FOR THE FIRST night in weeks, Jonathan Gifford slept deeply and dreamlessly. Dawn did not find him in his greenhouse, hissing over his roses. He might have slept past breakfast. But a muscular hand shook his shoulder at six-thirty. Black Sam’s deep, dark voice penetrated his sleep like a flock of migratory birds plunging down a sunlit sky.

“Captain, Captain, something’s happened. Something mighty bad.”

“What?” he said, sitting up and involuntarily flinging aside his nightcap.

“Those army horses that Captain Fleming left. Someone cut their throats.”

In three minutes, Jonathan Gifford’ was in the barn. One of the horses, a chestnut mare, was still alive. But with every breath more blood gushed from the gaping slash. One mute eye stared up at Jonathan Gifford, wide with pleading terror.

“They must have done it just before dawn,” Sam said. “Else she wouldn’t be still alive.”

“Is Barney up?”

“Just rising, I expect.”

“Get him out here. Saddle three horses. Get three muskets, ammunition, and powder from the armory.”

In ten minutes they were riding hard down the Shrewsbury road. They met four or five hired hands trudging to their farms. None of them had seen a group of men, say three or four, armed or unarmed. There had to be a group, Jonathan Gifford reasoned, because the horses were in adjoining stalls and would have been noisily terrified if a single man had clone the job. There bad been enough men to take up positions beside each horse and at a signal do the vicious deed simultaneously.

They swung down back roads and rode in a wide semicircle around Strangers’ Resort. They met only a few soldiers going home on leave, an occasional farmer driving cows or pigs to the Amboy market, and a peddler or two. By ten o’clock they were well to the northwest of the tavern. Reluctantly they turned their horses’ heads homeward. The May sun blazed down on them from the deep blue sky. They were hot, weary, and thoroughly disgruntled when they heard hoofbeats and a cheerful voice calling to them. Kemble, out for the morning ride that was part of Dr. Davie’s program for rebuilding his health, was soon cantering beside them. His good cheer vanished when he heard their story. He had seen no one suspicious on the road between them and Elizabethtown.

“We may yet run them down,” Jonathan Gifford said. As he spoke, they rounded a bend in the road and saw five men in brown loose-fitting homespun farm clothes trudging toward them. They were barefoot and their faces were shaded by floppy, wide-brimmed work hats. Each carried a gun. Not until the man in the center of the line looked up at them did Jonathan Gifford recognize Joshua Bellows, his oldest son George, his two brothers Ben and Abel, and their cousin Harold. The Bellowses owned two middling farms on the north side of Kemble Manor. They were almost family retainers, grinding all their corn and wheat at the manor mill and selling their surplus with Squire Skinner at the best price he could get in Amboy or New York.

The Bellowses drew off the road as Jonathan Gifford and his party approached them. “Good morning, Josh,” said the Captain. “You look like you’ve been on the road a good while.”

“Went out for some game, rambled farther than we thought. Ain’t that right?” Joshua Bellows said, glancing quickly at the rest of the family. They nodded and muttered agreement. He looked up at Jonathan Gifford again, a triumphant smile on his bony, hollow-checked face. They were ready for trouble, Jonathan Gifford thought. George Bellows, known as Pork for the size of his belly, had a finger on the trigger of his musket.

“What were you hunting?” Jonathan Gifford said.

“Why pheasant, squirrel, maybe a deer - anything we could shoot. ‘Twasn’t our lucky day, was it, lads?”

Again there was this nervous glance that demanded assent from the rest of the family.

“Five guns and you couldn’t get a single bird? That’s pretty poor shooting. You didn’t see anybody- on the road who looked suspicious, did you? Someone killed four horses in my barn last night. They belonged to the Continental army.”

“Is that a fact?” said Joshua Bellows. He almost smiled, but thought better of it. “Why, Captain,” he said, “I’m surprised you even let them put such animals in your barn. That could get you in a peck of trouble when the King’s troops come to put down this here unnatural rebellion.”

“You think so?”

“Why, yes, I do. Maybe the ones who done that thing to them horses are your best friends. That could be, Captain. At a time like this it’s hard. to tell your friends from your enemies.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” Jonathan Gifford said. He swung his horse’s head into the road and said, “Have a good day, neighbors.”

“Same to you, Captain.”

As they cantered away, Kemble caught up to his stepfather. “He did it. Why didn’t you arrest him? He was practically laughing in your face.”

“They had five guns. We had three.”

“They’d never dare to use their guns on you. Or me.”

“Maybe not,” Jonathan Gifford said with that hard common sense that repeatedly irritated Kemble. “But if they did, we’d never have the chance to repeat the mistake.”

Kemble did not say another word on the ride home. His father sensed a sullen accusation in his silence. There was considerable ground for Kemble’s assumption that the Bellowses would never dare to shoot a Stapleton. In our era of ever growing democracy, it is difficult to remember how much the America of 1776 was dominated by an elite group of families in every colony. Kemble was the only surviving Stapleton male in our part of the colony, but the family was equally powerful in north Jersey. His father’s first cousin, Hugh Stapleton, was a leading Whig in Bergen County. Eventually he became a delegate to the Continental Congress.

Back at the tavern, Jonathan Gifford sent Sam to Perth Amboy with a letter for Captain Fleming, telling him- what had happened and offering to pay for the dead horses. He assured the young Virginian that from now on the barn would be locked and guarded at night. Captain Fleming returned a hastily scribbled note that he had no horses to spare. He hoped that Jonathan Gifford would lend his own horses to the army, if necessary. Captain Fleming added that he was sure the incident would persuade General Mercer to take strong steps against the Tories in the area. Just what these would be, he did not know. They only had a single regiment of three hundred men and a hundred of these were sick with camp fever, dysentery, and other “diseases of the season.”

The last line of the note was written in a firmer, less agitated hand. My warmest respects to Miss Kate. Jonathan Gifford showed it to her. She decided to be cross about it. “Oh, la, am I supposed to be impressed? Twenty lines about dead horses and guard boats and Tories and a single line admitting that I do, after all, exist.”

Kemble, who had heard a good deal about Captain Fleming by now, looked surly. But Jonathan Gifford silenced him with a warning wave of his hand and went up to the tavern to help Barney in the taproom. It was Saturday, and the place was full of farmers and hired hands and even a few slaves, who picked up pocket money working in the neighborhood on their days off. Behind the bar, Barney McGovern was busy mixing a huge pitcher of rumfustian.

“George Bellows over there at the Squire’s table paid for his first round with this,” Barney said.

He took a gold coin from his waistcoat pocket and slid it down the recessed shelf behind the bar. It gleamed dully in the shadow.

“Fresh minted in England this year, I’ll bet on it. “Where would he get that, Captain?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan Gifford said.

He took the jug of rumfustian over to the table. Bellows leered up at him. He had a wide flabby mouth and a button nose that seemed to sink into the mottled flesh of his face.

“What do you think, Captain,” he said, “do you think the Yankees will stand against the King’s troops? I say they’ll run away as fast as their legs can carry them - like they did at Bunker Hill.”

“They left a good many British unable to run after them,” Jonathan Gifford said.

“You must have lost a friend or two in that fight, Captain.”

“I did.”

“Yet you side with these people. It seems to me a soldier would be fierce for revenge.”

“I’m not a soldier any more.”

“But you know the profession. You could train other men. Do you know the definition of a trimmer, Captain?”

“No.”

“A man who thinks he can throw his slops to windward in a gale.”

The remark brought roars of laughter from the ten or twelve drinkers clustered around the Squire’s table. Jonathan Gifford noted that several of the laughing men were shippers and wagon masters - important people if an army planned to operate in New Jersey. The man sitting next to Bellows, a razor-faced Yankee type named Cotton, owned three or four coasting sloops. A very useful fellow to know if you wanted to visit British ships in New York Harbor.

Bellows’ crafty eyes suddenly shifted from Jonathan Gifford to a man standing to his left, behind him. “Ah, Col - Mr. Skinner, bow are you this day in the merry month?”

Jonathan Gifford turned to find himself gazing into Anthony Skinner’s saturnine face. “I’m not too well,” he said in a voice that could be heard throughout the taproom. “I have just been witness to a terrible sight. Governor Franklin is on the New Brunswick road with an armed guard around him. He is being taken before a committee of Congress in Princeton to be condemned like a common thief.”

An excited discussion of this news filled the taproom for the rest of the day. Sympathy for the governor was widespread. Others felt that he had forfeited any right to indulgence by his refusal to accept the offer from Congress to live as a paroled neutral on his farm.

“There will be no way for a man to remain neutral,” Anthony Skinner said. “You know as well as I do that the Congress will vote for independence in a few weeks. The violents rule it as absolutely as the Sultan of Turkey rules Constantinople. After they play that damnable card - the last one in their deck - there can be no neutrals. There will only be enemies of the King and supporters of the King. Let me tell you something, gentlemen. I have traveled a good deal around England, Ireland, and Scotland. I have seen what happens to enemies of the King - believe me, I know what I say. His Majesty’s vengeance is harsh - and his generosity is great.”

At the bar, Barney McGovern whispered in Jonathan Gifford’s ear. “That’s a recruiting speech if I ever heard one.”

Jonathan Gifford nodded. He was more interested in assessing Anthony Skinner’s impact on the crowd. Standing there, backed by the burly Bellows and a dozen other men, he looked unbeatable. No one contradicted him. But Jonathan Gifford could see something that Anthony Skinner missed. At least half the faces in the room were in angry disagreement with him. The rest lacked the fervor with which he damned a declaration of independence. They acknowledged what he was saying, with glum nods at best. The men who wanted independence were ready to fight for it. Those who disliked the idea opposed it for negative reasons - it would start a war - it opened up an unknown, possibly dangerous future. But they did not hate it. They too were Americans. They shared the undercurrent of resentment at the inferiority implied in words like “colony” and “mother country.” The words no longer made sense. America was too big, too rich, to accept an inferior status. It would take a subtle, skillful politician to arouse these cautious men. Jonathan Gifford did not think Anthony Skinner was that politician. He was too angry, too eager for battle.

The rest of May and the first glowing weeks of June slipped by like pages in a book of fables. Unreality permeated the days and nights. When the Jersey wagons with their enormous wheels and teams of four to six horses rolled to a stop in front of the tavern, the travelers who debarked were surrounded by questioners demanding the latest news from Philadelphia or New York. The wagons were called flying machines by their owner, John Mercereau, who boasted in the newspapers of his ability to get you from Philadelphia to New York in a day and a half. We could depend on our travelers telling us fresh news, if they had any.

But our favorite source of information was our post rider, Abel Aikin. Abel’s costume was unique. It was usually a blue coat with yellow buttons, a scarlet waistcoat, blue yarn stockings, leather breeches, all topped by a red wig and a blue cocked hat. When he rode on horseback, his saddlebags were stuffed with enough packages and parcels to spavin his poor old mare, all private commissions by which Abel supplemented his small salary. The mare knew the way better than Abel, permitting him to knit stockings and sweaters as he rode.

Abel liked to torment us with hints and rumors. He had his choice of dozens in the month of June 1776. He filled our ears with bad news from the south. The British had a fleet and army poised to attack Charleston, South Carolina. Virginia had introduced a resolution for independence, but fears for the fate of Carolina prompted their convention to vote it down. Charleston was preparing to buy off the British fleet by paying the admiral an immense ransom. All this while he sat in the saddle, needles clicking away. In the tavern, his tongue loosened by free grog, he would admit it was all hearsay.

As we pieced it together from Abel and from soldier and civilian travelers, the news was confusing and alarming. There seemed to be no agreement on independence in Congress. There was, in fact, strong talk of Pennsylvania abandoning the confederation and New York and South Carolina following the Quaker colony. In New Jersey, the Provincial Congress was busy. It resolved by a vote of 54 to 3 to adopt a constitution for the state and a ten-man committee was appointed to write it. It sent a new delegation to the Continental Congress. All were vigorous independence men.

But the most exciting news in that tormenting month came from New York. At about five o’clock on June 29, an army dispatch rider rode an exhausted horse into the tavern yard and asked for a drink of grog and a fresh mount. “The British fleet’s in New York Harbor,” he said. “There must be three, four hundred ships. It looks like all London is afloat.”

“Where are they landing?” Jonathan Gifford asked as Sam led a fresh horse from the barn.

“On Staten Island. They’ve taken it without firing a shot. That damn nest of Tories greeted them with open arms.”

“Any idea how many men they bring with them?”

“Some say ten thousand, others twenty. It looks like there’ll be hot work in New York and maybe here in Jersey before summer’s over.”

This was not the tiny garrison army that the minutemen of Massachusetts had so easily beaten. It was an immense host, committed to a war of conquest. Reports on their numbers multiplied them until they were thirty thousand strong. More than a few of our loudest independence men suddenly became meek. It was one thing to damn the King and sneer at the British army when they were several thousand miles away. Now only a day’s brisk marching would put British regiments at the door of Strangers’ Resort. For the first time the independence men realized their violent words could cost them everything they owned, possibly their lives. Anthony Skinner was in the tavern every night warning that the punishment for rebellion was the confiscation of a family’s land and wealth. The Committee of Safety summoned him for a hearing. He ignored them.

The chairman of the Committee, Lemuel Peters, was among the first independence men to show signs of panic. He drafted a petition and persuaded over a hundred men to sign it, demanding an immediate reinforcement for the defense of eastern New Jersey. In the taproom that night, Peters damned George Washington and the Continental Congress for sending New Jersey’s best soldiers to Canada. And what was the point in defending New York and Long Island? Both places were thick with Tories.

But these were trivial issues compared to the major question. Would - should - the Congress declare independence now, when it was clear that the declaration meant war? The number of independence men still wholeheartedly in favor of an immediate declaration dwindled markedly. A startling number now began to think it would be better to wait until the King’s peace commissioner, Lord Richard Howe, arrived with - it was hoped - terms that Americans could accept.

A few disagreed, with Kemble Stapleton acting as their fiery spokesman. Although neither of us was old enough to vote, Kemble and I scoured the countryside rounding up signatures for a petition urging an immediate declaration of independence; we collected 211 names in a district where, if unanimity had prevailed, we could have gathered 4,000. We came back dismayed by how lukewarm most men were, how fearful they had become of publicly avowing their opinions in any direction.

“The Tories have them cowed,” Kemble said.

“Don’t expect so much of the average man, Kemble,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Can you really blame them? Most of the state’s soldiers are fighting somewhere else. In Shrewsbury and Middletown, able-bodied men are disappearing every night. No one knows where they’re going - they may be joining the British - or lying low in the swamps, waiting for a signal to attack. We are practically defenseless.”

Jonathan Gifford was startled to find Kemble smiling at this solemn monologue. “What’s so funny?”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you say ‘we.’ Are you joining our side, Father?”

Jonathan Gifford was standing behind the bar polishing glasses. The taproom was not yet open. “I don’t like men who cut horses’ throats - especially in my own barn.”

What was he saying? Jonathan Gifford asked himself dazedly, picking up another glass. Now was not the time for bravado. Now, above all, with the British army only a day’s march away.

Before he could qualify his words, Kemble was asking, “Do I have your permission to join the army now, as soon as I can find a place?”

Jonathan Gifford looked stonily at Kemble’s pale face and reed-thin body. He still could not bear to tell him the truth - that he lacked the physical strength to be a soldier. Groping for a path between freedom and obedience, he said, “I’ve been thinking - thinking of writing to General Putnam - asking if you might serve on his staff as a volunteer. You’d have no rank - but I’m sure you could be helpful. For one thing, you can spell.”

“I’ll get you a pen and paper this instant,” Kemble said.

Ten minutes later, the letter was sealed and Kemble was preparing to depart for New York. Jonathan Gifford vetoed this precipitous plan. They would send the letter to the General by an army dispatch rider. One was certain to come by in the next day or two. Kemble reluctantly agreed to wait for an answer.

Later that day Jonathan Gifford found himself under assault from Kate. She had heard about her brother’s plans. Angrily, she pointed out what Jonathan Gifford already knew - Kemble’s delicate health made him a poor candidate for army life.

“Kate - give me credit for knowing one or two things. Kemble has been trying to join the army for a year. It seemed to me the best available alternative. If he goes in defiance of me, he’ll enlist as a private. You’ve seen some of the sick creeping home or being carried along the roads.”

“But Anthony says that being a general’s aide could lead to hanging. He says it is sure to come to that in the end for Washington and his pack of fools.”

“Washington doesn’t look like a fool to me.”

Boots, the tavern cat, came slinking across the room and leaped up on the bar between them. He was Kate’s favorite pet and the sight of him brought out her natural affection. She stroked him for a moment. “Well,” she said, “there’s no point in arguing. Kemble seems to think because you are letting him join the army, you have joined the Congress men.”

“That’s saying a bit too much,” Jonathan Gifford said, “but I don’t like the game the loyalists are playing either. I’ve never let any man intimidate me. I couldn’t face myself in my shaving mirror each morning if I did.”

“I don’t have to face myself in my shaving mirror,” Kate said. “Maybe that’s why I don’t give a damn which side you are on.”

She picked up the cat and tickled him under the chin. “I’m like Boots here. Just feed me regularly and I am content.”

She looked up and caught Jonathan Gifford frowning. “Oh, look at him, Boots. Can’t you just see what he is thinking? ‘What woman has ever been content in her life? Give her ten new gowns and she wants twenty. Give her a fine upstanding Virginia captain and she ignores him.’”

Kate gave her father an impulsive kiss. “Stop worrying, Father. It will be all right.”

She was at the door when she turned with an exclamation. “I almost forgot. Uncle Charles asked me to give you a message. He warned me to tell no one about it, not even Anthony. He would like you to meet him at nine o’clock tonight at the southeast corner of the manor, where it meets the road to Freehold. He will be in the grove of trees that stands just inside the property.”

“Do you know what this is about?”

“What else?” Kate said. “Politics.”

That night Jonathan Gifford kept his rendezvous with his old friend. Charles Skinner was only a dark blur against the bulk of his bay stallion. “Friend Jonathan,” he said, “I’m glad you’ve come. No one must know about this, not even my wife or my son.”

“No one shall,” said Jonathan Gifford.

“I’m here to seek advice, friend Jonathan - and perhaps to give some. I know not which way to tarn.”

“Not many of us do these days.”

“Have you brought your pipe? I’ve got a full pouch of tobacco here. Let’s light up and sit down amongst those trees and pretend we’re on patrol again in the north woods.”

“I have my pipe and I have my own tobacco,” Jonathan Gifford said.

When Charles Skinner’s match flared, Jonathan Gifford was shocked by the haggard lines in his old friend’s face.

“I brought along a bottle of Madeira, too. Let’s pass it back and forth as we did with Lord George Howe’s best.”

“Good enough,” said Jonathan Gifford. He could feel the strings of emotion tugging him into the past, where Charles Skinner was trying to go, back to those simpler days when courage and luck were the only requisites for survival.

“Those were the days, weren’t they now?” Skinner said. “At least we had them. No one can take them away from us. We had them round and true compared to today - ”

Jonathan Gifford felt the bottle touch his knee. He took a pull of the warm sweet wine.

“You know, I suppose, that before they arrested the governor, he appointed my kinsman Skinner major general of the loyal militia?”

“I’ve heard it.”

“He’s on Staten Island now with General Howe. I have an offer from him - to be a brigadier.”

“What does Anthony say about it?”

“He urges me to take it. The offer came through him. My good wife Caroline vows that she will leave my bed and board if I accept it. Anthony says I should ignore her. But that’s easier said than done. She can be as much of a handful as her sister, Gifford, when she so inclines. Not as wayward but every bit as willful.”

For a moment Jonathan Gifford was transfixed by the image of Caroline Skinner defying her stepson and her husband.

“But this leads me to the burthen of our meeting, friend Jonathan,” Skinner continued. “Anthony has a commission already from Major General Skinner - a colonel’s commission, no less - with orders to raise a loyal regiment in this neighborhood. He has been at it apace this last month, and has three hundred good men and true, armed and paid already with the King’s guineas. All this time he has been waiting for you to speak your piece.”

“What can I do for him? He doesn’t need a one-legged soldier.”

“You have a following in this neighborhood. You know who comes and goes along the King’s Highway. You could be useful, very useful. This is only a small part of my reason for speaking to you in this way, old friend. I fear for your safety. In a civil war there is no quarter asked or given. The tavern, everything you own could go up in flames. You could be driven onto the roads, reduced to beggary.”

“So could you.”

“What?”

“I said, so could you. Do you think only the King can be ruthless in a rebellion? I think you’ve lost touch with your own people. There’s a savage lurking somewhere inside almost every American. Didn’t we see it fifteen years ago in the north woods? We told them to fight like Indians and they did, right down to collecting scalps and torturing prisoners.”

“So you won’t join us?”

“I won’t join out of fear - when fear could be nothing but a mask for folly.”

“Folly, folly. What are you talking about? You don’t really think Washington’s men can stand against the British army in the open field? Those ragamuffins? Look at your map, man. Before the summer is over, Washington’s whole army will be caught like cats in a bag.”

“They will if Washington’s a damn fool. He doesn’t look like one to me.”

Charles Skinner pulled on his pipe. The glowing bowl momentarily illuminated his haggard face. “So you think I should refuse the King’s commission?”

“I do. Unless you’re prepared to leave your house and lands and take refuge inside their lines.”

“You think I should desert my son?”

“There are sons deserting fathers and vice versa all over America. Look at the Franklins.”

“It’s easy enough for you to say. You don’t have a son.”

“I have a boy I’ve raised since he was ten. He’s a son to me.” “A damned hothead. He’s as much the reason why you’re proscribed as anything.”

“Oh? I’m proscribed?”

“You’re on a list of those deemed - well - deemed untrustworthy,” Charles Skinner said.

“And what does that mean?”

“That you can be - should be - arrested as soon as they have the power, and shot dead if you resist.”

“Does Kate know this?”

“Of course not. Anthony has more sense than to tell his business to a giddy girl.”

They passed the bottle back and forth again.

“So what am I to do?” Charles Skinner said. “Take the neuter part? I’m a man, Gifford. Besides, I say again this contest will show no quarter for men who are afraid to choose.”

Jonathan Gifford heard the accusation in those words.

“I suppose that’s true. But not every man can make the choice at the same time. It’s a choice that involves the head and the heart, old friend. For some of us the heart speaks with a still, small voice, not easy to hear. Let me assure you when I make my choice it will have nothing to do with calculations about the winning side.”

“I know you too well to expect anything else,” Skinner said.

The words were cordial, but there was no conviction in them. The tone was empty, flat. With dismay, Jonathan Gifford realized that they were talking more like lawyers than like friends. Another thought crowded into his mind at the same instant, more image than thought, a small, proud woman by a well, speaking words of independence.

“Damn it, Skinner, I can’t part from you this way,” he snapped. “I can’t part from a true friend without telling him what I really think. Didn’t you tell me that when you were in London, you never felt more an American? This is your country. It doesn’t belong to the English - though they’re ready enough to take it away from you, now that they’ve been given the excuse. Don’t you remember the motto of a British officer - to live well and leave a fortune for his heirs? Well, let me tell you, every one of those gentlemen in command of regiments and companies over there on Staten Island is ready and eager to make his fortune in America. What does it matter now that the trouble began with some damn fool puritans in Boston in search of a holy war? Now the war is at your doorstep and there’s no place for a man with pride but on the side of his country.”

“Even if it means siding with men like Slocum?”

“If you came out for independence, you could take that militia regiment away from him overnight. Have you stopped to think of what you’ll have to put up with from those arrogant bastards in London if they win? There’ll be a lord lieutenant for America and a standing army in every colony. Your grandchildren will grow up as meek and obedient as their patronizing power can make them. They’ll barely know the meaning of the word liberty.”

For a long moment the two men sat there, engulfed in darkness and silence. A summer breeze sighed through the branches of the trees above their heads.

“Gifford, you’re an independence man. I can’t believe it. You’re an independence man,” Charles Skinner said.

He was on his feet, striding through the trees toward his horse. “But I’m not speaking for myself, I’m telling.”

The accusation had stunned Jonathan Gifford. The explosion of emotion had not - could not - apply to him, the stranger, the outsider. It had been a compound of wish and hope that he only sought to bestow like a healing balm on the tormented spirit of his friend. But as he limped in the opposite direction and eased his ruined leg over the stone fence to stand beside his horse, he was compelled to face the possibility that his words were the convoluted wish of his own uncertain heart.