A warm evening in early June of the year 1812 showed the streets of Baltimore city gay with groups of people crowding the steps of the houses, or sauntering up and down from corner to corner. Slender girls with arms around each other, circles of children merrily piping out some ring-around-a-rosy, young men stopping before this or that door for a few minutes’ chat,—all served to make a lively scene.

Lettice Hopkins, in short-waisted gown of sprigged muslin, stood with one slippered foot tapping impatiently the marble step before her uncle’s door. “Is yuh see him, Miss Letty?” asked a little colored boy who stopped his occupation of sliding down the cellar door to make his inquiry.

“No, I don’t,” Lettice returned petulantly, “and poor old Mrs. Flynn is moaning and going on because her Patrick is aboard the vessel, and she thinks he’s drowned. Run to the corner, Danny, and see if there is a sign of your master.” She sat down on the step and looked anxiously in the direction of the street corner toward which Danny was making his way, taking time in doing so, and stopping frequently to switch a chip from the running water in the gutter, or to send a pebble hopping over the cobblestones.

“It certainly is warm for so early in June,” Lettice remarked, as she vigorously fanned herself. “You’d do well to come out here, Aunt Martha,” she continued, addressing some one in the hall behind her. “There is a breath outside, but little indoors. Don’t you think uncle must be here soon? He surely cannot be at the wharf all this time.”

“Perhaps he is,” her aunt answered. “It is a week since the vessel was due, and in good weather that is too long. It is nothing of a run from here to Boston and back, and your uncle has reason to be somewhat anxious, especially in these days.”

“These days,” Lettice repeated; “that is what father is always saying, as if these were not good enough days.”

Mrs. Hopkins did not answer, but instead, asked, “Where is your father?”

“Down at the Fountain Inn, I suppose; it is where he always goes of an evening. They have a deal to talk about, it seems, down there.”

“They have, indeed, but isn’t that your uncle coming now?” Mrs. Hopkins had come out upon the step and was peering out into the dimly lighted street.

“To be sure it is,” Lettice replied. “I will go to meet him, for Mr. Gilmore will stop him if I don’t get him over on this side of the street.” She started off with rapid step, her light scarf floating from her shoulders as she walked.

“She’s in!” shouted Danny, who came running on ahead of his master.

At this news Lettice slackened her pace and walked soberly forward to meet her uncle. “Good news, I hear, Uncle Tom,” she said as she came up to him.

“Ye-es,” he returned, “so far as I am concerned, but—”

“What?” Lettice interrupted. “Hurry and tell me, Uncle Tom. What’s wrong? Did anything happen to the vessel?”

“Not to the vessel, except that she was stopped by a British cruiser, and three of our men were carried off as British subjects.”

“Oh! And who were they? Not Patrick Flynn, I hope. His mother declares that something has happened to him, for she has had a certain dream three nights in succession,—a dream which she insists forebodes ill.”

“Poor Patrick, indeed; one of the best hands aboard, and born on American soil, though his brogue is rich enough for any son of the Emerald Isle.”

“Alas, poor Patrick! Who will tell his mother?”

“I will, of course,” her uncle quietly replied. And Lettice hesitating to enter the house, he passed in before her, spoke a few words to his wife, and then walked back to where a long garden showed borders abloom with the roses of June glimmering faintly from out the dusky green.

Presently arose sounds of wailing and lamenting, and Lettice, unable to restrain her sympathies, rushed back to see poor old Mrs. Flynn rocking back and forth, wringing her hands, and making her moan over the capture of her son.

“There, Winnie, there,” Lettice heard her uncle say. “After all, it is not as bad as it would seem. Pat will find his way back, or I’m mistaken, and there are plenty of persons who will tell you he should be proud to serve in the British navy.”

“Ah, but they’ll be battherin’ the life out av ’im, sorr, an’ be markin’ up his poor back wid the cat, an’ indade, sorr, I’m thinkin’ he’d betther be dead than alive.”

“Pshaw! not a bit of it. Pat’s too good a hand for that, and Mr. Joe gave him a word to make no cause for offence, but to do his duty by the ship he is on, just the same as if she were the Delight.”

“’Tis a hard day, sorr, when our min must be dragged from their proper places an’ be put to wurruk for thim as has no right to be dhrivin’ thim. Not that I’m so down on the ould counthry, sorr, but I’m not upholdin’ thim British min stealers, Misther Tom, sorr, an’ it goes agin me grain for a son o’ mine to be slavin’ for the inimy av the counthry where he was born.”

Lettice sat down on the step beside the old woman and began softly to stroke the wrinkled hand which was nervously fingering the hem of Mrs. Flynn’s gingham apron. “Never mind, Mrs. Flynn,” the girl said; “it will be no time before Patrick will be back again. Why, if he had gone on a long cruise from this port, you’d not see him for years, maybe, and this is no worse. Cheer up, now. Ah, there is Cousin Joe. I’ll bid him come out here. I think my father is with him.”

The two men approached, gesticulating excitedly. “It is an outrage,” Lettice’s father was saying, “and one that Americans will not stand much longer. Odious servitude for our citizens! impressed into a service they despise! our commerce impeded! insults, injuries of all kinds heaped upon us! We will not stand it. There will be a war, sir, for, as the wise Benjamin Franklin so aptly said, ‘Our War of Independence has yet to be fought.’”

“Nonsense, William, what was our war of the Revolution?” put in Mr. Hopkins.

“It was the Revolution. We are not yet free, if indignity can be offered us which we must accept silently.”

“Ah, Masther Joe, dear,” whined Winnie, “ye let thim steal me bhy.” Joseph Hopkins, a tall young fellow, sunburnt and stalwart, looked down at her with kindly eyes. “Indeed, Winnie, I did my best to save him and two others, but it was no use.”

“Tell us about it, Cousin Joe,” said Lettice.

“I have told the tale more than once, cousin, but since you and Winnie will likely give me no peace till I tell it again, I’ll spin you my yarn. We were just turning into the bay, after having had to go out of our way to escape from the clutches of more than one British cruiser, when we saw a sail which gave us chase, and though the Delight was in her own waters, our pursuers were within gunshot in a short time. Then they demanded to search us for deserters. At first I refused, as I knew father would have me do; but we were scarcely prepared to fight a ship of the size of the enemy, and discretion being the better part of valor, and to save a whole skin for the majority of my crew, at last it seemed best to submit to the demand. So poor Patrick, Johnny Carter, as good an Eastern-shoreman as ever lived, and Dick Bump, who never saw the plank of a British ship before, were carried off. Every mother’s son of them was born on American soil, and they were claimed as British subjects. It is an outrage! But trust to Pat, Mrs. Flynn, he’ll be with us again before long, or my name’s not Joe Hopkins. I saw Uncle Edward in Boston, mother,” he went on to say, “and he promised to come on with the next ship.”

Leaving Mrs. Flynn somewhat comforted, the others took their way again to the front steps, where the men plunged into a discussion of the questions of the day, and Lettice, who cared little for letters-of-marque and general reprisals, sat watching the passers-by, once in a while putting a question when the talk became particularly exciting.

She had come up from the Eastern shore of Maryland but a few months before, and had hardly yet become accustomed to life in a big city, having always lived upon the plantation now managed by her eldest brother. The marriage of this big brother had eventually brought about the change which made of Lettice a city girl, for her father concluded to join his brother in Baltimore, and Lettice must perforce accompany him. It was not altogether a happy arrangement for the girl; her uncle’s wife was a New England woman, and did not understand her husband’s light-hearted little niece, over whom she was disposed to exert an authority which Lettice, if she had been less sweet-tempered, would have resented. Then, too, Aunt Martha did not like negro servants, and Lettice knew no others. Nevertheless, she made friends with old Mrs. Flynn, who reigned over the kitchen, and the other maids did not count, she told her father.

She sat on the step, her thoughts travelling to her old home. How pleasant it must be there this hot night, she reflected, with the bay in sight, and the moon shining down upon it. She would like to be dashing down the long level road upon her pretty bay mare, and after a while to come in and find Mammy waiting for her with some cooling drink, and Lutie ready to undress her. She wished Aunt Martha would let her have Lutie, or she wished her father would let her keep house for him and have the old servants about her. Perhaps he would in another year, for she would be seventeen then.

She was aroused from her revery by her father saying: “War? yes, war say I. Joe, I told you, didn’t I, of our meeting at Fountain Inn, and of our resolutions upon the subject? ‘No alternative between war and degradation’ we decided.”

Amy Ella Blanchard