The Tory Maid | Page 2

Frederick,
and Prince George were mustering fast and strong. Then the Kentish

men and those of Queen Anne and all the lower shore were mounting
fast and mustering, while from the Howard hills came riding down bold
and hardy yeomen.
Then, and as it has always been in the old province of Maryland, the
gentlemen led the people, and everywhere the spirit of fire ran like
molten steel through the veins of the gathering hosts, and the people
took up the gauntlet of war with a laugh and a cheer and shook their
clenched hands at the King who was over the sea; so it was the length
and breadth of the province, and so it was with me.
And so one day the signal came, and I mounted my black colt Toby and
rode away to the Head of Elk in the county of Cecil, where the
mustering was, to take my place, as it was my duty and right to do, side
by side with the bravest gentlemen of the province in the coming
struggle for the Great Cause.
I was eighteen in the month of March of that year and considered
myself a man, and, having reached man's estate, I bade good-bye to my
mother and rode from out the sheltering walls and groves of Fairlee.
But just before I rode within the shadow of the great woods I turned in
my saddle and waved my hand to the small, quaint figure that stood on
the broad porch watching me disappear; and she bravely--for the
women were brave in those days--waved her hand in return, and then I
rode on, for the moment saddened at the parting, for the die that day
would be cast, and, though there would be mustering and drilling for
many weeks before we took up our march to the northward, the hand of
the cause would claim me as its own.
I was riding thus through the forest when I heard hoof-beats behind me
and a cheery halloo, and who should ride up but Dick Ringgold of
Hunting Field, a lad of my own age and my true friend?
"Why such a long face?" he laughed. "You look as if you were going to
a funeral and not to a hunt that will beat all the runs to the hounds in
the world. We are going to hunt redcoats and fair ladies' smiles and not
foxes now; so cheer up, man."

"Plague on it, Dick, you are ten miles from home and I am only one," I
retorted. "You ought to have seen how bravely her ladyship tried to
smile, too."
"We will increase the number of miles then," said he, and reaching over
he struck Toby across the flank. Well, Toby needs the curb at best, and
it was a full half-mile before I brought him up and had a chance to give
Dick a rating.
But Dick only laughed.
And so we rode on, across the low-lying plains of Kent, northward
toward the borders of Cecil.
For miles we would ride under the shadow of the dense forest, and then
we would come to the wide-reaching fields of some great manor or
plantation, the manor house itself generally crowning some gently
rising knoll amid a grove of trees, with a view of the distant bay, or
creek, or river, as the case might be; the cluster of houses, the quarters
for the slaves, the stables and the barns, making little villages and
hamlets amid the wide expanse of farm lands and the distant circle of
the dark green forests.
Then, again, a creek or river would bar our course, and we would have
to ride for miles until we turned its head, or found a ferry or a ford, and
so overcome its opposition. So on we rode until, as the day waxed near
the noon hour, we came to the little hamlet of Georgetown, nestling
amid the hills on the banks of the Sassafras. Crossing the river at the
ferry, we began the last stage of our journey.
The trail now skirted the broad lands of Bohemia Manor, and crossed
the beautiful river of that name, embedded between the hills and
wide-stretching farm lands.
As we approached the banks of the Elk the country grew more rolling
and wilder--in our front the Iron Hills rose up before us, crowned with
forests, in sharp contrast to the low-lying country through which we
had been passing.

And now, as our appetites became pressing, we urged our horses on, for
we had still many miles to travel.
CHAPTER II
WE MEET THE MAID
We had just come in sight of the blue waters of the Elk, as it rolled
between the forest-clad hills on either side, basking here for a moment
in the sunshine, then