Major AndrÉ's Last Love

AT the foot of Broadway, New York City, there is a little plot of grass, surrounded by a rusted iron railing, which is a part of the one-time Bowling Green. In old Knickerbocker days and up to the time of the Revolutionary War it played an important part in the history of the Colony. When the British occupied the city it was often used as a romping-ground by the neighborhood's Tory children and the waifs of the alley-ways.

There in the summer of 1779 a happy-faced youth with sparkling dark eyes and hair lightly powdered would sometimes be seen sketching a group of frolicsome urchins as they rolled their hoops or played games among the bushes. He was Major John AndrÉ, then acting as an aide-de-camp to General Clinton and living at his head-quarters.

One bright May day after the capture of Stony Point, when sweet airs were stealing over from the fragrant wilderness Paulus Hook, and the road Broadway was like a glittering golden ribbon drawn through a world of summer time, Major AndrÉ loitered near his favorite seat on the greensward. Toying with his pencil, he glanced up to see a chair pass by on its way up from Whitehall. By its side walked three cavaliers dressed in the height of fashion and looking as if they might have just stepped out of Court Alley. Its window-panels were down to let in the air, and as it rounded the green the young soldier from his point of view caught a glimpse of one of the fairest faces he had viewed during his American career. Soft brown hair rolled high above eyes of the same shade and a complexion as beautiful as the apple-blossoms of old Derbyshire.

Who the maiden was he longed to inquire, but no one was by, and in an instant the chair had passed. His eyes followed it, and as it turned in its triumphal course into one of the upper streets he saw a white hand rest for an instant above the door and wave the end of a fichu. All day long the memory of the lovely face and the waving fichu stayed with him.

Looking out of a window of Sir Henry Clinton's drawing-room at nightfall, he saw the same chair on its homeward way, followed by another. Then he learned from some of his brother officers that the vision of the morning was Sally Townsend, a belle of Long Island.

General Sir Henry Clinton was then occupying the mansion No. 1 Broadway. It was a spacious house with a garden extending to the river. Only a portion of his time was spent there, for when the weather grew extremely warm he departed with his household for the Beekman mansion at Turtle Bay. In the garden of the former place, one of the noted pleasure-spots in the city, Major AndrÉ is said to have composed his poem "The Cow Chase." These quaint verses would perhaps be forgotten to-day if the one who penned them had not been immortalized by calamity.

Although the British officers made New York a theatre of amusement in which the candles never flickered or died out for a space of many months, the dashing AndrÉ could not have found it as agreeable a spot as Philadelphia. In that city he planned the famous Meschianza in honor of jovial Sir William Howe, and was acclaimed the hero of the hour. Fame to him seems to have been an instinctive passion, and although of a family humbler than most of those of his scarlet-coated compatriots, he rose like a meteor above the shackles of environment and became the favorite of his regiment. It is small wonder that a youth who could correspond with the learned Anna Seward, as he did at the age of eighteen, should have hated his work in the mercantile shop of old Warnford Court. Looking back over the years to-day, he appears to us a paragon. That the "Cher Jean" of that humble home circle at Litchfield should be described by all his faithful biographers in most glowing colors is singular proof that he could not have fallen far short of their eulogiums. Of unusual personal beauty, a poet, artist, linguist, and musician, he lives for us again the handsome limner the belle of Long Island waved to on an early summer's day.

The love-affairs of Major AndrÉ have always created as much discussion as the justice of his lamented fate. Whether he was true to that paragon of virtues, Honora Sneyd, as has often been written, or forgot her for Peggy Chew, Rebecca Redman, or any of the host of colonial beauties whose names have been linked with his, can never be answered. This we know, that after she was married to another, "the endless Mr. Edgeworth," AndrÉ still wore her miniature, and he himself tells us that he secreted it in his mouth when taken a prisoner at Quebec. His affection for her was pure and lofty, and in his sprightly and characteristic letters to Anna Seward, her foster-sister, who corresponded with him under the pseudonym of "Julia," we obtain glimpses of a hopeless passion; of a lover who truly loved and longed, but was never an accepted suitor. In the fall-time of 1769 he writes to "Julia" from the midst of the implements of "quill-driving" in the London establishment:

Later in the day he pictures his Honora and a few of her friends forming a snug circle about her dressing-room fireplace, and gives vent to the wish that he were with them. Then comes the closing hour of the "compting house," and he writes, "I am about to jog to Clapton on my own stumps; musing as I homeward plod my way—Ah! need I name the subject of my contemplation?"

Although Honora Sneyd was the grand passion of AndrÉ's life, he had a gay and volatile temperament, and many a pretty face caught his fancy after donning the king's livery; and so we find him in the days that followed his meeting with the belle of Long Island journeying to her home in Oyster Bay.

The house where Sally Townsend resided still stands on the main street. The old building was erected by Samuel Townsend in 1740, and is little changed since the day Sally's gallant British admirers used to hurry over from wind-swept Fort Hill in search of her. The Townsends were among the first Long Island settlers, having purchased land in this village in 1661. One of the early daughters of the family, by the name of Freelove, married the famous pirate, Tom Jones, as dreaded by Long Islanders as Captain Kidd was farther south. Their house at Massapequa, known as "the pirate's house," remained standing until well into the last century. An interesting tradition is often told of it. When the pirate lay on his death-bed a great black bird hovered over the roof, circling about the chimney. As his breath was ceasing it flew through the western wall, and no one ever succeeded in closing the hole that its strong wings made, the bricks and mortar always tumbling out as fast as put in place.

Tom Jones had long been a troubled shade, if we credit the tales of ghost-hunters, when Major AndrÉ first came to Oyster Bay. Colonel Simcoe, commander of the Queen's Rangers, was then quartered at the Townsend house, and General Clinton's aide, on his week's leave of absence from New York, knew he would receive a warm welcome from him. It was noonday when he and two of his fellows arrived at the village; a market lad directed them to the house. Wilting under the rays of the hot sun, they were longing for the cool strip of Quogue's beach.

AndrÉ was inwardly lamenting his foolhardiness in coming such a long distance simply to get a closer view of a maiden who had waved a kerchief at him. As they approached the wide gray shadow of the Townsend dwelling the noise of some disturbance from within met their ears. There was a clatter of china-ware, deep, boisterous laughter, and a woman's voice in shrill accents. "Don't!" and "Lud!" and then "Keep it up!" floated out through the windows. AndrÉ parted the plumes of a high peony-bush, stood on tiptoe, and gazed in at the scene. A girl, dodging a line of lusty youths pursuing her about a table filled with steaming viands, stopped in her flight.

For a moment she gazed at the man's head and shoulders rising out of the plant in the garden. To both their minds came the picture of a patch of grass at the foot of Broadway and the memory of a waving bit of white gauze. The girl blushed and so did the man over the peonies. The noise was still going on about her. For a moment she hesitated, then, rushing to the window, she merrily called, "Help! Help!" One of the young soldiers had also caught a glimpse of AndrÉ and recognized him.

"'Tis John AndrÉ, Clinton's aide, coming," he said; but the words had no more than left his mouth when a biscuit hit the spot from whence they came.

"Take that, and that," the rescuer cried, as he aimed the crispy balls at the ungallant youths. "Shame on you! Four lads to one maid!"

The men were laughing.

The girl had become silent and her cheeks were flaming scarlet. "'Twas a game of forfeits, sir," she cried, "and they took advantage. I shall call the others of your tribe, gentlemen," she said, turning to her tormentors. There was scorn in her voice, but her eyes smiled on AndrÉ.

Later in the day AndrÉ sat at the feet of Sally Townsend, as she shelled peas in a grotto at the back of the house. Almost up to the entrance of the spot which she herself had planned in imitation of a Ranleagh grotto marched an army of radiant blooms. Over their fragrant faces hovered a band of butterflies, and now and then a brigand bee droned of his thefts to a heedless world. Every Simcoe redcoat was away drilling in a distant field. The house seemed like some great white bird asleep in the sun. The man and the girl under the cool arch of cedar boughs were facing each other. Even the brook in the distance had stopped its murmuring.

"And why did you wave to me that morn on Broadway as you journeyed to your Aunt's?" AndrÉ asked.

"'Twas all a mistake, I told you. I took you for some one else," the girl replied.

"Tell me, was he much like me?" he began again.

The girl smiled. "Why press me, Major AndrÉ?" she said.

The peas were flying through her rosy fingers. The young soldier by her side reached out to a gaudy poppy and broke it from its frail stem. Now he was playing with it. A shaft of sunlight had strayed over from the flower field and was loitering on his unpowdered hair, beating it into gold.

Suddenly he spoke:

"I came all the way from York to obtain another view of you, Miss Townsend. The face by the chair window was so wonderfully sweet. Won't you tell me why you waved?"

The girl bent her head over the pea-pods. The bees, for a moment deep in the honeyed hearts of the flowers, were silent. The hot world seemed like a colored print in a picture-book, brilliant but without life.

"If you must know," she said, hesitatingly, "I thought for a moment you were the man I love. The color of the coat showed me my mistake."

She was smiling at his chagrin.

There was a silence for a few minutes.

"Where is your rebel to-day?" he said, when he had cast his dream away.

A look of sadness came over her face and tears choked her voice as she answered, "God knows!"

It was the calls of old Miss Townsend for her evening vegetables which broke up the visions of the two. The girl's last words had brought to AndrÉ's mind a picture of his Honora separated from him by miles and miles of ocean. Did she care whether he followed this new beauty? he asked himself. No; she had forgotten him. He looked at Sally. Where were her eager thoughts now? With some slender youth tramping along a Jersey road, perhaps. She was following him through the dark forest where he walked with bleeding feet. Camp-fires glowed before her eyes as he ate his starvation rations, the wind whistled in her ears with its shriek of musketry and deep roar of cannon. Now she gazed upon him wounded and creeping over the mossy turf to some stream to quench his thirst of death. The agony of it was awful.

AndrÉ saw the horror in her face.

"Poor girl," he whispered, "he is safe somewhere, I know; my heart feels sure of it."

Sally rose and he carried her basket into the kitchen, where a slave woman took it, murmuring protestations of thanks. There was no room in the house for him to sleep, but Sally assured him that he could find a lodging at the tavern.

"May I come and see you to-night?" he said, when they reached the garden gate.

"You had better not," she answered. "You know me only as a hoyden with silly wits. I should hate all of you redcoats!"

"Let me come and I will talk only of him," he whispered.

"Then come," she said. "King George has the whole village in his power, and besides," she added, "you somehow make me think of Jack." And her eyes followed him as he walked down the street, turning often to bow to her until the night folded him in her arms.

"AndrÉ hath captured the belle," was the verdict of every Simcoe officer quartered at Townsend's. They had become firm friends. The gay young officer had journeyed into the country in search of a pretty face and had found a good heart. AndrÉ settled in his mind that the waving fichu was but the caprice of a moment; the act of a young and thoughtless girl who never hoped to see him again. Did he really look like Jack? he often asked himself. From Sally he heard of that youth's good parts, and soon began to feel a strange sympathy for him. Before the war he was the master of the village school. He was a dreamer and a writer of sweet verses who should have had naught to do with battle.

In a little vine-covered cot by the king's highway his mother dwelt, breeding doves and rarer birds for a livelihood. There were few sales for her now. AndrÉ passed her sometimes, seated by her doorstep, her wrinkled old face turned towards the west road where she had followed her best beloved to the turnpike one bright morning two years before. Her eyes were like those of a troubled parent bird, as she often sat there brooding. Once he went to see her with Sally. The girl had told him more of her lover. In a burst of confidence she had informed him that they were not even betrothed; his poverty forbade him the house. AndrÉ sighed with her over the tale of no letters. There was one who never wrote to him, too, but alas! from choice. Once he showed this younger woman her miniature. He was growing to love Sally as a brother would. They were so alike with their smiles and their laughter, yet each with a sad secret. At Philadelphia and York, where gayety was rife, the image of his Honora did not come before him as often as it did in this quiet village.

With Sally, AndrÉ would leave the house ostensibly to walk over to the camp, but, once away from prying eyes, they would wander off through the pines to heathy wastes where the golden-rod tossed its tassels knee high, and through fields green and riant, filled with the very passion of ripe summer. It was on these walks that they entered into the closest communion. All their superficialities seemed to vanish. AndrÉ forgot the many beauties the God of Love had led his footsteps to in America, and for the time was the simple "Cher Jean" of younger days. The girl by his side felt stronger with him. Jack must be safe, for he said so. "You will find him again and happiness," he would often tell her. "The world cannot be all made up of dreary days." And a smile always followed the sigh.

On the fifth day of AndrÉ's stay in Oyster Bay he wandered with Sally as usual beyond the outskirts of the township. Starting for home when the sunbeams were beginning to fade along the roadway, they came upon a fisherman's wife driving an empty cart. The woman was all excitement, and in a jumbled Dutch dialect tried to tell them of something that had happened, pointing often to the village. She evidently feared AndrÉ, for her eyes resting on him were filled with hatred. Sally was used to seeing the woman pass by the Townsend gate. What could she mean by her queer actions? She was evidently trying to tell them that something had been taken from her.

"Her fish may have been seized by the soldiers, poor thing!" the girl said, as, still gesticulating wildly, they watched her drive away. When she was out of sight the two hurried on.

The sun left the tree-tops and sank into a misty grave. Gray vapors stole over the meadows. The day was dying sadly. The dew came suddenly upon the countryside and drenched all its varicolored beauty in tears. The wings of a storm could be heard in the distance. AndrÉ seized his companion's hand and they ran laughingly with the wind.

The girl paused for breath. Her face changed. "Major AndrÉ," she said, "what do you think the woman meant?"

"'Twas her fish," he said, to comfort her.

Nature's swift transition coming upon them so silently gave him a strange foreboding of impending trouble.

They were entering the street; the storm was at their backs. The day was stifled in a sable pall. There was a roll of thunder and a swift flash of lightning illumined the sky. Then out of the sullen blackness loomed the house, a sheet of fire, candles glowing in every room. A group of townspeople were about the door. Sally ran from AndrÉ's side. Old Miss Townsend sat on the doorstep weeping, with her head in her apron. Sally looked at her and then at the faces about her. Most of the people were Tories, and there was little in their eyes but curiosity. Two or three neighbors glanced at her tenderly, and one stepped forward as if to speak, then checked herself. Inside there was the murmur of many voices. One that lived ever in her heart now came to her ears like an evil dream. Her face blanched. AndrÉ was by her side in an instant.

"'Tis Jack," she whispered. In the hall she saw him bound and bleeding. His face was thin and haggard. There were bayonets all about him.

"You cannot enter here yet a while," a sentinel called out; but her ears were heedless. In AndrÉ's arms she had swooned. The few who remained by the door were bending over her; about them roared the storm.

Sally's lover had been captured that afternoon in a rye field a mile from his home. He was dressed in a cheap, soiled homespun, and would have passed as a farmer's lad if a townsman vigilant in the service of King George had not recognized him. The youth was free after a long incarceration in a British warehouse prison in New York City. Many a weary mile he had skirted homeward bound. His one thought was to reach his mother's cool little cot again. The fever was still in his veins. He was nearing the road to rest when the soldiers ran out upon him. To his distraught fancy they seemed like red devils eager to drag him back to hades. Off over the fields he could see the roof of Sally's home. How glad she would be to see him again! Farther on was the little house he loved so well. The storm-clouds were beginning to form over it. His mother was no doubt bringing in the birds now from the willow garden house. Hark! was that the faint call of Rollin, his own pet bluewing?

"Yes, he belongs to the rebel forces," he heard a voice cry out. "He must be here spying." Grim faces pressed closer to him. Cruel hands bound him. Death was whispering to him—mocking. A thoughtless youth who carried a flute began to play the doleful music of "The Rogues' March." On they went to the tribunal.

Colonel Simcoe, who was kind at heart, could not condemn the young prisoner to death when there was little proof that he was a spy. His men had searched him for possible papers, but none were to be found. "Still, he may be a clever trickster," he mused. After consulting with his chief officers, it was decided to give out a mock sentence that he was to die on the morrow, to see whether aught could be learned from him. Then Major AndrÉ, who had helped old Miss Townsend carry the prostrate Sally to her chamber, stood by the door from whence emanated justice when the verdict was reached. "If he is hung it will kill the poor maid," he thought. Through the ante-room he saw the prisoner. His head was drooping; the very attitude of his body betokened abject despair. "Poor lad," he said; "can Simcoe mean to carry out the murder?"

The storm was ceasing. So grave were the affairs over which the little world in the Townsend house were concerned that the night was on them unawares. The hour was long past the usual evening meal-time. The sentence of death sickened the hearts of all of those not in the plot. The court was about to break up when the prisoner asked permission to speak with Colonel Simcoe.

For the last hour they had been trying to wring from him that which he knew not. Was this a confession? The thought of death was a compelling force. A hush fell upon the room, broken only by the sputter of a candle.

"Colonel Simcoe," he said, "as this is to be my last night on earth, I ask of you a favor." He had suddenly grown pale like one arisen from a weary couch of sickness. "'Tis a great boon to ask, sir, and I have naught to give in exchange but my word. I came to this place to-day solely with the thought of seeing my old mother—and one other," he added, hesitatingly. "This has cost me my life, and I beg that you will let me go to her just for an hour or two, and I promise to come back again. Half a mile down the road is our house. She is thinking of me now, poor soul!" His voice had sunk into a whisper. "The bird woman; perhaps you know her, sir. You must trust me to go, and go alone. The knowing I am a prisoner would kill her. Do I ask too much?"

The officer looked at the youth. 'Twas a prodigious request, but bespoke honesty. The words touched a hidden part of his nature. The fair white face before him with the eager eyes brought back to him dead faces dreaming under cypress-trees. "I will set you free for two hours," he said, "on your promise to come back."

"I promise to return by all that I hold sacred," the youth answered.

The cords that bound his swelling arms were loosened. The great hall door swung back for freedom, and he staggered out into the garden. The storm was over. After the brightness of the room his eyes could not penetrate the darkness. A dash against a drenched rose-bush brought a cloud of raindrops and loosened petals on his head. The dampness and the faint odor of the flowers awakened him. A wind was arising, making a low murmur among the bushes.

Suddenly it came over him that he was leaving Sally's house. Only the Townsends had white garden-posts. Sally! How sweet the name! Long, long ago it was that he bade her good-by in the meadow. He felt her kiss on his cheek now. Then the wind sighed, "You are to die!—to die!"

A chill was creeping over him—he was to go back to the great house. No, it was not right. He was young; he was free; he could escape to the forest, and they would never know. For a moment he turned and looked at it, then hurried off into the road.

He began to run slowly at first, gradually increasing his pace until his strength was taxed to its utmost. He was a wild, hunted thing that the forces of the world were about to drown. A wet blanket was over the earth. Watery trees touched him with their wet arms, making him shudder. Deep pools in the middle of the roadway showed him his shadow. Dark, wet things flew out at him from coverts and joined his mad course. The wind was at his heels, growing louder and more insistent. "You are to die!—to die!" it shrieked. Now he was battling with it. "I cannot die!—I shall not die!" his soul said. On he plunged.

It was his own log school-house overlapping the road that stopped him. Close to his path it stood like some grim sentinel. Before it he paused, his breath coming in short gasps. "You must go back," it whispered. "You have promised." "I cannot die," he answered; but he lingered by it as if afraid to go on. The wind was lessening; it no longer challenged him. In its sweep he now heard the voices of children. "Here you taught us the meaning of faith and honor." Over the years he saw them all. A long line of eager little forms were stealing through a gate whose latch was rusted. Where were they all to-night: the merry boys who dreamed of playtimes over dull books; the girls with their flowers and apples for the master? No longer would he guide them. They were gone forever from him. The wind had caught their droning voices. A lad who wore the dunce-cap often was before him. He saw him stolid and indifferent in the corner of the dreary room; then again, awakened by the call of war, he was by his side, a drummer-boy, charging the heights of Bergen. The dunce was not afraid to die. "You will go back," the voices wailed, and he answered, "Yes!"

The moon was throwing off the mist veils, and her first pale beams sent earthward showed him his mother's cot. There were no lights in the windows. He approached the door and stood by it shivering. An awful fear came over him that perhaps she was away. A fourth of his time was already gone. What if he could not see her again? He longed to feel her tender arms about him, and yet he knew that the agony of leaving them would be more than he could bear. He dared not knock, but crept softly to an open window. In the old stole-band rocking-chair she was seated close to a dying fire, her eyes closed by sleep. The worn strip of wool rag carpet he knew so well was smooth beneath her feet. A pair of finches were twittering softly in their cage by the south window. Over the broad sill he climbed as in the days of his boyhood. To her side he crept and began to stroke her calloused, tired hands. His touch brought her back from her visionary realm. "Is he dead?" her waking lips murmured, and then she saw her son.

At the Townsend house none of the officers knew that the youth who left them was anything to Sally. It was proper for a tender-hearted maid to swoon at a danger. After the door closed upon him there were calls for the hostess. Was she revived? Then AndrÉ stepped forward and told the officers what the condemned youth was to her. In his graphic way he repeated the simple love-story. The eyes of all in the room, expressing varying emotions, were still centred on his face when a faint rustle of women's garments was heard in the hall. AndrÉ stopped speaking. In their midst stood Sally, pale and with anguish in her eyes. Miss Townsend was near her, wringing her hands.

"Sirs," the girl said, "you have been here nigh a month, and we have given you of our best, hiding naught, although you are not of our color." Her voice was breaking. "I," she continued, "have worked for you, amused you, laughed for you, and now I want my pay. You must give me an innocent man's life. The one you have condemned to death is not a spy. I swear it before God!"

Bluff and hearty Colonel Simcoe, in the act of drawing a goblet of port, lowered the glass a few inches at each of the girl's passionate outbursts. He began to feel of his wig to see if it were awry. "Lud, here is a pretty to do," he murmured to himself. The lady was a fine creature and her words were true. He placed the heavy cut piece on the table and then he spoke. "His death-sentence was but a mock one," he said. "'Tis our mind to set him free, yet 'twas necessary to find out if he knew aught."

"Oh, sir, let me have his life! Write it on a paper that you set him free." The girl's tones were entreating. "I must go to him, and now."

For a moment the commander hesitated; then AndrÉ's voice rang out. "Those who are for Sally unsheath their swords," he cried. The room was full of flashing steel. The pardon was in Sally's hand.

"Come," she said, as she turned and faced the group of excited men.

The next moment she was out in the night, followed by a line of supperless redcoats.

The moon, grown round and full, smiled on the procession. Sally and AndrÉ headed the company splashing through the wet road. So intent were they on their errand that scarcely any one spoke.

They were nearing the lights of the cottage when Sally paused. Placing her finger to her mouth to enjoin silence, she said, "You must turn back, friends. The sight of you all might kill his mother. 'Twas thoughtless in asking you to come with me. AndrÉ," she whispered, "you must stay to bring me home."

"Brave little Sally!" a youth's lusty voice rang out. The men surrounded her. One by one they asked to kiss her hand, then crept off through the dripping foliage. All the while she was gazing at the house. Rain-drops glistened in her hair and her garments hung limp about her knees. AndrÉ stood by her side seemingly lost in thought. He was dreaming of days that were dead. Softly she touched his shoulder.

"AndrÉ," she said, "I am afraid to go in."

The crashing of twigs under foot died away in the distance; the clouds were all swept out of the heavens and the night seemed one vast ambient plain of loneliness. The girl and the man in the middle of the roadway drew closer to each other. Tenderly he caught her trembling hands in his. "Do not be afraid, Sally," he said; "you will find happiness." His voice was breaking. "Two hearts will always beat for you—one belongs to the man in yonder cot and the other to John AndrÉ." Softly she crept from him to the door which opened into her earthly Paradise.