



Produced by Al Haines









[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: HE THREW HIMSELF UPON THE GROUND.  _See page 136_]




ROGER DAVIS

LOYALIST


BY

FRANK BAIRD




WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS




Toronto

THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

    I. THE OUTBREAK
   II. AMONG ENEMIES
  III. MADE PRISONER
   IV. PRISON EXPERIENCES
    V. THE TRIAL AND ESCAPE
   VI. KING OR PEOPLE?
  VII. THE DIE CAST
 VIII. OFF TO NOVA SCOTIA
   IX. IN THE 'TRUE NORTH'
    X. THE TREATY
   XI. HOME-MAKING BEGUN
  XII. FACING THE FUTURE
 XIII. THE GOVERNOR'S PERIL
  XIV. VICTORY AND REWARD




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


HE THREW HIMSELF UPON THE GROUND......... _Frontispiece_

SHE MOTIONED ME TO MY FATHER'S EMPTY CHAIR

'THAT MAN,' I SAID, TURNING AND FACING THE 'COLONEL,'
  WHO SAT PALE AND SHIVERING

'THIS IS NOVA SCOTIA,' HE SAID, POINTING TO THE MAP




Roger Davis, Loyalist



Chapter I

The Outbreak

It was Duncan Hale, the schoolmaster, who first brought us the news.
When he was half-way from the gate to the house, my mother met him.  He
bowed very low to her, and then, standing with his head uncovered--from
my position in the hall--I heard him distinctly say, 'Your husband,
madam, has been killed, and the British who went out to Lexington under
Lord Percy have been forced to retreat into Boston, with a loss of two
hundred and seventy-three officers and men.'

The schoolmaster bowed again, one of those fine, sweeping, old-world
bows which he had lately been teaching me with some impatience, I
thought; then without further speech he moved toward the little gate.
But I had caught a look of keen anxiety on his face as he addressed my
mother.  Once outside the garden, he stooped forward, and, breaking
into a run, crouching as he went as though afraid of being seen, he
soon disappeared around a turn in the road.

My mother stood without speaking or moving for some moments.  The birds
in the blossom-shrouded trees of the garden were shrieking and
chattering in the flood of April sunlight; I felt a draught of perfumed
air draw into the hall.  Then a mist that had been heavy all the
morning on the Charles River, suddenly faded into the blue, and I could
see clearly over to Boston, three miles away.

I shall not soon forget the look on my mother's face as she turned and
came toward me.  I have wondered since if it were not born of a high
resolve then made, to be put into effect later.  She was not in tears
as I thought she would be.  There were no signs of grief on her face,
but instead her whole countenance seemed illuminated with a strangely
noble look.  I was puzzled at this; but when I remembered that my
mother was the daughter of an English officer who was killed while
serving under Wolfe at Quebec, I understood.

In a firm voice she repeated to me the words I had already heard, then
she passed up the stairs.  In a few moments I heard her telling my two
sisters Caroline and Elizabeth--they were both younger than
myself--that it was time to get up.  After that I heard my mother go to
her own room and shut the door.  In the silence that followed this I
fell to thinking.

Was my father really dead?  Could it be that the British had been
repulsed?  Duncan Hale had been telling me for weeks that war was
coming, but I had not thought his prophecy would be fulfilled.  Now I
understood why he had come so often to visit my father; and why, during
the past month, he had seemed so absent-minded in school.  My
preparation for going to Oxford in the autumn, over which he had been
so enthusiastic, appeared to have been completely pushed out of his
mind.  I had once overheard my father caution him to keep his visits to
Lord Percy strictly secret.  I was wondering if the part he had played
might have any ill consequences for him and for us, when my mother's
footsteps sounded on the stairs.  She came at once to where I had been
standing for some moments, caught me in her arms, and, without
speaking, held me close for a moment, and then pressed a kiss on my
forehead.

'Go, Roger,' she said, 'and find Peter and Dora.  Bring them to the
library, and wait there till I come with your sisters.'

I was turning to obey, when I caught a glimpse through the hall doorway
of two rebel soldiers galloping up.  They had evidently come from
Boston.  At sight of my mother, one of them addressed her with an
unmannerly shout that sent the blood pulsing up to my cheeks in anger.
What my mother had been thinking I did not know; but from that moment a
great passion seized me.  That shout which almost maddened me, had, I
can see in looking back over it all, much to do in making me a
Loyalist, and in sending me to Canada.

The soldiers looked in somewhat critically, but passed.  They were
rough looking men, poorly mounted and badly dressed.  My mother