Colleen McCullough
Morgan’s Run
© 2000
For Ric, Brother John, Wayde, Joe, Helen, andall the other many hundreds of people alive today whocan trace their roots directly to Richard Morgan.
But most of all, this book is for my beloved Melinda,the five-times-great-granddaughterof Richard Morgan.
We are born owning many qualities; some we may never know we possess. It all depends what kind of run God gives us.
PART ONE
From
August of 1775
until
October of 1784
“We are at war!” cried Mr. James Thiftlethwaite.
Every head save Richard Morgan’s lifted and turned toward the door, where a bulky figure stood brandishing a sheet of flimsy. For a moment a pin might have been heard dropping, then a confused babble of exclamations erupted at every table in the tavern except for Richard Morgan’s. Richard had paid the stirring announcement scant heed: what did war with the thirteen American colonies matter, compared to the fate of the child he held on his lap? Cousin James-the-druggist had inoculated the little fellow against the smallpox four days ago, and now Richard Morgan waited, agonized, to see if the inoculation would take.
“Come in, Jem, read it to us,” said Dick Morgan, Mine Host and Richard’s father, from behind his counter.
Though the noonday sun shone outside and light did diffuse through the bullioned panes of Crown glass in the windows of the Cooper’s Arms, the large room was dim. So Mr. James Thistlethwaite strolled over to the counter and the rays of an oil lamp, the butt of a horse pistol protruding from each greatcoat pocket. Spectacles perched upon the end of his nose, he started to read aloud, voice rising and falling in dramatic cadences.