The Indentured Heart Read online

  The Indentured Heart

  House of Winslow [3]

  Gilbert Morris

  * * *

  The Indentured Heart opens another chapter in the compelling House of Winslow. While in England, Adam Winslow rescues Molly Burns from her abusive father and brings her to America, where Molly becomes his indentured servant. A young girl, a family, and a new nation are bound together in their search for freedom.

  The Indentured Heart

  House of Winslow [3]

  Gilbert Morris

  * * *

  The Indentured Heart opens another chapter in the compelling House of Winslow. While in England, Adam Winslow rescues Molly Burns from her abusive father and brings her to America, where Molly becomes his indentured servant. A young girl, a family, and a new nation are bound together in their search for freedom.

  © 1988 by Gilbert Morris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7030-6

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Cover illustration by Dan Thornberg

  Cover design by Danielle White

  This book is for my favorite Cajuns

  in all the world—the Neals.

  There may be more generous,

  hospitable people on this planet—

  but I have not found them yet.

  KENNY OPAL

  ANDY JAMIE

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  BOSTON

  1. The Printer and the Preacher

  2. The Winslow Clan

  3. Disgraced!

  4. A Little Latin

  5. A Family Affair

  6. Molly

  7. The House of Winslow

  8. “How Much Trouble Can One Small Girl Be?”

  PART TWO

  NORTHAMPTON

  9. A Brooch of Silver

  10. Trip to Boston

  11. A Valentine for Molly

  12. Charles Finds a Woman

  13. “The Best of the Winslows!”

  14. Brotherly Love

  15. “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down!”

  PART THREE

  VIRGINIA

  16. A Ball at Mount Vernon

  17. The Bullets Whistle

  18. “I Want to Belong to You!”

  19. “Ye Must Be Born Again!”

  20. Death at Monogahela

  21. Capture the Castle

  22. Death in the Afternoon

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PRINTER AND THE PREACHER

  Adam Winslow never forgot the momentous events of his thirteenth birthday—the first, his meeting with Benjamin Franklin.

  Adam had arrived at his special birthday that morning, and thus had been permitted to make the trip from Boston to Philadelphia with his father. But even these august matters faded; in the years that followed, he always remembered that the famous statesmen had, on that late afternoon in 1740, flirted with his sister Mercy in a most forward manner!

  Not that it was unusual for men to find his sister attractive—far from it. Adam had grown accustomed to finding the front yard cluttered with young men on Sunday afternoons, drawn by the bright blue eyes, fair hair, and trim figure of Mercy Winslow. But even at that age, he had heard enough of the famous Franklin to be amazed when the portly printer bowed low over his sister’s hand, kissed it with a flourish, never letting his eyes wander too far away from her even when he talked business with Miles Winslow.

  They had arrived in Philadelphia at dusk after a schooner trip from Boston to New York, and a two-day buggy ride over rough roads. Adam had missed little of the scenes along the way. Sitting in the back seat of the buggy with Mercy, he had listened to his father talk to William, his twenty-year-old brother. And when they pulled into the crowded streets of Philadelphia, he sat straight up, taking it all in.

  Miles Winslow drove the matched bays against a flood of traffic, which all seemed to be headed west. He was a good driver, but it took all his skill to thread the buggy through the mass of pedestrians, horses, and carriages until he arrived at a two-story frame building.

  “What’s that sign read, William?” he asked wearily.

  William Winslow stepped out of the buggy, peered upward in the fading light, then turned and said, “Benjamin Franklin, Printer.”

  “Hope he’s not gone home yet,” Miles said, then added, “Mercy, you and Adam come with us.” William helped his sister down as Adam scrambled out; then the four of them stepped onto the wooden sidewalk, pushing their way through the crowd. Miles shoved the door open, giving a grunt of approval when he found it unlocked.

  The four entered, and Adam’s nose twitched at the exotic aroma of ink and paper. A large press was rumbling, operated by a skinny apprentice who gave them no attention at all. Finally a man wearing an ink-stained apron came out of an inner office. He was middle-aged, somewhat portly, and his hair had receded, leaving a large bald dome over his small close-set eyes.

  “Yes?” he said with a nervous smile. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Looking for the printer—Franklin,” Miles stated.

  “At your service, Mister—?”

  “I’m Miles Winslow, Mr. Franklin. I wrote you a letter about printing my grandfather’s journal.”

  “Of course! Of course!” Franklin exclaimed. He appraised the two tall men, both over six feet, noting the bright blue eyes and the blond hair with just a touch of red in the lamplight. The older of the two was in his sixties, the younger about twenty. The girl, he saw immediately, was a beauty, with the same fair hair and astonishing blue eyes. But the young boy was quite different—small and very dark. “I believe it’ll be an excellent production, Mr. Winslow, excellent!” He looked at the large clock on the wall and shook his head. “It’s a little late, but come into my office for a moment.”

  “This is my son, William, my daughter, Mercy, and my younger son, Adam.”

  Franklin acknowledged William with a handshake, Adam with a pat on the head, then turned his attention to Mercy. With a smile he bent over her hand, kissed it, and said, “You are most welcome, Mistress Winslow—you grace our poor city!”

  William saw Adam staring at the printer, and when he caught his eye, gave a sly wink, then shook his head. Miles gave Franklin a dour look, but Mercy seemed to enjoy the attention, for she smiled and said, “You are gallant, Mr. Franklin.”

  He held her hand a moment longer than necessary, then wheeled and led the way into the small office in back of the shop. It was cluttered with books and manuscripts of every sort, piled up on the floor and stuffed into every crevice.

  “Do you have the manuscript with you, sir?” Franklin asked, glancing through the door at the clock, obviously anxious to leave.

  “It’s in the buggy,” Miles said, then asked with some irritation, “What’s going on, Mr. Franklin? I never saw such a mob as that one out there. Is there a public hanging or
some other choice entertainment?”

  Franklin laughed aloud, with a twinkle illuminating his brown eyes. “Nothing quite so exciting as that, I’m afraid—” Then he gave a shrug, saying, “Only a preacher come to town.”

  “A preacher!” William’s head lifted sharply, and he asked quickly, “What preacher would draw that kind of crowd, Mr. Franklin?”

  “None of your home-grown variety, I assure you, sir! No, this is a British minister. Been making quite a stir in England—quite a stir. Name is George Whitefield.”

  Miles gave a snort and shook his head in disgust. “I’ve heard of the fellow. All mixed up with the enthusiasts!”

  “I’d like to hear him, Father,” William said. “You say he’s preaching tonight, Mr. Franklin?”

  “Yes, I’m going to hear him myself.” Pulling off his inky apron, he added, “Why don’t you come along, Mr. Winslow—and we can talk business tomorrow?”

  Miles started to shake his head, but William insisted, “We can’t miss this, Father. He’s set England on her heels, and he’s likely to shake up the Colonies the same way.”

  “Quite so, sir!” Franklin slipped into a brown coat and quickly took Mercy by the arm. With a smile he held firmly to her, piloted the group out of the shop and turned them west. As they made their way down the crowded street, he explained how Whitefield had landed at Newport a short time earlier. He had made a tour of the coastal cities, and his reputation had drawn thousands.

  “Never heard anything like him!” Franklin professed, with a wave of his hand.

  “Then you are a Christian, sir?” William asked directly, a keen light in his eyes.

  The question seemed to take the famous printer off guard, for he faltered slightly, but then threw his head back and said hurriedly, “Why, I am a believer in a divine power, Mr. Winslow!” Then he changed the subject by pointing at a large building directly in front of them. “There is Rev. Whitefield’s pulpit this evening—the courthouse steps!”

  “He’s going to preach there?” Miles asked incredulously. “Aren’t there any churches in Philadelphia?”

  “A great number of them, sir,” Franklin nodded. “But many of them are closed to Mr. Whitefield due to his rather harsh remarks about the clergy—and in any case, none of them would hold this crowd!”

  He waved a hand at the shifting mass of people that stretched from the courthouse steps way down the streets. Nearly every house showed lights in its upper story, and by the flickering lanterns hanging from the walls, Adam could see people hanging out of most of the windows. Franklin crowded them in as close as they could get, and it was fortunate they were with him, for the people made way, so that he was able to find them a place beside the large landing. William, seeing Adam struggling to peer over the level of the porch, picked him up and stood him up on the ledge.

  Just as he did so, a massive door opened and three men walked out, one of them wearing a clerical robe. “That’s Whitefield,” Franklin said.

  William stared at the minister curiously, for he had heard much of his work in England from a friend at Yale who had been at Oxford with Whitefield and the Wesleys. John and Charles Wesley had been the founders of a small prayer group called by their opponents “The Holy Club.” Wesley had simply smiled and adopted the name, and the small band had grown dramatically. The group had been so methodical in their spiritual discipline that their foes had tacked another name on them—”Methodists”—and this name too had been accepted by the Wesleys.

  George Whitefield had joined the group at a tender age, and after an awesome spiritual struggle had found a new experience with God. He had gone forth to proclaim his new birth and to call for a turning away from old dead forms. His preaching had shaken England, producing many devoted disciples for the young man—and almost as many critics. When the doors to the churches had been closed to him, he had gone to the fields, preaching in the open air to thousands. The mention of his name had become a magnetic force strong enough to draw massive crowds in any place he chose to speak.

  Now he had come to America, and, if Franklin spoke truly, Whitefield was on his way to turning the Colonies upside down as he had the mother country. William realized his father was opposed to the revival methods that had appeared in the Colonies in the early 1730s, but William was eager for a breath of life to touch the churches, so he looked at Whitefield with tremendous interest.

  He saw a neat, undersized man, with a boyish look—a stripling of twenty-five with a pallid face. He was youthful, almost angelic; William could hardly believe that such a youth could shake the nation of England. He had dark eyes, one of them with a noticeable squint, and he looked out over the crowd with such calm assurance that a thrill shot through William.

  Then he spoke, and such a voice! There was not a sound from the thousands who stood there, no scuffling or whispering. The voice was like a bell, and although Whitefield was speaking almost in a conversational tone, that organ-like voice carried clearly across the night air, down the streets, every syllable sharp and definite.

  For over an hour he spoke, and the crowd stood there, rooted and motionless as statues. His text was “Come unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” The voice carried authority, comfort, command, pleading—and William felt, as he was certain that everyone else in that massive crowd felt, that George Whitefield was speaking to him directly!

  Whitefield preached the riches of God’s mercy; then in closing, he lifted his head and called out, raising that magnificent voice to such a pitch that it seemed as though it would touch the clouds floating high overhead: “Father Abraham, whom have you in heaven? Any Episcopalians?”

  “No!” he cried, answering his own question in a thunderous voice.

  “Any Presbyterians?”

  “No!”

  “Any Independents or Seceders, New Sides or Old Sides?”

  “No!”

  “Any Methodists?”

  “No!”

  “Whom have you, then, Father Abraham?”

  “We don’t know those names here! All who are here are Christians—believers in Christ, men who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimonies.”

  Then he threw his arms up and cried out in a voice that seemed to rend heaven and earth and run through the crowd like a bolt of lightning: “Come unto Him, all ye that labor and are heavy laden—and He will give you rest!”

  And that was the second event that Adam Winslow never forgot about that day—not only did Benjamin Franklin flirt with his sister, but for the first time in his life, as George Whitefield cried out those last words, Adam wanted to know God.

  William felt the tremor run through his brother’s small frame, and after Whitefield turned and left and the crowd began to melt away, William held on to Adam a moment, asking, “Did you like the sermon, Adam?”

  The dark blue eyes of the boy touched his with what appeared to be a pleading look; then a curtain seemed to fall over them like a hood, and he shrugged and said, “It was all right, William.”

  The tall man stared at his brother, regret mirrored in his face as he put him back on the ground. “We’ll talk about it later, all right?”

  “If you want to.”

  But that time never came. William watched for a proper time, but the vulnerable air he had seemed to see, if it existed at all, was hidden beneath a shell the boy assumed. He mentioned it to Mercy, who bit her lip and said, “I’ve been worried about him for a long time, William. He’s so—so hard! You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. He shuts himself off from the rest of us.” He gave her a quick hug and said, “We’ll find a way to get at him, Mercy.”

  But the next day was very busy. They spent a large part of the morning wandering around the streets of the city; then they went to the print shop where Miles and Franklin worked out the details of the printing job.

  “Your grandfather was a Firstcomer, I believe you said, Mr. Winslow?” the printer asked, turning the pages of the thick note
book handbound between brown leather covers.

  “He and his brother, Edward, were on the Mayflower, and my grandmother as well—Humility Cooper her name was.”

  “Winslow—Winslow? I’ve read Mr. Bradford’s book, of course. I call to mind Edward Winslow; he was an officer in Cromwell’s court, if I’m not mistaken—but I don’t recall anyone named Gilbert.”

  “Well, Edward is quite well known,” Miles said. “My grandfather lived to be nearly a hundred. He died at 92, and I remember him very well.”

  “Ninety-two! Remarkable!” Franklin exclaimed. “How did he die?”

  A flash of anger ignited Miles’ eyes. “If you want the truth of it, he was a victim of the Salem witchcraft trials!” he answered harshly.

  “He was executed in that monstrous affair?”

  “Not executed—but he was so weakened by the exposure in prison that he never recovered. My whole family was named—my father, my mother, and my sister Rachel. She’s still living in Boston. It was God’s mercy that they didn’t all die in that affair!”

  Franklin was reading a page from the book as Miles spoke of the Salem trials, and he got so lost in it that he finally looked up with a start, his eyes gleaming with interest. “My word, sir! This is a treasure! I’m honored that you have chosen to trust me with such a task—quite honored! It will sell very well!”

  Miles bit his lip, then shrugged, saying, “Well, Mr. Franklin, I wouldn’t mind making a bit of money, of course, but that’s not why I want it printed.” The printer stared at the tall man seated before him, for Winslow seemed to be at a loss for words. Finally he said in a defiant tone, “We’ve lost something along the way, sir, and that’s why I think it’s a book that should be read.”

  “Lost something, Mr. Winslow?”

  “Yes!” Miles Winslow slammed his fist down so hard on the oak table in front of him that they all started. “Those people on the Mayflower left England—left all they had really, and they risked their lives for a dream. Almost half of them died the first year! Died like flies, they did, and why did they do it? Because they had a dream, sir, and we’ve lost that vision!”