University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER THE FIRST.
THE QUAKER AND HIS DAME.

“These be troublous times, dame—these be troublous
times,” said the Quaker as he took his pipe
from his mouth, and drew his chair nearer to the
cheerful flame that blazed upon the hearth. “The
October night is cool—and verily the fire is comfortable.
I mind me not of a season, when the
month opened with such a nipping frost—and yet
the woods of the quiet Wissahikon are scarce faded
by it. These are troublous times—does thee not
think so, Hannah?”

“Yes, Joab,” replied the Quaker dame, smoothing
a crease out of her apron with her hand: “I
do think that the times are full of trouble. What
with the men of war, with their flaunting red
dresses, with their war horses and their shouting,
their cymbals and their drums, their cannons and
their weapons of war; our quiet home on the Wissahikon,
is a quiet home no longer. But as the
Lord wills it, so let it be!”

The Quaker farmer took his pipe from his mouth,
sent a volume of tobacco-smoke rolling to the rafters

of the apartment, and then with a distinct “hem”
resumed his meditative luxury again.

“Verily, Joab, there is not a window of our habitation,
from which we may look, without seeing
the tents of these men of strife. Well do I remember
the time when first thee took me to be thy
wedded wife; then thee was used to go peacefully
to the field, to thy labor in the morning, and I could
bake my bread, and scour my pewter in quietness,
without a great big, idle fellow of a soldier, popping
into our tenement, and taking what he pleased for
his own, and looking at our daughter Marjorie as
though he meant no good. Well do I mind me of
the time—but was thee not over to Germantown
this afternoon, Joab?” The Quaker nodded assent.
“Did thee hear any thing new of the man Cornwallis,
or aught of George Washington?”

“I found the village people much affrighted.
Some were removing their worldly goods, some
were talking loudly and calling their neighbors
`Whig' and `Tory,' and all were running to and
fro, in great confusion and bustle. I asked what
all this meant—and verily the village people answered,
that the man Cornwallis, who has posted
his scarlet men, across the village, near the mansion
of friend Chew, to the Delaware on one side, and
through our quiet woods along to the Wissahikon
on the other, did purpose some mischief to the men
of friend Washington. But I couldn't get head nor

tail of the story. But of a certainty shall we have
trouble shortly, Hannah.”

“I fear thee speakest that which shall come to
pass, Joab,” replied the dame, and then both farmer
and his wife appeared to give themselves up to the
melancholy contemplation of the evils predicted.
The whole scene was one of Pennsylvania's olden
time. The blazing light of the hickory fire, flickering
round the apartment, showing the substantial
forms of the Quaker and his dame, in bold relief,
and mingling with the beams of the setting sun,
which streamed through the deep silled window;
the massive rafters which formed the ceiling of the
spacious room; the snow-white walls and neatly
sanded floor; the oaken table in one corner; the
shelves heavy with masses of burnished pewter,—
all were characteristic of that quiet, domestic life,
so rarely discovered in any place, save under the
green trees and pleasant shade of the country.

The farmer was in the prime of vigorous manhood,
with features of massive solidity, a broad and
low forehead, a short, square nose, a wide mouth
with thin lips, prominent chin, high cheek bones
and a dark grey sparkling eye; and with a frame
of great muscular power, and physical strength,
long and sinewy arms, and prominent chest whose
ample development his Quaker garb, with all its
volume, and want of shape, could not altogether
conceal. You would have picked him out in a

crowd, as the man to head a charge of dragoons,
rather than suppose him the quiet Friend, whose
theory and practice alike shunned the noise and
bustle of war.

His dame was full and portly in figure, with a
calm, placid face, and light blue eyes, expressive
of a mild and domestic disposition. Her hair was
half concealed, by the plain cap of the Quaker sect,
and her gown was modelled with the invariable
simplicity of hue and shape, peculiar to the sisters
of the peace-loving and form-shunning society.

“In truth, Hannah,” exclaimed Joab after a
pause, as he laid down his pipe and extending his
hands to receive the cheerful warmth of the flame,
he gazed with a complacent glance around the
spacious arch of the fire-place. “In truth, Hannah,
we have fallen upon evil times. The sword
of war hangs over the land, the dust of the highways
is laid with the blood of our neighbors and
worldly friends, and the quiet streams run crimson,
with the butchery of the men of strife. This war
parts father and son, husband and wife, mother
and child.”

“Yes,” responded Hannah, from the other side
of the fire-place. “There is the rich Englishman
Tracy, whose mansion is pitched on the rock that
looks down into the vale of the Wissahikon, beyond
the bend 'tother side of Rittenhouse's Mill—did he
not cast his son from him as though he were unworthy

of all fatherly love and affection, because
he favored the men of George Washington?
Marry, Joab, I often wonder what has become of
the poor youth, who hath his father's curse upon
him?”

“I learned 'tother day, from some friends of
Washington, that Herbert Tracy, that delicately
reared youth, joined the Continentals last winter,
with a number of his father's tenants; and I likewise
learned that he endured the biting cold as
bravely, and slept on the bare earth as cheerfully,
as the humblest of Washington's people. The son
of our neighbor—Henry Heft, commonly called
Harry Heft, was with the young man Tracy.”

The last sentence was uttered by the Quaker,
with a covert glance at the countenance of his
dame, as though he expected the name of the young
farmer to excite some interest in her mind. He
was not disappointed, for the Quakeress gave a
quick, nervous start, and exclaimed, with the rapid
and hurried manner, peculiar to the keenest anxiety
—“Joab, what didst thee hear of the young man
Heft? Surely he has met with no harm? He was
a good youth, albeit somewhat wild. Why did
thee not tell me of this sooner? I should be sorry
where harm to come to him, for, for—”

“For he hath made offers of marriage to our
daughter Marjorie, thee would say? Nay, nay,
dame, were he alive and well, standing at this moment

before me, he might not unite his lot with
our child. There was a time when I had hope of
the boy, when I thought he would be one of us,
and assume the peaceful garb of the Friends—but
no sooner did young Tracy go to the wars, than
Harry must be off also, and fight, and cut and
thrust, I warrant thee, with the worst of them.
Nay, nay, Hannah—”

“Well, if it must be so, it must. I fear thee
speakest truth. But in verity it is painful to think
how much trouble and strife among kindred and
friends, this dreadful war hath caused. There was
the daughter of old Waltham, whose country seat
is on the Ridge Road near the Falls of Schuylkill;
he is rich, and full of worldly goods, thee knowest
Joab: she, the maiden his daughter, was to be married
to young Tracy, when the quarrel occurred
between father and son, and the match was broken
off. Ah, me! 'tis a troublous time, for the sons of
men, Joab.”

But at this moment, as if some unexpected
thought had ruffled the usual serenity of his mind,
the Quaker rose from his seat, and walked hurriedly
to the deep silled window of the apartment
looking to the west, and gazing upon landscape of
hill, valley and stream, for a moment he seemed
lost in thought, or wrapt in the mild quietude, that
attends the contemplation of a lovely sunset, to a
mind sobered by age and experience.