Many banquets had Phillis prepared, but never one like the dinner for Miss Ruth on her wedding day.
"I've roasted de turkey and sparrib for Massa Ginerel Howe and Massa Ginerel Clinton, but dey ain't of no 'count 'side Massa Major Walden and Massa Ginerel Washington, 'cause dey drive de redcoats out of Boston. Miss Ruth fired de pistil and I scaldid dem with de b'ilin' water. He! he! he!" she laughed.
It was a pleasure to stuff the turkey, to turn the joint of beef roasting on the spit, mix the plums in the pudding, and mould the mince pies for Ruth and her friends.
"Miss Ruth told me to go free, and now she's Missus Ruth Walden. He! he! he!"
It was a joyful party that sat down to the dinner. The toasts drunk were not the health of George III. and Sophia Charlotte, but the health of General George Washington, the Continental Congress, Major Robert Walden, and, more heartily than any other, long life and happiness to Ruth Newville Walden.
Years have gone by,--years of sorrow, privation, and suffering to those who, through their loyalty to King George, and their inability to discern the signs of the times, have been exiles from the land that gave them birth, whose property has been seized by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. The days are long to Mary Shrimpton in the little cabin at Halifax. The great estates once owned by her father are no longer his. Her once beautiful home has been sold to the highest bidder. Only with her spinning-wheel can she keep the wolf from the cabin door. Parliament has been talking of doing something for the refugees in Nova Scotia, but the commoners and lords are three thousand miles away, and the people of England are groaning under the burden incurred by the fruitless attempt to subdue the Colonies. The struggle is over. Lord Cornwallis has surrendered his army to General Washington at Yorktown, and commissioners are negotiating a peace. Through the years Abel Shrimpton, unreconciled to life's changes, has been cursing Samuel Adams and John Hancock for having led the people to rebel against the king, not seeing that Divine Providence was using them as instruments to bring about a new era in human affairs. When the curses are loudest and most vehement, Mary's gentle hand pats his lips, smooths the gray hairs from the wrinkled brow, and calms his troubled spirit. Pansies bloom beneath the latticed windows of her cabin home. Morning-glories twine around it. Swallows twitter their joy, and build their nests beneath the eves. Motherly hens cluck to their broods in the dooryard. The fare upon the table within the cabin is frugal, but there is always a bit of bread or a herring for a wandering exile. When women pine for their old homes, when homesickness becomes a disease, it is Mary Shrimpton who cheers the fainting hearts. As she sits by her wheel, she sings the song sung by the blind old harper Carolan, who, though long separated from his true love, yet recognized her by the touch of her gentle hand:--