poor progress the last hour.”

“Nawt a bit d’ye think o’ the team,” grumbled the farmer.

“A great deal I think of them,” contradicted Peale. “But somewhat more of our own hides. Press on.”

They turned, the road if anything worse than that which they left, and the texture of the night as black as the bottom of a well. One comfort, indeed, came to them; the rain fell off and after another hour or so of miserable travel turned to a dense mist that hung suspended in the air. The farmer noted it with a prophecy. “I know this land right well. T’morrer the fog’ll be thick enough to cut with a knife. Won’t see a dozen steps in front o’ ye.”

Peale crawled from the seat and knelt beside Jane Welch.

“I can’t help but think of all the misery I have brought upon you.”

“Don’t. This is the sauce of a very uneventful life to me.”

“I wish I could believe it,” he muttered. “But it’s no weather to expose you to.”

“Ah, but Jeffry, I am strong. Do you know, I was raised on a farm and did all the chores a boy would do? La, I’m not afraid. Don’t vex yourself. Don’t think of me as a woman this night.”

“And how shall I think of you, then?”

“As—a comrade.”

“Well,” said he, speaking rather low, “I have thought of you in many ways—Jane.”

Several minutes later she began again.

“I see Captain Tremble’s face as clearly as if he stood before me.”

“And it’s a face that augurs no good to us,” replied Peale. “I sh’d be willing to wager my commission he’s abroad in the Jerseys this moment, not far from our trail.”

“Might he overtake us?”

“If we tarried too long in this contrivance. Are you at all warm?”

“Jeffry Peale, _will_ you stop worrying about me?”

Nevertheless he tucked the tarpaulin around her and, feeling unusual pleasure at having done it, clambered back on the seat.

* * * * *

Thereafter there passed between the party not a dozen words in four or five hours. Once the farmer stopped his horses to give them a breathing spell and they sat still and frigid. In that dreariest of periods, just before daybreak, the driver began a vigorous complaint.

“Look ’ee now. Hain’t I gone fur enough to suit ye? A turrible hard trip it’s been—and I’ve got to do it all over again.”

Peale nodded in the darkness.

“Stop the team.” He vaulted to the road and was gone for better than five minutes. Presently his voice rose from the wagon side. “Your journey’s over. Give me your hand, Jane.”

He lifted her to the ground, hearing her catch a breath.

“My body seems to have gone asleep. Oh, it will pass.”

Peale spoke to the farmer.

“Sorry to say I haven’t a penny. If you will give me your name I shall see—”

“Nawt a bit o’ _that_,” replied the driver in a suppressed, emphatic voice. “I’ll have no name o’ mine harked about. I’m peaceful. Let it go.”

There was a rustle of cloth; the girl caught Peale’s fist and pressed some solid coin into it.

“Let the gentleman have it. We are very grateful.”

The farmer muttered a short thanks. With a great deal of caution and much murmuring at his team he got the wagon around. They heard it slushing off, unseen, and in a very short time even the echoes were lost in the night’s thick air.

“I pity the man,” confessed Peale. “But pity is a poor article for us to be spending now. Come, we’ve not far to go.”

“Within the lines?”

“No, not that good. I judge we’re something like five miles away. But there’s a farmhouse and barn a short distance off. I’ve been past it many times before.”

“Patriot?”

“Lord, a man can’t tell about politics in this region. No, I suspect the fellow is strongly Tory. It makes no difference. We are going to use his barn for a few hours.”

She was tired and, without knowing that she did it, leaned a little against him. They walked two or three hundred yards and entered a lane that brought them within hand’s reach of a barn before they were aware of it. Peale fumbled for the door catch; not finding it, he put his arms to the nearest aperture and brought the portal away from the wall sufficiently to admit the girl and himself.

It fell back into place with a small protest. They were within shelter again, and presently buried in hay, feeling the first comfortable warmth since leaving the house on the Hudson. It was just beginning to get light. Afar, a dog barked.

* * * * *

Captain Tremble stopped the troop at dawn and rode alone to the house door, leaning over to knock with the butt of his pistol. After a great deal of delay a head appeared out of the window.

“What ye want?”

“Have you seen a man and woman riding along this road—the man wearin’ British regimentals?”

“Nary,” answered the citizen, pulling a nightcap from his head. “But I heerd a wagon pass summat beyant midnight.”

“Going which way, sir?”

The citizen waved his hand westward. Tremble fixed his sharp eyes on the informer and inquired in a ringing voice—

“Are you loyal or rebel, sir?”

“As to that,” grumbled the citizen, “it ain’t none o’ your business. But I’m Tory, if it’ll ease ye any.”

“So?” sneered Tremble. “A blessed fickle lot all you Jerseymen are. I should not misdoubt greatly if ye harbored rebels yourself.”

“Yer privileged to come an’ look,” replied the citizen tartly, and withdrew from the window.

Tremble debated this course in his mind a moment. But the man had not seemed averse to inspection and so he turned away, loath to waste time.

Gaining the road, he led the troop onward at a rather rapid pace, considering the fact they had traveled very hard the past ten hours. Man and beast alike were coated with reddish mud and all were uncomfortably chilled. The fog pressed about them with increased density, seeming more like rain suspended in mid-air. Indeed, it was so thick that it burned their lungs. Two paces in front the highway vanished behind the gray, clammy wall.

Not much later Tremble burst through this wall and came unexpectedly upon a team and wagon greatly spattered with mud, the gray-haired driver half asleep in the seat. He came awake with a jump when Tremble issued a ringing “Halt!”

“Where, sir, have you been?” he demanded.

“Morristown,” replied the driver promptly.

It was the guide who had conducted Peale and Jane Welch so far during the previous night. But if he was alarmed at the sudden appearance of a British patrol he did not show it. Instead, he stretched himself and returned the captain’s fiercely antagonistic look with admirable serenity.

“Morristown!” thundered the captain. “Within the enemy’s lines, eh? Trafficking with the rebels at midnight! D’ye know I could hang you properly for that?”

“For a-goin’ to see my son who’s held prisoner there?” asked the farmer very mildly. “I’m a respectable subject o’ the king, mister, but I’ve noticed you gentlemen soldiers make little distinction between one side or t’other when it comes to plain citizens. Y’d as soon sack my house as the greatest rebel’s.”

“And so I would,” replied Tremble with the utmost frankness. “This —— country is a nest of snakes. Have ye seen a fugitive couple pass by? Man an’ woman—the man doubtless wearin’ British regimentals?”

The farmer shook his head.

“Nawt a bit.”

Tremble wasted no more time with him. Within the half-hour he had reached another house and had propounded the same query in a like tone of ferocity. No, the citizen had seen no such fugitives. But he had heard a wagon creak past not more than an hour or two ago, just before daylight, bound southward in the direction of American outposts. Tremble considered it at some length and finally turned to his sergeant.

“’Tis our game, I’ll lay ten guineas it is. Forward.”

And he put the weary troop to a very fast gait. He was at that moment not more than three miles from the two, and rapidly closing up the distance.

* * * * *

They had been comfortably swathed in the hay, Peale and Jane Welch, for twenty minutes or so, listening to the crunch of bovine teeth and the stamp of hoofs, when a small side door opened and a short, very stout farmer came in with a milk bucket. Peale had only to part the hay in front of him to command a perfect view, for he was directly above the mangers.

The farmer took a pitchfork and threw down a small amount of hay for each of the three cows in the barn and then did the like operation for a pair of sleek draft animals and one scrubby looking saddlenag. Peale cast a covetous eye on this last. With a great deal of caution he brought out a pistol and after letting the farmer milk the first cow, rose from the hay.

There was no need to issue warning. The farmer heard the noise above him and reared back quite frightened. Even before daring to cast his eyes upward to the mow, his free arm reached for a pitchfork. Then he found himself looking directly into the muzzle of a pistol.

“No racket, my friend,” said Peale. He helped the girl up—at which the farmer was frankly astonished—and together they slid to the flooring.

“’Tis most extraordinarily abrupt,” added Peale, “but unavoidable.”

“I’m a stout Tory,” broke in the farmer, noting the British uniform. “If yer runnin’ from the rebels, y’d better keep very low. There’s been a patrol established on this road, an’ it comes by every mornin’ early.”

“So? Well, we’ve had no breakfast and that milk looks—”

The farmer was willing enough to oblige his unbidden guests.

Peale took the bucket and tipped it up to the girl’s mouth, smiling. “I had never expected to offer you refreshment under these circumstances, Jane.”

“Is it not the unusual that people cherish?” she asked. She drank until want of breath stopped her; a drop of the milk clung to the tip of her nose. “La, I must look like the cat that forgot to clean his whiskers,” she added ruefully, and began to scrub her face with a handkerchief.

She was somewhat paler than usual and the long, disagreeable ride had left its mark in her eyes. Still, she had an answering smile for him. Woman-like she began to study herself and the sight of the hay clinging to her skirt was enough to set her to a furious cleaning.

The farmer eyed the both with a species of greediness.

“I’m a stout Tory,” he repeated, “but yer in dangerous country, friends. Washington’s had cavalry scourin’ the country a-main since Tuesday. Why, I vow I dunno. ’Tis but four odd miles to the outguards. ’Tain’t my business what yer after, sir; but for two gold crowns I’ll to’t they won’t find ye.”

“Have you gear for that sway-back nag?” demanded Peale. Then his eyes caught sight of bridle and saddle hanging on a peg. “Yes, I see you have. I shall be forced to ask the loan of it.”

“Ridin’ in broad day?” exclaimed the farmer. “Oh, no, sir. ’Tis folly! Stay here till night. I’ll see ye well pertected—fer two crowns, gold.”

“And what if I haven’t two crowns, gold?”

The farmer’s countenance became much less friendly.

“How much have’ee, then?”

“Come. Enough of this barterin’. Saddle the horse and we’ll be gone.”

“An’ wot shall I get in return?”

“You’ll be paid in due time. Hurry.”

The farmer dropped his milk bucket and went toward the horse with a great deal of grumbling.

“’Tis the last I’ll see o’t. An’ no money, either. Godfrey’s bells, but I like it little enough!”

Peale opened the door and the farmer, after saddling, led the mount into the foggy morning, still protesting. Though he was obviously a sharp and unscrupulous fellow, Peale could not help but pity him a little. The settlers of this debated land suffered a great deal; he made a note that the man should be recompensed for the trouble.

The fog, if anything, had thickened, and though the road was not more than twenty feet away it stood shrouded. Peale bent his ear one way and then another and called to the girl. Getting into the saddle, he reached for her arms and swung her up before him.

“What’s your name, friend?”

“Tull,” responded the fellow, very surly. His eyes sparkled. “I vow, I ain’t goin’ to consider myself bound to secrecy if the rebels should happen along. No, I ain’t.”

“I should say,” remarked Peale, “that judging from your very amiable temper you might consider yourself bound for a very debatable region.” The horse skittered away at a mincing pace and the farmer was lost in the fog. As they swung southward on the road, however, they found him bellowing. “Hey! ’Tis the wrong direction, jackanapes! Turn back!” And when he heard the hoofbeats continue unchecked, he was beside himself. “So, I been gulled, eh? Oh——!”

He was still ranging around the barnyard when Captain Tremble rode out of the fog not a quarter hour later. At the very first sight of the rank of British uniforms he related the whole story. Captain Tremble surveyed him with a blasting eye.

“Ye assume too much grief, yokel. ’Tis not that you love the royal; it’s because you lost a horse. A condemned, infernal land o’ snakes, this! A little solid money and y’d as soon cry for Mr. Washington’s rabble. On, dragoons! We’ll have our fine birds within twenty minutes!”