From Kingdom to Colony

Marblehead, and July, in the year of our Lord 1774.

In the harbor (now known as Great Bay) the water lay, a smooth, glistening floor of amethystine hue, shut in protectively by the "Neck," thrust out like a strong arm between it and the rougher sea beyond, stretching, purple and endless, to the rim of the cloudless horizon.

To the north and northwest lay the islands, the nearer ones sharply outlined in trees and verdure, but showing here and there a grayness of beach or boulder, like the bald spot among some good man's otherwise plentiful locks.

Looking eastward, Cat Island was closest of all to the mainland, the charred ruins upon it showing sharply in the brilliant afternoon sunshine; and here, amid the desolation, a few of the blackened timbers still remained upright, like arms lifted in protest against the vengeance visited upon the hospital a short time before by the well-meant zeal of the infuriated townsfolk.

In August of the previous year, during an epidemic of smallpox, a meeting was called in the townhouse, and Elbridge Gerry, John Glover, Azor Orne, and Jonathan Glover petitioned that a hospital be built on Cat Island, for the treatment of smallpox patients, or else that the town permit certain individuals to do this at their own expense.

The town refused to build the hospital, but gave permission to the individuals to construct one, provided the adjoining town of Salem gave its consent; it being also stipulated that the hospital should be so regulated as to shield the inhabitants of Marblehead from any "danger of infection" therefrom.

The necessary approval having been obtained from Salem, preparations were made in September for erecting the hospital.

By this time some of the people of Marblehead had become impressed with the fear that by the establishing of the hospital the dread disease would become a prevailing pest amongst them. Their terror made them unreasonable, and they now fiercely opposed the scheme to which they had once given their consent, and demanded that the work be abandoned; but the proprietors, filled with indignation at what they considered rank injustice, persisted in carrying out their worthy project to completion.

In October the hospital was finished, and placed in charge of an eminent physician from Portsmouth, who had attained a wide reputation for his success in the treatment of smallpox. Several hundred patients came under his care, with gratifying results. But a few had died, and this fact brought about bitter and active hostility from the malcontents. They demanded that the place be abandoned at once; and threats of violence began to be made.

The feeling gained in strength and intensity, until at length the proprietors gave up the contest. And then, to assure themselves that the hospital should not be reopened, a party of the townspeople, closely disguised, crossed to Cat Island one night in the following January, and left the buildings in flames.

But now these summer weeks found the town excited and tumultuous over still graver matters. The British government had found it impracticable to enforce the duty upon tea, and resorting to subterfuge, adopted a compromise whereby the East India Company, hitherto the greatest losers by the diminution of its exports from Great Britain, was authorized to send its goods to all places free of duty.

Although the tea would now become cheaper for the colonists, they were not deceived by this new ministerial plan. And when the news was received that the East India Company had freighted ships with tea consigned to its colonial agents, meetings were held to devise measures to prevent the sale or unloading of the tea within the province.

The agents, when waited upon by the committee chosen for that purpose in Boston, refused flatly to promise that the tea should not be unloaded or sold by them; and they were forthwith publicly stigmatized as enemies to their country, and resolutions were adopted providing that they, and all such, should be dealt with accordingly.

In December, 1773, the historical "Tea Party" took place in Boston harbor; and in the following spring Governor Hutchinson resigned, and General Thomas Gage was appointed in his stead.

Bill after bill was passed in Parliament and sanctioned by the King, having in view but the single object of bringing the people of Massachusetts to terms. The quartering of English troops in Boston was made legal. Town meetings were prohibited except by special permission from the Governor. And finally the infamous "Port Bill" was passed, which removed the seat of government to Salem, and closed the port of Boston to commerce.

In July subscriptions were being solicited by order of the town of Marblehead for the relief of the poor of Boston, who were suffering from the operation of the "Port Bill," and all the buildings which could be utilized, even to the town-house, were placed at the disposal of the merchants, for the storage of their goods.

In defiance of Parliament, whose act had practically suppressed all town meetings, the people of Marblehead continued to assemble and express their views, and discuss the grave questions then agitating the entire country. The very air of the sea seemed to murmur of war and the rumors of war; and the hearts of thinking men and women were heavy with forebodings of the struggle they felt to be imminent.

But the little town was lying brooding and peaceful this July afternoon. Its wooded hills to the west sent shadows across the grassy meadows and slopes, rising and falling to meet the sand-beaches, or ending in the headlands of granite that made sightly outlooks from which to scan the sea for threatening ships.

Under the pines that made shadows along the way, a horseman was going leisurely along the road leading to the Fountain Inn.

To his left lay level meadow lands, rising into hills as they neared the inn, the old Burial Hill-the town's God's Acre-being highest of all. To his right, the green fields and marshes stretched unbroken to the sea, save for here and there a clump of bushes and tangled vines, or a thicket of wild roses. The road before him ended in two branches, one leading to the rising ground on the right, where stood the Fountain Inn, while to the left it terminated in a sandy beach, before which stretched the peaceful waters of Little Harbor, now whitened with the sails of East Indian commerce, and the craft belonging to the fishing fleets that plied their yearly trade to the "Banks" and to Boston.

No large ship could come nigh the shore in Little Harbor; whereas in the deep bay lying between the Neck and the town, the enemy's vessels might anchor by the land itself. And here the townsfolk kept a most active lookout, which left the hills and beaches of Little Harbor almost deserted.

The bridle was lying slack upon the neck of the horse, who picked his way carefully along the road, his hoofs now clicking over the stony highway, now falling noiselessly upon the brown pine needles. And the occasional clatter of his shoes, or the busy chatter of a squirrel high up in a tree, were the only sounds to interrupt the musings of the stalwart rider, whose head was bowed, and whose eyes strayed moodily about.

He was dark and tall, well knit, and of powerful build, yet lithe and graceful. The wandering breeze whipped out stray curling locks about his ears and temples from the mass of dark hair done up in a queue. The broad-brimmed riding-hat was pulled well down over his strongly marked brows, and the smooth-shaven face betrayed the compressed lips of the large but finely formed mouth.

A flash of something white speeding across the road a few yards in front of him caused the dark eyes to open wide, and brought his musings to a sudden end.

Across the marshes to the left he caught a glimpse of twinkling feet, encased in low steel-buckled shoes that seemed to be bearing away from him a fleeting cloud of white drapery.

It was a female, with her so-called "cut" (a dress-skirt so narrow and straight as to make rapid movement very difficult) thrown up over her head and shoulders, as she went over the grass toward the beach at the side of the road facing the Neck.

Recognizing her at once, the horseman called out, "Dorothy!" and spurred his horse out of the road and across the marsh.

As though hearing him, she paused, and without lowering the "cut," turned to look over her shoulder.

The wind, catching her dress, blew the white folds aside, showing a roguish face, and one bearing a strong family resemblance to the man in pursuit. But her features were small and delicate, while his, although not lacking in refinement, were far bolder in strength of outline.

She had the same dark eyes, set far apart under delicate but firmly marked brows,-the same swart curling lashes, and riotous locks.

But here the likeness ceased; for while his face was grave, and full of a set purpose and resolution, hers was almost babyish, and full of witchery, with a peachy bloom coming and going in the rounded cheeks.

She was panting a little from her running, and now stood, waiting for him to speak, her red lips parted in a mocking smile that showed two rows of little teeth, white as the meat of a hazel-nut.

"What mischief have you been up to, you little rogue, and why are you running away from me?" he asked. He spoke with quiet good nature, but looked down at her with an elder brother's reproof showing in his face.

She did not answer, but only glanced up at him from the sheltering folds of the skirt, billowing about her face like a cloud, while the horse, recognizing a loved playmate, whinnied, and bowed his head to her shoulder as if mutely begging a caress.

"You have been to see Moll Pitcher again," the young man asserted; "and you know our father would be angry that you should do it. And 't is very wrong, Dorothy, in these times, that you should be over in this part of the town alone."

Her brother called her so rarely by her full name that a change from the caressing "Dot" to the solemn-sounding "Dorothy" was a sure mark of his displeasure.

The smile died from her face, and her eyes fell. But she looked mutinous, as she raised a small hand to stroke the horse's nose.

"I did not come alone, Jack," she explained. "Leet rowed me over, and Pashar came with us; and I had little 'Bitha, too."

"An old darkey, who sits dozing in the boat, half a mile away from you, with his twelve-year-old grandson, and little Tabitha! These make a fine protection, truly, had you met with soldiers or other troublesome people," he said with some sarcasm. "Do you not know there was a new vessel, filled with British soldiers, went into Salem harbor yesterday-and belike they are roaming about the country to-day?" He switched his riding-boot as he spoke, scowling as though the mention of the matter had awakened vengeful thoughts.

"Hugh Knollys has but just ridden over from Salem; and he said they were all housed there, along with the Governor," the girl said eagerly, glad to find something to say in her defence, as well as to turn the current of her brother's thoughts.

"Hugh Knollys!" he repeated. "Has he been at our house this day?"

"No-o," she answered hesitatingly. "We met him just now as we came out of Moll's. He is at the Fountain Inn."

"We," he said, a smile showing about the corners of his lips. "Are you His Gracious Majesty, Dot, that you speak of yourself as 'We'?"

At the sound of her baby name, all the brightness returned to her face, and glancing up at him, she whispered mischievously, "Look in the thicket behind you."

He turned to send a keen glance into the clump of bushes and vines growing some dozen yards closer to the road he had just left; and there he caught a glimpse of pale blue-like female raiment-showing amid the foliage.

Wheeling his horse quickly, he rode toward it; and what he now saw was a tall, blonde girl of eighteen or thereabouts, who arose slowly from where she had been hiding, and came forward with a dignity that savored of defiance, although there seemed to be a smile lurking in the corners of her mouth.

Her gypsy hat hung by its blue ribbons on one white rounded arm, bared to the elbow, as the fashion of her sleeve left it. The neck of her pale blue gown was low cut; but a small cape of the same material was over it,-crossed, fichu-wise, on her bosom, and then carried under the arms, to be knotted at the back.

Her round white throat rose out of the sheer blue drapery in fine, strong lines, to support a regal head, crowned with a glory of pale brown hair, now bared to the sun, and glinting as though golden sparkles were caught in its silky meshes.

As she approached, the rider held up his horse, and sat motionless, staring at her, while a merry peal of laughter, silvery as chiming bells, broke from sixteen-year-old Dorothy.

"Mary Broughton!" the young man exclaimed at length, as he looked wonderingly at the fair-haired girl.

She paused a yard away and swept him a mocking courtesy as she said,-and her musical voice was of the quality we are told is "good in woman,"-"Aye; at your service, Master John Devereux."

"Then you have been with our madcap here?" he asked, now finding his tongue more readily.

"All the afternoon-an it please you, sir," she replied in the same tone of playful irony.

"It does please me," he said, now with a smile, "for it was much better than had Dot been alone, as I supposed at first. But think you it is safe for you two girls to come wandering over here by yourselves?" And in the look of his dark eyes, in the very tone of his voice, there was something different,-more caressing than had been found even for his small sister, who had now drawn close to them.

Mary Broughton slipped her arm through Dorothy's, and the mockery left her face.

"I suppose not," she answered frankly. "But, to tell the truth, I had not thought of such a thing until you mentioned it. We've not met a soul, save Hugh Knollys, who was riding into the inn yard as we came from Moll Pitcher's."

"And so you have been to consult Moll's oracle?" the young man said banteringly.

The white lids fell over the honest blue eyes that had been looking straight up into his own. The girl seemed greatly embarrassed, and her color deepened, while Dorothy only giggled, and slyly pinched the arm upon which her slender fingers were resting.

Mary gave her a quick glance of reproof. Then she raised her eyes and said hesitatingly, "We heard she was down from Lynn, on a visit to her father."

"You girls are bewitched with Moll Pitcher and her prophecies," he exclaimed with a laugh.

"Ah-but she tells such wonderful things," began Dorothy, impetuously. But Mary Broughton laid a small white hand over the red lips and glanced warningly at her companion.

"What did she tell?" the young man asked. But now Dorothy only smiled, and shook her head.

"Come, Dorothy," Mary said, "we had best get back to the boat." And she turned to go; but the younger girl hung back.

"Are you going to a meeting at the inn, Jack?" she inquired, looking at her brother.

"Little girls must not ask questions," he answered, yet smiling at her lovingly. "But do you hasten to the boat, and get home, Dot, you and Mary. It troubles me that you should be about here. Hurry home, now,-there's a good little girl." But he looked at both of them as he spoke.

"Shall you be home by evening?" his sister asked, keeping her face toward him as she backed away, obliged to move in the direction of the beach; for Mary, still holding her arm, was walking along.

He nodded and smiled; then riding back to the highway, wheeled his horse and stopped to watch the two figures making their hurried way across the marsh. But his eyes rested longest upon one of them, tall and regal, her blonde head showing golden in the waning light, the vivid green of the marshes and the deep purple of the sea making a defining background for the beauty of the woman to whom John Devereux had given his lifelong love.

"Oh, Mary, there is Johnnie Strings!" exclaimed Dorothy, as they drew near shore, where lay the rowboat, beached on the sand, with Leet, the faithful old darkey, sitting close by, awaiting the pleasure of his adored young mistress.

Near him a little girl of seven was gathering pebbles, her heavy blonde braids touching the tawny sand whenever she stooped in her search. And crouched by his grandfather Leet was the boy Pashar, looking like an animated inkspot upon the brightness all about. His white eyeballs and teeth showed sharply by contrast with their onyx-like settings, as he sat with his thick lips agape, literally drinking in the words of the redoubtable Johnnie Strings, a wiry, sharp-faced little man, whose garments resembled the dry, faded tints of the autumn woods.

Johnnie, with his pedler's pack, stored with a seemingly unlimited variety of wares, was a well-known and welcome visitor to every housewife in town. He lived when at home (which was rarely) in a hut-like abode up among the rocks of Skinner's Head; and the highway between Boston and Gloucester was tramped by him many times during the year.

He owned a raw-boned nag of milk-white hue, and rejoicing in the name of Lavinia Amelia; and these two, with a yellow cur, constituted the entire ménage of the Strings household.

Johnnie, like Topsy, must have "just growed," for aught anyone ever knew of a parent Strings. The one item of information possessed by his acquaintances was that his name was not Johnnie Strings at all, but "Stand-fast-on-high Stringer,"-an indication that he must have received his baptism at Puritanical hands.

Either "Stand-fast-on-high" became more unregenerate as his infancy was left behind, or else his associates had no great taste for Biblical terms as applied to every-day use; for his real name had long since become vulgarized to the common earthiness of "Johnnie," and "Stringer" had been reduced to "Strings."

He now sat upon his pack-a smaller one than he usually carried-and was saying to Leet, "Now that there be so cantankerous a lot o' them pesky King's soldiers 'bout us, there's no sayin' what day or night they won't overrun the hull country, from the Governor's house at Salem, clean over here to the sea; an' every man will be wise, that owns cattle, to sleep with one eye an' ear open, an' a gun within reach."

"What are you saying, Johnnie Strings?" called out Dorothy, as she and Mary came up. "Are you trying to frighten old Leet into fits?"

The little pedler sprang to his feet and snatched off his battered wreck of a hat, showing a scant lot of carroty hair, gathered tightly into a rusty black ribbon at the nape of his weather-beaten neck.

"Only sayin' God's truth, sweet mistress," he answered, bowing and scraping with elaborate politeness. "I've just come from over Salem way; an' yesterday evenin' ye could scarcely see the ground for the red spots that covered it. There were three ship-loads came in yesterday, to add to the ungodly lot o' soldiers already there."

Mary looked troubled, but Dorothy only laughed. And little 'Bitha, abandoning her search for shells and pebbles, pressed closely against her cousin, looking up out of a pair of frightened eyes, blue as forget-me-nots, as she asked, "Does Johnnie say the soldiers are coming after us, Dot?"

Dorothy checked herself in what she was about to say, and bent to reassure the little one, putting an arm about her neck to draw the golden head still closer to her.

"What are they come down from Boston for, Johnnie?" Mary asked; "do you know?"

He cocked his head aslant, and resumed his hat, screwing up one eye in a fashion most impudent in any man but himself, as he looked at her with a cunning leer. Then he said: "There's no harm to come from 'em yet. But soldiers be a lawless lot, if they get turned loose to look after we folk 'bout the coast here, as is like to be the case now. An' so I was just meanin' to hint to ye that 'twould be as well to stop nigher home, after this day."

Old Leet, who had listened with a stolid face to all this, was now pushing the boat into the water, while Pashar stood gaping at the pedler, until ordered gruffly by his grandsire to stand ready to hold the craft.

"Have you knowledge that they are coming down here?" inquired Mary, speaking more insistently than before.

"We-l-l, yes, I have," he admitted with a drawl, and was about to add something more, when Dorothy, who had deposited 'Bitha in the boat, and was now getting in to take her own place in the stern, said to him, "Come with us, Johnnie, and we'll take you home, as we pass quite close to your"-hesitating a second-"your house."

"No, thank ye, mistress," he replied, grinning proudly at the dignity she had bestowed upon his humble abode. "I've that will take me up to Dame Chine, at the Fountain Inn, an' I should be there this very minute, an' not chatterin' here. But I was tired, an' when I came along an' saw old Leet, sat down to rest a bit."

"When are you intending to fetch that pink ribbon you promised me weeks ago, and the lace for Aunt Lettice?" demanded Dorothy, as Mary Broughton stepped over the intervening seats, past Leet, at the oars, with small 'Bitha alongside him, and took her place beside her friend.

"I've both in my pack, up at the hut; I'll bring 'em to the house this week, ye may depend on it," answered Johnnie, as Pashar pushed off the boat, springing nimbly in as the keel left the sand.

"If you do not, I'll never buy another thing from you so long as I live," the girl called back, with a wilful toss of her head, as Leet pulled away with strong, rapid strokes.

"'T is all wrong for two pretty ones like them to be roamin' 'round in such fashion," said Johnnie to himself, as he stooped to take up his pack. Then suddenly, as if remembering something, he turned to the shore and called out, "Shall ye find Master John at home, think ye, Mistress Dorothy?"

Her voice came back silvery clear over the distance of water lying between them. "No; he is up at the Fountain Inn."

"Ah, as I thought," the pedler muttered, with a meaning smile. "I'll just be in the nick o' time."

"What think you it all means, Mary?" Dorothy asked, the two sitting close together in the boat.

"What all means?" echoed Mary, in an absent-minded way, her head turned toward the shore they were leaving, where on the higher land the far-away windows of the Fountain Inn were showing like glimmering stars in the light of the setting sun.

"Why," Dorothy explained, smiling at Mary's abstraction, "all these soldiers coming down here? And Johnnie acts and talks as if he could tell something important, if he chose."

"You know, Dot, we are like to have serious trouble,-perhaps a war with the mother country."

"And all because of a parcel of old tea!" exclaimed Dorothy, with great scorn.

Mary now turned her face in the direction the boat was going, and smiled faintly. "The tea is really what has brought matters to a head," she said. "But there is more in it than that alone, from what I've heard my father say. And there is much about it that we girls cannot rightly understand, or talk about very wisely. Only, I hope there will be no war. War is such a terrible thing," she added with a shudder, "and you know what Moll told us. I almost wish we had not gone to see her to-day."

"I am not a bit sorry we went," said Dorothy, stoutly. "I am glad. What did she say,-something about a big black cloud full of lightnings and muttering thunder, coming from across the sea, to spread over the land and darken it? Was n't that it?"

"Yes, and much more. Do you think she was asleep as she talked to us, Dot? She looked so strangely, and yet her eyes were wide open all the time."

"Tyntie does the same thing at times. She says it's 'trance.' But Aunt Penine always puts me out of the kitchen when Tyntie gets that way, and so I don't know whether she talks or not. I mean to try and find out, if I can, the next time Tyntie gets into such a state."

"Nothing seems strange for Indians to do or to be," Mary said musingly; "but I never heard of such things amongst white people."

"Oh, yes, you did," Dorothy answered quickly. "Whatever are you thinking of, not to remember about the witches? 'T is said they could foretell to a certainty of future happenings. I wish I'd lived in those days, although it could not have been pleasant to see folks hanged for such knowledge. As for Moll Pitcher,-I guess she might have been treated as was old Mammie Redd."