ill. I had a mighty mind toward anything but non-resistance, but

still, fearing to hit the fellows, I cried out meekly, “Thou art wrong, friends, to oppress a poor man.” Just then I heard William Allen’s voice back of me, crying, “Let that Quaker alone!” As he quickly exercised the authority of an officer, the gathering crowd dispersed, and the grenadiers staggered away. I was prompt enough to slip down High street, glad to be so well out of it.

At the inn of the “Bag of Nails,” on Front street, I found a number of Friends, quiet over their Hollands. I sat down in a dark corner, and would have had a well-earned bowl; but I was no sooner seated than in came a man with a small bell, and, walking among the guests, rang it, saying, “It is half after ten, and there will be no more liquor served. No more! no more!”

I knew that it would be impossible to break this decree, and therefore contented myself with cold beef and cole-slaw. I went to bed, and thought over the oddity of my being helped by William Allen, and of how easily I might have been caught.

In washing next morning I was off my guard, and got rid of the most of my pokeberry juice. I saw my folly too late, but there was no help for it. I resolved to keep my wide brim well down over my face, seeing in a mirror how too much like my own self I had become.

I settled my score and went out, passing down the river-front. Here I counted and took careful note of the war-ships anchored all the way along the Delaware. At noon I bought an “Observer,” and learned that Mr. Howe had lost a spaniel dog, and that there was to be a great festival that night in honour of Sir William Howe’s departure for England. Would Darthea be there? I put aside the temptation to see that face again, and set about learning what forts were on the neck of land to south, where the two rivers, coming together at an angle, make what we call the Neck. It was a wide lowland then, but partly diked and crossed by many ditches; a marshy country much like a bit of Holland, with here and there windmills to complete the resemblance.

It was so open that, what with the caution required in approaching the block forts and the windabout ways the ditches made needful, it was late before I got the information I needed. About nine on this 18th of May, and long after dusk, I came upon the lower fort, as to which the general was desirous of more complete knowledge. I walked around it, and was at last ordered off by the guards.

My errand was now nearly done. My way north took me close to Walnut Grove, the old country-seat of my father’s friend, Joseph Wharton, whom, on account of his haughty ways, the world’s people wickedly called the Quaker duke, The noise of people come to see, and the faint strains of distant music, had for an hour reminded me, as I came nearer the gardens of Walnut Grove, that what McLane had called the great fandango in honour of Sir William Howe was in full activity. Here in the tall box alleys as a child I had many times played, and every foot of the ground was pleasingly familiar.

The noise increased as I approached through the growing darkness; for near where the lane reached the Delaware was a small earthwork, the last of those I needed to visit. I tried after viewing it to cross the double rows of grenadiers which guarded this road, but was rudely repulsed, and thus had need to go back of their line and around the rear of the mansion. When opposite to the outhouses used for servants I paused in the great crowd of townsfolk who were applauding or sullenly listening to the music heard through the open windows. I had no great desire to linger, but as it was dark I feared no recognition, and stayed to listen to the fine band of the Hessians and the wild clash of their cymbals, which, before these Germans came, no one had heard in the colonies. My work was over. I had but to go far back of the house and make my way to camp by any one of the ferries. Unluckily the music so attracted me that I stayed on, and, step by step, quite at my ease, drew nearer to the mansion.

The silly extravagance of the festival, with its afternoon display of draped galleys and saluting ships gay with flags, and its absurd mock show of a tournament in ridiculous costumes, I have no temptation to describe, nor did I see this part of it. It was meant to honour Sir William Howe, a man more liked than respected, and as a soldier beneath contempt. I had no right to have lingered, and my idle curiosity came near to have cost me dear. The house was precisely like Mount Pleasant, later General Arnold’s home on the Schuylkill. In the centre of a large lawn stood a double mansion of stone, and a little to each side were seen outhouses for servants and kitchen use. The open space toward the water was extensive enough to admit of the farcical tilting of the afternoon. A great variety of evergreen trees and shrubs gave the house a more shaded look than the season would otherwise have afforded. Among these were countless lanterns illuminating the grounds, and from the windows on all sides a blaze of light was visible. Back of the house two roads ran off, one to west and one to north, and along these were waggons coming and going, servants, orderlies, and people with supplies.

At this locality there was much confusion, and, picking up a pair of lanterns, I went unquestioned past the guard on the south side of Walnut Lane. Indeed, the sentries here and most of the orderlies were by this time well in liquor. Once within the grounds, which I knew well, I was perfectly at home. No one of the guests was without at the side or front. Now and then a servant passed through the alleys of clipped box to see to the lanterns. I was quite alone. In the shelter of a row of low hemlocks and box I stood on a garden-seat at the south side of the house, fifteen feet from a large bow-window, and, parting the branches, I commanded a full view of the dancing-room. I had no business here, and I knew it; I meant but to look and be gone. The May night was warm and even sultry, so that the sashes were all raised and the curtains drawn aside. I saw with ease a charming scene.

The walls were covered with mirrors lent for the occasion, and the room I commanded was beautifully draped with flags and hangings. Young blacks stood at the doors, or came and went with refreshments. These servants were clad in blue and white, with red turbans and metal collars and bracelets. The six Knights of the Blended Roses, or some like silliness, had cast their queer raiments and were in uniform. Their six chosen ladies were still in party-coloured costumes, which were not to my taste. Most of the women--there were but some threescore, almost all Tories or Moderates--were in the gorgeous brocades and the wide hooped skirts of the day. The extravagance of the costumes struck me. The head-dresses, a foot above the head with aigrets and feathers and an excess of powder, seemed to me quite astonishing.

I stood motionless, caught by the beauty of the moving picture before me. I have ever loved colour, and here was a feast of it hard to equal. There were red coats and gold epaulets, sashes and ribboned orders, the green and red of the chasseurs of Brunswick, blue navy uniforms, the gold lace and glitter of staff-officers, and in and out among them the clouds of floating muslin, gorgeous brocades, flashing silk petticoats, jewels, and streaming ribbons. The air was full of powder shaken from wig, queue, and head-dress; spurs clinked, stiff gown skirts rustled. The moving mass of colour, lovely faces, and manly forms bent and swayed in ordered movement as the music of the grenadier band seemed to move at will these puppets of its harmony.

They were walking a minuet, and its tempered grace, which I have never ceased to admire, seemed to suit well the splendour of embroidered gowns and the brilliant glow of the scarlet coats. I began to note the faces and to see them plainly, being, as I have said, not fifteen feet away from the window. Sir William Howe was dancing with Miss Redman. I was struck, as others have been, with his likeness to Washington, but his face wanted the undisturbed serenity of our great chief’s. I dare say he knew better than to accept as his honest right the fulsome homage of this parting festival. I thought indeed that he looked discontented. I caught glimpses of Colonel Tarleton bowing to Miss Bond. Then I saw Miss Franks sweeping a deep curtsey to Lord Cathcart as he bowed. There were the fair Shippen women, the Chews, the provost’s blonde daughter with Sir John Wrottesley, Mrs. Ferguson, my aunt’s “Tory cat,” in gay chat with Sir Charles Calder, Galloways, Allens--a pretty show of loyal dames, with--save the officers-few young men I knew.

I started as Darthea moved across the window-space on the arm of Andre, while following them were Montresor and my cousin. I felt the blood go to my face as I saw them, and drew back, letting the parted branches come together. With this storm of love and hate came again the sudden reflection that I had no right to be here, and that I was off the track of duty. I stood a moment; the night was dark; lights gleamed far out on the river from the battleships. The strains of their bands fell and rose, faintly heard in the distance.

I saw as it were before me with distinctness the camp on the windy hill, the half-starved, ragged men, the face of the great chief they loved. Once again I looked back on this contrasting scene of foolish luxury, and turned to go from where I felt I never should have been. Poor old Joseph Wharton! I smiled to think that, could he have known to what worldly use his quiet Quaker home had come, he would have rolled uneasy in his unnamed grave in the ground of the Arch Street Meeting.

Turning, I gave a few moments of thought to my plans. Suddenly the music ceased, and, with laughter and pretty cries of expectation, gay gown and fan and hoop and the many-coloured uniforms trooped out from the doors, as I learned later, to see the fireworks, over which were to be set off for final flattery in fiery letters, “_Tes Lauriers Sont Immortels_.” I hope he liked them, those unfading laurels! The shrubbery was at once alive with joyous women and laughing men.

I had not counted on this, and despite my disguise I felt that any moment might put me in deadly peril. The speedy fate of a spy I knew too well.

They were all around me in a minute, moving to and fro, merry and chatting. I heard Andre say to Darthea, “It must please the general; a great success. I shall write it all to London. Ah, Miss Peniston! how to describe the ladies!”

“And their gowns!” cried Darthea, “their gowns!”

“I am reduced to desperation,” said Andre. “I must ask the women to describe one another; hey, Wynne?” They were now standing apart from the rest, and I, hid by the bushes, was not five feet away.

“A dangerous resource,” returned Wynne. “The list of wounded vanities would be large. How like a brown fairy is Miss Pranks! Who shall describe her? No woman will dare.”

“You might ask Mr. Oliver de Laneey,” said Miss Darthea. “She would be secure of a pretty picture.”

“And you,” said Wynne--“who is to be your painter?”

“I shall beg for the place,” cried Andre.

“I think I shall take some rebel officer,” said Darthea, saucily. “Think how fresh we should look to those love-starved gentlemen whom Sir William has brought to such abject submission.”

Andre laughed, but not very heartily. As to Wynne, he was silent. The captain went on to say how sad it was that just as the general was ready to sweep those colonials out of existence--

“Why not say rebels, Andre?” Wynne broke in.

“Better not! better not! I never do. It only makes more bitter what is bad enough. But where are the fireworks?”

Meanwhile I was in dire perplexity, afraid to stir, hoping that they would move away.

“There is a seat hereabouts,” said my cousin.

“You must be tired, Miss Peniston.”

“A little.”

“I will look,” said Wynne. “This way.”

As I was in possession of the seat, I got down at once, but in two steps Arthur was beside me, and for an instant the full blaze from the window caught me square in the face. He was nearest, but Darthea was just behind him, and none other but Andre close at hand.

“By heavens!” I heard, and my cousin had me by the collar. “Here, Andre! A spy! a spy! Quick!”

I heard a cry from Darthea, and saw her reel against my cousin’s shoulder.

“Help! help! I am--ill.”

Arthur turned, exclaiming, “Darthea! My God!” and thus distracted between her and me, let slack his hold. I tore away and ran around the house, upsetting an old officer, and so through the shrubbery and the servants, whom I hustled one way and another. I heard shouts of “Spy!” “Stop thief!” and the rattle of arms all around me. Several waggons blocked the roadway. I felt that I must be caught, and darted under a waggon body. I was close to the lines as I rose from beneath the waggon.

At this instant cannonry thundered out to north, and a rocket rose in air. The grenadiers looked up in surprise. Seeing the momentary disorder of these men, who were standing at intervals of some six feet apart, I darted through them and into the crowd of spectators. I still heard shouts and orders, but pushed in among the people outside of the guard, hither and thither, using my legs and elbows to good purpose. Increasing rattle of musketry was heard in the distance, the ships beating to quarters, the cries and noises back of me louder and louder. I was now moving slowly in the crowd, and at last got clean away from it.

What had happened I knew not, but it was most fortunate for me. When a few yards from the people I began to run, stumbling over the fields, into and through ditches, and because of this alarm was at last, I concluded, reasonably safe.

I had run nearly a mile before I sat down to get my breath and cool off. Away to north a great flare of red fire lit up the sky. What it was I knew not, but sat awhile and gave myself leave to think. My cousin had instantly known me, but he had hesitated a moment. I knew the signs of indecision in his face too well to be misled. I had felt, as he seized me, that I was lost. I could not blame him; it was clearly his duty. But I do not think I should have willingly recognised him under like circumstances. My very hatred would have made me more than hesitate. Still, who can say what he would do in the haste of such a brief moral conflict? I could recall, as I sat still and reflected, the really savage joy in his face as he collared me. How deeply he must love her! He seemed, as it were, to go to pieces at her cry. Was she ill? Did her quick-coming sense of my danger make her faint? I had seen her unaccountably thus affected once before, as he who reads these pages may remember. Or was it a ready-witted ruse? Ah, my sweet Darthea! I wanted to think it that.

The blaze to northward was still growing brighter, and being now far out on the marshes south of the town, I made up my mind to use my pass at the nearer ferry, which we call Gray’s, and this, too, as soon as possible, for fear that orders to stop a Quaker spy might cause me to regret delay.

When I came to Montresor’s bridge my thought went back to my former escape, and, avoiding all appearance of haste, I stayed to ask the sergeant in charge of the guard what the blaze meant. He said it was an alert.

A few days after, McLane related to me with glee how with Clowe’s dragoons and a hundred foot he had stolen up to the lines, every man having a pot of tar; how they had smeared the dry abatis and brush, and at a signal fired the whole mass of dried wood. He was followed into the fastnesses of the Wissahickon, and lost his ensign and a man or two near Barren Hill. The infantry scattered and hid in the woods, but McLane swam his horse across the Schuylkill, got the help of Morgan’s rifles, and, returning, drove his pursuers up to their own intrenchments. He said it was the best fun he had ever had, and he hoped the Tory ladies liked his fireworks. At all events, it saved my neck.

As I walked through Gray’s Lane I fell to reflecting upon Andre’s behaviour, of which I have said nothing. I came to the conclusion that he could hardly have recognised me. This seemed likely enough, because we had not met often, and I too, apart from my disguise, had changed very greatly. And yet why had he not responded to an obvious call to duty? He certainly was not very quick to act on Arthur’s cry for help. But Darthea was on his arm, and only let it go when she fell heavily against my cousin.

I had a fine story for Jack, and so, thinking with wonder of the whirl of adventure into which I had fallen ever since I left home, I hurried along. It is a singular fact, but true, that certain men never have unusual adventures. I am not one of these. Even in the most quiet times of peace I meet with odd incidents, and this has always been my lot. With this and other matters in my mind, resolving that never again would I permit any motive to lead me off the track of the hour’s duty, I walked along. I had had a lesson.

I sought my old master’s house, and reached it in an hour. Here I found food and ready help, and before evening next day, May 19, was at the camp. I spent an hour in carefully writing out my report, and Jack, under my directions, being clever with the pencil, made plans of the forts and the enemy’s defences, which I took to headquarters, and a copy of which I have inserted in these memoirs. I had every reason to believe that my report was satisfactory. I then went back to discourse with Jack over my adventures. You may see hanging framed in my library, and below General von Knyphausen’s sword, a letter which an orderly brought to me the next day:

“Sir: It would be an impropriety to mention in general orders a service such as you have rendered. To do so might subject you to greater peril, or to ill treatment were you to fall into the hands of the enemy. I needed no fresh proof of your merit to bear it in remembrance. No one can feel more sensibly the value of your gallant conduct, or more rejoice for your escape.

“I have the honour to be “Your obed(t) Hum(e) Serv(t), “G(e) Washington.

“To Lieut. Hugh Wynne, etc.”

[Transcriber’s Note: A hand-drawn map is placed at this point in the print copy. It depicts such locations as “Bartram’s garden,” “Mr. Hamilton,” “The Wooodlands,” “Schuylkill River,” “Middle Ferry,” “Blue Hills,” “Wind Mill Island,” “Delaware River,” etc.]

This was writ in his own hand, as were many of his letters, even such as were of great length. The handwriting betrays no mark of haste, and seems penned with such exactness as all his correspondence shows. It may be that he composed slowly, and thus of need wrote with no greater speed than his thought permitted. I at least found it hard to explain how, in the midst of affairs, worried, interrupted, distracted, he does at no time show in his penmanship any sign of haste.

When I handed this letter to Jack I could not speak for a moment, and yet I was never much the victim of emotion. My dear Jack said it was not enough. For my own part, a captain’s commission would not have pleased me as well. I ran no risk which I did not bring upon myself by that which was outside of my duty; and as to this part of my adventure, I told no one but Jack, being much ashamed of the weakness which came so near to costing me not only my life, but--what would have been worse--the success of my errand.

XXI

The warm spring weather, and General Greene’s good management as quartermaster, brought us warmth and better diet. The Conestoga wains rolled in with grain and good rum. Droves of cattle appeared, and as the men were fed the drills prospered. Soldiers and officers began to amuse themselves. A theatre was arranged in one of the bigger barns, and we--not I, but others--played “The Fair Penitent.” Colonel Grange had a part, and made a fine die of it; but the next day, being taken with a pleurisy, came near to making a more real exit from life. I think it was he who invited Jack Warder to play Calista. Lady Kitty Stirling had said he would look the part well, with his fair locks and big innocent blue eyes, and she would lend him her best silk flowered gown and a fine lot of lace. Jack was in a rage, but the colonel, much amused, apologised, and so it blew over. His Excellency and Lady Washington were to see the play, and the Ladies Stirling and Madam Greene were all much delighted.

“The Recruiting Officer” we should have had later, but about the latter part of May we got news of the British as about to move out of my dear home city. After this was bruited about, no one cared to do anything but get ready to leave the winter huts and be after Sir Henry. In fact, long before this got out there was an air of hopeful expectation in the army, and the men began, like the officers, to amuse themselves. The camp-fires were gay, jokes seemed to revive in the warm air, and once more men laughed. It was pleasant, too, to see the soldiers at fives, or the wickets up and the cricket-balls of tightly rolled rag ribbons flying, or fellows at leap-frog, all much encouraged by reason of having better diet, and no need now to shrink their stomachs with green persimmons or to live without rum. As to McLane and our restless Wayne, they were about as quiet as disturbed wasps. The latter liked nothing better this spring than to get up an alert by running cannon down to the hills on the west of the Schuylkill, pitching shot at the bridges, and then to be off and away before the slow grenadiers could cross in force. Thus it was that never a week went by without adventures. Captain McLane let neither man nor horse live long at ease; but whatever he did was planned with the extreme of care and carried out with equal audacity.

The army was most eager for the summer campaign. We had begun, as I have said, to suspect that Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe, was about to move; but whither he meant to march, or his true object, our camp-fire councils could not guess as yet.

Very early in the evening of June 17, I met Colonel Hamilton riding in haste. “Come,” he said; “I am to see Wayne and the marquis. Clinton is on the wing, as we have long expected. He will very likely have already crossed into the Jerseys. Will you have a place in the foot if his Excellency can get you a captaincy?”

I said “Yes” instantly.

“You seem to know your own mind, Mr. Wynne. There will be more hard knocks and more glory.”

I thought so too, but I was now again in the full vigour of health, and an appointment in the foot would, as I hoped, bring me nearer to Jack.

And now joy and excitement reigned throughout the camps. The news was true. On the 18th of June Sir Henry Clinton, having gotten ready by sending on in advance his guns and baggage, cleverly slipped across the Delaware, followed by every Tory who feared to remain; some three thousand, it was said.

Long before dawn we of McLane’s light horse were in the saddle. As we passed Chestnut Hill I fell out to tell my aunt the good news. I was scarce gone by before she began to make ready to follow us. As we pushed at speed through Germantown, it became sure that the evacuation had been fully accomplished. We raced down Front street at a rate which seemed reckless to me. McLane gave no orders, but galloped on ahead in his usual mad way. The townsfolk were wild with Joy. Women stood in tears as we went by; men cheered us and the boys hurrahed. At Arch and Front streets, as we pulled up, I saw a poor little cornet come out of a house half bewildered and buttoning his red jacket. I pushed Lucy on to the sidewalk and caught him by the collar. He made a great fuss and had clearly overslept himself. I was hurriedly explaining, amid much laughter, when McLane called out, “A nice doll-baby! Up with him!” And away he went, behind a trooper. At Third street bridge were two other officers who must have been tipsy overnight and have slept too late. At last, with our horses half dead, we walked them back to Front and High streets, and got off for a rest and a mug of beer at the coffee-house. Soon came a brigade of Virginians, and we marched away to camp on the common called Centre Square.

The streets were full of huzzaing crowds. Our flags, long hid, were flying. Scared tradesmen were pulling down the king’s arms they had set over their signs. The better Tory houses were closed, and few of this class were to be seen in the streets.

Major-General Arnold followed after us. Unable, because of his wound, to accept a command in the field, he took up his abode as commandant of the city in Mr. Morris’s great house at the northeast corner of Front and High streets. I saw this gallant soldier in May, at the time he joined the camp at the Forge, when he was handsomely cheered by the men. He was a man dark and yet ruddy, soldierly looking, with a large nose, and not unlike his Excellency as to the upper part of his face. He was still on crutches, being thin and worn from the effects of the hurt he received at Saratoga.

As soon as possible I left the troop and rode away on Lucy down High street to Second and over the bridges to my home.

I was no longer the mere lad I had left it. Command of others, the leisure for thought in the camp, the sense that I had done my duty well, had made of me a resolute and decisive man. As I went around to the stables in the rear of the house it seemed to me as if I must in a minute see those blue eyes, and hear the pretty French phrases of tender love which in times of excitement used to rise to my mother’s lips. It is thus as to some we love. We never come to feel concerning them that certainty of death which sets apart from us forever others who are gone. To this day a thought of her brings back that smiling face, and she lives for me the life of eternal remembrance.

No one was in the stable when I unsaddled the tired mare. At the kitchen door the servants ran out with cries of joy. With a word I passed them, smelling my father’s pipe in the hall, for it was evening, and supper was over.

He rose, letting his pipe drop, as I ran to fall on his great chest, and pray him to pardon, once for all, what I had felt that it was my duty to do. I was stayed a moment as I saw him. He had lost flesh continually, and his massive build and unusual height showed now a gaunt and sombre man, with clothes too loose about him. I thought that his eyes were filling, but the habits of a life controlled him.

He held to a chair with his left hand, and coldly put out the right to meet my eager grasp, I stood still, my instinct of tenderness checked. I could only repeat, “Father, father, I have come home.”

“Yes,” he said, “thou hast come home. Sit down.”

I obeyed. Then he stooped to pick up his pipe, and raising his strong gray head, looked me over in perfect silence.

“Am I not welcome,” I cried, “in my mother’s home? Are we always to be kept apart? I have done what, under God, seemed to me His will. Cannot you, who go your way so steadily, see that it is the right of your son to do the same? You have made it hard for me to do my duty. Think as seems best to you of what I do or shall do, but have for me the charity Christ teaches. I shall go again, father, and you may never see me more on earth. Let there be peace between us now. For my mother’s sake, let us have peace. If I have cost you dear, believe me, I owe to you such sad hours as need never have been. My mother--she--”

During this outburst he heard me with motionless attention, but at my last word he raised his hand. “I like not thy naming of thy mother. It has been to me ever a reproach that I saw not how far her indulgence was leading thee out of the ways of Friends. There are who by birthright are with us, but not of us--not of us.”

This strange speech startled me into fuller self-command. I remembered his strange dislike to hear her mentioned. As he spoke his fingers opened and shut on the arms of the chair in which he sat, and here and there on his large-featured face the muscles twitched.

“I will not hear her named again,” he added. “As for thee, my son, this is thy home. I will not drive thee out of it.”

“Drive me out!” I exclaimed. I was horror-struck.

“And why not! Since thou wert a boy I have borne all things: drunkenness, debauchery, blood-guiltiness, rebellion against those whom God has set over us, and at last war, the murder of thy fellows.”

I was silent. What could I say! The words which came from my heart had failed to touch him. He had buried even the memory of my mother. I remembered Aunt Gainor’s warnings as to his health, and set myself at once to hear and reply with gentleness.

He went on as if he knew my thought: “I am no longer the man I was. I am deserted by my son when I am in greatest need of him. Had it not pleased God to send me for my stay, in this my loneliness, thy Cousin Arthur, I should have been glad to rest from the labours of earth.”

“Arthur! My cousin!”

“I said so. He has become to me as a son. It is not easy for one brought up among dissolute men to turn away and seek righteousness, but he hath heard as thou didst never hear, nor wouldst. He hath given up dice and cards, and hath asked of me books such as Besse’s ‘Sufferings’ and George Fox’s ‘Testimony.’”

This was said so simply and in such honest faith that I could not resist to smile.

“I did not ask thee to believe me,” said my father, sharply; “and if because a man is spiritually reminded and hath stayed to consider his sin, it is for thee but cause of vain mirth, I will say no more. I have lost a son, and found one. I would it had been he whom I lost that is now found.”

I answered gravely, “Father, the man is a hypocrite. He saw me dying a prisoner in jail, starved and in rags. He left me to die.”

“I have heard of this. He saw some one about to die. He thought he was like thee.”

“But he heard my name.”

“That cannot be. He said it was not thee. He said it!”

“He lied; and why should he have ever mentioned the matter to thee--as indeed he did to others--except for precaution’s sake, that if, as seemed unlike enough, I got well, he might have some excuse? It seems to me a weak and foolish action, but none the less wicked.”

My father listened, but at times with a look of being puzzled. “I do not think I follow thy argument, Hugh,” he said, “neither does thy judgment of the business seem favoured by that which I know of thy cousin.”

“Father, that man is my enemy. He hates me because--because Darthea is my friend, and but for her I should have rotted in the jail, with none to help me.”

“Thy grandfather lay in Shrewsbury Gate House a year for a better cause, and as for thy deliverance. I heard of it later. It did seem to Arthur that the young woman had done more modestly to have asked his help than to have been so forward.”

My father spoke with increase of the deliberateness at all times one of his peculiarities, which seemed to go well with the bigness of his build. This slowness in talk seemed now to be due in part to a slight trouble in finding the word he required. It gave me time to observe how involved was the action of his mind. The impression of his being indirect and less simple than of old was more marked as our talk went on than I can here convey by any possible record of what he said. I only succeeded in making him more obstinate in his belief, as was always the case when any opposed him. Yet I could not resist adding: “If, as you seem to think, Arthur is my friend, I would you could have seen his face when at that silly Mischianza he caught me in disguise.”

“Did he not do his duty after thy creed and his?”

“It was not that, father. Some men might have hesitated even as to the duty. Mr. Andre did not help him, and his debt to us was small. Had I been taken I should have swung as a spy on the gallows in Centre Square.”

“And yet,” said my father, with emphatic slowness, “he would have done his duty as he saw it.”

“And profited by it also,” said I, savagely.

“There is neither charity nor yet common sense in thy words, Hugh. If thou art to abide here, see that thy ways conform to the sobriety and decency of Friends. I will have no cards nor hard drinking.”

“But good heavens! father, when have I ever done these things here, or indeed anywhere, for years?”

His fingers were again playing on the arms of Mr. Penn’s great chair, and I made haste to put an end to this bewildering talk.

“I will try,” I said, “to live in such a way as shall not offend. Lucy is in the stable, and I will take my old room. My Aunt Gainor is to be in town to-morrow.”

“I shall be pleased to see her.”

“And how is the business, father?” I said. “There are no ships at sea, I hope. The privateers are busy, and if any goods be found that may have been for use of the king’s people, we might have to regret a loss.”

“_I_ might,” he returned sharply. “I am still able to conduct my own ventures.”

“Of course, sir,” I said hastily, wondering where I could find any subject which was free from power to annoy him. Then I rose, saying, “There is an early drill. I shall have to be on hand to receive General Arnold. I shall not be back to breakfast. Good-night.”

“Farewell,” he said. And I went upstairs with more food for thought than was to my liking. I had hoped for a brief season of rest and peace, and here was whatever small place I held in my father’s heart filled by my cousin.

When, not long after, for mere comfort, I had occasion to speak to the great Dr. Rush of my father, he said that when the brain became enfeebled men were apt to assign to one man acts done by another, and that this did explain the latter part of my father’s talk about cards and drinking. Also he said that with defect of memory came more or less incapacity to reason, since for that a man must be able to assemble past events and review them in his memory. Indeed, he added, certain failures of remembrance might even permit a good man to do apparent wrong, which seemed to me less clear. The good doctor helped me much, for I was confused and hurt, seeing no remedy in anything I could do or say.

I lit the candles in my old room and looked about me. My cousin had, it appeared, taken up his abode in my own chamber, and this put me out singularly; I could hardly have said why. The room was in the utmost confusion. Only that morning Arthur Wynne had left it. Many of the lazier officers had overslept themselves, as I have said, and came near to being quite left behind. Lord Cosmo Gordon, in fact, made his escape in a skiff just before we entered.

The bed was still not made up, which showed me how careless our slaves must have become. The floor was litered with torn paper, and in a drawer, forgot in Arthur’s hurry, were many bills, paid and unpaid, some of which were odd enough; also many notes, tickets for the Mischianza, theatre-bills, portions of plays,--my cousin was an admirable actor in light parts,--and a note or two in Darthea’s neat writing. I had no hesitation in putting them all on the hearth.

There was nothing in me to make me take advantage of what I found. I kept the Mischianza tickets, and that was all, I have them yet. On the table were Fox’s “Apology,” “A Sweet Discourse to Friends,” by William Penn, and the famous “Book of Sufferings.” In the latter was thrust a small, thin betting-tablet, such as many gentlemen then carried. Here were some queer records of bets more curious than reputable. I recall but two: “Mr. Harcourt bets Mr. Wynne five pounds that Miss A. will wear red stockings at the play on May 12th. Won, A. Wynne. They were blue, and so was the lady.” “A. W. bets Mr. von Speiser ten pounds that he will drink four quarts of Madeira before Mr. von S. can drink two; Major de Lancey to measure the wine. Lost, A. W. The Dutch pig was too much for me.”

Wondering what Darthea or my father would think of these follies, I tossed the books and the betting-tablet on the pile of bills on the hearth, I have since then been shown in London by General Burgoyne the betting-book at Brooks’s Club. There are to be seen the records of still more singular bets, some quite abominable; but such were the manners of the day. My cousin, as to this, was like the rest.

In a closet were cast-off garments and riding-boots. I sent for Tom, and bade him do with these as he liked; then I set fire to the papers on the hearth, ordered the room put in order, and after a pipe in the orchard went to bed.

XXII

My father was out when, the next day at noon, I found in the counting-house our old clerk, Thomas Mason. He, like myself, had seen with distress my father’s condition; but he told me, to my surprise, that he was still acute and competent in most matters of business.

“Look at this, Mr. Hugh,” he said, showing me careful entries in the day-book, in my father’s hand, of nearly one thousand pounds lent to my Cousin Arthur. My father had spoken to Mason of an intention to alter his will. He never did alter it, but, believing me dead, tore it up and made no new one. None of our ships were at sea. Most of them had been sold as transports to the British quartermaster. My sole comfort at home was in the absence of Arthur Wynne, and in the fact that Darthea was in the city, as I learned from Mason.

After this I went at once to see my aunt, but could give her only a few minutes, as I knew McLane would need my knowledge of the neighbourhood. In fact, I was busy for two days looking after the Tory bands who were plundering farms to west of the city.

As soon as possible I went again to see my Aunt Gainor. The good old lady was lamenting her scanty toilet, and the dirt in which the Hessians had left her house. “I have drunk no tea since Lexington,” she said, “and I have bought no gowns. My gowns, sir, are on the backs of our poor soldiers. I am not fit to be seen beside that minx Darthea. And how is Jack? The Ferguson woman has been here. I hate her, but she has all the news. If one has no gowns, it is at least a comfort to hear gossip. I told her so, but Lord! the woman does not care a rap if you do but let her talk. She says Joseph Warder is smit with Darthea’s aunt, and what a fine courtship that will be! Old Duche, our preacher, is gone away with Sir William; and now we have my beautiful young man, Mr. White, at Christ Church.”

So the dear lady rattled on, her great form moving among her battered furniture, and her clear voice, not without fine tones, rising and falling, until at last she dropped into a chair, and would hear all my adventures. It was dangerous to wait long when my aunt invited replies, and before I had time to think she began anew to tell me that Darthea had come at once to see her, and of how respectful she was. At this I encouraged my aunt, which was rarely needed, and then heard further that Mrs. Peniston would remain in town, perhaps because of Friend Joseph Warder.

Darthea had also spoken eagerly of Arthur. His people in Wales had written to her: Arthur’s father and his brother, who was so ill. “I could not but thank her,” said my aunt, “for that brave visit to the jail, as to which she might have written to me. I told her as much, but she said I was a Whig, and outside the lines, and she did not wish to get her aunt into trouble. ‘Stuff!’ said I; ‘how came it Mr. Arthur never knew Hugh?’ ‘How could he? You should have seen him,’ says my little lady, ‘and even after he was well. I did not know him, and how should Mr. Wynne?’

“But,” said my aunt, “I made such little additions to his tale as I dared, but not all I wanted to. I promise you they set my miss to thinking, for she got very red and said it was sheer nonsense. She would ask you herself. She had a pretty picture to show me of Wyncote, and the present man was to be made a baronet. Can a good girl be captured by such things? But the man has some charm, Hugh. These black men”--so we called those of dark complexion--“are always dangerous, and this special devil has a tongue, and can use it well.”

I listened to my aunt, but said little. What chance had I to make Darthea credit me? She had a girl’s desire for the court and kings’ houses and rank; or was this only one Darthea? Could that other be made to listen to a plain lieutenant in a rebel army? Perhaps I had better go back and get knocked on the head. Would she love me the better for proving Arthur a rascal?

I said as much to Aunt Gainer. At this she got up, crying, “Good heavens! there is a Hessian cock-roach! They are twice as big as they were. What a fool you are! The girl is beginning to be in doubt. I am sorry you have driven the man away. A pretty tale your mother had in French of her dear Midi, of the man who would have Love see, and pulled the kerchief off his eyes, whereon the boy’s wings tumbled off, and he sat down and cried because he could no longer fly. When a scamp loves a good girl, let him thank the devil that love is blind.”

Here was Aunt Gainor sentimental, and clever too. I shook my head sadly, being, as a man should be, humble-minded as to women. She said next she would see my father at once, and I must come at eight and bring Mr. McLane. Darthea would be with her, and a friend or two.

I went, but this time I did not bring my commanding officer. Miss Peniston was late. In all her life she was never punctual, nor could she be. While we waited my aunt went on to tell me that Darthea wished me to know how glad Mr. Wynne was I had escaped at the Mischianza. An impulse of a soldier’s duty had made him seize upon me, and he had been happy in the accident which aided my escape. I had done a brave thing to venture into the city, and she and Mr. Wynne felt strongly what a calamity my capture would have been. Darthea’s friends were his friends. “And he is jealous too,” says my lady, “of De Lancey, and Montresor--and--of Mr. Hugh Wynne.”

You must have known Mistress Wynne to comprehend what scorn she put into poor Darthea’s sad excuses, and her explanations of what could not be explained. I felt sorry for the little lady who was absent and was getting such small mercy. It was vain to try to stop my aunt. That no man and few women could do. I did at last contrive to learn that she had said no more of the visit of Arthur to the jail than that I did not seem satisfied.

I had rather my aunt should have let my luckless love-affair alone. I had been in a way to tell her of it, but now I wanted no interference. I feared to talk even to Jack Warder of my dear Darthea. That he saw through me and her I have, after many years, come to know, as these pages must have shown. If to speak of her to this delicate-minded friend was not at this time to my taste, you may rest assured I liked not my aunt’s queer way of treating the matter as she would have done a hand at piquet. She ended this wandering talk with her usual shrewd bits of advice, asking me, as she stopped short in her walk, “Have you a little sense left?”

“I hope so.”

“Then get your head to help that idiot your heart. Leave Darthea to herself. Bide with Miss Chew or Miss Bedman. Women are like children. Let them alone, and by and by they will sidle up to you for notice.”

When the town was in Sir William Howe’s hands, my aunt had rejected all her Tory, and even her neutral, friends. But now that Sir Henry Clinton was flying across the Jerseys, harassed by militia, and our general was on the way to cross the Delaware after them, things were different. Her Tory friends might come to see her if they pleased. Most of these dames came gladly, liking my aunt, and having always had of her much generous kindness. Bessy Ferguson was cross, and Mistress Wynne had been forced to visit her first. What manner of peace was made I did not hear; but no one else was a match at piquet for my Aunt Gainor, and doubtless this helped to reconcile the lady. I grieve that no historian has recorded their interview.

When I wrote of it to Jack, he was much delighted, and just before the fight at Monmouth wrote me a laughing letter, all about what my aunt and Mrs. Ferguson must have said on this occasion. As he knew no word of it, I could never see how he was able to imagine it. Once, later, when their war broke out anew, my aunt told me all about her former encounter; and so much like was it to what Jack had writ that I laughed outright. My aunt said there was nothing to grin at. But a one-sided laugh is ever the merrier. I could not always tell what Mistress Wynne would do, and never what she would say; but Jack could. He should have writ books, but he never did.

I had heard my aunt’s wail over her wardrobe, and was struck dumb at her appearance when, in the evening, I returned as she desired. The gods and the china dragons were out, and, the Hessian devils having been driven forth, the mansion had been swept and garnished, the rugs were down, and the floor was dangerously polished.

My Aunt Gainor was in a brocade which she told me was flowered beautiful with colours very lively. I thought they were. As to the rest of her toilet, I am at a loss for words. The overskirt was lute-string silk, I was told. The hoops were vast; the dress cut square, with a “modesty-fence” of stiff lace. A huge high cap “with wings is the last thing,” cried the lady, turning round to be seen, and well pleased at my admiration. She was an immense and an amazing figure. I did wonder, so big she was, where she meant to put the other women--and I said as much.

“Here is one,” she whispered, “who will like your uniform more than will the rest. Mr. Wynne of the army, my nephew, Miss Morris. And how is Mr. Gouverneur Morris?”

We fell to talking, but when others came and were presented or named by me to the Whig lady, my young woman said, “Are there none but Tories?” And she was short, I thought, with Mrs. Ferguson, who came in high good humour and a gown of Venice silk. I saw Aunt Gainor glance at her gold-laced handkerchief.

I was glad to see them all. Very soon the rooms were well filled, and here were Dr. Rush and Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, who stayed but a little while, leaving the great doctor to growl over the war with Miss Morris, and to tell her how ill read was our great chief, and how he could not spell, and had to have his letters writ for him to copy like a boy. Mr. Adams had said as much. I ventured to remark, having by this time come to understand our doctor, that we knew better in camp, and that at least our chief understood the art of war. The doctor was not of this opinion, and considered General Gates the greater man.

Then I left them to welcome Mrs. Chew and the lovely Margaret, and Miss Shippen, and last my Darthea with her aunt, who was as thin as a book-marker.

“Aunt,” I said slyly, “what is this? Tories again?”

“Be quiet, child! You have pulled their teeth. You will see they are meek enough. The dog on top can always forgive, and I must have my cards. Behave yourself! How handsome you are! Here they come.” And now there was a cross-fire of welcomes and “We have missed you so much,” and “How well you look!” and fine sweep of curtseys, very pretty and refreshing to a war-worn veteran.

I bent to kiss Mrs. Shippen’s hand. Mrs. Ferguson tapped me on the arm with her fan, whispering I was grown past the kissing-age, at which I cried that would never be. I took Darthea’s little hand with a formal word or two, and, biding my time, sat down to talk with the two Margarets, whom folks called Peggy, although both were like stately lilies, and the pet name had no kind of fitness.

The ombre-tables were set out and ready, and it was all gay and merry, and as if there might never have been war, either civil or social. “It is all as meek as doves’ milk,” whispered Mistress Wynne over my shoulder. “Gossip and cards against the world for peacemakers, eh, Hugh?” Assuredly here was a beautiful truce, and all the world amiable.

The powdered heads wagged; brocade and silk rustled; the counters rattled. Fans huge as sails set little breezes going; there was wise neutrality of speech, King Ombre being on the throne and everybody happy.

Meanwhile I set my young women laughing with an account of how a Quaker looked in on them through the window at the redcoat ball, but of the incident in the garden I said nothing, nor was it known beyond those immediately concerned. The two Margarets were curious to hear what Mr. Washington looked like, and one miss would know if Mr. Arnold was a dark man, hearing with the delight of girls how his Excellency gave dinners in camp and sat on one side, with Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Tilghman, at the top, and for diet potatoes and salt herring, with beef when it was to be had, and neither plates nor spoons nor knives and forks for all, so that we had to borrow, and eat by turns.

Miss Morris, just come to town with good Whig opinions, was uneasy in this society, and said, “We shall have enough of everything when we catch Sir Henry Clinton.” In a minute there would have been more war had not my aunt risen, and the party turned to drink chocolate and eat cakes.

After a world of little gossip they settled their debts and went away, all but Mrs. Peniston and her niece, my aunt declaring that she wanted the elder lady’s advice about the proper mode to cool blackberry jam. For this sage purpose the shadow-like form of Darthea’s aunt in gray silk went out under cover of my aunt’s large figure, and Darthea and I were left alone.

How pretty she was in fair white muslin with long gloves, a red rosebud in each sleeve, and only a trace of powder on her hair, smiling, and above all women graceful! She had seemed older when we met in the Provostry, and now to-day was slim and girl-like. I do not know where she got that trick of change, for in after-days, when in the fuller bloom of middle age, she still had a way of looking at times a gay and heedless young woman. She had now so innocent an air of being merely a sweet child that a kind of wonder possessed me, and I could not but look at her with a gaze perhaps too fixed to be mannerly.

“Darthea,” I said, as we sat down, “I owe my life to you twice--twice.”

“No, no!” she cried. “What could I do but go to the jail? Miss Wynne was away.”

“You might have told my father,” I said. Why had she not?

“Mr. Wynne is grown older, and--I--There was no time to be lost, and Arthur was gone on duty for I know not what.” She was seeing and answering what further might have seemed strange to me. “Aunt Peniston was in a rage, I assure you. My aunt in a rage, Mr. Wynne, is a tempest in a thimble. All in a minute it boils over and puts out the little fire, and there is an end of it, and she asks what ought to be done. But now I am penitent, and have been scolded by Arthur. I will never, never do it any more. My aunt was right, sir.”

“I think you gave me more than life, Darthea, that day. And did you think I would take the parole?”

“Never for a moment!” she cried, with flashing eyes. “I would have taken it, but I want my friends to be wiser and stronger than I. I--I was proud of you in your misery and ragged blanket.” And with this the wonderful face went tender in a moment, and for my part I could only say, “Darthea! Darthea!”

She was quick to see and to fear, and to avoid that which was ever on my lips when with her, and which she seemed to bid to live, and then to fly from as if she had never tempted me.

“Ah, you were a droll figure, and Arthur could not but laugh when I described this hero in a blanket. It was then he told me more fully what before he had wrote, how in the hurry of an inspection he saw many men dying, and one so like you that he asked who it was, and was given another name; but now he thought it must have been you, and that you had perhaps chosen, why he knew not, a name not your own, or you had been misnamed by the turnkey. It was little wonder where men were dying in scores and changed past recognition; it was no wonder, I say, he did not know you, Mr. Wynne. He was so sorry, for he says frankly that just because you and he are not very good friends--and why are you not?--he feels the worse about it. After he had scolded me well, and I made believe to cry, he said it was a noble and brave thing I had done, and he felt he should have been the one to do it had he known in season. He did really mean to get the parole, but then you ran away. And you do see, Mr. Wynne, that it was all a frightful mistake of Arthur’s, and he is--he must be sorry?”

I would then and there have said to her that the man was a liar, and had meanly left me to die; but it was my word against his, and Delaney had long ago gotten out and been exchanged and gone South, whither I knew not. As of course she must trust the man she loved, if I were to say I did not believe him we should quarrel, and I should see her no more.

“My dear lady,” I said, keeping myself well in hand, “the moral is that women should be sent to inspect the hungry, the ragged, the frozen, and the dying.”

I saw she did not relish my answer. Was she herself quite satisfied? Did she want to be fortified in her love and trust by me, who had suffered? A shadow of a frown was on her brow for a moment, and then she said, “He will write to you. He promised me he would write to you. And that dear old Sister of Charity!--you must go and thank her at the little convent beside St. Joseph’s, in Willing’s Alley. You upset her as you went out in that rude fashion. Any but a Quaker would have stayed to apologise. Mr. Wynne was pleased I went to the jail with the dear sister. I believe the man really thought I would have gone alone. And I would; I would! When he told me it was clever and modest to get the sweet old papist for company, I swept him a mighty curtsey and thanked him and puzzled him, which is what men are for.”

Sitting in the open bow-window above the garden, my Darthea had most of the talk, while, when I dared no longer stare at her changeful face, I looked past her at the June roses swaying in the open window-space.

“Yes,” I laughed, “that is what men are for; but I have not done with you. I have also to thank you for my escape in the garden--you and Mr. Andre. He has a good memory, I fancy.”

“Oh, the fainting--yes,” said Miss Peniston, lightly. “It was fortunate it came just then. And Mr. Wynne was glad enough of it later. He said it had saved him from the most horrible regret life could bring. If he had but had time to think--or had known--”

“Known what?”

“No matter; I was in time to stop myself from saying a foolish thing. Let me give thanks for my escape. I have a restless tongue, and am apt to say what I do not mean; and I do faint at nothing.”

“It was very opportune, my dear Miss Peniston.”

“La! la! as aunt says, one would think I went faint on purpose, in place of its being the heat, and a providential accident, and very annoying too; not a woman anywhere near me.”

“It saved a worthless life,” I said; “and but for it I should have had short shrift and the gallows on the Common.”

“Hush!” she returned. “That is not pretty talk. Your cousin is unlucky, he says, to have had you fall in his way when it was impossible to escape from arresting you. He told me Mr. Andre assured him he could have done no other thing, and that it was vain to regret what was the inevitable duty of a soldier. I think Arthur was the most pleased of all when you got away. I must say you went very fast for so grave a Quaker.”

“And could you see?” said I, slyly.

“No, of course not. How should I, and I in a dead faint? Mr. Andre told me next day he thought that dreadful rebel, Mr. McLane, saved your life when he was mean enough, just in the middle of that beautiful ball, to set fire to something. At first we took it for the fireworks. But tell me about Miss Gainor’s girl-boy--our own dear Jack.”

“He can still blush to beat Miss Franks, and he still believes me to be a great man, and--but you do not want to hear about battles.”

“Do I not, indeed! I should like to see Mr. Jack in a battle; I cannot imagine him hurting a fly.”

“The last I saw, at Germantown, of Jack, he was raging in a furious mob of redcoats, with no hat, and that sword my aunt presented cutting and parrying. I gave him up for lost, but he never got a scratch. I like him best in camp with starving, half-naked men. I have seen him give his last loaf away. You should hear Mr. Hamilton--that is his Excellency’s aide--talk of Jack; how like a tender woman he was among men who were sick and starving. Hamilton told me how once, when Jack said prayers beside a dying soldier and some fellow laughed,--men get hard in war,--our old Quaker friend Colonel Forest would have had the beast out and shot him, if the fool had not gone to Jack and said he was sorry. Every one loves the man, and no wonder.”

“He is fortunate in his friend, Mr. Wynne. Men do not often talk thus of one another. I have heard him say as much or more of you. Mistress Wynne says it is a love-affair. Are men’s friendships or women’s the best, I wonder?” I said that was a question beyond me, and went on to tell her that I should be in town but a few days, and must join my regiment as soon as General Arnold could do without us, which I believed would be within a week.

She was as serious as need be now, asking intelligent questions as to the movements of the armies and the chances of peace. I had to show her why we lost the fight at Germantown, and then explain that but for the fog we should have won it, which now I doubt.

Mr. Andre had told her that it was because of our long rifles that the enemy lost so many officers, picked off out of range of musket, and did I think this was true? It seemed to her unfair and like murder.

I thought she might be thinking of my cousin’s chances, for here, after a pause, she rose suddenly and said it was late and that the strawberry jam must be cool, or the discussion over it hot, to keep Mrs. Peniston so long. My aunt would have had me stay for further talk, but I said I was tired, and went away home feeling that the day had been full enough for me.

A little later, one afternoon in this June, I found my aunt seated so deep in thought that I asked her the cause.

“Presently,” she said. “I have meant to tell you, but I have delayed; I have delayed. Now you must know.” Here she rose and began to stride restlessly among the furniture, walking to and fro with apparent disregard of the china gods and Delft cows. She reminded me once more of my father in his better days. Her hands were clasped behind her, which is, I think, a rare attitude with women. Her large head, crowned with a great coil of gray hair which seemed to suit its massive build, was bent forward as if in thought.

“What is it, Aunt Gainor?”

She did not pause in her walk or look up, and only motioned me to a seat, saying, “Sit down. I must think; I must think.”

It was unlike her. Generally, no matter how serious the thing on her mind, she was apt to come at it through some trivial chat; but now her long absence of speech troubled me.

I sat at least ten minutes, and then, uneasy, said, “Aunt Gainor, is it Darthea?”

“No, you fool!” And she went on her wandering way among the crackled gods. “Now I will talk, Hugh, and do not interrupt me. You always do;” but, as Jack Warder says, no one ever did successfully interrupt Miss Wynne except Miss Wynne.

She sat down, crossed one leg over the other, as men do when alone with men, and went on, as I recall it, to this effect, and quite in her ordinary manner: “When the British were still here, late in May I had a note through the lines from Mr. Warder as to the confusion in my house, and some other matters. He got for me a pass to come in and attend to these things. I stayed three days with Mrs. Peniston and Darthea. While here the second day I was bid to sup at Parson Duche’s, and though I hated the lot of them, I had had no news nor so much as a game of cards for an age, and so I went. Now don’t grin at me.

“When I was to leave no coach came, as I had ordered, and no chair, either. There was Mrs. Ferguson had set up a chaise. She must offer me to be set down at home. I said my two legs were as good as her horses’, and one of them--I mean of hers--has a fine spavin; as to Mrs. Mischief’s own legs, they are so thin her garters will not stay above her ankles.

“I walked from Third street over Society Hill, thinking to see your father, and to find a big stick for company across the bridges.”

She was given to going at night where she had need to go, with a great stick for privateersmen, the vagabond, drunken Hessians, and other street pirates. I can see her now, shod with goloe-shoes against mud or snow, with her manlike walk and independent air, quite too formidable to suggest attack.

“I went in at the back way,” she continued; “not a servant about but Tom, sound asleep at the kitchen fire. I went by him, and from the hall saw your father, also in deep slumber in his arm-chair. I got me a candle and went upstairs to look how things were. The house was in vile disorder, and dirty past belief. As to your own chamber, where that scamp Arthur slept, it was--well, no matter.

“As I went downstairs and into the back dining-room I heard the latch of the hall door rattle. ‘Is it Arthur?’ thought I; and of no mind to see him, I sat down and put out my candle, meaning to wait till he was come in, and then to slip out the back way. The next moment I heard Arthur’s voice and your father’s. Both doors into the front room were wide open, and down I sat quietly, with a good mind to hear. It is well I did. I suppose you would have marched in and said, ‘Take care how you talk; I am listening.’ Very fine, sir. But this was an enemy. You lie, cheat, spy, steal, and murder in war. How was I worse than you?”

“But, dear Aunt Gainor--”

“Don’t interrupt me, sir. I sat still as a mouse.” My aunt as a mouse tickled my fancy. There may be such in my friend Mr. Swift’s Brobdingnag.

“I listened. Master Wynne is pleasant, and has had a trifle too much of Mr. Somebody’s Madeira. He is affectionate, and your father sits up, and, as Dr. Rush tells me, is clear of head after his sleep, or at least for a time.

“My gentleman says, ‘I may have to leave you soon, my dear cousin. I want to talk to you a little. Is there any one in the back room?’ As there is no one, he goes on, and asks his cousin to tell him about the title to Wyncote as he had promised. His brother was ill and uneasy, and it was all they had, and it was a poor thing after all. Your father roused up, and seemed to me to fully understand all that followed. He said how fond he was of Arthur, and how much he wished it was he who was to have the old place. Arthur replied that it was only in his father’s interest he spoke.

“Then they talked on, and the amount of it was pretty much this. How many lies Arthur got into the talk the Lord--or the devil--knows! This was what I gathered: Your grandfather Hugh, under stress of circumstances, as you know, was let out of Shrewsbury jail with some understanding that he was to sell his estate to his brother, who had no scruples as to tithes, and to go away to Pennsylvania. This I knew, but it seems that this brother William was a Wynne of the best, and, as is supposed, sold back the estate privately to Hugh for a trifle, so that at any time the elder brother could reclaim his home. What became of the second deed thus made was what Arthur wanted to know.

“Your father must have it somewhere, Hugh. Now says Arthur, ‘We are poor, cousin; the place is heavily encumbered; some coal has been found. It is desirable to sell parts of the estate; how honestly can my father make a title?’ Your great-uncle William died, as we know, Hugh, and the next brother’s son, who was Owen and is Arthur’s father, had a long minority. When he got the place, being come of age, some memoranda of the transaction turned up. It was not a rare one in older Roundhead days. Nothing was done, and time ran on. Now the occupant is getting on in years, and as his second son Arthur is ordered hither on service, it was thought as well that he should make inquiry. The older squires had some vague tradition about it. It was become worth while, as I inferred, to clear the business, or at need to effect a compromise. Half of this I heard, and the rest I got by thinking it over. Am I plain, Hugh?” She was, as usual. “Your father surprised me. He spoke out in his old deliberate way. He said the deed--some such deed--was among his father’s papers; he had seen it long ago. He did not want the place. He was old and had enough, and it should be settled to Master Arthur’s liking.

“Your cousin then said some few words about you. I did not hear what, but your father at once broke out in a fierce voice, and cried, ‘It is too true!’ Well, Hugh,” she went on, “it is of no use to make things worse between you.”

“No,” I said; “do not tell me. Was that all?”

“Not quite. Master Arthur is to have the deed if ever it be found, and with your father’s and your grandfather’s methodical ways, that is pretty sure to happen.”

“I do not care much, Aunt Gainor, except that--”

“I know,” she cried; “anybody else might have it, but not Arthur.”

“Yes; unless Darthea--”

“I understand, sir; and now I see it all. The elder brother will die. The father is old, the estate valuable, and this lying scamp with his winning ways will be master of Wyncote, and with a clear title if your father is able to bring it about. He can, Hugh, unless--”

“What, aunt?”

“Unless you intervene on account of my brother’s mental state.”

“That I will never do! Never!”

“Then you will lose it.”

“Yes; it must go. I care but little, aunt.”

“But I do, sir. You are Wynne of Wyncote.”

I smiled, and made no reply.

“The man stayed awhile longer, but your father after that soon talked at random, and addressed Arthur as Mr. Montresor. I doubt if he remembered a word of it the day after. When he left and went upstairs your father fell into sleep again. I went away home alone, and the day after to the Hill Farm.”

“It is a strange story,” I said. “And did he get the deed before the army left?”

My aunt thought not. “Mason says all the papers are at the counting-house, and that up to this time your father has made no special search. It was but two weeks or less before they left town.”

It was a simple way to trap an over-cunning man, and it much amused me, who did not take the deed and estate matter to heart as did my aunt. When she said, “We must find it,” I could but say that it was my father’s business, and could wait; so far, at least, as I was concerned, I would do nothing. Of course I told it all to Jack when next we met.

XXIII

On Sunday, the 21st of June, while our chief was crossing into the Jerseys, I was hearing at Christ Church, for the first time, the words of prayer in which William White commended Congress and our armies and their great leader to the protecting mercy of Almighty God. General Arnold was already busy with the great household and equipage which soon did so much to involve him in temptations growing out of his fondness for display. The militia were unwilling to act as a body-guard, or to stand sentries beside the great lamp-posts at his door. Nor did McLane and the rest of us fancy the social and guard duties which the general exacted; but we had to obey orders, and were likely, I feared, to remain long in this ungrateful service.

On June 30 we heard of the glorious battle at Monmouth, and with surprise of General Lee’s disgrace. On the 3d of July came Jack with a bayonet-thrust in his right shoulder and a nasty cut over the left temple. He was able to be afoot, but was quite unfit for service. I heard from him of the splendid courage and judgment shown by his Excellency, and of the profane and terrible language he had used to that traitor Lee. Jack said: “I was in the midst of a lot of scared men, with a leader who wanted only to get away. And then the general rode up, and all was changed. I think, Hugh, he was like an angry god of war. I should have died of the things he said to Mr. Lee.”

When, long after this, in July, ‘79, his Excellency issued that severe order about swearing, how it was against all religion, decency, and order, Jack was much amused. Like the army in Flanders, our own army solaced their empty stomachs with much bad language. But, as Jack observed, “There is a time for everything; Mr. Lee did catch it hot.”

McLane soon left us, glad to get away. Had he stayed much longer there would have been one more sad moth in the pretty net into which fell all who were long in the company of our fatal Darthea. I too applied for active duty, but some influence, probably that of General Arnold, came in the way and kept me in the city.

Very soon, to my pleasure, I received a letter from Mr. Hamilton, inclosing my commission as captain in the Third Regiment of the Pennsylvania line, and with it, not to my pleasure, an order to recruit in and near the city. Rather later the general asked me, as I was but little occupied, to act as an extra aide on his staff, a position which might have been my ruin, as I shall by and by relate.

Jack’s hurts turning out worse than was anticipated, he was of no use in camp, and remained at home to be petted and fussed over by my Aunt Gainor. After a month or two he was able to go about with his arm in a sling, and to be greatly noticed by the Whig women. Very soon he was caught, like me, in a ceaseless round of all manner of gaieties. He shortly grew weary of it, and fell back on his books and the society of the many who loved him--above all, that of my aunt and Darthea. For me there was no escape, as my own dissipations were chiefly those of official duty, and in company with my chief.

Congress was still in session, but from it were missing Adams, Franklin, Henry, Jay, and Rutledge, who were elsewhere filling posts of importance. It had no fully recognised powers, and the want of more distinct union was beginning to be sadly felt. Had not the ruin of the Conway cabal and the profound trust of the people lifted Washington into a position of authority, the fears and predictions of men like my friend Wilson would have been fully justified. Intrigues, ruinous methods of finance, appointments given to untried foreign officers who were mere adventurers--all these and baser influences were working toward the ruin of our cause.

Our own city went wild that winter. The Tories were sharply dealt with at first, but, as many of them were favoured by the general in command, they soon came back in mischievous numbers. The more moderate neutrals opened their doors to all parties. The general began to be at ease in the homes of the proprietary set, and, buying the great house of Mount Pleasant, made court to the lovely Margaret Shippen, and was foremost in a display of excess and luxury such as annoyed and troubled those who saw him hand and glove with the Tory gentlemen, and extravagant beyond anything hitherto seen in the quiet old city of Penn.

At this time the Congress often sat with but a dozen members. It was no longer the dignified body of seventy-six. Officers came and went. Men like Robert Morris and Dr. Rush shook their heads. Clinton lay in New York, watched by Washington, and in the South there was disaster after disaster, while even our best men wearied of the war, and asked anxiously how it was to end.

Recruiting in the face of such a state of things was slow indeed. I had little to do but wait on the general, read to my aunt, ride with her and Darthea, or shoot ducks with Jack when weather permitted; and so the long winter wore on.

With Darthea I restrained my useless passion, and contented myself with knowing that we were day by day becoming closer friends. If Arthur wrote to her or not, I could not tell. She avoided mentioning him, and I asked no questions.

I shall let Jack’s diary tell--at this time it was very full--what chanced in midwinter. Alas, my dear Jack!

“It has,” he wrote, “been a season of foolish dissipation. While the army suffers for everything, these fools are dancing and gambling, and General A----- the worst of all, which seems a pity in so good a soldier. He is doing us a mighty harm.

“To-day has been for me a sad one. I shall think ever of my folly with remorse. I set it down as a lesson to be read. We had a great sleighing-frolic to Cliveden. There were all the Tories, and few else--the general driving Peggy Shippen, and I Darthea. Mistress Wynne would have none of it. ‘We were no worse off under Howe,’ she says; ‘Mr. Arnold has no sense and no judgment.’ It is true, I fear. Mrs. Peniston, half froze, went along in our old sleigh. We drove up to the stone steps of Cliveden about seven at night--a fine moonlight, so that the stone vases on the roof, crowned with their carved pineapples, stood out against the sky. The windows were all aglow, and neither doors nor shutters were as yet fully repaired.

“We had a warm welcome, and stood about the ample fires while the ladies went merrily upstairs to leave their cloaks. I looked about me curiously, for there were dozens of bullet-marks on the plaster and the woodwork. It had been a gallant defence, and cleverly contrived. Soon came down the stairs a bevy of laughing girls to look, with hushed voices, at the blood-stains on the floor and the dents the muskets had made. They did think to tease me by praising Colonel Musgrave, who had commanded the British; but I, not to be outdone, declared him the bravest man alive. Darthea smiled, but said nothing, and for that I loved her better than ever.

“Then we fell to chatting, and presently she said, ‘Madam Chew, Mr. Warder is to show me where the troops lay, and Mr. Wayne’s brigade; and who will come too?’ There were volunteers, but once outside they found it cold, and Darthea, saying, ‘We shall be gone but a minute,’ walked with me around the stone outbuilding to northwest. She was very thoughtful and quiet this night, looking as sweet as ever a woman could in a gray fur coat against the moon-lit drifts of snow. ‘Over there,’ I said, ‘across the road, were our poor little four-pounders; and beyond yonder wall our chief held a brief council of war; and just there in the garden lay my own men and Hugh, and some Maryland troops, among the box where we used to play hide-and-find.’

“On this Darthea said, ‘Let me see the place,’ and we walked down the garden, a gentle excitement showing in her ways and talk; and I--ah me, that night!

“‘I must see,’ she said, ‘where the dead lie; near the garden wall, is it?’

“‘Here,’ said I--‘ours and theirs.’

“‘In the peace which is past understanding,’ said Darthea. Then, deep in thought, she turned from the house and into the woods a little beyond, not saying a word. Indeed, not a sound was to be heard, except the creak and craunch of the dry snow under our feet. A few paces farther we came to the summer-house, set on circular stone steps, and big enough to dine in. There she stood, saying, ‘I cannot go back yet; oh, those still, still dead! Don’t speak to me--not for a little while.’ She stayed thus, looking up at the great white moon, while I stood by, and none other near.

“‘I am better now, Jack, and you will not tell of how foolish I was--but--’

“I said there was some sweet folly, if she liked so to call it, which was better than wisdom. And then how it was I know not, nor ever shall. I felt myself flush and tremble. It is my foolish way when in danger, being by nature timid, and forced to exercise rule over myself at such seasons.

“She said, ‘What is it, Jack?’ for so she often called me when we were alone, although Hugh was Mr. Wynne. The ways of women are strange.

“I could not help it, and yet I knew Hugh loved her. I knew also that she was surely to marry Mr. Arthur Wynne. I was wrong, but, God help us! who is not wrong at times? I said: ‘Darthea, I love you. If it were to be Hugh I should never say so.’ I cared nothing about the other man; he hates my Hugh.

“‘Oh, Jack, Jack! you hurt me!’ Never was anything so sweet and tender. Her great eyes--like Madam Wynne’s that were--filled and ran over. ‘Oh, Jack!’ she cried, ‘must I hurt you too, and is it my fault? Oh my dear Jack, whom I love and honour, I can’t love you this way. I can’t--I can’t. And I am sorry. I must marry Arthur Wynne; I have promised. You men think we women give our hearts lightly, and take them again, as if they were mere counters; and I am troubled, Jack, and no one knows it. I must not talk of that. I wish you would all go away. I can’t marry you all.’ And she began to be agitated, and to laugh in a way that seemed to me quite strange and out of place; but then I know little about women.

“I could but say: ‘Forgive me; I have hurt you whom I love. I will never do it more--never. But, dear Darthea, you will let me love you, because I cannot help it, and this will all be as if it had never been. To hurt you--to hurt you of all the world! I had no right to ask you.’

“‘Don’t,’ she said, with a great sob, which seemed to break my heart.

“‘Darthea,’ I said--‘Darthea, do not marry that man! He is cruel; he is hard; he does not love you as my Hugh loves you.’

“‘Sir,’ she said, with such sudden dignity that I was overcome, and fell back a pace, ‘I am promised; let that suffice. It is cold; let us go in. It is cold--it is cold!’

“I had never seen her like this. I said: ‘Certainly; I should not have kept you. I was thoughtless.’ And as she said nothing in reply, I went after her, having said my say as I never intended, and more than was perhaps wise. At the door she turned about, and, facing me, said abruptly, with her dear face all of a flush: ‘Do not let this trouble you. I am not good enough to make it worth while. I have been a foolish girl, discontented with our simple ways, wanting what I have not. I have cried for toys, and have got them, and now I don’t care for them; but I have promised. Do you hear, sir? I have promised--I have promised.’

“She stayed for no answer, but went in. It seemed to me a singular speech, and to mean more than was said. The repeating of one phrase over and over appeared meant to reinforce a doubtful purpose. I think she cares little for Mr. Arthur Wynne, but who can say? Darthea is full of surprises.

“Can it be that she loves Hugh and knows it not, or that she has such a strong sense of honour that it is hard for her to break her word? She does not believe this man to be bad. That is sure. If ever I can make her see him as I see him, he will hold her not an hour. I shall disturb her life no more. Had she taken me to-day, I know not what would have come of it. I am not strong of will, like Hugh. God knows best. I will ask no more.”

I was an old man when I, Hugh Wynne, read these pages, and I am not ashamed to say they cost me some tears.

So far as I remember, neither Jack nor Darthea betrayed by their manner what I learned naught of for so many years. Neither did my Aunt Gainor’s shrewdness get any hint of what passed at Cliveden. I recall, however, that Jack became more and more eager to rejoin his regiment, and this he did some two weeks later.

My father’s condition was such as at times to alarm me, and at last I proposed to him to see Dr. Rush. To my surprise, he consented. I say to my surprise, for he had a vast distrust of doctors, and, to tell the truth, had never needed their help. The day after the doctor’s visit I saw our great physician, whom now all the world has learned to revere, and who was ever more wise in matters of medicine than in matters of state.

He told me that my father was beginning to have some failure of brain because of his arteries being older than the rest of him, which I did not quite comprehend. He had, he said, losses of memory which were not constant. Especially was he affected with forgetfulness as to people, and for a time mistook them, so that for a while he had taken Dr. Rush for his old clerk Mason. The doctor said it was more common to lack remembrance of places. In my father’s condition he might take one man for another, and to-morrow be as clear as to his acquaintance as ever he had been; but that as to business, as was in such eases rare, his mind continued to be lucid, except at times, when his memory would suddenly fail him for a few minutes. The doctor saw no remedy for his condition, and I mention it only because my father’s varying peculiarities came in a measure to affect me and others in a way of which I shall have occasion to speak.

My sense of his state did much to make me more tender and more able to endure the sad outbreaks of passion which Dr. Rush taught me were to be looked for. Nor was my aunt less troubled than I. Indeed, from this time she showed as regarded my father all of that gentleness which lay beneath the exterior roughness of her masculine nature. I observed that she looked after his house, paying him frequent visits, and in all ways was solicitous that he should be made comfortable.

Near about the 1st of March--I am not quite sure of the date--I was asked in the absence of Major Clarkson, chief of the staff, to take his duties for a few days. I then saw how needlessly the general was creating enmities. His worst foe, Mr. Joseph Reed, had become in December president of the Council of State, and we--I say we--were thenceforward forever at outs with the body over which he presided. When at last, thoroughly disgusted, General Arnold was about to resign from the army, those unpleasant charges were made against him which came to little or nothing, but which embittered a life already harassed by disappointed ambition and want of means, and now also by the need to show a fair face to Mr. Shippen, whose daughter’s hand he had asked.

General Arnold’s indifference as to privacy in his affairs amazed me, and I saw enough to make me both wonder and grieve. The friend of Schuyler and of Warren, the soldier whom Washington at one time absolutely trusted, attached me to him by his kindness and lavish generosity, and as an officer he had my unbounded admiration. Surely his place was in the field, and not at the dinner tables of Tories, whose society, as I have said, he much affected. It was a sign of weakness that he overesteemed the homage of a merely gay and fashionable set, and took with avidity the dangerous flattery of the Tory dames.

He was withal a somewhat coarse man, with a vast amount of vanity. It was a blow to his self-estimate when he was unjustly passed over in the promotions to major-general. He felt it deeply, and was at no pains to hide his disgust. I did not wonder that the Shippens did all they could to break off this strange love-affair. They failed; for when a delicate-minded, sensitive, well-bred woman falls in love with a strong, coarse, passionate man, there is no more to be said except, “Take her.”

XXIV

As the spring came on my father’s condition seemed to me to grow worse. At times he had great gusts of passion or of tears, quite unlike himself; for a day he would think I was my cousin, and be more affectionate than I had ever seen him. Once or twice he talked in a confused way of our estate in Wales, and so, what with this and my annoyance over the irregularities at our headquarters, I had enough to trouble me.

The office duties were, as I have said, not much to my taste, but I learned a good deal which was of future use to me. It was a dull life, and but once did I come upon anything worth narrating. This, in fact, seemed to me at the time of less moment than it grew to be thereafter.

Neither I nor Major Clarkson, his chief of staff, had all of the general’s confidence. Men came and went now and then with letters, or what not, of which naturally I learned nothing. One--a lean, small man, ill disguised as a Quaker--I saw twice. The last time he found the general absent. I offered to take charge of a letter he said he had, but he declined, saying he would return, and on this put it back in his pocket, or tried to; for he let it fall, and in quick haste secured it, although not before I thought I had recognised Arthur Wynne’s peculiar handwriting. This astounded me, as you may imagine. But how could I dream of what it meant? I concluded at last that I must have been mistaken, and I did not feel at liberty to ask the general. It was none of my business, after all.

The fellow--I had always supposed him one of our spies--came again in an hour, and saw the general. I heard the man say, “From Mr. Anderson, sir,” and then the door was closed, and the matter passed from iny mind for many a day.

Jack very soon after left us, and Darthea became more and more reserved, and unlike her merry, changeful self.

On March 25, ‘79, I came in late in the afternoon and sat down to read. My father, seated at the table, was tying up or untying bundles of old papers. Looking up, he said abruptly, “Your cousin has been here to-day.” It was said so naturally as for a moment to surprise me. I made no reply. A few minutes later he looked up again.

“Arthur, Arthur--”

I turned from a book on tactics issued by Baron Steuben. “I am not Arthur, father.”

He took no notice of this, but went on to say that I ought to have come long ago. And what would I do with it?

I asked what he meant by _it_, and if I could help him with his papers.

No, no; he needed no help. Did I ever hear from Wyncote, and how was William? I made sure he had once again taken me for my cousin. I found it was vain to insist upon my being his son. For a moment he would seem puzzled, and would then call me Arthur. At last, when he became vexed, and said angrily that I was behaving worse than Hugh, I recalled Dr. Rush’s advice, and humouring his delusion, said, “Uncle, let me help you.” Meanwhile he was fumbling nervously at the papers, tying and untying the same bundle, which seemed to be chiefly old bills and invoices.

“Here it is,” he went on. “Take it, and have a care that thou hast it duly considered by James Wilson, or another as good. Then we will see.”

“What is it, uncle?” I returned.

He said it was the reconveyance of Wyncote to my grandfather; and with entirely clear language, and no fault of thought that I could observe, he stated that at need he would execute a proper title to Godfrey, the present man.

I was struck dumb with astonishment and pity. Here was a man acting within a world of delusion as to who I was, and with as much competence as ever in his best days. I did not know what to say, nor even what to do. At last I rose, and put the old yellow parchment in my coat pocket, saying I was greatly obliged by his kindness.

Then, his business habits acting as was their wont, he said, “But it will be proper for thee to give me a receipt.”

I said it was not needed, but he insisted; and at this I was puzzled. I did not want the deed, still less did I want it to pass into Arthur’s hands. I said, “Very good, sir,” and sitting down again, wrote a receipt, and? calmly signing my own name, gave it to him. He did not look at it, but folded and indorsed it, and threw it into the little red leather trunk on the table.

I went away to my aunt’s without more delay, a much-astounded man. The good lady was no less astonished. We read the deed over with care, but its legal turns and its great length puzzled us both, and at last my aunt said:

“Let me keep it, Hugh. It is a queer tangle. Just now we can do nothing, and later we shall see. There will be needed some wiser legal head than mine or yours, and what will come of it who can say? At all events, Mr. Arthur has it not, and in your father’s condition he himself will hardly be able to make a competent conveyance. Indeed, I think he will forget the whole business. I presume Master Wynne is not likely to return in a hurry.”

In the beginning of April General Arnold married our beautiful Margaret Shippen, and took her to the new home, Mount Pleasant, above the shaded waters of the quiet Schuylkill. Tea-parties and punch-drinking followed, as was the custom.

Mr. Arnold, as my aunt called him, after a fashion learned in London, and also common in the colonies, gave his bride Mount Pleasant as a dowry, and none knew--not even the fair Margaret--that it was hopelessly mortgaged. Hither came guests in scores for a week after the marriage to drink tea with madam, the men taking punch upstairs with the groom, while the women waited below, and had cakes and gossip, in which this winter was rich enough to satisfy those of all parties.

It was a year of defeat, and again the weaker folk, like Joseph Warder and some much better known,--I mention no names,--were talking of terms, or, by their firesides with a jug of Hollands, were criticising our leader, and asking why he did not move. Meanwhile the army was as ill off as ever it had been since the camping at Valley Forge, while the air here in the city was full of vague rumours of defection and what not. I was of necessity caught in the vortex of gaiety which my chief loved and did much to keep up. He liked to see his aides at his table, and used them as a part of the excessive state we thought at this time most unseemly.

I remember well an afternoon in April of this year, when, the spring being early, all manner of green things were peeping forth, while I walked to and fro in the hall at Mount Pleasant, that I might receive those who called and excuse the absence of the host. I wandered out, for as yet none came to call. The air was soft like summer, and, sweeter than birds overhead or the fragrant arbutus on the upland slopes, came Darthea in virgin white, and a great hat tied under her chin with long breadths of blue ribbon. My aunt walked with her from her coach, and close after them came a laughing throng of men and women, for the most part of the governor’s set. There was bad news from the South, which was by no means unwelcome to these people, if I might judge from their comments. My aunt walked with them in silent wrath, and after I had met them at the door, turned aside with me and bade me go with her on the lawn, where the grass was already green.

“I have held my tongue,” she said. “These people have neither manners nor hearts. I told Mr. Shippen as much. And where does your general get all his money? It is vulgar, this waste. Look!” she said; “look there! It is well to feed the poor after a wedding; I like the old custom; but this is mere ostentation.” It was true; there was a crowd of the neighbouring farm people about the detached kitchen, eager for the food and rum which I saw given daily in absurd profusion. My Aunt Gainor shook her head.

“It will turn out badly, Hugh. This comes of a woman marrying beneath her. The man may be a good soldier,--oh, no doubt he is,--but he is not a gentleman. You must get away, Hugh.” Indeed, I much desired to do so, but until now had been detained, despite repeated applications to my chief.

My aunt said no more, but went into the house, leaving me to await the coming of the many guests, men and women, gentlemen of the Congress, with officers in uniform, who flocked to this too hospitable mansion. I had just heard from Jack, and the contrast shown by his account of the want of arms, clothing, and food seemed to me most sad when I reflected upon the extravagance and useless excess I had seen throughout the winter now at an end. I did not wonder at my aunt’s anger. Her fears were but the vague anticipations of a wise old woman who had seen the world and used good eyes and a sagacious brain. How little did she or I dream of the tragedy of dishonour into which the mad waste, the growing debts, the bitterness of an insulted and ambitious spirit, were to lead the host of this gay house!

As I turned in my walk I saw the general dismount, and went to meet him. He said: “I shall want you at nine to-night at my quarters in town--an errand of moment into the Jerseys. You must leave early to-morrow. Are you well horsed?”

I said yes, and was, in fact, glad of any more active life. Before nine that night I went to headquarters, and found a number of invitations to dine or sup. It may amuse those for whom I write to know that nearly all were writ on the white backs of playing-cards; but one from Madam Arnold was printed. I sat down, facing the open doorway into the general’s room, and began to write refusals, not knowing how long I might be absent.

Presently looking up, I saw the general at his desk. I had not heard him enter. Two candles were in front of him. He was sitting with his cheeks resting on his hands and his elbows on the desk, facing me, and so deep in thought that I did not think fit to interrupt him. His large, ruddy features now were pale and sombre, and twice I saw him use his kerchief to mop his brow as if it were moist from overheating.

At last he called me, and I went in. His forehead and the powdered hair about it were in fact wet, like those of a man who is coming out of an ague. Indeed, he looked so ill that I ventured to ask after his health. He replied that he was well. That infamous court-martial business annoyed him, and as to Mr. Reed, if there were any fight in the man, he would have him out and get done with him--which seemed imprudent talk, to say no more.

“Captain Wynne,” he went on, “early to-morrow you will ride through Bristol to the ferry below Trenton. Cross and proceed with all haste to South Amboy. At the Lamb Tavern you will meet an officer from Sir Henry Clinton. Deliver to him this despatch in regard to exchange of prisoners. He may or may not have a letter for you to bring back. In this package are passes from me, and one from Sir Henry Clinton, in case you meet with any Tory parties.”

“I shall be sure to meet them in west Jersey. Pardon me, sir, but would it not be easier to pass through our own lines in the middle Jerseys?”

“You have your orders, Mr. Wynne,” he replied severely.

I bowed.

Then he seemed to hesitate, and I stood waiting his will. “The despatch,” he said, “is open in case it becomes needful to show it Perhaps you had better read it.”

This sounded unusual, but I opened it, and read to the effect that the exchanges would go on if Sir Henry did not see fit to alter his former proposal, but that some time might elapse before the lists on our side were made out. “The officer charged with this letter will be unable to give any further information, as he has no powers to act for me.

“I have the honour to be

“Your obedient, humble servant,

“BENEDICT ARNOLD,

“_Major-General in command of

Philadelphia and the western Jerseys_.”

I looked up. “Is that all?”

“Not quite. If it chance that no officer appears to meet you at Amboy, you will return at once.”

Very glad of relief from the routine of rather distasteful duties, I rode away at dawn the next day up the Bristol road. I was stopped, as I supposed I should be, by a small band of Tory partisans, but after exhibiting my British pass I was permitted to proceed. Between Trenton and Amboy I met a party of our own horse, and had some trouble until I allowed their leader, a stupid lout, to read my open despatch, when he seemed satisfied, and sent on two troopers with me, whom I left near Amboy.

At the inn I waited a day, when a ketch appeared, and an officer, stepping ashore, came up from the beach to meet me. I saw, as he drew near, that it was Arthur Wynne.

“Glad to see you,” he cried, in a quite hearty way. “It is an unexpected pleasure. Andre was to have come, but he is ill. He desires his regards and particular compliments.”

Was I always to meet this man when I was so hampered that to have my will of him was out of the question? I said the meeting could not be unexpected, or how could Andre have known? At this I saw him look a bit queer, and I went on to add that the pleasure was all on his side.

“I am sorry,” he returned.

Not caring to hear further, I said abruptly: “Let us proceed to business. Here is a despatch for Sir Henry. Have you any letter for me!”

“None,” he replied.

“Then I am free to go.”

“Pardon me; not yet,” he said. “I beg that for once you will hear what I in person have to say. I have been greatly misrepresented.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Pray be patient. I meant to write to you, but that has been difficult, as you know.”

“Of course. And what have you to say, sir?”

“You have misunderstood me. There have been reasons of difference between us which, I am happy to say, are at an end for me.” He meant as to Darthea. “I made a mistake in the prison such as any man might have made. I have been sorry ever since. I made an effort to arrest you in the garden; I did my duty, and was glad you escaped. If you are not satisfied, a time may come when I can put myself at your disposal. Our present service and our relationship make me hope that you may never desire it.”

He was quiet, cool, and perfectly master of himself. It did not suit him to have a break with me, and I well knew why. It would end all chance of his future intercourse with my father, and why he did not wish this to happen I now knew pretty well.

I said, “Mr. Wynne, the arrest is a small matter. Thanks to Miss Peniston and to Major Andre, it came to nothing.” At my use of Darthea’s name I saw him frown, and I went on:

“You have lied about the prison, sir. If Mr. Delaney, who heard you ask my name, were here, I should long ago have exposed you and your conduct to all who cared to hear. You were shrewd enough to provide against the possibility of my telling my own story. I can only hope, at no distant day, to have the means of unmasking a man who--why, I know not--has made himself my enemy. Then, sir, and always I shall hope to ask of you another form of satisfaction.”

“Cousin Hugh,” he returned, “I shall be able to prove to you and to Mr. Delaney, when he can be found, that you are both mistaken. I trust that you will not for so slight a reason see fit to disturb my pleasant relations with your father.” They were, I thought, profitable as well as pleasant.

“I shall use my judgment,” said I.

“I am sorry. I hoped for a more agreeable ending to our talk. Good-evening.” And he walked away.

Before nightfall of the day after I was again at home, and had made my report, little dreaming of the innocent part I had played in a sorrowful drama, nor how great was the risk I had run. Concerning this I was not made clear for many a day. I had carried a letter which was not what it seemed to be, but was really a means of satisfying Clinton that Arnold intended to betray us, and had accepted his terms. Had this been known when the great treason came, I should no doubt have got into serious difficulties. The unreasoning storm of anger which followed General Arnold’s treachery spared no one who was in any way involved, and no appearance of innocence would have saved even so loyal and blameless a soldier as I from certain disgrace.

I have at times wondered that a man to outward seeming so kindly and so plainly attached to me as Arnold apparently was should have used me for such an errand; but he who could value lightly the respect and friendship of Washington and Schuyler may have had few scruples as to the perils to which he might expose a simple officer like myself. Who bore his later missives no one knows. I have never thought, as some do, that any Eve was active in the temptation which led to the dark treachery of the saddest hour of that weary war. Arnold’s first downward step was taken months before he knew Margaret Shippen, as Sir Henry Clinton’s papers have now most clearly shown.

Of my personal regret as to Arnold’s disgrace I have said little in these pages, and shall say but little more. His generosity may have been but a part of his lavishness in all directions; but this was he who for years cared liberally for the destitute children of his friend Warren after his death at Bunker Hill; and this was he who, as Schuyler has told me, saved the life of the soldier who had just shot him on the field at Saratoga. Surely the good and the bad are wonderfully mingled in our humanity!

Early in June of ‘79, and after repeated requests on my part to rejoin my regiment, I received orders to report to the colonel in command of the Third Pennsylvania foot, then lying at Ramapo, New York. I took leave of my people, and, alas! of Darthea, and set out with a number of recruits. I was glad indeed to be away. Darthea was clearly unhappy, and no longer the gay enchantress of unnumbered moods; neither did my home life offer me comfort or affection.

If, however, I looked for activity in the army, I was greatly mistaken. Sir Henry held New York; our own people had the Jerseys. A great chain of forts limited the movements of the British on the Hudson. Our general seemed to me to have a paralysing influence on whatever British commander was matched against him. As it had been with Gage in Boston and with Howe in Philadelphia, so was it now with Clinton in New York. From Danbury in Connecticut to Elizabeth in New Jersey, a thin line watched the pent-up enemy, who to seaward was guarded by a great fleet. North of the Potomac he held New York alone, but on the frontier a savage contest raged, and in the South the war everywhere went against us.

Occasional skirmishes, incessant drill, and a life of expedients to shelter, clothe, and feed my men, filled the tedious winter of ‘79 and ‘80, but affords me nothing of interest to add to the story of my life. In August General Arnold passed through our forces to take command of the forts at West Point, having declined a command in the field on account, as he said, of continued suffering from his wounded leg. I fear it was a mere pretence.

We were lying about Middlebrook, New Jersey, when, a few days later, Colonel Alexander Hamilton came to my quarters, evidently much amused. He said the videttes had captured a batch of letters, mostly of no moment, but some too mischievous to be let to pass.

“Here,” he said, “is one which concerns you, Wynne. You need have no scruple as to the reading of it. It has much entertained the mess of the headquarters guard.”

He sat down with Jack and a pipe to keep off the Tory mosquitos, while I fell to reading the letter. The same buzzing Tories were busy about me also with bugle and beak, but when, as I glanced at the letter, I caught Darthea’s name on the second page, I forgot them and hesitated. “Still,” thought I, “others have read it, and it may be well that I should do so.” It was no longer private. I went on to learn what it said. It was from Miss Franks in New York to some young woman of her set in my own city, but to whom was not clear, as an outer cover seemed to have been lost or cast away.

“MY DEAR PUSSY,” it began: “I hope you will get this despite the rebels, else you will lose much that is useful in the warfare with our dear enemy, the unfair sex.” After this was an amusing record of the latest modes and much about gowns, pincushion hoops, and face-patches. “Also the gentlemen of New York wear two watches, which with you is not considered genteel, and the admiral has introduced the fashion of dining by candle-light at four. It is very becoming, I do assure you.

“How is the pretty boy-captain? Does he still blush?” This was clearly Jack, but who was Pussy? “And Mr. Wynne--not Darthea’s Mr. Wynne, but the perverted Quaker with the blue eyes?” It was plain who this was.

“Darthea’s captain--but I must not tell tales out of school;--indeed he needs to be dealt with. Tell the witch if she _will_ stay among the R. R.’s--which is what we call them--Ragged Rebels it is--she must look to suffer. I am not as sure she does. Oh, these men! Between us, there is a certain Olivia L--who is great friends with Mr. Wynne. She hath a winning air of artless youth. I am pleased to hear from _my_ colonel, whom you must soon know, that we shall soon be with you in our dear Philadelphia, and Mr. G. W. hoeing tobacco, or worse, poor man. Dear me! I have quite lost my way, and must look back.

“I can fancy Darthea weeping. She hath small need. It is my way to love to tease whom I love, and the more I do love the more I do love to tease. I cannot believe any would be false to Darthea? nor is he, I am sure; but _thou_ dost know (as Mistress Wynne’s Captain Blushes would word it. ‘Thou’ and ‘thee’ are sweet. I would I had a Quaker lover)--_thou_ dost know that the she who is _here_ is always more dangerous than the she who is _there_. That is Darthea, dear.

“I forgot to say stays is wore looser, which is a mercy; also the garters _must_ be one red and one blue.”

When, amused, I read a bit to Jack, he declared we ought to read no more, and if he had been of the mess which did read it, he would have had reason out of some one. Indeed, he was angry-red, and beginning to twitch in his queer way, so that I feared he would bring about a quarrel with Mr. Hamilton, who knew neither woman and was still shaking with laughter.

I liked it no better than Jack did, but he had said enough, and I shook my head at Hamilton as I lay on the floor of the hut behind Jack. Mr. Hamilton, who was a very model of good breeding, and despite his vivacity never forgot what was due to others, said at once: “I ask pardon, Mr. Warder. I did not know either of the ladies was known to you. Had I been aware, no one should have read the letter.”

Then Jack said he had been hasty, and hoped Mr. Hamilton would excuse him.

“There is nothing to excuse, Mr. Warder; but I must tell you the rest, for it much delighted his Excellency. It is but a madcap account of how Miss Franks tied our own colours all over Mr. Andre’s black poodle, and let him loose at a ball the De Lanceys had in honour of Sir Henry Clinton. Our Excellency says it is a pity we had not captured the fair writer. That is as near to a jest as he ever comes, but he can enjoy our staff nonsense for all his gravity. I leave you the letter; you may like some day to deliver it. I hope we shall move soon. This camp life is devilish dull. And here is the British mouse in a hole and won’t come out, and our serious old cat a-watching. Lord, the patience of the man! Come over and see us soon, Mr. Warder, and you too, Wynne.”

“I wish Miss Darthea had the letter. But she never can have it now,” said I.

“Hardly,” says Jack, blushing sweetly. I think the garters were on his mind.

Early in August Jack’s command was sent to join the army on the Hudson, and, as I learned later, was camped with the bulk of our forces about the former seat of the Tappan Indians, among the old Dutch farms. These changes of troops from place to place were most perplexing to us, who did not comprehend the game, and were now at Hartford, and a month later at Elizabeth in the Jerseys. My own regiment had seen little service beyond the Jersey line, and was willing enough to get out of reach of those summer pests, the mosquitos. We were soon gratified.

XXV

On the 20th of September I was desired by my colonel to conduct two companies from Newark, where we lay, through the gap at Ramapo, New York, to the main army, which at this date was camped, as I have said, about Tappan. Being stout and well, I was glad to move, and glad of a chance to see the great river Hudson. We were assigned camp-ground back from the river, on a hill slope, in a long-settled country, where since early in the seventeenth century the Dutch had possessed the land. Having no tents, on arriving we set to work at the old business of hut-building, so that it was not until the 26th of September that I had an idle hour in which to look up Jack, who lay somewhere between Tappan and the river.

It was, as usual, a joyous meeting, and we never did less lack for talk. Jack told me that he was ordered on an unpleasant bit of business, and asked if I could not get leave to go with him. Orders were come from West Point to seize and destroy all periaguas, canoes, and boats in the possession of the few and often doubtfully loyal people between us and King’s Ferry. He had for this duty two sail-rigged dories with slide-keels, and would take two soldiers in each.

Upon his representing my skill as a sailor, and the need for two officers, I was allowed to turn over my command to the junior captain and to join Jack.

We set off on the 27th of September with provender and two small tents, and went away up the river with a fine wind. The water was a dull gray, and the heavens clouded. The far shore of Dobb’s Ferry and Tarrytown was already gaily tinted with the hues of the autumn, and to south the bleak gray lines of the Palisades below Sneedon’s Landing lay sombre and stern under a sunless sky. One of my men was a good sailor, and I was thus enabled to spend most of the day in Jack’s boat.

I mention all these details because of a curious coincidence. I said to Jack--I was steering--that I had had since dawn a feeling that some calamity was about to happen. Now this was, as I recall it, a notion quite new to me, and far more like Jack himself. He laughed and said it was the east wind. Then after a pause he added: “I was trying to recall something I once heard, and now I have it. This waiting for an idea is like fishing in the deep waters of the mind: sometimes one gets only a nibble, and sometimes a bite; but I have my fish. It was Dr. Bush who told me that the liver was the mother of ghosts and presentiments. When I told him I was afflicted with these latter, he put on his glasses, looked at me, and said I was of a presentimental temperament.”

“And he was right,” said I, laughing. Then Jack declared the weather was sorry enough to account for my notion. I made answer, as I remember, that I was not subject to the rule of the weather-cock, like some fellows I knew, nor to thinking I was going to be shot. This shut up Jack for a while, and we got off on to our own wise plans for capturing Sir Henry and all his host.

At last we ran ashore at a settled point called Nyack, and thence we went to and fro wherever we saw the smoke of men’s homes. We broke up or burned many boats and dugouts, amid the lamentations of their owners, because with the aid of these they were enabled to take fish, and were ill off for other diet. We had an ugly task, and could only regret the sad but inexorable necessities of war.

We camped ten miles above Tappan, and next day, near to dusk, got as far as King’s Landing, having pretty thoroughly attended to our ungracious task.

As the tall promontory of Stony Point rose before us, dim in the evening light, we talked of Wayne’s gallant storming of this formidable fort, and of his affection for the bayonet, which, he said, was to be preferred to the musket because it was always loaded.

“We of our State had most of that glory,” said Jack; “and all our best generals, save the great chief, are men of the North,” which was true and strange.

We had at this place a strong force of horse and foot, and here we meant to pass the night with some of our officers, friends of Jack’s.

It was quite dark, when, running in with a free sheet, we came close to a large barge rowed by six men. As we approached I heard a stern order to keep off, and recognised in the boat, where were also armed men, Major Tallmadge, whom I knew. I called to him, but as he only repeated his order, I answered, “Very well, sir;” and we drew in to the shore some hundred feet away.

Jack said it was queer; what could it mean? We walked toward the small blockhouse in time to see Tallmadge and several soldiers conduct a cloaked prisoner into the fort. A little later the major came out, and at once asked me to excuse his abruptness, saying that he had in charge Sir Henry Clinton’s adjutant-general, who had been caught acting as a spy, and was now about to be taken to Tappan. I exclaimed, “Not Major Andre!”

“Yes,” he returned; “Andre. A bad business.” And I was hastily told the miserable story of Arnold’s treason and flight. I turned to Jack. “There it is,” said I. “What of my presentiment?” He was silent. “You know,” I added, “that to this man I owed my life at the Mischianza ball; here he is in the same trap from which his refusal to aid my cousin saved me.” I was terribly distressed, and at my urgent desire, in place of remaining at the fort, we set out after supper, and pulled down the river against the flood-tide, while my unfortunate friend Andre was hurried away to Tappan, guarded by a strong escort of light horse.

We reached Sneedon’s Landing about 5 A.M., and I went up with Jack to his hut. Here I got a bit of uneasy sleep, and thence set off to find Hamilton; for the whole staff, with his Excellency, had made haste to reach the camp at Tappan so soon as the general felt reassured as to the safety of West Point.

I walked a half-mile up a gentle rise of ground to the main road, about which were set, close to the old Dutch church, a few modest, one-story stone houses, with far and near the cantonments of the armies. At the bridge over a noisy brook I was stopped by sentries set around a low brick building then used as headquarters. It stood amid scattered apple-trees on a slight rise of ground, and was, as I recall it, built of red and black brick. Behind the house was the little camp of the mounted guard, and on all sides were stationed sentinels, who kept the immediate grounds clear from intrusion. For this there was need; soldiers and officers were continually coming hither in hopes to gather fresh news of the great treason, or curious as to this strange capture of Sir Henry Clinton’s adjutant. General officers came and went with grave faces; aides mounted and rode away in haste; all was excitement and anxious interest, every one asking questions, and none much the wiser. With difficulty I succeeded in sending in a note to Hamilton along with Jack’s report. This was nigh to nine in the morning, but it was after midday before I got a chance to see my friend.

Meanwhile I walked up and down in a state of such agitation and distress as never before nor since have I known. When I had seen Major Tallmadge, he knew but little of those details of Arnold’s treason which later became the property of all men; but he did tell me that the correspondence had been carried on for Sir Henry by Andre in the name of Anderson, and this brought to my mind the letter which the Quaker farmer declined to surrender to me at the time I was serving as Arnold’s aide. I went back at last to Jack’s hut in the valley near the river and waited. I leave Jack to say how I felt and acted that day and evening, as I lay and thought of Andre and of poor Margaret Shippen, Arnold’s wife:

“Never have I seen my dear Hugh in such trouble. Here was a broken-hearted woman, the companion of his childhood; and Andre, who, at a moment which must have called upon his every instinct as a soldier, held back and saved my friend from a fate but too likely to be his own. Hugh all that evening lay in our hut, and now and then would break out declaring he must do something; but what he knew not, nor did I. He was even so mad as to think he might plan some way to assist Andre to escape. I listened, but said nothing, being assured from long knowledge that his judgment would correct the influence of the emotion which did at first seem to disturb it.

“Now all this miserable business is over, I ask myself if our chief would have tried to buy an English general, or if so, would I or Hugh have gone on such an errand as Andres. To be a spy is but a simple duty, and no shame in it; but as to the shape this other matter took, I do not feel able to decide.”

Still later he adds:

“Nor is my mind more fully settled as to it to-day; some think one way, some another. I had rather Andre had not gone on this errand with the promise of a great reward. Yet I think he did believe he was only doing his duty.”

Alter an hour or more of fruitless thinking, not hearing from Mr. Hamilton, I walked back to headquarters. Neither in the joy and pride of glad news, nor when disaster on disaster fell on us, have I ever seen anything like the intensity of expectation and of anxiety which at this time reigned in our camps. The capture of the adjutant-general was grave enough; his fate hung in no doubtful balance; but the feeling aroused by the fall of a great soldier, the dishonour of one greatly esteemed in the ranks, the fear of what else might come, all served to foster uneasiness and to feed suspicion. As the great chief had said, whom now could he trust, or could we? The men talked in half-whispers about the camp-fires; an hundred wild rumours were afloat; and now and again eager eyes looked toward the low brick church where twelve general officers were holding the court-martial which was to decide the fate of my friend.

It was evening before the decision of the court-martial became generally known. I wandered about all that day in the utmost depression of mind. About two in the afternoon of this 29th of September I met Hamilton near the creek. He said he had been busy all day, and was free for an hour; would I come and dine at his quarters? What was the matter with me? I was glad of a chance to speak freely. We had a long and a sad talk, and he then learned why this miserable affair affected me so deeply. He had no belief that the court could do other than condemn Mr. Andre to die. I asked anxiously if the chief were certain to approve the sentence. He replied gloomily, “As surely as there is a God in heaven.”

I could only wait. A hundred schemes were in my mind, each as useless as the others. In fact, I knew not what to do.

On the 30th his Excellency signed the death-warrant, and, all hope being at an end, I determined to make an effort to see the man to whom I believe I owed my life. When I represented the matter to Mr. Hamilton and to the Marquis de Lafayette, I put my request on the ground that Mr. Andre had here no one who could be called a friend, excepting only myself, and that to refuse me an interview were needlessly cruel. I wrote my application with care, the marquis, who was most kind throughout, charging himself with the business of placing it favourably before our chief. The execution had been ordered for October 1, but, upon receipt of some communication from Sir Henry Clinton, it was postponed until noon on October 2.

On the 30th I rode out into the hills back of Tappan, and tried to compose myself by my usual and effective remedy of a hard ride. It was useless now. I came back to my friend’s quarters and tried to read, finding a stray volume of the “Rambler” on his table. It was as vain a resort.

Never at any time in my memory have I spent two days of such unhappiness. I could get no rest and no peace of mind. To be thus terribly in the grip of events over which you have no control is to men of my temper a maddening affliction. My heart seemed all the time to say, “Do something,” and my reason to reply, “There is nothing to do.” It was thus in the jail when my cousin was on my mind; now it was as to Andre, and as to the great debt I owed him, and how to pay it. People who despair easily do not fall into the clutches of this intense craving for some practical means of relief where none can be. It is the hopeful, the resolute, and such as are educated by success who suffer thus. But why inflict on others the story of these two days, except to let those who come after me learn how one of their blood looked upon a noble debt which, alas! like many debts, must go to be settled in another world, and in other ways than ours.

Hamilton, who saw my agitation, begged me to prepare for disappointment. I, however, could see no reason to deny a man access to one doomed, when no other friend was near. Nor was I wrong. About seven in the evening of the 1st, the marquis came in haste to find me. He had asked for my interview with Mr. Andre as a favour to himself. His Excellency had granted the request in the face of objections from two general officers, whom the marquis did not name. As I thanked him he gave me this order:

“_To Major Tallmadge:_

“The bearer, Hugh Wynne, Esq., Captain, Second Company, Third Regiment of Pennsylvania foot, has herewith permission to visit Major Andre.

“GEO(E) WASHINGTON.

“October 1, 1780.”

I went at once--it was now close to eight in the evening--to the small house of one Maby, where the prisoner was kept. It was but an hundred yards from his Excellency’s quarters. Six sentries marched to and fro around it, and within the room two officers remained day and night with drawn swords. My pass was taken at the door of the house, while I waited on the road without. In a few minutes an officer came to me with Major Tallmadge’s compliments, and would I be pleased to enter?

I sometimes think it strange how, even in particulars, the natural and other scenery of this dark drama remains distinct in my memory, unaffected by the obliterating influence of the years which have effaced so much else I had been more glad to keep.

I can see to-day the rising moon, the yellowish road, the long, gray stone farm-house of one story, with windows set in an irregular frame of brickwork. The door opens, and I find myself in a short hall, where two officers salute as I pass. My conductor says, “This way, Captain Wynne,” and I enter a long, cheerless-looking apartment, the sitting-room of a Dutch farm-house. Two lieutenants, seated within at the doorway, rose as I entered, and, saluting me, sat down again. I stood an instant looking about me. A huge log fire roared on the hearth, so lighting the room that I saw its glow catch the bayonet tips of the sentinels outside as they went and came. There were a half-dozen wooden chairs, and on a pine table four candles burning, a bottle of Hollands, a decanter and glasses. In a high-backed chair sat a man with his face to the fire. It was Andre. He was tranquilly sketching, with a quill pen, a likeness of himself. [Footnote: My acquaintance, Captain Tomlinson, has it.] He did not turn or leave off drawing until Captain Tomlinson, one of the officers in charge, seeing me pause, said:

“Your pardon, major. Here is a gentleman come to visit you.”

As he spoke the prisoner turned, and I was at once struck by the extreme pallor of his face even as seen in the red light of the fire. His death-like whiteness at this time brought out the regular beauty of his features as his usual ruddiness of colour never did. I have since seen strong men near to certain death, but I recall no one who, with a serene and untroubled visage, was yet as white as was this gentleman.

The captain did not present me, and for a moment I stood with a kind of choking in the throat, which came, I suppose, of the great shock Andre’s appearance gave me. He was thus the first to speak;

“Pardon me,” he said, as he rose; “the name escaped me.”

“Mr. Hugh Wynne,” I said, getting myself pulled together--it was much needed.

“Oh, Wynne!” he cried quite joyously; “I did not know you. How delightful to see a friend; how good of you to come! Sit down. Our accommodations are slight. Thanks to his Excellency, here are Madeira and Hollands; may I offer you a glass?”

“No, no,” I said, as we took chairs by the fire, on which he cast a log, remarking how cold it was. Then he added:

“Well, Wynne, what can I do for you?” And then, smiling, “Pshaw! what a thing is habit! What can I do for you, or, indeed, my dear Wynne, for any one? But, Lord! I am as glad as a child.”

It was all so sweet and natural that I was again quite overcome. “My God!” I cried, “I am so sorry, Mr. Andre! I came down from King’s Ferry in haste when I heard of this, and have been three days getting leave to see you. I have never forgotten your great kindness at the Mischianza. If there be any service I can render you, I am come to offer it.”

He smiled and said: “How strange is fate, Mr. Wynne! Here am I in the same sad trap in which you might have been. I was thinking this very evening of your happier escape.” Then he went on to tell me that he had instantly recognised me at the ball, and also--what in my confusion at the time I did not hear--that Miss Peniston had cried out as she was about to faint, “No, no, Mr. Andre!” Afterward he had wondered at what seemed an appeal to him rather than to my cousin.

At last he said it would be a relief to him if he might speak to me out of ear-shot of the officers. I said as much to these gentlemen, and after a moment’s hesitation they retired outside of the still open doorway of the room, leaving us freer to say what we pleased. He was quiet and, as always, courteous to a fault; but I did not fail to observe that at times, as we talked and he spoke a word of his mother, his eyes filled with tears. In general he was far more composed than I.

He said: “Mr. Wynne, I have writ a letter, which I am allowed to send to General Washington. Will you see that he has it in person? It asks that I may die a soldier’s death. All else is done. My mother--but no matter. I have wound up my earthly affairs. I am assured, through the kindness of his Excellency, that my letters and effects will reach my friends and those who are still closer to me. I had hoped to see Mr. Hamilton to-night, that I might ask him to deliver to your chief the letter I now give you. But he has not yet returned, and I must trust it to you to make sure that it does not fail to be considered. That is all, I think.”

I said I would do my best, and was there no more--no errand of confidence--nothing else?

“No,” he replied thoughtfully; “no, I think not. I shall never forget your kindness.” Then he smiled and added, “My ‘never’ is a brief day for me, Wynne, unless God permits us to remember in the world where I shall be to-morrow.”

I hardly recall what answer I made. I was ready to cry like a child. He went on to bid me say to the good Attorney-General Chew that he had not forgotten his pleasant hospitalities, and he sent also some amiable message to the women of his house and to my aunt and to the Shippens, speaking with the ease and unrestraint of a man who looks to meet you at dinner next week, and merely says a brief good-by.

I promised to charge myself with his messages, and said at last that many officers desired me to express to him their sorrow at his unhappy situation, and that all men thought it hard that the life of an honest soldier was to be taken in place of that of a villain and coward who, if he had an atom of honour, would give himself up.

“May I beg of you, sir,” he returned, “to thank these gentlemen of your army? ‘Tis all I can do; and as to General Arnold--no, Wynne, he is not one to do that; I could not expect it.”

Before I rose to go on his errand I said,--and I was a little embarrassed,--“May I be pardoned, sir, if I put to you a quite personal question?”

“Assuredly,” he returned. “What is it, and how can a poor devil in my situation oblige you?”

I said: “I have but of late learned that the exchanges were all settled when I met my cousin, Arthur Wynne, at Amboy. Could it have been that the letter I bore had anything to do with this treason of General Arnold? Within a day or two this thought has come to me.”

Seeing that he hesitated, I added, “Do not answer me unless you see fit; it is a matter quite personal to myself.”

“No,” he replied; “I see no reason why I should not. Yes, it was the first of the letters sent to Sir Henry over General Arnold’s signature. Your cousin suggested you as a messenger whose undoubted position and name would insure the safe carriage of what meant more to us than its mere contents seemed to imply. Other messengers had become unsafe; it was needful at once to find a certain way to reply to us. The letter you bore was such as an officer might carry, as it dealt seemingly with nothing beyond questions of exchange of prisoners. For these reasons, on a hint from Captain Wynne, you were selected as a person beyond suspicion. I was ill at the time, as I believe Mr. Wynne told you.”

“It is only too plain,” said I. “It must have been well known at our headquarters in Jersey that this exchange business was long since settled. Had I been overhauled by any shrewd or suspicious officer, the letter might well have excited doubt and have led to inquiry.”

“Probably; that was why you were chosen--as a man of known character. By the way, sir, I had no share in the selection, nor did I know how it came about, until my recovery. I had no part in it.”

I thanked him for thus telling me of his having no share in the matter.

“You were ordered,” he continued, “as I recall it, to avoid your main army in the Jerseys; you can now see why. There is no need of further concealment.”

It was clear enough. “I owe you,” I said, “my excuses for intruding a business so personal.”

“And why not? I am glad to serve you. It is rather a relief, sir, to talk of something else than my own hopeless case. Is there anything else? Pray go on; I am at your service.”

“You are most kind. I have but one word to add; Arthur Wynne was--nay, must have been--deep in this business?”

“Ah, now you have asked too much,” he replied; “but it is I who am to blame. I had no right to name Captain Wynne.”

“You must not feel uneasy. I owe him no love, Mr. Andre; but I will take care that you do not suffer. His suggestion that I should be made use of put in peril not my life, but my honour. It is not to my interest that the matter should ever get noised abroad.”

“I see,” he said. “Your cousin must be a strange person. Do with what I have said as seems right to you. I shall be--or rather,” and he smiled quite cheerfully, “I _am_ content. One’s grammar forgets to-morrow sometimes.”

His ease and quiet seemed to me amazing. But it was getting late, and I said I must go at once.

As I was in act to leave, he took my hand and said: “There are no thanks a man about to die can give that I do not offer you, Mr. Wynne. Be assured your visit has helped me. It is much to see the face of a friend. All men have been good to me and kind, and none more so than his Excellency. If to-morrow I could see, as I go to death, one face I have known in happier hours--it is much to ask--I may count on you, I am sure. Ah, I see I can! And my letter--you will be sure to do your best?”

“Yes,” I said, not trusting myself to speak further, and only adding, “Good-by,” as I wrung his hand. Then I went out into the cold October starlight.

It was long after ten when I found Hamilton. I told him briefly of my interview, and asked if it would be possible for me to deliver in person to the general Mr. Andre’s letter. I had, in fact, that on my mind which, if but a crude product of despair, I yet did wish to say where alone it might help or be considered.

Hamilton shook his head. “I have so troubled his Excellency as to this poor fellow that I fear I can do no more. Men who do not know my chief cannot imagine the distress of heart this business has caused. I do not mean, Wynne, that he has or had the least indecision concerning the sentence; but I can tell you this--the signature of approval of the court’s finding is tremulous and unlike his usual writing. We will talk of this again. Will you wait at my quarters? I will do my best for you.”

I said I would take a pipe and walk on the road at the foot of the slope below the house in which Washington resided. With this he left me.

The night was clear and beautiful; from the low hills far and near the camp bugle-calls and the sound of horses neighing filled the air. Uneasy and restless, I walked to and fro up and down the road below the little farm-house. Once or twice I fancied I saw the tall figure of the chief pass across the window-panes. A hundred yards away was the house I had just left. There sat a gallant gentleman awaiting death. Here, in the house above me, was he in whose hands lay his fate. I pitied him too, and wondered if in his place I could be sternly just. At my feet the little brook babbled in the night, while the camp noises slowly died away. Meantime, intent on my purpose, I tried to arrange in my mind what I would say or how plead a lost cause. I have often thus pre-arranged the mode of saying what some serious occasion made needful. I always get ready, but when the time comes I am apt to say things altogether different, and to find, too, that the wisdom of the minute is apt to be the better wisdom.

At last I saw Hamilton approaching me through the gloom. “Come,” he said. “His Excellency will see you, but I fear it will be of no use. He himself would agree to a change in the form of death, but Generals Greene and Sullivan are strongly of opinion that to do so in the present state of exasperation would be unwise and impolitic. I cannot say what I should do were I he. I am glad, Wynne, that it is not I who have to decide. I lose my sense of the equities of life in the face of so sad a business. At least I would give him a gentleman’s death. The generals who tried the case say that to condemn a man as a spy, and not at last to deal with him as Hale was dealt with, would be impolitic, and unfair to men who were as gallant as the poor fellow in yonder farm-house.”

“It is only too clear,” I said.

“Yes, they are right, I suppose; but it is a horrible business.”

As we discussed, I went with him past the sentinels around the old stone house and through a hall, and to left into a large room.

“The general sleeps here,” Hamilton said, in a lowered voice. “We have but these two apartments; across the passage is his dining-room, which he uses as his office. Wait here,” and so saying, he left me. The room was large, some fifteen by eighteen feet, but so low-ceiled that the Dutch builder had need to contrive a recess in the ceiling to permit of a place for the tall Dutch clock he had brought from Holland. Around the chimney-piece were Dutch tiles. Black Billy, the general’s servant, sat asleep in the corner, and two aides slumbered on the floor, tired out, I fancy. I walked to and fro over the creaking boards, and watched the Dutch clock. As it struck eleven the figure of Time, seated below the dial, swung a scythe and turned a tiny hour-glass. A bell rang; an orderly came in and woke up an aide: “Despatch for West Point, sir, in haste.” The young fellow groaned, stuck the paper in his belt, and went out for his long night ride.

At last my friend returned. “The general will see you presently, Wynne, but it is a useless errand. Give me Andre’s letter.” With, this he left me again, and I continued my impatient walk. In a quarter of an hour he came back. “Come,” said he; “I have done my best, but I have failed as I expected to fail. Speak your mind freely; he likes frankness.” I went after him, and in a moment was in the farther room and alone with the chief.

A huge fire of logs blazed on the great kitchen hearth, and at a table covered with maps and papers, neatly set in order, the general sat writing.

He looked up, and with quiet courtesy said, “Take a seat, Captain Wynne. I must be held excused for a little.” I bowed and sat down, while he continued to write.

His pen moved slowly, and he paused at times, and then went on apparently with the utmost deliberation. I was favourably placed to watch him without appearing to do so, his face being strongly lighted by the candles in front of him. He was dressed with his usual care, in a buff waistcoat and a blue-and-buff uniform, with powdered hair drawn back to a queue and carefully tied with black ribbon.

The face, with its light-blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and rather heavy nose above a strong jaw, was now grave and, I thought, stern. At least a half-hour went by before he pushed back his chair and looked up.

I am fortunate as regards this conversation, since on my return I set it down in a diary which, however, has many gaps, and is elsewhere incomplete.

“Captain Wynne,” he said, “I have refused to see several gentlemen in regard to this sad business, but I learn that Mr. Andre was your friend, and I have not forgotten your aunt’s timely aid at a moment when it was sorely needed. For these reasons and at the earnest request of Captain Hamilton and the marquis, I am willing to listen to you. May I ask you to be brief?” He spoke slowly, as if weighing his words.

I replied that I was most grateful--that I owed it to Major Andre that I had not long ago endured the fate which was now to be his.

“Permit me, sir,” he said, “to ask when this occurred.”

I replied that it was when, at his Excellency’s desire, I had entered Philadelphia as a spy; and then I went on briefly to relate what had happened.

“Sir,” he returned, “you owed your danger to folly, not to what your duty brought. You were false, for the time, to that duty. But this does not concern us now. It may have served as a lesson, and I am free to admit that you did your country a great service. What now can I do for you? As to this unhappy gentleman, his fate is out of my hands. I have read the letter which Captain Hamilton gave me.” As he spoke he took it from the table and deliberately read it again, while I watched him. Then he laid it down and looked up. I saw that his big, patient eyes were overfull as he spoke.

“I regret, sir, to have to refuse this most natural request; I have told Mr. Hamilton that it is not to be thought of. Neither shall I reply. It is not fitting that I should do so, nor is it necessary or even proper that I assign reasons which must already be plain to every man of sense. Is that all?”

I said, “Your Excellency, may I ask but a minute more?”

“I am at your disposal, sir, for so long. What is it?”

I hesitated, and, I suspect, showed plainly in my face my doubt as to the propriety of what was most on my mind when I sought this interview. He instantly guessed that I was embarrassed, and said, with the gentlest manner and a slight smile:

“Ah, Mr. Wynne, there is nothing which can be done to save your friend, nor indeed to alter his fate; but if you desire to say more do not hesitate. You have suffered much for the cause which is dear to us both. Go on, sir.”

Thus encouraged, I said, “If on any pretext the execution can be delayed a week, I am ready to go with a friend”--I counted on Jack--“to enter New York in disguise, and to bring out General Arnold. I have been his aide, I know all his habits, and I am confident that we shall succeed if only I can control near New York a detachment of tried men. I have thought over my plan, and am willing to risk my life upon it.”

“You propose a gallant venture, sir, but it would be certain to fail; the service would lose another brave man, and I should seem to have been wanting in decision for no just or assignable cause.”

I was profoundly disappointed; and in the grief of my failure I forgot for a moment the august presence--which imposed on all men the respect which no sovereign could have inspired.

“My God! sir,” I exclaimed, “and this traitor must live unpunished, and a man who did but what he believed to be his duty must suffer a death of shame!” Then, half scared, I looked up, feeling that I had said too much. He had risen before I spoke, meaning, no doubt, to bring my visit to an end, and was standing with his back to the fire, his admirable figure giving the impression of greater height than was really his.

When, after my passionate speech, I looked up, having of course also risen, his face wore a look that was more solemn than any face of man I have ever yet seen in all my length of years.

“There is a God, Mr. Wynne,” he said, “who punishes the traitor. Let us leave this man to the shame which every year must bring. Your scheme I cannot consider. I have no wish to conceal from you or from any gentleman what it has cost me to do that which, as God lives, I believe to be right. You, sir, have done your duty to your friend. And now may I ask of you not to prolong a too painful interview?”

I bowed, saying, “I cannot thank your Excellency too much for the kindness with which you have listened to a rash young man.”

“You have said nothing, sir, which does not do you honour. Make my humble compliments to Mistress Wynne.”

I bowed, and, backing a pace or two, was about to leave, when he said, “Permit me to detain you a moment. Ask Mr. Harrison--the secretary--to come to me.”

I obeyed, and then in some wonder stood still, waiting.

“Mr. Harrison, fetch me Captain Wynne’s papers.” A moment later he sat down again, wrote the free signature, “Geo(e) Washington,” at the foot of a parchment, and gave it to me, saying, “That boy Hamilton has been troubling me for a month about this business. The commission is but now come to hand from Congress. You will report, at your early convenience, as major, to the colonel of the Third Pennsylvania foot; I hope it will gratify your aunt. Ah, Colonel Hamilton,” for here the favourite aide entered, “I have just signed Mr. Wynne’s commission.” Then he put a hand affectionately on the shoulder of the small, slight figure. “You will see that the orders are all given for the execution at noon. Not less than eighty files from each wing must attend. See that none of my staff be present, and that this house be kept closed to-morrow until night. I shall transact no business that is not such as to ask instant attention. See, in any case, that I am alone from eleven until one. Good-evening, Mr. Wynne; I hope that you will shortly honour me with your company at dinner. Pray, remember it, Mr. Hamilton.”

I bowed and went out, overcome with the kindliness of this great and noble gentleman.

“He likes young men,” said Hamilton to me long afterward. “An old officer would have been sent away with small comfort.”

It was now late in the night, and, thinking to compose myself, I walked up and down the road and at last past the Dutch church, and up the hill between rows of huts and rarer tents. It was a clear, starlit night, and the noises of the great camp were for the most part stilled. A gentle slope carried me up the hill, back of Andre’s prison, and at the top I came out on a space clear of these camp homes, and stood awhile under the quiet of the star-peopled sky. I lighted my pipe with help of flint and steel, and, walking to and fro, set myself resolutely to calm the storm of trouble and helpless dismay in which I had been for two weary days. At last, as I turned in my walk, I came on two upright posts with a cross-beam above. It was the gallows. I moved away horror-stricken, and with swift steps went down the hill and regained Jack’s quarters.

Of the horrible scene at noon on the 2d of October I shall say very little. A too early death never took from earth a more amiable and accomplished soldier. I asked and had leave to stand by the door as he came out. He paused, very white in his scarlet coat, smiled, and said, “Thank you, Wynne; God bless you!” and went on, recognising with a bow the members of the court, and so with a firm step to his ignoble death. As I had promised, I fell in behind the sad procession to the top of the hill. No fairer scene could a man look upon for his last of earth. A long range of hills rose to the northward. On all sides near and far, was the [Transcriber’s Note: 1-2 words are illegible] of the autumn-tinted woods, and to west the land swept downward past the headquarters to where the cliffs rose above the Hudson. I can see it all now--the loveliness of nature, the waiting thousands, mute and pitiful. I shut my eyes and prayed for this passing soul. A deathful stillness came upon the assembled multitude. I heard Colonel Scammel read the sentence. Then there was the rumble of the cart, a low murmur broke forth, and the sound of moving steps was heard. It was over. The great assemblage of farmers and soldiers went away strangely silent, and many in tears.

The effort I so earnestly desired to make for the capture of Arnold was afterward made by Sergeant Champe, but failed, as all men now know. Yet I am honestly of opinion that I should have succeeded.

Years afterward I was walking along the Strand in London, when, looking up, I saw a man and woman approaching. It was Arnold with his wife. His face was thin and wasted, a countenance writ over with gloom and disappointment. His masculine vigour was gone. Cain could have borne no plainer marks of vain remorse. He looked straight before him. As I crossed the way, with no desire to meet him, I saw the woman look up at him, a strange, melancholy sweetness in the pale, worn face of our once beautiful Margaret. Her love was all that time had left him; poor, broken, shunned, insulted, he was fast going to his grave. Where now he lies I know not. Did he repent with bitter tears on that gentle breast? God only knows. I walked on through the crowded street, and thought of the words of my great chief, “There is a God who punishes the traitor.”

XXVI

The long winter of 1780 and 1781, with its changeful fortunes in the South, went by without alteration in mine. There were constant alarms, and leaves of absence were not to be had. We drilled our men, marched hither and thither, and criticised our leaders over the winter camp-fires, envying the men who, under Williams, Marion, and Morgan, were keeping my Lord Cornwallis uncomfortably busy in the Carolinas. By the end of January we knew with joy of the thrashing Tarleton got at the Cowpens, and at last, in April, of the fight at Guilford. It began to dawn on the wiseacres of the camp-fires why we were now here and now there. In fact, we were no sooner hutted than we were on the march, if there were but the least excuse in the way of a bit of open weather, or a Tory raid.

Sir Henry was kept in doubt as to whether our chief meant for New York from the north or from Jersey, and when at last he began to suspect that it was not a city but an army which he intended to strike, it was too late. Our brave old hawk, so long half asleep, as it looked, had begun to flutter his wings, and to contemplate one of those sudden swoops upon his prey which did to me attest the soldier of genius within this patient, ceremonious gentleman. He was fast learning the art of war.

At last, as I have said, even we who were but simple pawns in the game of empire knew in a measure why we had been thus used to bother and detain this unlucky Sir Henry, who had failed to help Burgoyne, and was now being well fooled again, to the ruin of Lord Cornwallis.

But all of this was chiefly in the spring. The winter up to February was sad enough in our waiting camps, what with low diet, desertions, mutinies, and the typhus fever, which cost us many more men than we lost in battle. It brought us at last one day the pleasure of a visit from the great physician, Benjamin Rush, now come to Morristown to see after the sick, who were many.

This gentleman was a prime favourite with my Aunt Gainor, although they had but one opinion in common, and fought and scratched like the far-famed Irish cats. I think, too, the doctor liked your humble servant, chiefly because I admired and reverenced him for his learning and his unflinching love of his country.

At this time we lay about Morristown in New Jersey. There was to be a great ball on the night of the doctor’s arrival. And just now, when his delicate features appeared at the door of our hut, Jack and I--for Jack was with me for a day--had used the last of our flour to powder our hair, and Jack was carefully tying my queue.

“Good-evening, Master Hugh, and you, John Warder. Can I have a bite?”

We gave a shout of welcome, and offered him a herring--very dried it was--and one of Master Baker Ludwick’s hard biscuits. He said we were luxurious scamps with our powder, until we explained it to be the end of a rather mouldy bag of meal. He thought powdering a fine custom for young doctors, for it gave them a look of gray hair and wisdom; and he was, as usual, amusing, cynical, and at times bitter.

When we were seated and had his leave for a pipe, he told us there was now constant good news from the South, and that General Greene seemed to be somehow doing well, losing fights and winning strategetic victories. Probably it was more by luck than genius. By and by Gates would be heard from, and then we should see. On which my naughty Jack winked at me through the fog of his pipe smoke.

“And why,” said the doctor, “does your general keep so quiet? Was an army made to sit still?”

I could not but remind him that the only lucky winter campaign of the war had been made by his Excellency, and that it was not usually possible to fight in the cold season; not even Marlborough could do that. I was most respectful, you may be sure.

He assured me that our general would never end the war; for in revolutions it was not they who began them who ever did bring them to auspicious conclusions. Our general, the doctor went on to tell us, was a weak man, and soon all would be of this opinion.

As he spoke I saw Hamilton in the doorway, and I made haste to present him to the doctor.

The young aide said modestly that he must venture to differ as to our chief. He was a man dull in talk, not entertaining, given to cautious silence, but surely not weak, only slow in judgment, although most decisive in action.

“No great soldier, sir,” said the doctor, “and never will be.”

“He is learning the business, like the rest of us, Dr. Rush. ‘T is a hard school, sir, but it is character that wins at last; may I venture to say this man has character, and can restrain both his tongue and his own nature, which is quick to wrath.”

“Nonsense!” cried the doctor. “The whole country is discontented. We should elect a commander-in-chief once a year.”

In fact, many were of this strange opinion. Hamilton smiled, but made no reply.

I saw Jack flush, and I shook my head at him. I thought what was said foolish and ignorant, but it became not men as young as we to contradict the doctor. It was Rush who, in ‘77, with Adams and others, sustained Gates, and put him in the Board of War, to the bewilderment of affairs. How deep he was in the scheme of that officer and Conway and Lee to displace our chief none know. My aunt insists he had naught to do with it. He was an honourable, honest man, but he was also a good, permanent hater, and sustained his hatreds with a fine escort of rancorous words, where Jack or I would have been profane and brief.

The cabal broke up with Lee’s trial, and when Cadwalader shot Conway through the mouth, and, as he said, stopped one d--- lying tongue, it did not change our doctor’s views. When he and Dr. Shippen, who was no Tory like the rest of his family, quarrelled, as all doctors do, Rush preferred charges, and was disgusted because his Excellency approved the acquittal with some not very agreeable comments. I think he never forgave the slight, but yet I liked him, and shall ever revere his memory as that of a man who deserved well of his country, and had the noble courage of his profession, as he showed amply in the great yellow-fever plague of ‘93.

He told me of my father as still much the same, and of my Aunt Gainor, and of Darthea, who, he thought, was troubled in mind, although why he knew not. She had long since ceased answering the messages we sent her through my aunt. Mr. Warder, he told me later, had given up his suit to Madam Peniston, and was now an outspoken Whig. The lady was disposed to seek refuge again with her De Lancey cousins in New York, but Darthea was obstinate, and not to be moved. And so we got all the gossip of our old town, and heard of Mrs. Arnold’s having been ordered to leave, and of how the doctor, like our own Wayne, had always distrusted her husband. Indeed, we had asked a thousand questions before we let the doctor get to my bed, and we ourselves, pulling on our sherry-vallies, a kind of overalls, to protect our silk stockings from the mud, were away to the ball.

Despite our many cares and former low diet, we danced till late in the night; the good people of Morristown contriving, I know not how, to give us such a supper as we had not had for many a day. I had the pleasure to converse, in their own tongue, with Comte de Rochambeau and the Duc de Lauzun, who made me many compliments on my accent, and brought back to me, in this bright scene, the thought of her to whom I owed this and all else of what is best in me.

It was indeed a gay and pleasant evening. Even our general seemed to forget the anxieties of war, and walked a minuet with Lady Stirling, and then with Mrs. Greene. Very quiet and courteous he was, but not greatly interested, or so it seemed to me.

Again in May we were in motion, now here, now there; and, with a skirmish or two, the summer was upon us. Meanwhile, as I have said, things went more happily in the South.

Greene, continually beaten, was ever a better soldier; and at last, early in this summer of ‘81, my Lord Cornwallis, driven to despair by incessant foes who led him a wearisome and fruitless chase through States not rich enough to feed him, turned from the “boy” Lafayette he so much despised, and finally sought rest and supplies on the seaboard at Yorktown, while the “boy general,” planted in a position to command the peninsula at Malvern Hill, sat down to intrench and watch the older nobleman. I have no wish to write more history than is involved in my own humble fortunes, and I must leave those for whom I write these memoirs to read the story of the war on other pages than mine. Enough to say that when his Excellency was sure of the French fleet and knew of his lordship’s position, he made one of those swift decisions which contrasted strangely with his patient, and even elaborate, businesslike fashion of attending to all the minor affairs of life. Nor less secret and subtle was the way in which he carried out his plan of action. Leaving a force at West Point, he swept in haste through the Jerseys.

Even the generals in immediate command knew nothing of his real intention until we were turned southward and hurried through the middle colonies. Then all men knew and wondered at the daring, and, as some thought, the rashness of this movement. Sir Henry had been well fooled to the end, for now it was far on in August.

At Trenton I received an appointment which much amazed me. The army of our allies was marching with us. DeGrasse, with a great fleet, was off Chesapeake Bay; despatches were coming and going daily. His Excellency had little knowledge of the French tongue, and had suffered for it in his youth. Mr. Duponceau, of the Marquis de Lafayette’s staff, was competent in both French and English, but, save one other officer, no one of his Excellency’s staff spoke and wrote French well; and this aide was, as a consequence, much overworked.

Seeing this difficulty, which occasioned much confusion, the Duc de Lauzun suggested that I be asked to serve as a special aide-de-camp. I believe I owed this chance, in part, to Lafayette, and also to the fact, stated elsewhere, that I had had the fortune to be presented to the duke at our famous ball in Morristown, where he was pleased to talk with me in French.

My appointment reached me on August 29. His Excellency was then with us at Trenton, despatching couriers, urging haste, and filling all men with the great hope which his audacious action excited.

I was ordered to turn over my command, to join his Excellency’s headquarters staff at Philadelphia, and there to report to Colonel Tilghman as extra aide-de-camp with the brevet rank of lieutenant-colonel. A note from Hamilton, now with his regiment, congratulated me, and related the cause of my unlooked-for promotion.

Would you see what my lifelong friend Jack had to say?

“I thank God for the happy fortune which has again fallen to Hugh. Had it not been for his assiduity in youth, and the love and respect he bore his mother, he would never have come by this promotion. Thus God rewards us for that we do without thought of profit.” Alas! my dear Jack, those French lessons were sometimes but ungratefully learned.

Early on September 2, having borrowed a horse from one of the staff, I was ferried over the Delaware, and, once across the river, pushed on in haste to my own dear city. I found the French about to enter the town.

I had left home in 1777 a raw youth, and it was not without a sense of just pride that I returned a lieutenant-colonel at twenty-eight, having, as I felt, done my country honest service.

Our allies halted in the suburbs to clean off the dust, and as they began their march I fell in beside De Lauzun. They made a brilliant show in neat white uniforms, colours flying and bands playing. Front street was densely crowded, and at Vine they turned westward to camp on the common at Centre Square. As they wheeled I bowed to the French gentlemen, and kept on down Front street to Arch, soon halting before my aunt’s door. The house was closed. All had gone forth to welcome the marching troops. I mounted again and rode down Second street to my own home, left my horse at the stable, and, seeing no one, passed into the sitting-room. My father was seated at the open window, but to see him dismayed me. He rose with an uneasy look as I went toward him. He was so wasted that his large features stood out gaunt and prominent. His clothes hung about him in folds, and his vast, bony frame was like a rack from which they seemed ready to fall.

I caught him in my arms, and kissed his shrunken cheeks, utterly overcome at the sight of this splendid body in ruins. Meanwhile he stayed quite passive, and at last pushed me off and looked at me steadily.

“It is Hugh,” he said. “Thy mother will be glad to see thee.”

I was shocked. This delusion of my mother’s being alive greatly increased the grief I had in seeing this wreck of a strong, masterful man.

I said something, I hardly know what. He repeated, “Thy mother will be glad to see thee. She is upstairs--upstairs. She is with thy little sister. Ellin has been troublesome in the night.”

After this he sat down and took no more notice of me. I stood watching him. The dead alone seemed to be alive to him: my mother, and the little sister who died thirty years back, and whose name I heard now from my father for the first time in all my life. As I stood amazed and disturbed at these resurrections, he sat speechless, either looking out of the window in a dull way, or now and then at me with no larger interest. At last, with some difficulty as to finding words, he said: “Thy mother wearies for thy letters. Thou hast been remiss not to write.”

I said I had written him, as indeed I had, and with regularity, but with never an answer. After this he was long silent, and then said, “I told her it was but for a week thou wert to be away. She thinks it more.” The long years of war were lost to him, and as though they had not been.

I made a vain effort to recall him to the present and the living, telling him of the army and the war, and at last asked news of my aunt. He soon ceased to hear me, and his great head fell forward, the gray locks dropping over his forehead, as he sat breathing deeply and long.

I found it a sorry spectacle, and after giving some orders to Tom I went away.

I learned later that my father never went out, but sat at the window all day with his pipe, drawing on it as if it were lighted, and heeding neither the friends who still came to see him nor the vacant days which went by. I had lost my father, even that little of his true self he had let me see.

I went thence and reported to Colonel Tilghman at the City Tavern, where his Excellency had alighted, and after performing that duty made haste to see my aunt.

There I found the love and tender welcome for which I so much yearned, and I also had news of Darthea. She, my aunt said, was well and still in the city, but out of spirits; as to that “villain,” my cousin, my Aunt Gainor knew nothing, nor indeed Mistress Peniston much. Letters were difficult to get through our lines, and if he or Darthea still wrote, my aunt knew no more than I. When I told her in confidence of the errand on which, at my cousin’s prompting, General Arnold had sent me, she exclaimed:

“Could he have wished to get you into trouble? It seems incredible, Hugh. I hope you may never meet.”

“Aunt Gainor,” said I, “to meet that man is the dearest wish of my life.”

“The dearest?”

“Not quite,” said I, “but it will be for me a happy hour.”

“Then God forbid it, Hugh; and it is most unlikely. You must go and see Darthea. I suppose you will hardly tarry here long--and get your epaulets, sir. I want to see my boy in his uniform. Bring Mr. Hamilton here, and the French gentlemen. Fetch some of them to dinner to-morrow.”

Then she kissed me again, and told me how strong and well I looked, and so on, with all the kind prettiness of affectionate speech women keep for those they love.

As I knew not when we should leave, nor how busy I might be while still in the city, I thought it well to talk to my aunt of my father’s sad condition, and of some other matters of moment. Of the deed so strangely come into my possession she also spoke. It seemed to be much on her mind. I still told her I cared little for the Welsh lands, and this was true. Nevertheless I discovered in myself no desire to be pleasant to Mr. Arthur Wynne, and I began to suspect with my aunt that more than Darthea, or stupid jealousy, or the memory of a blow, might be at the bottom of his disposition to injure me.

It may seem strange to those who read what a quiet old fellow writes, that I should so frankly confess my hatred of my cousin. Nowadays men lie about one another, and stab with words, and no one resents it. Is the power to hate to the death fading out? and are we the better for this? It may be so. Think of the weary months in jail, of starvation, insult, and the miseries of cold, raggedness, filth, and fever. Think, too, of my father set against me, of the Mischianza business,--but for that I blame him not,--and, last, of his involving me in the vile net of Arnold’s treason. I could as soon forgive a snake that had bit me as this reptile.

“Mr. James Wilson has the deed,” said my aunt; “and of that we shall learn more when Mr. Cornwallis is took, and you come home a general. And now go and see Darthea, and let me hear how many will be to dine, and send me, too, a half-dozen of good old wine from my brother’s cellar--the old Wynne Madeira. Decant it with care, and don’t trust that black animal Tom. Mind, sir!”

Darthea lived but a little way from my aunt’s, and with my heart knocking at my ribs as it never had done at sight of levelled muskets, I found my way into Mistress Peniston’s parlour, and waited, as it seemed to me, an age.

It was a large back room with an open fireplace and high-backed chairs, claw-toed tables bare of books or china, with the floor polished like glass. Penistons and De Lanceys, in hoop and hood, and liberal of neck and bosom, looked down on me. It was all stiff and formal, but to me pleasantly familiar. Would she never come?

Then I heard a slow step on the stair, and the rustle of skirts, and here was Darthea, pale and grave, but more full in bud, and, I thought, more lovely in her maturing womanhood.

She paused at the doorway, and made as it were to greet me with a formal curtsey, but then--how like her it did seem!--ran forward and gave me both her hands, saying: “You are welcome, Mr. Wynne. I am most glad to see you. You are all for the South, I hear. Is it not so?”

I said yes, and how delightful it was to be here if but for a day or two; and then, being pretty vain, must tell her of my good fortune.

“I am glad of my friend’s success, but I wish it were with the other side. Oh, I am a mighty Tory yet,” shaking her head. “I have seen your Mr. Washington. What a fine man! and favours Mr. Arnold a trifle.”

“Fie for shame!” said I, pleased to see her merry; and then I went on to tell her the sad story of Andre, but not of what he told me concerning Arthur. The tears came to her eyes, although of course it was no new tale, and she went white again, so that I would have turned the talk aside, but she stopped me, and, hesitating a little, said:

“Did that miserable treachery begin when Mr. Arnold was in the town?”

I said it was thought to have done so. For my own part, I believed it began here, but just when I could not say. “But why do you ask?” I added, being for a reason curious.

For a little she sat still, her hands, in delicate white lace mittens, on her lap. Then she spoke, at first not looking up, “Men are strange to me, Mr. Wynne. I suppose in war they must do things which in peace would be shameful.”

I said yes, and began to wonder if she had divined that Arthur had been deep in that wretched plot. I do not know to this day. She kept her counsel if she did. Women see through us at times as if we were glass, and then again are caught by a man-trap that one would think must be perfectly visible.

“And was poor Peggy Shippen in it?”

“Oh, no! no!” I replied.

“I am glad of that; but had I been she, I would never have seen him again--never! never! To think of life with one who is as black a creature as that man!”

“But, after all, he is her husband.” I wanted to see what she would say.

“Her husband! Yes. But a husband without honour! No! no! I should have to respect the man I loved, or love would be dead--dead! Let us talk of something else. Poor Peggy! Must you go?” she added, as I rose. “This horrid war! We may never meet again.” And then quickly, “How is Captain Blushes, and shall we see him too?”

I thought not. Already the army was making for Chester, and so toward the Head of Elk. “No; I must go.” On this she rose.

“Is it the same, Darthea, and am I to go away with no more hope than the years have brought me?”

“Why,” she said, colouring, “do you make it so hard for me--your friend?”

“Do I make it hard?”

“Yes. I used to say no to men, and think no more of the thing or of them, but I am troubled; and this awful war! I am grown older, and to hurt a man--a man like you--gives me pain as it did not use to do.”

“But you have not said no,” said I; “and I am an obstinate man.”

“Why will you force me to say no? Why should I? You know well enough what I think and feel. Why insist that I put it in words? It were kinder--not to urge me.”

It seemed a strange speech. I said I did not understand her.

“Then you had better go. I am engaged to Mr. Arthur Wynne, sir. I have had no word of him for a year, and can get no letter to him.”

I might have given her Miss Franks’s letter, and poured out to her the story of his treachery and baseness. I may have been wrong, but something in me forbade it, and I preferred to wait yet longer.

“Shall I get you a letter through the lines? I can.”

“You are a strange man, Mr. Wynne, and an honest gentleman. No, you cannot do me this service. I thank you.”

“Then good-by; and it is love to the end, Darthea.”

“I wish you would go,” she said faintly.

“Good-by,” I repeated, and rose.

“Come and see me some day when you can,--not now, not this time,--and do not think ill of me.”

“Think ill of you! Why should I?”

“Yes! yes!”

I did not understand her, but I saw that she was shaken by some great emotion. Then she spoke:

“I have given my word, Mr. Wynne, and _I_ do not lightly break it. Perhaps, like some men, you may think that women have no such sense of honour as men believe to be theirs.”

“But do you love him, Darthea?”

“He is not here to answer you?” she cried, looking up at me steadily, her eyes ablaze. “Nor will I. You have no right to question me--none!”

“I have every right,” I said.

“Oh, will you never go away?” And she stamped one little foot impatiently. “If you don’t go I shall hate you, and I--I don’t want to hate you, Hugh Wynne.”

I stood a moment, and once more the temptation to tell her all I knew was strong upon me, but, as she said, Arthur was not here; first I must tell him face to face, and after that God alone knew what might come. I must tell him, too, with such proof as neither her love nor his subtlety could gainsay. And when this hour came--what then? If I killed him,--and I meant to,--what of Darthea? That would end my slender chance, and yet I knew myself so surely as to be certain that, when the hour came, no human consideration would be listened to for a moment. I could hate in those days, and I did. If I had had the assured love of Darthea, I should perhaps have hesitated; but not having it, I only longed once to have that man at the point of the sword. It is all very savage and brutal, but in those my young days men loved and hated as I do not think they do of late. It was a strong and a choleric generation, but we did some things for which the world should thank us.

XXVII

By the 7th of September Marquis Lafayette was holding the neck of the peninsula of York. A more daring man than Cornwallis would have tried a fall with this army, but he waited for a fleet to relieve him, and behold! none came save that of De Grasse. By September 26 sixteen thousand men were added to those of the marquis, and lay about Williamsburg. Our quiet old hawk had my lord in his clutches, and meant no long delay.

Not to be in advance of the army, his Excellency, who left Philadelphia before us, lingered a few days on the way to visit the home he had not seen for six long years, and we of the staff followed him the day after. Both in town and on the march through Delaware I was occupied as I had never been in my life. The French marched with us, and to keep things straight duplicate orders in both tongues were needed, and there were notes, letters, and despatches to be done into French or English. An aide who spoke French fluently was apt to be in the saddle whenever his pen was not in use.

The life was to me of advantage, because I came daily into contact with officers, young and old, who had seen the finest company in Europe, and from whom there was much to learn. It is Chastellux, I think, who has said that Mr. Washington possessed the charm of such manners as were rare among our officers. With these gentlemen, our allies, the way of doing every little act of the life of society seemed to have been studied and taught, until these gracious and amiable forms were become, as one may say, a part of the man.

No wonder they found us clumsy fellows. Too many of our gentry were not in the war, or were opposed to it. Many regiments were strangely officered, and this, as Graydon says in his memoirs, was especially the case as to the New England troops. But a man with no manners and with brutal habits may fight as well as a marquis.

Now toward the close of the war, if we were still as to looks but a Falstaffian contingent, the material in men and officers had been notably sifted, and was in all essential ways fit for the perilous service to which we were about to address ourselves.

At Mount Vernon we camped--we of the staff--in and out of the house, and were bountifully fed, nor did I ever see his Excellency more to advantage than here. He personally looked after our wants, and lost for a time much of the official reserve with which he guarded himself elsewhere.

At table after dinner he was in the habit of asking one of his aides to propose toasts for him. The day before we left, as we were about to rise from table, Colonel Tilghman said, “One more toast, with your permission, Excellency,” and cried out, “My Lord Cornwallis, and may he enjoy the hospitalities of our army.”

Our host laughed as he rarely did, saying, “We must first catch our fish, Mr. Tilghman.”

I ventured to say, “He is in the net already.”

His Excellency, looking round at me, said gravely, “Pray God the net hold good!” After I had offered the toast of Lady Washington’s health, and our thanks for the pleasant days of rest and good cheer, he left us, desiring Mr. Tilghman to see that we had wine enough.

On the 14th we reached Williamsburg. The army rapidly came in by divisions, French and American. Before the 25th we had from the fleet cannon and intrenching-tools, and all our available force was to hand.

I can make clear in a few words the situation of the enemy. The peninsula of York lies between the James and the York rivers. On the south bank of the latter sits the little town of York. Seven redoubts surrounded it. The town was flanked right and left by deep ravines and creeks falling into the York River. Intrenchments, field-works, and abatis, with felled trees, lay to landward.

Gloucester Point, on the opposite shore of the river, was well fortified, and before it lay a small force of British war-ships, the channel being obstructed lower down by sunken vessels. The French fleet held the river below the town, and we the peninsula.

On the night of the 25th, after a brief visit to the fleet, our chief lay down in the open under a mulberry-tree with one of its roots for a pillow, and slept well, as was audible enough to us who lay at a distance.

That night his lordship abandoned his outworks and drew within the town. We seized these lines next day, losing Colonel Scammel, formerly of the staff, in whose amusing songs and gay talk our chief had used to take much pleasure. On the 28th the armies marched twelve miles down the peninsula, and camped two miles from the town, driving in the pickets and some parties of horse.

By October 1, the weather being fine, we had completed a half-moon of intrenchments, resting at each wing on the river. Two advanced redoubts we threw up were severely cannonaded, so as to interrupt the men at work.

His Excellency, somewhat anxious, came out of his tent, and calling Mr. Tilghman and me, who were writing, rode forth, followed by his faithful black Billy, whom we used to credit with knowing more of what went on than did we of the staff. Mr. Evans, a chaplain, was fain to see more of the war than concerned him, and came after us. As we approached, Billy, riding behind me, said as the cannon-shot went over us:

“Dem redcoats is p’intin’ us mighty well.”

Then a shot ricochetted, striking the ground in front and covering us with dust. Mr. Evans, who was standing by, and had now seen quite enough of it, said, “We shall all be killed,” and then looked ruefully at his new beaver, well dusted and dirty.

“You had better carry that home to your wife and children,” said the chief. “This is not the place for you, sir.”

Neither was it much to my own liking, and I was not sorry when we rode back.

On the night of the 9th of October his Excellency put a match to the first gun, and for four days and nights a furious cannonade went on from both sides.

Late on the night of the 10th Jack came to my tent, and we walked out to see this terrible spectacle, climbing a little hill which lay well away from our lines. For a time we were quite alone.

A monstrous dome of smoke hung over the town. Now and then a gust of sea wind tore it apart, and through the rifts we saw the silver cup of the moon and the host of stars. We lay long on the hillock. I suppose the hour and the mighty fates involved made us serious and silent. Far away seventy cannon thundered from our works, and the enemy’s batteries roared their incessant fury of reply.

Presently I said, “Jack, how still the heavens are, and under them this rage of war! How strange!”

“Yes,” said Jack; “once I said something of this tranquilness in the skies to our great Dr. Franklin. He is very patient with young fellows, but he said to me: ‘Yes, it is a pleasing thing, even to be wrong about it. It is only to the eye of man that there is calm and peace in the heavens; no shot of cannon can fly as these worlds fly, and comets whirl, and suns blaze; and if there is yonder, as with us, war and murder and ravage, none can say.’ It all comes back to me now,” said Jack, “and I thought to tell you.”

“It is a terrible sight,” said I, as the great tumult of sound grew louder. “Let us thank God the cause is a just one.”

“And there are the stars again,” said Jack, “and the moon.” And we were silent once more, watching the death-struggle of a failing cause.

Our own mad world was far other than at peace. The great bombs rose in vast curves overhead, with trails of light, and, seeming to hesitate in mid-air, exploded, or fell on town or ship or in the stream between. As we looked, awe-struck, hot shot set fire to the “Charon,” a forty-four-gun ship, nigh to Gloucester, and soon a red rush of fire twining about mast and spar rose in air, lighting the sublime spectacle, amid the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, and multitudinous inexplicable noises, through which we heard now and then the wild howl of a dog from some distant farm-yard.

At last the war-ship blew up, and a wonderful strong light lighted the town, the river, and the camp. As it fell the dog bayed again, a long, sharp, wavering cry.

This seemed to me to impress Jack Warder more than anything else in this din of war. He said now and again, “There is that dog,” and wondered what the beast thought of it all. It is curious upon what the minds of men fix on grave occasions. I meant to ask Jack why he spoke over and over of the dog when before us was the bloody close of a great historic tragedy: a king humbled; a young republic at sword-point with an ancient monarchy.

It seemed to me a man’s mind must grow in the presence of such might of events. The hill, a half-mile from the lines, was a good vantage-ground whence to see and hear. Jack and I smoked many pipes, and, as he was not for duty in the trenches, lay here most of that cool October night, wrapped in our cloaks. Sometimes we talked; more often we were silent, and ever the great cannon roared from trench and bastion, or were quiet awhile to let their hot lips cool.

Once Jack fell to talk of how he and I were changed from the quiet Quaker lads we had been, and did I remember our first fight, and Colonel Rupert Forest, and Master Dove? That greater master, War, since then had educated and broadened us. He was more philosophic than I, and liked thus to speculate; but of Darthea he said never a word, though we spoke of many things that memorable night.

At last, when it was near to dawn, Jack jumped up, crying, “Oh, confound that dog!” He had, what I never had, some remnant of the superstitions of our ancestors, and I suspect that the howl of the poor beast troubled him. I guessed at this when he said presently, “I suppose we shall have to carry the place by storm.”

“Now don’t tell me you will get hit,” said I. “You always say that. There are enough dead men to set every dog in Virginia a-howling.”

Jack laughed, but I had shamed him out of any desire to repeat his predictions of disaster, and with the signal-rockets in air, and the resounding thunder of this storm of war ever rising and falling, we went at last to our tents.

For two or three days his Excellency kept me busy; but since, except every third or fourth day, Jack had no active work, his diary at this time is very fully kept. I see from its pages that he thought over and over in this leisure of what we had so largely discussed on that night when we lay upon the hill.

“October 11,” I find written.--“Hugh and I had a long talk over our own lives. It is a good thing and wise at times to take stock, as merchants say, of one’s self and of one’s friends. Indeed, if a man could contrive a moral likeness of his inner self such as he may have of his body, and this at different ages, it were an interesting and perhaps, too, a useful thing. It might much surprise him as the years went on. I think of myself as not so changed as Hugh. I am indeed more shy. As time goes on I arrange to hide it. I am less ambitious. Duty seems to me more and more a thing which I must do by reason of habit, that being strong with me owing much to the constant example set by my friend’s life. If I have in me something of the woman’s nature, as Mistress Wynne used to declare, I do not now so much dislike the notion. It may explain why, as I mature, nothing in life seems to me so greatly to be desired as the love of my fellows. If I think a man I esteem has no affection for me, I will fetch and carry to get it. Thank God I need not for Hugh. For him I would give my life, should he want it, and what more can a man do for his friend? Yes, there is a greater test, but of that I need not think, since she does not love me, nor ever could I think to win her love.

“My Hugh is a big handsome fellow nowadays, builded to be of the bigness of his father, but cleaner fashioned, from early use of his muscles. He has the strong passions of these hot Welsh, but is disciplined to control them, though not always. He is more serious of late, and has thoughts which surprise me, and show that his mind has grown. I used to think he was too abrupt with people, but he has a gift I have not--the power to capture the fine ways which these French gentlemen possess, so that nowadays he has quite lost the stiff ways in which we were brought up. But this art I have not, nor ever shall have.”

Now all this is more or less true, and as I have said whatever was ill of myself, I like to let another, if a too partial judge, say of me, for the flattery of our blood, what may one day pleasure my children to read.

On the night of the 12th of October our second parallel was opened by Baron Steuben’s division, in which was Jack’s command. It brought us within three hundred yards of the enemy’s works. Here our people, while at the labour of digging, were greatly annoyed by the flanking fire of two redoubts, one on each side, and lying nearly as far out to right and left as were now our advanced trenches.

On the 13th Colonel Tilghman came to ask me to write the needed orders for an assault on these two redoubts. He told me that Marquis Lafayette had asked that his own aide-de-camp, Captain Gimat, should lead the storming-party of Americans from the troops for duty on the 14th, but Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton had insisted on his own right to this honourable risk, he being, on the day set for the assault, in command in the trenches.

This officer, my lifelong friend, had, in February of ‘81, resigned from the staff, of which resignation too much has been said. It in no way affected the regard for him which our chief entertained, and the occasion of his leaving the staff was not one, I thought, to justify my friend in so doing, as indeed I made bold to tell him.

He had now written a spirited letter to our chief, claiming the right of command, as he had that day the tour of duty in the trenches. His Excellency, with his strong sense of justice, had decided in Mr. Hamilton’s favour, and it was thus settled that he should head our assaulting column, and the marquis have command of the whole detachment, which was to be made up of picked men from the divisions for duty in our works.

I wrote the required orders, and set them forth in the orderly-book. The same day toward nightfall Jack appeared at my tent. He said his company was selected to be of the assault, adding with a fine colour and very cheerful, that here in a packet were letters he had writ to his father and to my Aunt Gainor, and here, too, another--this with a little hesitation--for Miss Darthea.

I laughed, and said I was a bad person to be his executor, as I meant in some way to contrive to be of the party; how, I did not yet know. He begged me not to risk myself on a business out of my line of duty, but I was firmly set as to the matter, and he went away more serious than I thought worth while. In fact, I was tired of the every-day sameness of staff-duty and incessant letter-writing.

Later in the evening I was sent for to the tent of his Excellency. I found him with the Comtes de Deuxponts and de Rochambeau. I was wanted to act as interpreter. Although his Excellency could comprehend what was said, he possessed no such knowledge of French as to be able to speak it.

The business was soon despatched, and as I lingered, the general asked what other matter needed attention. Upon this I replied that I greatly desired to be of the storming-party.

He returned, “I presume of course, sir, that you are not for duty on the 14th?”

I said, “No.”

“Then your business is with the staff. I am unwilling to permit gentlemen to step aside out of their work.” He spoke in his usual deliberate manner, and with a certain sternness such as he well knew how to assume.

I saluted, but stood still a moment, and then said, “I trust, Excellency, that I have fulfilled my duties to your satisfaction.”

“Entirely. I should have made it plain to you had it been otherwise.”

“And I have never asked a favour of your Excellency. I have been twice wounded, have had no home leave for four years, and have spent five months in a British jail.”

I saw a faint smile come over his grave face. “You boys are all alike. Here is Colonel Hamilton in a rage because the marquis would have given his place to Captain Gimat, and now it is an obstinate Welshman must go and get into mischief. I wish the whole army had your spirit, sir.”

I ventured to observe that Colonel Armand had been permitted to serve as a volunteer, and that I had hoped that I too should be allowed a like favour.

His Excellency smiled, and returned, “As a volunteer, Mr. Wynne--well, as a volunteer. Ask Colonel Hamilton. I trust that is satisfactory. Are the orders and detail all made out?”

I said yes, and, thanking him, went away.

Colonel Hamilton, whom I saw early on the 14th, was as much surprised at the result of my request as was I, and was pleased to say he should be glad of my company, and would I be on hand in the trenches before dark?

The French of the old regiment D’Auvergne, which that night won the right to be called D’Auvergne _sans tache_, were to carry the redoubt to the right of the enemy’s line. The Baron de Viomenisle was to lead them. Gimat was to have a chance with us.

“There are Connecticut men, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island men, with a reserve from Pennsylvania. The North has the whole business,” said Hamilton, “and your friend Warder has the luck to be with us.”

The redoubt Number Ten on the enemy’s left, and nearest the river, fell to us, and Hamilton by no means meant that we should be later in the work than our allies.

I am forced to be thus particular because, although in God’s providence I knew it not, I was about to pass through another crisis of my adventurous life. Before dusk I was in the trenches, and lying down amid a crowd of silent men. Hamilton walked to and fro among them, seeing that all were ready, and at last tied a piece of surgeons’ bandage around my left arm, a precaution also taken as to the men that they might be distinguished in the darkness from the enemy.

Pioneers with fascines and ladders were a little later put out in front of the trenches, and with them the sappers and axemen under Captain Kirkpatrick. Within the crowded trenches and behind them the detachment of four hundred men lay ready.

It was cold, and a drizzling rain would have made it needful, under ordinary circumstances, to keep the pans of the muskets dry; but all loads were drawn, and the marquis meant to trust to the bayonet alone. Jack was afoot, and in his gay fashion was saying something merry to his men. I heard the marquis cry, “Silence!” in queer English, and down the line I could hear officers repeating his order.

For a little while all was still.

“Good-by,” said my Jack. His hand was damp, and shook.

“You dear old idiot!” said I.

It was now close to eight, and of a sudden our cannon ceased. I dimly saw, a few yards away in the deep trench, the marquis looking back toward our camp. The enemy, glad, I dare say, of a chance to cool their guns, also stopped firing. I wished to heaven this horror of waiting were over.

Then a rocket rose high in air over our camp. “Ready, men!” said Hamilton, while I drew my long Hessian blade.

Six bombs in quick succession rose and went over us. I heard the marquis cry out, “_En avant!_ Forward!”

“Forward, sappers” cried a voice in front.

“Come along, boys!” cried Jack. And not giving the sappers more than time to scramble up, we were off in a swift rush through the darkness. The quickly formed line broke irregularly, as we ran over the space between us and the abatis, the sappers vainly trying to keep ahead.

As we rushed forward, my legs serving me well, I saw that they in the redoubt knew what was coming. A dozen rockets went up, Bengal fires of a sudden lighted their works, a cannon-shot went close to my head, and all pandemonium seemed to break loose.

At the stockade, an hundred feet from their works, our men pushed aside the sappers, and tore down the rude barrier, or tumbled over it. They were used to fences. Here Gimat was hurt, and Kirkpatrick of the pioneers, and a moment later Colonel Barber.

The hundred feet beyond were passed at a run, and the men with fascines cast them into the ditch. It was already half full of the wreck the cannon had made in the earthwork. We jumped in, and out; it was all mud and water. Ladders were set against the parapet, but the slope was now not abrupt, having been crumbled away by our guns, so that most of us scrambled up without delay. I saw Captain Hunt fall, the enemy firing wildly. If Sergeant Brown of the Fourth Connecticut, or Mansfield of the Forlorn Hope, were first on the parapet, I do not know. Hamilton got by me, and I saw him set a foot on the shoulder of a man, and jump on to the top of the redoubt. Why more or all were not killed seems to me a wonder. I think if the enemy had been cooler we had been easily disposed of. I saw the girl-boy leap down among the bayonets, and we were at once in a hurly-burly of redcoats, our men with and after us.

For a little there was fierce resistance and a furious struggle, of which I recall only a remembrance of smoke, red flashes, yells, and a confusion of men striking and thrusting. A big Hessian caught me a smart thrust in the left leg--no great hurt. Another with his butt pretty nearly broke my left arm, as I put it up to save my head. I ran him through, and felt that they were giving way.

To left and right was still a mad struggle, and what with the Bengal fires still blazing, and a heap of brush in flames at one side of the redoubt, there was light enough to see. Near about me was a clear space, and a pause such as occurs now and then in such a scrimmage. There were still men who held back, and to whom, as I pushed on, I called, “Come on! We have them!” A great wind from the sea blew the smoke away, so that it was easy to see. As I called out to the men who hesitated on the outer slope, as some will, I heard before me a voice cry, “This way, men!” and, turning, caught sight of the face of Arthur Wynne. He too saw and knew me. He uttered an oath, I remember, crying out, “At last!” as I dashed at him.

I heard ahead of me cries for “Quarter! quarter!” The mass of striving men had fallen back, and in fact the business was at an end. I saw Jack run from my left toward me, but he stood still when he saw what was happening, and instantly, as he came, Arthur and I crossed swords. What else chanced or who else came near I knew not. I saw for the time only that one face I so hated, for the heap of brush in the work was still blazing.

As is true of every Wynne I ever knew, when in danger I became cool at once. I lost no time, but pressed him hard with a glad sense that he was no longer my master at the game. I meant to kill him, and as he fell back I knew that at last his hour had come. I think he too knew it. He fenced with caution, and was as cool as I. Just as I touched him in the right shoulder I felt a wounded Hessian clutch my leg. I fell squarely backward, my cousin lunging savagely as I dropped. I had been done for had not Jack struck up his blade as I lay, calling out:

“Coward!”

I was up in a moment, pretty savage, and caught sight of my Jack fencing with my man, as calm as if we were in old Pike’s gallery. As I stood panting--it was but a moment--I saw Jack’s blade whip viciously round Arthur’s and pass through his breast, nearly to the guard.

My cousin cried I know not what, fell to one side, and then in a heap across a dead grenadier.

“Better I than thou,” cried Jack, blowing hard. “He will play no more tricks. Come on!”

“With a glance at my enemy I hurried past him over dead and wounded men, a cannon upset, muskets cast away, and what not.

“This way, Wynne,” said the marquis. “_C’est fini!_ Get those fellows together, gentlemen.”

Our men were huddling the prisoners in a corner and collecting their arms. A red-faced New Hampshire captain was angrily threatening Major Campbell, the commander of the redoubt, who had just surrendered. Colonel Hamilton struck up the captain’s blade, or I do believe he would have killed the major. He was furious over the death of Colonel Seammel, who was greatly beloved, and had been killed by Hessians after having given up his sword.

[Transcriber’s Note: Two men are fighting with swords, as a third looks on. There appears to be flame, smoke, or clouds in the background.]

It was over, and I went back to see what had become of Arthur. He was alive, and having dragged himself to the inner wall of the redoubt, was now seated against it. Jack soon found a lantern, and by its light we looked at Arthur. He was covered with blood, but was conscious, and stared at me with dull eyes, without power to say a word.

“Take care of him, Jack,” said I, and went away down the crumbled slope and through the broken abatis, while overhead the bombs howled with unearthly noises and the cannonry broke out anew.

I was still angry that I had not killed the man, and went off to my tent in no very happy state of mind, so tired in body that I could not sleep for hours.

Says Jack, “October 15.--I can never cease to be thankful that, when we had them driven like seared sheep into the far side of the redoubt, I ran back to see what had become of Hugh. It was but a minute I had missed him, and when I saw him slip I had only just time to catch that devil Arthur Wynne’s blade. He was used in old days to play with me like a child, but either I am become more skilful or he was out of practice, for I knew pretty soon that he was delivered over to me, and had small chance to get away unhurt. If my friend had killed him,--and that was what he meant, I fear,--would Darthea ever have married Hugh? I know not, but it has been ordered otherwise. There was indeed a way opened, as Friends say. A nice Quaker I am become!”

I was not of his opinion that night. Just before reveille I fell into a broken slumber. I awakened in a sweat, having dreamed that I had put a sword through my cousin, and was troubled that Jack was to tell Darthea. Thus it came to my mind--dulled before this with anger and unsatisfied hate--that I had made a fortunate escape. The morning brought wisdom. I was beginning to think that all was not well between Darthea and Arthur Wynne, and that to kill him would do anything but add to my chances with a woman so sensitive, nor would it much improve matters that his death had come out of the unhappy chances of war.

When in happier mood I began to dress at dawn, I found my left arm very stiff and sore. I must have been much distracted overnight not to have felt it, and not to have seen that I was seriously bruised; my breeches were starched stiff with blood from a bayonet-prick. Jack’s quarters were on the extreme right, and as soon as the lines broke after morning drill I rode over to find him.

He told me that Dr. Bush was come to camp the day before with other surgeons, and that Arthur was in a tent and cared for by our good doctor, who informed Jack that his sword had traversed the right lung, but had not gone through, as it seemed to me it must have done. The doctor thought he might possibly get over it. Out of his affection for my aunt he would see that Arthur had such care as she would desire for one of her kin, but was it not a most unfortunate accident?

“I assured him,” said Jack, “that it was most lamentable, but might have been worse--as I intended it should be,” added Jack, with a grin. He then asked me had I heard of that good Free Quaker, Colonel Forest, who had taken Major Campbell, saying, “I advise thee to surrender, or thou wilt repent it, d--- thee!” to the delight of Hamilton, who must tell his Excellency that night, having supped with him on his return.

I made haste to write to my aunt, and was able to send our letters North with the general’s despatches to Congress. I said nothing of my own encounter with Arthur, but made mention of Jack’s affair as one of the chances of war.

Dr. Rush dressed my arm, and I went back to duty with the member in a sling, and aching like mad. His Excellency, seeing my condition, asked me if my right arm was in good order, but made no reference to the left. After I took his commands for the morning he said, seeing me limp, “Were you much hurt?”

I said, “No; I ran against something sharp in the bastion.”

He smiled, and that was the end of the matter. Fair women and brave men were to his Excellency’s liking.

This was my last of active warfare. The marquis tried his hand at a sally, and made ready too late to get away over the York River; but the sally came to nothing, and the belated effort to run to still less.

I neglected to say that the French, having come to the abatis, waited in line while the pioneers used their axes to clear it away. Meanwhile, thanks to too good discipline, they suffered severely. As we rushed the whole thing, we lost far less. “It was very fine and _en regle_,” said Hamilton, “but I like our way better.” And so, I think, do I.

The good doctor liked to come to my staff tent in those days, to talk to me or to others. He seemed to think it necessary to inform me of my cousin’s state, and I dare say thought me cool about him.

“And if, doctor, I had stuck him through the left side?” said Jack, lying at ease on a bearskin in my tent.

“In that case,” said our doctor, in a quite professional way, “the heart or the great arteries had like enough been pierced.”

“And what then!” asked Jack of the doctor, who was sitting on the camp-bed.

“Probably death would have occurred.”

On this Jack looked up with those innocent eyes, and, pushing back the blond locks, said: “It is a great thing to know anatomy. If only I had made a little study of that science, Dr. Rush, I might have had better success at this pig-sticking business we call war.” The sly humour of the fellow set Hamilton to laughing, but the doctor did not smile.

“It might have been better for Hugh’s cousin,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jack, sweetly; “perhaps.”

As they talked I was automatically putting into fine French a letter of his Excellency to Comte d’Estaing, and I took in readily what was passing. When Jack said, “Perhaps,” I cried out, “It would be a fine thing, doctor, to have all this saving knowledge on both sides, so as to know where not to hurt one another.”

Hamilton was on the side of Dr. Rush. “It were more to the purpose,” he said, “to sit down and not to go to war at all.” This was set forth demurely, the colonel seeing how serious a dose our fun was for the great physician, who did somewhat lack the capacity to discover the entertainment to be found in this manner of jesting.

He returned gravely that this was his opinion, and that had he his way, war and drinking of spirits should alike cease.

To this we agreed in part as one man, for of war we were tired enough. As to the other matter, we did not mention it. To think of such a revolution was too astonishing in those days, nor have we come to it yet.

After that the doctor discussed Arthur’s case with much learning and evident satisfaction. I might like in a day or two to see Captain Wynne. I was of opinion that it would do him harm, and when the great doctor said, “Perhaps, perhaps,” Jack began discreetly to talk war, and asked where was General Gates.

But by this time our doctor had become cautious. His favourite commander was dismissed with a word or two, and so our chat ended, Mr. Hamilton and the physician going away together, each pleased with the other, and, despite some differences in politics, to remain lifelong friends.

On the 17th of October, the Marquis Cornwallis having had a stomach full of fighting, and having failed of his schemes to get away across the York River, beat a parley, and after some discussion signed the articles of capitulation. The soldiers were to remain prisoners in Virginia and Maryland, the officers were to return to Europe upon parole. The beaten army at two on the 19th came down the road between the French and our lines, with the colours in their cases, and the bands playing a British march; for it is of the etiquette of such occasions that the captured army play none but their own tunes. Some wag must have chose the air, for they marched by to the good old English music of “The World Turned Upside Down”; such must have seemed sadly the case to these poor devils.

As I was of the staff, I was privileged to see well this wonderful and glorious conclusion of a mighty strife. Our chief sat straight in the saddle, with a face no man could read, for in it was neither elation nor show of satisfaction, as the sullen ranks came near.

At the head of the line rode General O’Hara. He paused beside our chief, and begged his Excellency to receive the excuses of my Lord Cornwallis, who was not well enough to be present, which no one believed nor thought a manly thing to do.

His Excellency bowed, trusted it was not very serious, but would not receive General O’Hara’s sword. With quiet dignity he motioned him to deliver it to Major-General Lincoln, who now had these grateful amends for the misfortune of having had to surrender his own good blade at Charleston.

After this the long array of chagrined and beaten men went by, and, returning to York, were put under guard.

A day or two later a letter of my aunt’s informed me of the disorder my father’s condition had brought about on his tobacco-plantation in Maryland. This caused me to ask for leave, and, with the understanding that I might be recalled at any time, I received permission to be absent two months.

I set out on November 5 for Annapolis, with two horses and my servant. Arthur Wynne, being found unfit to go to Europe with the rest, was taken a week later by our doctor on a transport to the Head of Elk, and thence by coach to Philadelphia. There, as I heard, the doctor took him to his own house, much amazed that Mistress Gainor would not receive him. Arthur won the good doctor, as he did most people, and, despite all expectations, was said to be mending fast, being much petted by the Tory ladies; but if Darthea had seen him or not I did not then learn.

My affairs in Maryland, where we had many slaves and large interests, kept me busy until near the close of December, when I set out to rejoin the staff in Philadelphia, my leave being up.

During this winter of ‘81 and ‘82 my duties were light, and except to write a few despatches daily, and to attend his Excellency on occasions of festivity, I had little to do save to look after my father’s affairs.

It is now fit that I return to the narration of such things as immediately concern my personal interests. Arthur Wynne was able to ride out by the end of January, as I heard, for I did not chance to see him. My father remained much as he had been for a year.

Darthea, to our great surprise, on Captain Wynne’s return became desirous to yield to her aunt and to go to New York. My aunt said she would get them a pass through our lines in the Jerseys; but this proving difficult, they stayed in and about the city, spending much time at their old home in Bristol. Darthea was so clearly unwilling to see me that I was fain to give it up, and accept what I could not better. When I said I was sorry she wished to go away, my Aunt Gainor replied that I was a fool, and would never be anything else. I asked why, but she was away from my question at once, and went on to tell me what officers were to dine with her that day, and did his Excellency like Madeira? and why was her doctor so fond of quoting Mr. Adams’s letters from Holland, where he now was on a mission, with his nasty sneers at Virginians and Mr. Washington? She gave me no time to reply. Indeed, this and much else I saw or heard in those days was quite beyond me.

My aunt’s way of dismissing a question she liked not was to pour out matters which were quite irrelevant, when to stop her was altogether past hope. I had learned to wait. She, at my desire, made Jack her aid in her affairs, as I was fully occupied with my father’s neglected business. Now, too, she was busy finding Jack a wife, and would tell me all about it, striding to and fro, and with vast shrewdness and humour discussing the young women we knew.

“Cat” Ferguson was very humble, and the Chews in great favour with his Excellency. I was fain to dismiss my wonder as to Darthea, and, unable to recur to the question I had asked, I went away to headquarters in the great Chew house in Third street.

The town was gone wild with feasting and dinners, and as the general liked his staff to attend him, I had more of these engagements than I cared about.

Arthur, still weak and on parole, lingered; but why he did not get permission to go to New York, as had been easy, I could not well understand.

In February, ‘82, I came home to my father’s one morning at an earlier hour than usual, and to my surprise heard my cousin’s voice.

“I fear, sir, I am not understood. I came for the deed you promised me.”

My poor father, a huge, wasted framework of a big man, was looking at him with lack-lustre eyes. He said, “My wife will be with us presently. Wilt thou stay for dinner?”

I went in at once, saying, “I am more than amazed, sir, to see you here. As to the deed you would have stolen--”

“What!” he cried.

“I said ‘stolen,’ sir. As to the deed you would have stolen from a man too feeble in mind to guard his own property, I have only this to say” (amid constant duties it had gone from my mind): “I shall put no obstacle in the way of your seeing it.”

“I have no other purpose,” he said quietly--“none. To you I could not go, and, sir, if you choose to consider my effort in any other light than an honest one, I have no more to say. We have enough causes of difference without that.”

“Quite enough,” said I. I was beginning to lose grip of my patience. “Quite enough. That they were not settled long ago an accident alone prevented.”

“I am not, sir, in a way fitly to answer you. Neither is this a place nor a presence for this discussion.”

“At least we can agree as to that,” said I; “but I did not seek it. At my own leisure I shall have to ask you certain questions which, as a gentleman and a man of honour, you will find it hard to answer.”

“I fail to comprehend,” he returned, with his grand air, looking all the better for his paleness.

I said it was not now needful that he should, and that in future he would understand that he was no longer a welcome guest.

“As you please,” he said.

I thought he showed little anxiety to hear at length what was in my mind.

Meanwhile, as we spoke, my father looked vacantly from me to him and from him to me, and at last, his old hospitable instincts coming uppermost, he said, “Thou hast not asked thy cousin to take spirits, Hugh.”

Arthur, smiling sadly, as I thought, said: “Thank you, none for me. Good-day, Cousin Wynne,” and merely bowing to me, he went out, I ceremoniously opening the door.

I had said no more than I intended to say; I was resolutely bent upon telling this man what he seemed to me to be and what I knew of his baseness. To do this it was needful, above all, to find Delaney. After that, whether Darthea married my cousin or not, I meant that she should at last know what I knew. It was fair to her that some one should open her eyes to this man’s character. When away from her, hope, the friend of the absent, was ever with me; but once face to face with Darthea, to think of her as by any possibility mine became impossible. Yet from first to last I was firm in my purpose, for this was the way I was made, and so I am to this day. But whether I had loved her or not, I should have done my best out of mere friendship to set her free from the bonds in which she was held.

I had heard of Delaney as being in the South, but whether he had come out alive from the tussles between Morgan, Marion, and Tarleton, I knew not. On asking Colonel Harrison, the general’s secretary, he told me he thought he could discover his whereabouts. Next day he called to tell me that there was an officer of the name of Delaney at the London Inn, now called “The Flag,” on Front street, and that he had been asking for me. I had missed him by five minutes. He had called with despatches from Major-General Greene.

To my joy this proved to be the man I wanted, nor was it surprising that he should thus luckily appear, since the war was over in the South, and a stream of officers was passing through Philadelphia daily to join the Northern army.

For a moment he did not know me, but was delighted when I named myself.

I said I had no time to lose, and asked him to meet me at my aunt’s in the afternoon. I much feared that Arthur would get away before I was ready to talk to him.

Delaney had received my last letter and had answered it, but whither his reply went I cannot say. At all events, he had lingered here to find me. When we met at my Aunt Gainor’s that afternoon, it took but a few minutes to make clear to her the sad tale of Arthur’s visit to the jail.

My friend had no sooner done than the old lady rose, and began as usual to walk about, saying: “You will excuse me; I must think of this. Talk to Hugh.” What there was to think of I could not see.

Delaney looked on amused, and he and I chatted. She was evidently much disturbed, and while the captain and I talked, I saw her move a chair, and pick up and set down some china beast. At last she said: “Come in at nine to-night, Mr. Delaney. I want to think this over. I have still much I desire to ask you. It deeply concerns my nephew in a way I cannot now explain to you. May I have the privilege of another half-hour?”

Delaney bowed.

“Of course I do not want you, Hugh,” she added.

When you have known a woman as long as I had known my aunt, there are sometimes hints or warnings in her most casual expressions. When my aunt said I was not wanted that evening I knew at once that she was meditating something out of the common, but just what, I did not think to ask myself. My Aunt Gainor was all her life fond of what she called inventing chances, a fine phrase, of which she was proud. In fact, this sturdy old spinster liked to interfere authoritatively in the affairs of men and women, and believed that for this she had a special talent, which in fact she discovered no inclination to bury; but what now she had in hand to do I knew not.

She was deeply grieved for a season to find that her plans went awry, or that men were disappointed, or that women would not go her way. “When she hurts you,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “she is like a child, and has a dozen silly devices for doctoring your wounds. We have fought many times, and made up as often. There is no real malice in her,” which was true.

Jack Warder once remarked in his lively way that Mistress Wynne had a richly coloured character. I fear it may have looked at times very black to some and very rose-tinted to others, but assuredly never gray in its tones, nor other than positive.

With me she took all manner of liberties, and with Darthea too, and if ever she were in doubt if it were well to meddle in our affairs I know not. A vast richness of human love and an urgent desire of rule lay underneath the life she showed the outer world of quadrille and dinners and gossip.

When she hurt us, or, as Darthea said, broke her china in trying to wash it, she fell back on our love with a quite childlike astonishment that what was come out of affection should give rise to resentment.

With a slight puzzle in my mind I went away with Delaney to dine at the London Coffee-house, which now showed our own new flag, where so often I had passed in under the cross of St. George.

“We have a new St. George now,” said Mr. John Adams, in one of those ill-natured letters to Dr. Rush which filled my aunt with rage. “_Sancte Washington, ora pro nobis._” The Massachusetts statesman admired _our_ grave and knightly St. George, but there are those who cannot fly a kite without the bobtail of a sneer--which is good wit, I think, but not my own; it was Jack said that.

When Delaney left me to call again upon my aunt, I little dreamed of what part she meant him to play. He left the town early next day, and had it not been for Jack I should not for a long while have known fully what an hour brought forth.

“On the afternoon of February 28 of this 1782,” says Jack’s diary, “I got a note from Mistress Wynne asking me to see her on business at nine. I found with her, to my pleasure, the good fellow Delaney, and was able to thank him for the service he had done us all in his noble care of Hugh. We talked over our battles, and presently comes in Darthea, whom now we see but rarely, for reasons best known to herself.

“I do believe Hugh has given up his love-affair as a thing quite hopeless, and no wonder. I think she still sees that rascal of an English captain, and perhaps he will not have her keep up a closer friendship with such as no longer desire his own acquaintance.

“Mr. Delaney was, like all men, charmed with Miss Peniston, and the talk went on busily enough, the young woman in good spirits and the captain most amusing.

“By and by he spoke quite naturally of the horrors of their life in the provost’s prison, and upon this Darthea, becoming of a sudden seriously attentive, listened with fixed gaze. Our hostess, seeing her chance, said: ‘I meant to ask you more of that to-day, but my nephew hates even to hear of it. How long were you there?’

“‘I was taken at Germantown like Mr. Wynne, and was kept until June. After Wynne nearly killed that rascal, Cunningham, things were worse than ever.’

“‘And was Hugh so very ill?’

“‘He could not have been worse to live at all.’

“‘And was there no inspection amidst all those horrors? Do you suppose Sir William knew nothing of them? I can hardly credit that.’

“Darthea looked round at Mistress Wynne. She had been unusually silent. Now turning to Delaney, she said, with slow articulation: ‘I also am curious, Mr. Delaney. We heard many rumours and some unpleasant facts. Could Sir William Howe have known? I cannot think it.’

“‘But he must, after the inspections, and there were three to my knowledge.’

“‘Indeed!’ said Mistress Wynne. ‘’T is most strange!’

“Delaney hesitated, not liking, I suppose, to mention Arthur, her cousin, of whose close relation to Darthea, however, he was not aware.

“‘And one,’ Mistress Wynne went on, ‘was, I hear, made by our kinsman.’

“‘Yes,’ said Delaney, ‘and that did certainly amaze me. Captain Wynne--’

“‘Captain Wynne!’ exclaimed Darthea, and, turning her head, she looked sharply at Mistress Wynne and then at me. I think that Delaney, being unfamiliar with her habits of speech, did not notice how strange was the tone in which she added, ‘We all know Mr. Arthur Wynne.’

“‘Indeed!’ said Delaney; ‘but of course I might have known that.’

“‘Yes, yes! I interrupted you. Pray, go on; it is most interesting.’

“‘Very,’ said Mistress Wynne. And now I saw what a wicked trap our spinster-fox had laid for poor Darthea. Delaney, a bit puzzled, glanced at me. I made no sign. It must not stop here.

“‘It is a queer story, Miss Peniston, and not much to the credit of his Majesty’s officers.’

“‘What next?’ said Darthea.

“‘Oh, the tale is brief and brutal. I was seated on the straw one day, with Hugh’s head in my lap, putting water on his forehead and trying to quiet him, when the turnkey came in with an English officer. This gentleman looked about him at the few left alive, asked carelessly who broke the window-panes, and then suddenly seemed to notice Hugh. He asked who was this poor devil. The turnkey said, “Name of Wynne, sir.” Then the captain stood still a moment, staring at us, and, as if curious, bent down, asking me what Hugh was saying. Now my poor friend was muttering over and over, “Dorothea! Dorothea!”--some woman’s name, I suppose, but what woman he never told me.’

“At this I saw Darthea flush, but perhaps remembering that Mr. Delaney might know her only as Miss Peniston, which was the fact, she controlled herself and said quickly: ‘He asked his name? Are you sure he asked his name? Could there have been no mistake?’

“Delaney looked the surprise he no doubt felt, and replied, ‘Yes; of that I am sure.’

“‘Do you think,’ said Darthea, ‘he knew how ill Mr. Hugh Wynne was?’

“‘Certainly; I heard the turnkey tell him that a day or two would see Hugh in the potter’s field with the rest. The doctor had said as much. This was true; he had told me it was useless for him to return, and indeed I thought so too. They buried a half-dozen a day. When told that this man Wynne had jail-fever, the captain seemed in haste to leave. At the door lie turned and took another look at Hugh, and then went out. I asked his name next day, but the turnkey laughed, and said it was none of my business. I had a fancy that the inspector desired to remain unknown. I was sure of this when, a few days after, I described the officer to Hugh, who was then quite himself. When Hugh said at last, “Had he a scar over the left eye!” and I said he had, Hugh cried out in a rage that it was his cousin, and would talk of nothing else for days. I fear there can be no doubt that the inspecting officer was Captain Arthur Wynne.’

“‘Horrible!’ exclaimed Mistress Wynne. ‘Incredible!’

“‘Yes; it seems to me a quite inconceivable thing, but I am certain, though the man looked a gentleman all over.’

“‘He looked a gentleman all over,’ said Darthea, with strange deliberateness of speech.

“This while Mistress Wynne sat drawn up, her face set, and one hand moving on the arm of the chair, just the same queer trick her brother had. As for me, I watched Darthea. It was a merciless plot, and may have been needed; but in truth the way of it was cruel, and my heart bled for her I loved.

“As she spoke her tones were so strange that Mr. Delaney, who was clearly but an innocent though sharp tool, said: ‘I beg pardon, Miss Peniston. These sad stories are too dreadful to repeat. Miss Wynne would have it--’

“But Darthea was now quite lost to the common ways of life. She went on like a person questioning herself, as it sounded to me. ‘Arthur Wynne asked his name. Is that so?’

“Delaney said, ‘Yes,’ now, as I saw, quite troubled, and wishing himself out of it, I dare say.

“‘And he knew he was in rags, starved, dying, and he left him?’ continued Darthea, ‘He left him--to die.’

“‘Yes; but--’

“‘No matter. I must hear all--all!’ she cried sharply--‘all! I am the person most concerned.’

“‘Darthea!’ then exclaimed Miss Wynne, alarmed, I suppose, at her wild manner and breaking voice.

“But Darthea went on. ‘This is my business, madam. You are sure, sir? This is no time to trifle. I--I am--I must know! I must know! Would you say this to Captain Wynne were he here? Answer me, sir!’

“‘Certainly I would, Miss Peniston.’

“‘Mistress Wynne,’ said Darthea, rising, ‘I have been brought here to let a stranger see my--my weakness. It is plain. Did you think I could hide it, madam? Pardon me, sir. You have done me a cruel service. I--I thank you. I bid you good-evening, Mistress Wynne. Was there no other way, no kinder way, to tell me? Will you take me home, Jack? I--I am tired.’

“We had all risen with her at the beginning of this last speech, I troubled, Miss Wynne very red, and only fit to say over and over, ‘Darthea! Darthea!’ Mr. Delaney annoyed, and lacking knowledge of the situation; all of us awkward and confused save Darthea, who passed out into the hall, followed by Miss Wynne, and saying, as she went forth, ‘I will never forgive you, madam, never! never! You are a wicked old woman! I shall never speak to you again. I did not think it.’

“I walked in silence beside her to Mrs. Peniston’s home. ‘Thank you, Jack,’ said she, in a sweet, low voice. ‘You did not know, did you, of this sad story?’

“‘Yes, dear lady, but of this disgusting plot, no.’

“‘But why did you, who are my friend, and Mr. Hugh Wynne, and all of you, leave me in the dark as to this--this man?’

“I said quickly that it was not well to have told her until Mr. Delaney could be found. He had but just now come. She had seemed to trust Captain Wynne’s story; Hugh’s was but the hearsay of a man just out of a deadly fever. We had waited.

“As I spoke, she stood with her calash bonnet fallen back, clear to see by the full moonlight, and looking with intent face across Arch street, as it might be with envy of the untroubled dead of generations who lay around the meeting-house. As I ended, she said:

“‘I have been a fool, Jack, but I loved him; indeed I did. Is there more? I know Hugh hates him. Is there more?’

“‘Too much, too much, Darthea,’ I said.

“‘Then come in. I must hear all--all.’ And she knocked impatiently.

“Presently we were in the parlour. ‘Fetch a light,’ she said to the black who opened for us. When we were alone and seated, she said quietly: ‘Jack, you are my only friend. I do trust _you_--oh, entirely. Now what is it? I must know all. Why has Hugh Wynne been silent? It is not like him.’

“‘I have already told you why. Partly because, Darthea, you were away, or would not see us. That you know. Partly because Hugh had only his own word to give; but this I have told you.’

“‘Yes, yes,’ she cried; ‘but what else?’

“‘I think,’ said I, ‘knowing him well, that Hugh meant, when once he had Delaney’s evidence, to tell his cousin face to face, and so force him to release you.’

“‘That is my business, not his,’ she broke in. ‘What has Hugh Wynne to do with it! Am I a child?’

“‘It had been the kinder and the manlier way,’ said I. ‘Now there is no need; but Hugh will be furious with his aunt.’

“‘I am glad of that. What else is there? You are hiding something.’

“‘There was that scene in the garden, Darthea.’

“She coloured at this. ‘Yes, I know; but there were reasonable excuses for that, and no one had time to think.’

“‘Two people had, Darthea.’

“‘We will let that pass, Jack. Don’t play with me.’

“Then, driven to the wall, so to speak, I told her of the sad revelation Andre had made to Hugh, and how, being Hugh’s enemy, Arthur had been base enough to involve him in an affair which might have been his ruin.

“‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘I see; but who could know, or who think to use such knowledge?’

“I was taken aback at her seeming to have any doubt. I coldly set myself to tell her of Arthur’s double dealing about the estate, and of how he had made Hugh’s father believe he was minded to consider the ways of Friends, and at last of how he had borrowed money and had set poor Hugh’s half-demented father against him. I did not spare her or him, and the half of what I said I have not set down. The Arnold business I did return to, seeing that it struck her, or seemed to, less than it did me; for to my mind it was the worst.

“‘Darthea,’ I said, ‘how could a man of honour or even of good feeling put any gentleman in such peril of worse than death? There were Tories enough to have done his shameful errand. But oh, dear Darthea, to suggest to send on such business an open, frank enemy,--his cousin too,--that was too bad for the lowest and vilest!’

“‘Hush!’ she said, ‘I know enough. You have been both brave and good. You are the best man I know, Jack Warder, and the kindest. I wish I loved you. I am not worthy of you. Now go away.’

“I obeyed her, and this was so far the end of a miserable affair. What Hugh will say to Miss Wynne, God knows. I have given a thorough rascal his dues; but I cannot do this and not tell him to his face what I have said behind his back.

“This was at night, but I had no better counsel in the morning.

“I went to find Mr. Delaney, but he was gone, having, as I heard later, put on paper what he had seen and heard in the Provostry.”

XXVIII

“When,” continues Jack, “I found Delaney had gone away, I was in a quandary. I by no means desired to go alone to see Captain Wynne. At last I made up my mind to ask Hugh. If there came a quarrel it should be mine. I resolved there should be no fight if I could help it, and that there might be trouble if Hugh were first to see his cousin I felt sure. The small sword was out of the question, but the pistol was not. I intended no such ending, and believed I had the matter well in my own hands. When I found Hugh at the quarters I told him quietly the whole story.

“That he was in a mad rage at his aunt I saw. I hate to see Hugh smile in a certain way he has, with his lips set close. He said nothing save that he would go with me, and that I was altogether in the right. He was reluctant to promise he would leave me to speak alone, but at last I did get him to say so.

“Mr. Arthur Wynne was alone in his room at the inn, and would see us. He was writing, and turned from his table, rising as we entered. He looked red and angry, in a soiled dressing-gown, and I thought had been drinking. He did not ask us to be seated, and we remained standing until our unpleasant talk came to a close.

“He said at once, ‘My good cousin, I presume I owe to you the note I have had from Miss Peniston to-day.’

“‘You do not,’ said Hugh, not looking at all displeased.

“‘Indeed? I had hoped you had come to offer me the only satisfaction in life your slanders have left me. My health is no longer such as to forbid the use of a pistol.’

“‘Pardon me,’ said I, ‘this is my affair, and not Mr. Wynne’s. I have had the honour of late to hear Mr. Delaney relate what passed in the jail.’

“‘Have you, indeed? An old story,’ said Arthur Wynne.

“‘None the less a nasty one. I had also the pleasure to tell Miss Peniston that you suggested to the traitor Arnold to use my friend’s known loyalty as a safe means of getting to Sir Henry Clinton a letter which was presumably a despatch as to exchange of prisoners, but was really intended to convey to Sir Henry the news that the scoundrel Arnold was willing to sell his soul and betray his country.’

“‘Who told you this nonsense?’ said the captain, coming toward us.

“‘Major Andre,’ said I. ‘You may have my friend’s word for that.’

“‘It is a lie!’ he cried.

“‘Men about to die do not lie, Mr. Wynne. It is true.’

“The man’s face changed, and he got that slack look about the jaw I have heard Hugh describe. To my astonishment he did not further insist on his denial, but said coldly, ‘And what then?’

“‘Nothing,’ said I. ‘Having told what I knew to a woman, I had no mind to have you say I had slandered you behind your back. That is all.’

“‘Is it, indeed? And which of you will give me the honour of your company to-morrow?’

“‘Neither,’ said I. ‘We do not meet men like you.’

“His face flushed. ‘Coward!’ he said.

“‘If I am that,’ said I, pretty cool, and shaking a little after my silly way, ‘you know best, and will remember, I fancy, for many a day. Good-morning, sir.’

“On this he cried out, ‘By----! this shall not pass! I--I will post you in every inn in town, and my cousin too. No man shall dare--”

“‘Stop a little,’ said Hugh. ‘If it comes to that I shall know what to do, and well enough. I have no desire to put my own blood to open shame, but if this matter goes further, I shall publish Mr. Delaney’s statement, and that, sir, will close to you every gentleman’s house here and in London too.’

“‘And shall you like it better to have it known that you were General Arnold’s agent?’

“I saw Hugh’s face lose its quiet look, and again he smiled. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I should tell my own story and Mr. Andre’s to his Excellency, and then, my good cousin, I should kill you like a mad dog, and with no ceremony of a duel. You warned me once when I was a mere boy. It is my turn now. As there is a God in heaven, I will do as I have said.’

“‘Two can play at that game,’ said Arthur. Hugh made no reply.

“And on this we left the man standing, and went forth without another word.

“‘I think his fangs are drawn,’ said Hugh. And indeed that was my opinion. I made up my mind, however, that at the least unpleasant rumour of any kind, I would take such a hand in the matter as would save Hugh from having to go to extremities.”

With the date of a week or so later I find added: “The man thought better of it, I dare say, when the drink wore off; how much of his folly was due to that I cannot tell. It was plain that my dear Darthea had let him go at last. Was it because her sweet pity distressed her to wound a man once dear that she was held so long in this bondage? or was it that absence, said to be the enemy of love, was, in a woman of her sense of honour, a reason why she should not break her word until she had a more full assurance of being right?

“I think he slowly lost his place in the heart won when Darthea was younger, and perhaps carried away by vain notions, which lost value as time went on. Such men have for the best of women a charm we cannot understand.”

I have left Jack to tell a part of my life which I am glad to leave to another than I. I heard no more of my cousin except that he had made up his mind to go home under his parole. This did not fill me with grief. I had the sense to know that for many a day Darthea were better left alone.

My Aunt Gainor had recovered from the remorse which, as usual with her, followed upon some futile attempt to improve the machinery of other folks’ fates. In fact, although Darthea closed her doors upon Mistress Wynne and would on no account see her, my aunt was already beginning to be pleased with the abominable trap she had set, and was good enough to tell me as much.

For three days after Jack had informed me as to the drama my aunt had planned I stayed away from her, being myself in no very happy state of mind, and unwilling to trust myself. When at last, of a Saturday afternoon, I came in on Mistress Wynne, she got up from her accounts, which she kept with care, saying at once: “It is a week since you were here, sir, and of course I know why. That long-tongued girl-boy has been prating, and your lordship is pleased to be angry, and Darthea is worse, and will not see me because I had the courage to do what you were afraid to do.”

“Upon my word, Aunt Gainor,” said I, “you are a little too bad. I was here four days ago, and have I said an impatient word? If I was angry I have had no chance to say so.” Nor had I.

“Then if you are not angry you ought to be.” She seemed to me bigger than ever, and to have more nose than usual. “You ought to be. I made a fool of myself, and all for you; and because I have burned my fingers in pulling your goose out of the fire, you must get into a passion. You have no need to smile, sir. I suppose it were finer to say chestnuts, but a goose she is, and always will be, and I love her like a child. Your soft-hearted Excellency was to see me last week, and saying that he had no children, I, that have no right to any, said I was as ill off, and we looked at each other and said nothing for a little, because God had given to neither the completeness of life. Is he stern, sir! I don’t think it. We talked of General Arnold, and of poor Peggy his wife, and as to all this he was willing enough, and frank too. Despite Dr. Bush and Mr. Adams, he can talk well when he has a mind to. But when I said a word of poor Andre”, I had better have kept my tongue quiet, for he said quickly: ‘Mistress Wynne, that is a matter I will never hear of willingly. I ask your pardon, madam.’ I could do no more than excuse my want of thought, and we fell to discussing tobacco-growing.”

“But what more of Darthea?” said I, for all the generals in the world were to me as nothing compared with one little woman.

“Oh, there is no more, except that I am unhappy. I will never again be kind to anybody. I am only a miserable, useless old maid.” And here she began to cry, and to wet a fine lace handkerchief.

Just now comes in saucy Miss Margaret Chew,--we call her Peggy,--and is rather flustered by my aunt in tears. “O Mistress Wynne,” she says, “I beg pardon. I--”

“What for?” says my aunt. “My Manx cat has eaten the raspberry jam. That is all.” Whereon we laugh, and the little lady, being pretty-spoken, says she wishes she was Mistress Wynne’s cat, and while my aunt dries her eyes goes on to say, “Here is a note for you to dine with us and Mr. Washington, and I was bid write it, and so I did on the back of the queen of hearts for a compliment, madam,” and with this she drops a curtsey.

My aunt, liking beauty and wit combined, kissed her, and said she would come.

This diversion cleared the sky, which much needed clearing, and Miss Chew being gone away, my aunt detained me who would willingly have followed her.

After that I comforted her a little as to Darthea, and said she could no more keep up being angry than a June sky could keep cloudy, and that, after all, it was just as well Darthea knew the worst of the man. I related, too, what Jack had told, and said that now my cousin would, I thought, go away, and we--thank Heaven!--be quit of him forever.

“And yet I must see him once,” she said, “and you too. I have put that deed in the hands of James Wilson, and he has taken counsel of our friend Mr. Attorney-General Chew.”

“I suppose you are right, Aunt Gainor,” said I. “The man is bad past belief, but he has lost Darthea, which is as much punishment as I or any could desire. I think with you this estate business should some way be settled, and if it is to be his, I have no mind to leave the thing in doubt, and if it be mine or my father’s, I for one do not want it. I have enough, and no wish to muddle away my life as a Welsh squire.”

“We shall see,” said my aunt, not at all of my opinion, as I readily perceived. “We shall see. He shall have justice at our hands, and James Wilson will be here at four to-morrow, and you too, Hugh, whether you like it or not.”

I did not, and I said so. She had written my cousin that she desired to see him concerning the deed. Whether from interest, or what, I know not, he had replied that he would be with her at half-past four.

Thus it happened that I was to see Arthur Wynne once more, and indeed I felt that my aunt was right, and that it were as well all our accounts with this man were closed. Just how this would come about I knew not yet, but closed they should be; as to that I was fully advised in my own mind.

XXIX

At four punctually arrived my friend the famous lawyer. He was not a handsome man, but possessed a certain distinction, which he owed to a strong face, well-modelled head, and a neatly powdered wig, the hair being tied back, after the fashion of the bar, in a black queue-bag with, at the end, a broad black ribbon. He took the snuff my aunt offered, carefully dusting the excess off the collar of his brown velvet coat, and sat down, saying, as he took some papers from a silk bag, that it was altogether an interesting and curious question, this we had set before him. And why had we held this deed so long and said nothing?

I told him of my father’s and my grandfather’s disinclination to open the matter, and why and how the estate had seemed of little worth, but was now, as I believed, more valuable.

Hearing this he began to question my aunt and me. He learned from our replies that at the time I got the deed from my father none but my parent had any clear idea of what this old family compact meant, but that now we were in possession of such facts as enabled us to understand it. I then went on to make plain that my aunt was full of the matter, and eager, but that I had no inclination at any time to enter on a long and doubtful litigation in another country.

To myself I confessed that I desired no immediate settlement until I saw what Arthur meant to be at. It was one more hold on a scamp still able to do me mischief. If it was clearly his father’s estate and not ours, he should soon or late be relieved of any possible doubt this deed might still make as to questions of title.

When Mr. Wilson turned to my aunt he found a more warlike witness. She delighted in the prospect of a legal contest.

“When a child,” she said, “I used to hear of my father’s having consented to make over or give away to his brother William an embarrassed estate, and that the crown officers were in some way consenting parties to the agreement, my father engaging himself to go to America when let out of jail.

“There is no doubt,” she went on, “that Wyncote was under this arrangement legally transferred by my father to his next brother. Our Welsh cousins must have this conveyance. It seems, from the deed you have examined, that privately a retransfer was made, so as, after all, to leave my father possessed of his ancestral estate. If ever he chose to reclaim it he was free to do so. The affair seems to have become more or less known to the squires in that part of Merionethshire. William was, we presume, unwilling to take an unfair advantage of his brother’s misfortune, and hence the arrangement thus made between them.”

“You state the case admirably,” said the lawyer. “And what else is there?”

“But little. Letters of affection and esteem came and went at long intervals. I recollect hearing bits of them, but cannot say if the estate matter were ever mentioned. After William’s death the correspondence may or may not have ceased. His brother Owen came into the property without interference, and, dying, left a young son, Owen, who is still alive. His son Arthur, Captain Wynne, is to be here today. There are personal matters involved, into which there is no need to go. The Welsh branch is no doubt desirous in some way to clear the matter; but having held the estate for a century, they are, we may presume, not very eager to give it up. In justice to Owen Wynne, I may say that it is probable that because of a long minority he only began, as I think, a few years ago to have any doubt as to his title. I may add,” my aunt went on, “that Captain Wynne came and went during the war, and that only of late has this deed turned up.”

“And your brother is quite unfit to help us?” said Wilson.

“Yes; and unwilling if he were able.”

“I see, madam, I see; a difficult business.”

“And this deed?” said my aunt; “you were about to speak of it.”

“It is,” he replied, “a simple act of sale for one shilling, a reconveyance of Wyncote from William to Hugh, the date October 9, 1671. It is in order, and duly witnessed.”

“Well?”

“As to its present value, Mistress Wynne, there is a consensus of opinion between the Attorney-General and myself.”

“That is to say, you agree,” said my aunt.

“Precisely, madam. It is our belief that the lapse of time has probably destroyed the title. There is no annexed trust, on William’s part, to hold for his brother’s use, and the length of undisputed, or what we lawyers call adverse, possession--something like an hundred years or more--_seems_ to make it impossible for my friends to oust the present holder. Am I clear?”

“Too clear, sir,” said my aunt. “Is that all?”

“No;” I said, “it seems there are other questions, such as the mention of the matter in letters. If the succeeding brothers in letters or otherwise from time to time acknowledged the rights of Hugh Wynne, that might serve to keep alive the claim; if, too, it can be proved that at any time they paid over to Hugh or his son, your brother, madam, rents or dues, as belonging to these American claimants, this too would serve to give some validity to your present claim. It is a question of dates, letters, and of your possession of evidence in the direction of repeated admissions on the part of the Welsh holders.”

My Aunt Gainor was at once confident. Search should be made. She had some remembrance in her childhood of this and that. In fact, my aunt never admitted the existence of obstacles, and commonly refused to see them. Mr. Wilson shook his head dubiously. “There seems to have been negligence or a quite culpable indifference, madam. The time to be covered by admissions is long, and the statutes of 32 Henry VIII. and 21 James I., 1623, do, I fear, settle the matter. The lapse in the continuity of evidence will be found after the death of Hugh. Twenty years will suffice, and I am forced to admit that your claim seems to me of small value. It was simply an estate given away, owing to want of the simplest legal advice.”

“Wait until I look through our papers,” said my aunt. “We are not done with it yet, nor shall be, if I have my way, until the courts have had a chance to decide.”

“It will be mere waste of money, my dear lady. Now, at least, you can do nothing. The war is not over, and when it is, none but an English court can settle the title. I confess it seems to be a case for amicable compromise.”

“There shall be none--none,” said my aunt.

“And we are just where we began,” said I.

“Not quite,” he returned. “You may have a case, but it seems to me a weak one, and may lie in chancery a man’s lifetime. I, as a friend as well as a lawyer, knowing you have no need of the estate, hesitate to advise you to engage in a suit of ejectment. I should rather counsel--ah, that may be Mr. Wynne.”

It was a clamorous knock at the hall door, which caused Mr. Wilson to cut short his advice with the statement that it would need longer discussion, and that this must be the other party.

It was, in fact, my cousin, who was set down in a chair, as I saw by a glance through the window. When Jack and I had seen him at his inn he had been a little in liquor, and wore a sort of long chintz bedgown wrapper, with his waistcoat buttoned awry--not a very nice figure. He was now Arthur Wynne at his best. He stood a moment in the doorway, as beautiful a piece of manhood as ever did the devil’s work. His taste in all matters of dress and outer conduct was beyond dispute, and for this family meeting he had apparently made ready with unusual care. Indeed this, my last remembrance of Arthur Wynne, is of a figure so striking that I cannot resist to say just how he looked. His raiment was costly enough to have satisfied Polonius; if it bore any relation to his purse, I know not. It was not “expressed in fancy,” as was that of the macaroni dandy of those early days. He knew better. As he stood he carried in his left hand a dark beaver edged with gold lace. His wig was small, and with side rolls well powdered, the queue tied with a lace-bordered red ribbon. In front a full Mechlin lace jabot, with the white wig above, set his regular features and dark skin in a frame, as it were, his paleness and a look of melancholy in the eyes helping the natural beauty and distinction of a face high bred and haughty. The white silk flowered waistcoat, the bunch of gold seals below it, the claret-tinted velvet coat and breeches, the black silk clocked hose with gold buckles at ankle and knee, and a silver-hilted dress-sword in a green shagreen sheath, complete my picture. I wish you to see him as I saw him, that in a measure you may comprehend why his mere personal charms were such as to attract and captivate women.

He came forward with his right hand on his heart and bowed to my aunt, who swept him a space-filling curtsey, as he said quite pleasantly, “Good-afternoon, Cousin Gainor; your servant, Mr. Wilson.” To me he bent slightly, but gave no other greeting. It was all easy, tranquil, and without sign of embarrassment, As he spoke he moved toward the table, on which Mr. Wilson had laid his papers and bag. Now, as always, a certain deliberate feline grace was in all his movements.

“For a truth, he is a beauty,” said my Aunt Gainor after our meeting was over. “And well-proportioned, but no bit of him Wynne. He has not our build.” Nor had he.

“Pray be seated,” said my aunt. “I have asked my friend and counsel, Mr. James Wilson, to be present, that he may impartially set before you a family matter, in which your father may have interest. My nephew, Hugh Wynne, is here at my earnest solicitation. I regret that Mr. Chew is unable, by reason of engagements, to do me a like favour. Mr. Wilson will have the kindness to set before you the nature of the case.”

Mistress Wynne, sitting straight and tall in a high cap, spoke with dignified calmness.

“At your service, madam,” said the lawyer, looking Arthur over with the quick glance of a ready observer. Before he could go on to do as he was bidden I found my chance to say, “You will be so good, Mr. Wilson, as to state Mr. Owen Wynne’s case, as well as our own, with entire frankness; we have no desire to wrong any, and least of all one of our blood.”

“I think I understand you fully,” said Wilson. “A deed has been put in the hands of Mr. Attorney-General Chew and myself, and as to its value and present validity an opinion has been asked by Mistress Wynne and her nephew.”

“Pardon me,” said Arthur; “is not my Cousin John the proper person to consider this question?”

“Assuredly,” returned Mr. Wilson, “if his state of mind permitted either his presence or an opinion. No interests will be affected by his absence, nor can we do more than acquaint those who are now here with what, as lawyers, we think.”

“I see,” said Arthur. “Pray go on.”

“This deed seems to convey to my client’s grandfather--that is to say, Mistress Wynne’s father--certain lands situate in Merionethshire, Wales. I understand that you, sir, represent the present holder.”

“I am,” said Arthur, “the son of the gentleman now in possession of Wyncote, and have full permission to act for him. If, indeed, you desire further to learn on what authority--”

“Not at all, not at all,” interposed Wilson. “Your presence suffices; no more is needed. This meeting commits no one.”

“I was about to ask the date of this document,” said Arthur.

“Certainly; here it is.” And so saying the lawyer spread the deed out on the table. “It is a conveyance from William Wynne to Hugh of that name; the date, 1671, October 9; the witnesses are Henry Owen and Thomas ap Roberts. It is voluminous. Do you desire to hear it?”

“No; oh no! What next?”

“We believe,” continued the lawyer, “that this deed has ceased to have effect, owing to lapse of time and the appearance--pray note my words--the _appearance_ of undisputed ownership by the younger branch. Neither is there any trust to hold the estate for Hugh; it is a mere conveyance.”

“There can be, of course, no doubt,” returned Arthur--“I mean as to a century of unquestioned possession.”

“I am not secure as to the point you make,” said Mr. Wilson, courteously. “I cannot now decide. I am asked to state the matter impartially. My clients wish justice done to all, and will take no unfair advantage. It may be you have no case. There may have passed frequent letters on both sides, admitting the claim or reasserting it, and thus keeping it alive. Rents may have been paid. Facts like these may open questions as to the length of undisputed holding. Only your own courts can decide it, and that with all the evidence before them.”

“I am obliged by your frankness,” said my cousin. “I had hoped to see the matter fully settled.”

“That will never be,” said my aunt, “until I have carried it through every court in England.”

“As you please,” replied Arthur.

“Mr. Wynne,” said I, “while my father lives we shall do nothing; nor even afterward, perhaps. I do not want the money, nor the old home. What is done may depend much on your own actions, sir.” I had no desire to lose this hold on him. As I spoke I saw him look up astonished, as was also, I thought, the lawyer, who knew nothing of our quarrels.

“If,” said I, “you had come to us frankly at first, and stated why you came, we should have said what I now say. No, I should have said far more. I believe this ends the matter for the present.” My aunt lifted her hand, but I added, “I pray you let it rest here, aunt,” and for a wonder she held her peace.

Arthur, too, seemed about to speak, but his worse or better angel, I know not which, prevailed, and quietly saluting us all, he rose and took his leave.

“We shall see when this war is over,” said my aunt, taking the deed. “Many thanks, Mr. Wilson; I should like to have your opinion in writing.”

“I shall send it in a week or two. Mr. Arthur Wynne seems to have come over, as I judge from what he said, with authority to act for his father. Why he did not at once relate his errand I cannot see. Had you had no deed it would have closed the matter. If he found you had one he would have been only in the position he is now in to-day.”

“I fancy he may have been fearful and over-cautious, not comprehending the nature of those he had to deal with,” said I. “You must have known him as I do, Mr. Wilson, to understand his actions. I was sorry you did not let him tell us what powers he really had. I was curious.”

“Yes, yes, I interrupted him. It was a mistake.” And so saying he rose.

“It shall not rest here,” said my aunt. “Something shall be done.” And on this I too went away, declining further talk.

When Arthur came over to learn what he could as to their title to Wyncote, he failed to see that we were people whom no prospect of gain could lead into the taking of an advantage. He thus lost the chance a little honest directness would have given him. When later my father threw in his way the opportunity of absolute security as to the title, the temptation to get secretly from him a legal transfer, or--God knows--perhaps the power to destroy the deed, was too much for a morally weak and quite reckless nature. I was the sole obstacle, or I seemed to be. We loved the same woman; she had begun to doubt her English lover. If I had died he had become assured, not only of the possession of Wyncote, but of being ultimately my father’s heir.

Of this Jack writes: “Here was a whole brigade of temptations, and he could not stand it. He would have broken that tender heart I loved. God help me! I think I should have killed him before he had the cruel chance.”

If to the estate and other worldly baits was added the remembrance of the blow a mere boy gave, I do not know. It is certain that at last he hated me, and as sure that I had as little love for him.

XXX

Early in March of 1782 Jack and I concluded that the war was over, or was to be but a waiting game, as indeed it proved. After some thought over the matter we both resigned, and as it was desired to lessen the list of officers, we were promptly released from service.

On March 22 his Excellency rode away from town under escort of Captain Morris’s troop of light horse. I went along as far as Burlington, being honoured when I left by the personal thanks of the general, and the kind wish that I might discover it to be convenient to visit him at Mount Vernon.

April was come, and we gladly turned again to the duties which awaited us both. His Excellency had gone to watch Sir Guy Carleton penned up in New York. Congress wrangled, our gay world ate and danced, and the tardy war fell to such slackness that it was plain to all a peace must soon come, although we were yet to see another winter pass before the obstinate Dutchman on the English throne gave up a lost game.

In July my father died of a sudden afflux of blood to the head; and although he was blooded by Dr. Rush several times, never was so far bettered as to speak to me. Only once, as I am told is not rare, he so revived when in the very article of death as to look about and say, thinking my hand in his was my mother’s, that she must not grieve for him.

Alas! he had been as one dead to me for many a year. I wore no black for him, because I was and am of the opinion of Friends that this custom is a foolish one. My aunt was ill pleased at my decision, and put herself and all her house in mourning. None the less, for my part, did I regret, not so much the natural, easy death, as the sad fact it seemed to fetch back so plainly, that from my youth up here were two people, neither of them unkindly or ill natured, who were all through life as completely apart as if no tie of a common blood had pledged them to affection.

I saw--I can see now--the gray and drab of the great concourse of Friends who stood about that open grave on Arch street. I can see, too, under the shadow of his broad gray beaver, the simple, sincere face of James Pemberton, my father’s lifelong friend. He spoke, as was the custom of Friends, at the grave, there being no other ceremony, an omission of which I confess I do not approve. Much moved, he said:

“Our friend, John Wynne, departed this life on the 23d of July of this year [being 1782]. For many years he hath carried the cross of afflicting sickness, and hath unceasingly borne testimony to the doctrine and conduct upheld of Friends. He was a man of great abilities, and, like our lamented William Penn, of an excellent gravity of disposition, without dissimulation, extensive in charity, having neither malice nor ungratefulness. He was apt without forwardness, yet weighty, and not given to unseemly levity. The wise shall cherish the thought of him, and he shall be remembered with the just.” And this was all. One by one they took my hand, and with my Aunt Gainor I walked away. I closed the old home a day or two later, and went with my aunt to her farm.

I had not seen Darthea for many a day. “Let her alone,” said my aunt. I think Jack was often with her; but he knew to hold his tongue, and I asked no questions. At last, a week after the funeral, I recognised her hand in the address of a note to me. I read it with a throbbing heart.

“Sir: I have heard of your great loss with sorrow, for even though your father has been this long while as one lost to you, I do think that the absence of a face we love is so much taken from the happiness of life. You know that your aunt hurt me as few could, but now I am not sorry for what then befell. The thought of death brings others in its train, and I have reflected much of late. I shall go to see Mistress Wynne to-day, and will you come and see me when it shall appear to you convenient? I am for a little at Stenton, with Madam Logan.”

Would I, indeed? My dear old Lucy, a little stiff in the knees, carried me well, and seemed to share my good humour as I rode down the long road from Chestnut Hill.

The great trees about the home James Logan built were in full leaf, and under their shade a black groom held two horses as I rode up. Darthea came out, and was in the saddle before she saw me.

The rich bloom of health was again on her cheek, and deepened a little as I went toward her.

I said I was glad to see her, and was she going to my Aunt Gainor’s? If so, and if it were agreeable to her, the groom might stay. I would ride back with her. Then Mrs. Logan, at the door, said this would suit very well, as she needed the man to go to town. After this we rode away under the trees and up the Germantown road, Miss Peniston pushing her horse, and we not able on this account to talk. At last, when I declared Lucy too old to keep up the pace, the good beast fell to walking.

Soon we went by the graveyard where the brave Englishman, General Agnew, lay; and here Darthea was of a mind to be told again of that day of glory and defeat. At the market-house, where School-house Lane comes out into the main street of Germantown, she must hear of the wild strife in the fog and smoke, and at last of how I was hurt; and so we rode on. She had gotten again her gay spirits, and was full of mirth, anon serious, or for a moment sad. Opposite Cliveden I had to talk of the fight, and say where were Jack and Sullivan and Wayne, although Jack more concerned her. As we rode up the slope of Mount Airy I broke a long silence.

“Darthea,” said I, “Is it yes, or always no?”

“Will you never be contented?” she returned, “Isn’t it mean to say these things now? I can’t get away. I have half a mind to marry Jack, to be rid of you both.”

“Is it _yes_ or _no_, Darthea?”

“Yes,” she said, looking me in the face. I am a strong man,--I was so then,--but a great rush of blood seemed to go to my head, and then I went pale, as she told me later, and I clutched at Lucy’s mane. I felt as if I might fall, so much was I moved by this great news of joy.

“Are you ill?” she cried.

“No, no,” I said; “it is love! Thy dear love I cannot bear. Thank God, Darthea!”

“And do you love me so much, Hugh? I--I did not know.” She was like a sweet, timid child.

I could only say, “Yes, yes!”

“Oh, Hugh!” she cried. “How can you forgive me? But I am not like other women. My word--you will know--and then you will forgive me.” Her eyes were full of tears, her face all aglow.

“There is--there never will be anything to forgive.”

“But I was so foolish--and--I was so foolish.”

“Let us forget, Darthea. I have thy love. God knows it is enough.”

“Thank you, Hugh. Don’t speak to me for a little, please.” And under the warm August afternoon sky we rode on at a foot-pace, and said no word more until we came to my aunt’s door. Then Darthea slyly put on her riding-mask, and we went in.

My aunt had her in her great arms in a moment. The mask fell, and then my aunt held her off a little, looked from her to me, and said, “Has he made you cry, sweetheart? He always was a fool. I am very glad. You have made an old woman’s heart sing with joy. It is not your fault. Hugh’s silly face was enough. Lord! girl, how pretty you are! Do you suppose I never was in love? I never was, but I know the signs.” Darthea, released, was pleased enough to be let go up to my aunt’s room. By and by she came down, saucy and smiling, and later came Jack, when my aunt, being too happy to hold her dear old tongue, told him, while poor Darthea looked at him with a tender gravity I did not understand. He went away very soon, saying he had business in town, and this is what he writ that night:

“And so she will have my Hugh, and he the best lady alive. I pray the good God to keep them from all the sorrows of this world. If he love her as I love her, she can ask no greater love; and he will--he cannot help it. Now I will write no more. God bless thee, Darthea!” It was thus a gallant gentleman loved in those stormy days.

And here, with this dear name, his records close, and there is the date of August 1, 1782, and a line drawn underneath.

The new relation soon to be established between us of necessity brought Madam Peniston and my aunt into frequent council. There were matters of dress to be considerately dealt with, and I was told it must be six months before orders could be filled from France, England being just now out of the question. Where the mysteries of women’s garments are concerned a man hath no better resort than to submit humbly, as to a doctor or a lawyer. Here of a certainty knowledge is power, and as to this matter, a man had best learn to conceal amazement under a show of meekness.

When I ventured to remonstrate Darthea looked serious, and would I ever have fallen in love with her unless she had laid snares of gown and ribbon, and how was my love to be kept if for the future there were not provided a pretty variety of such vanities? Even my Aunt Gainor refused to discuss the question. I must wait; and as this was the single occasion known to me when she had declined a hand at the game of talk, I began to perceive that ignorance is weakness, and so at last, calmly confessing defeat, I waited until those consulting chose to advise me, the patient, of their conclusions.

Meanwhile Mrs. Peniston had ceased to grieve over the lost lover and the great estate--it never was really great.

My aunt could not let go of the notion that we must have a fight for Wyncote. This tendency to become possessed by an idea, I came to see later, was a family trait, of value if wisely kept in due place, but capable, also, of giving rise to mischief. My aunt, in some of her talks with Darthea’s relatives heard of that good dame’s past regrets at the loss of a title and estate and a British lover, and of how flattered we ought to be.

I presume poor Madam Peniston was well and sharply answered; but it was not in my Aunt Gainor not to boast a little of how we were the elder branch, and of what might chance in the fairy future. When Mrs. Peniston saw the deed, and was told of the search my aunt was making for letters to support our claims, she was too excited not to let out enough to disturb Darthea, and this although my aunt told Mrs. Peniston of my dislike of the whole matter, and how it was never to be mentioned or known to any until more evidence came to light. Thus cautioned, she was just mysterious enough to excite my quick-witted maid, who was as curious as any of her sex.

When of course she questioned me, and some notion of the mischief on hand came thus to my knowledge, I saw at once how it might annoy Darthea. I said that it merely concerned a question in dispute between Arthur Wynne’s family and my own, and ought not, I thought, to be discussed just now. The mere name of her former lover was enough to silence her, and so I begged her to put it aside. She was willing enough. I had happier things on my own mind, and no present desire to stir in the matter. In fact, I wished most earnestly to keep it awhile from Darthea. How much she knew I could not tell, but I was well aware that she was, above all things, sensitive as to any reference to Arthur Wynne. That she had once loved him with the honest love of a strong nature I knew, and somewhat hated to remember; but this love was dead, and if the sorry ghost of it haunted her at times, I could not wonder. My aunt had once or twice mentioned him casually, and each time Darthea had flushed, and once had asked her never to speak of him again. I meant soon--or more likely later--to discuss the matter quietly with Darthea; for then, as always, I held to the notion that the wife should have her share in every grave decision affecting the honour and interests of her husband.

After this I spoke most anxiously of the matter to my aunt, and entreated her to quiet Madam Peniston, and to let the thing rest in my hands. This she declared most reasonable, but I knew her too well not to feel uneasy, and indeed the result justified my fears.

My aunt, as I have said, had gone wild a bit over that deed, and when Darthea was not with her was continually discussing it, and reading over and over Mr. Wilson’s opinion. I got very tired of it all.

One night, late in October, I rode out from town, and, after a change of dress, went into the front room with the dear thought in my mind of her whom I should see.

A welcome fire of blazing hickory logs alone lighted up the large room, for my aunt liked thus to sit at or after twilight, and as yet no candles had been set out. As I stood at the door, the leaping flames, flaring up, sent flitting athwart the floor queer shadows of tall-backed chairs and spindle-legged tables. The great form of my Aunt Gainor filled the old Penn chair I had brought from home, liking myself to use it. Just now, as usual, she was sitting erect, for never did I or any one else see her use for support the back of a chair. At her feet lay Darthea, with her head in the old lady’s lap--a pretty picture, I thought.

Darthea leaped up to run to me. My aunt said nothing, not so much as “Good-evening,” but went out, and in a minute or two came back, exclaiming, in an excited way, that she had waited all day, and now at last she had great news, and we must hear it.

I was bewildered, until I saw she had in one hand the deed and in the other a bundle of letters. Then I knew what a distressful business was to be faced, and that it was vain to cry “Stop!”

“What is it?” said Darthea.

“It can wait,” said I, “I insist, Aunt Gainor.”

“Nonsense! The girl must know soon or late, and why not now?”

“I must hear, Hugh,” said Darthea.

“Very well,” I returned, as angry with the old lady as ever I had been in all my life.

“It is a thing to settle,” cried Aunt Gainor, in her strong voice. “We must agree--agree on it--all of us.”

“Go on,” said I. And Darthea insisting, I said nothing more, and was only concerned to be done with it once for all.

“The war will soon end,” said my aunt, “and something must be done. These letters I have come upon put a new face on the matter. I have not yet read all of them. But among them are letters to your grandfather of great importance.”

I was vexed as I have rarely been. “I never doubted, Aunt Gainor, that in my grandfather’s life some acknowledgments may have passed; but it is the long lapse of time covered by my father’s life which will fail as to evidence.”

“It shall not!” she cried. “You shall be mistress of Wyncote, Darthea. These letters--”

“I? Wyncote?” said Darthea.

“Let us discuss them alone, aunt,” I urged, hoping to get the matter put aside for a time.

“No; I will wait no longer. I am deeply concerned, and I wish Darthea to hear.”

“Why not refer it to Mr. Wilson? Unless these letters cover far more of a century than seems likely, they cannot alter the case.”

“That is to be determined,” said the old lady. “I shall go to England and settle it there. You shall be Wynne of Wyncote yet, sir.”

“What! what!” cried Darthea. “What does all this mean? Tell me, Hugh. Why is it kept from me?” It was plain that soon or late she must know.

“My aunt thinks Wyncote belongs to us. There is an old deed, and my aunt will have it we must go to law over it. It is a doubtful matter, Darthea--as to the right, I mean. I have no wish to stir it up, nor to leave my own land if we were to win it.”

I saw Darthea flush, and in a moment she was at my aunt’s side.

“Stop!” said I. “Remember, dear, I have not hid it from you. I desired only that some day you and I should consider it alone and tranquilly. But now there is no help for it, and you must hear. The deed--”

“Is this it?” she broke in, taking the yellow parchment off the table where my aunt had laid it.

“Yes, yes,” said my aunt; “and you must bring Hugh to his senses about it, my dear. It is a great estate, and rich, and the old house--we have its picture, Darthea. Madam Wynne of Wyncote, I shall come and visit you.” The old lady was flushed, and foolishly eager over this vain ambition.

Darthea stood in the brilliant firelight, her eyes set on the deed. “I cannot understand it,” she said.

“I will send for candles,” cried Mistress Wynne, “and you shall hear it, and the letters too;” and with this she rang a hand-bell, and bade Caesar fetch lights.

I looked on, distressed and curious.

“And this,” said Darthea, “is the deed, and it may give you, Hugh--give us the lands?”

“But _I_ do not want it,” cried my aunt, greatly excited. “It is to be Hugh’s. Yours, my dear child.”

“If,” said Darthea, speaking slowly, “the elder brother dies, as he surely will before long, it will be--it will be Arthur Wynne who, on his father’s death, will inherit this estate?”

“That is it,” said my aunt. “But he shall never have it. It is ours. It is Hugh’s.”

My dear maid turned to me. “And it would be ours,” said Darthea, “if--”

“Yes,” cried Miss Wynne. “There are no ‘ifs.’”

“Do you want it, Hugh--these Welsh lands?” asked Darthea.

I thought she looked anxiously at the deed in her hand as she stood. “Not I, Darthea, and least of all now. Not I.”

“No,” she went on; “you have taken the man’s love from him--I think he did love me, Hugh, in his way--you could not take his estate; now could you, Hugh?”

“No!” said I; “no!”

“Darthea, are you mad?” said Aunt Wynne.

“I will not have it!” cried Darthea. “I say I will not have it, and it concerns me most, madam.” I had never before seen her angry. “Do you love me, Hugh Wynne?” she cried. “Do you love me, sir?”

“Darthea!”

“Will you always love me?”

“Dear child!” I exclaimed. “What is it?”

“Give me that deed,” said my aunt. “Are you crazy fools, both of you?”

“Fools, Mistress Wynne?” said Darthea, turning from me, the deed still in her hand. “You are cruel and unkind. Could I marry Hugh Wynne if he did this thing? Are there no decencies in life, madam, that are above being sold for money and name? I should never marry him if he did this thing--never; and I mean to marry him, madam.” And with this she unrolled the deed, crumpled it up, and threw it on the red blaze of the fire.

There was a flash of flame and a roar in the chimney. It was gone in a moment, and our Welsh lands were so much smoke and cinders.

My aunt made a wild rush to rescue them, but struck her head against the chimney-shelf, and fell back into a chair, crying, “You idiot! you fool! You shall never marry him!”

I picked up the slim little lady in my arms, and kissed her over and over, whilst, as she struggled away, I whispered:

“Thank God! Dear, brave heart! It was well done, and I thank you.”

My aunt’s rage knew no bounds, and I may not repeat what she said to my Darthea, who stood open-eyed, defiant, and flushed.

I begged the furious old lady to stop. A whirlwind were as easily checked. At last, when she could say no more, my dear maid said quietly:

“What I have done, Hugh should have done long since. We are to live together, I trust, madam, for many years, and I love you well; but you have said things to me not easy to forget. I beg to insist that you apologise. For lighter things men kill one another. I await, madam, your excuses.”

It was a fine sight to see how this fiery little bit of a woman faced my tall, strong aunt, who towered above her, her large face red with wrath.

“Never!” she cried. “I have been--it is I who am insulted and put to shame, in my own house, by a chit of a miss.”

“Then good-by,” said Darthea, and was by me and out of the house before I could see what to do or know what to say.

“She is gone!” I cried. “Oh, Aunt Gainor, you have broken my heart!”

“What did I say, Hugh?” said my aunt. I do truly think she did not know what she had said; and now she was off and I after her, knocking over Caesar and our belated candles, and out of doors after Darthea. I saw her join her a few yards away, and did wisely to hold back. I knew well the child-heart my aunt carried within that spacious bosom.

What the pair of them said I do not know. In a few minutes they were back again, both in tears, the whole wretched business at an end. I thought it better to go away and leave them, but my aunt cried out:

“Wait, sir! I am an old ass! If either of you ever mention this thing again, I--I will wring your necks. I make free to say that some day you will both regret it; but it is your affair and not mine. O Lord! if Cat Ferguson ever comes to know it--”

“She never will,” said Darthea; “and we will love you and love you, dear, dear mother, and I am sorry I hurt you; but I had to--I had to. If I was wise, I know not; but I had to end it--I had to.”

Never before had I heard the sweet woman call my aunt mother. She often did so in after-years. It melted the old spinster, and she fell to kissing her, saying:

“Yes, I am your mother, child, and always will be.” But ever after Mistress Wynne was a trifle afraid of my little lady, and there were no more such scenes.

When my aunt was gone away to bed, though not to sleep, I fear, my dear maid came and sat at my feet on a cushion, and for a time was silent. At last, looking up, she said, “Hugh, was I wrong to burn it!”

Then I was silent a little while, but from the first I was resolved to be ever outright and plain with my lady, who was impulsive, and would need help and counsel and government, that her character might grow, as it did in after-years. I said: “Yes, Darthea. It is better for me to tell you the simple truth. It would have made no difference had the deed been left undestroyed; it would only have given you the chance to know me better, and to learn that no consideration would have made me take these lands, even had our title been clear. Now you have destroyed my power of choice. I am not angry, not even vexed; but another time trust me, dear.”

“I see! I see!” she exclaimed. “What have I done?” And she began to sob. “I was--was wicked not to trust you, and foolish; and now I see Aunt Gainor had reason to be angry. But you are good and brave to tell me. I could not have said what you said; I should have declared you were right. And now I know it was weakness, not strength, that made me do it. I shall pray God to forgive me. Kiss me, Hugh; I love you twice as much as ever I did before.”

When I had done her sweet bidding, I said, “Darthea, let us forget all this. Wrong or right, I at least am pleased to have the thing at rest forever; and, wrong or right; I thank you. I was honest, Darthea, when I said so; and now good-night.” At this she looked me in the eyes and went slowly out of the room, and, I fear, had no better slumbers than my Aunt Gainor.

XXXI

Early in February of 1783 we were married by the Rev. William White, long after to be our good bishop. Christ Church was full of my old friends, my Aunt Gainor in the front pew in a magnificent costume, and Mrs. Peniston with Jack, very grave of face, beside her. As no De Lanceys were to be had in our rebel town, Mr. James Wilson gave away the precious gift of Darthea Peniston. We went in my aunt’s chariot to Merion; and so ends the long tale of my adventures, which here, in the same old country home, I have found it pleasant to set down for those who will, I trust, live in it when I am dead.

In April, 1783, peace was proclaimed. In November of that year I heard from Colonel Hamilton that our beloved general would, on December 4, take leave of his officers, and that he was kind enough to desire that all of his old staff who wished should be present. I was most pleased to go.

In New York, at Fraunce’s Tavern, near Whitehall Ferry, I found the room full of the men who had humbled the pride of England and brought our great war to a close. His Excellency entered at noon, and seeing about him these many companions in arms, was for a little so agitated that he could not speak. Then with a solemn and kindly expression of face, such as I had once before seen him wear, he filled a glass with wine, and, seeming to steady himself, said:

“With a heart full of love and gratitude, I take my leave of you, most devoutly wishing that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honourable.”

So saying, he drank his wine, and one after another went by him shaking his hand. No word was said, and these worn veterans of the winter camps and the summer battle-fields moved out, and saw their former general pass down, between lines of infantry, to the shore. There he got into a barge. As he was rowed away he stood up and lifted his hat. All of us uncovered, and remained thus till he passed from sight, to be seen no more by many of those who gazed sadly after his retreating form.

There is an old book my grandchildren love to hear me read to them. It is the “Morte d’Arthur,” done into English by Sir Thomas Malory. Often when I read therein of how Arthur the king bade farewell to the world and to the last of the great company of his Knights of the Round Table, this scene at Whitehall slip comes back to me, and I seem to see once more those gallant soldiers, and far away the tall figure of surely the knightliest gentleman our days have known.

My years go on in peace. We have enough--far more than enough--for all the wants and even for the luxuries of life. It is late in the night, and Christmas-time, in the great stone house at Merion. The noise of little ones--and they are many--has ceased. I hear steps and laughter in the hall. The elder ones troop in to say good-night. There are Darthea and Gainor, mothers of the noisy brigade now in bed, and here is Hugh, the youngest, and Jack, with the big build of his race. And soon all are gone, and the house quiet.

I looked up where, under my dear Jack Warder’s face, which Stuart did for me, hangs Knyphausen’s long blade, and across it Jack’s sword. Below, my eye lights on the Hessian pistols, and the sword-knot the gallant marquis gave me.

I watch the crumbling fire and seem to see once more the fierce struggle in the market-place, the wild fight on the redoubt, and my cousin’s dark face. The years have gone by, and for me and mine there is peace and love, and naught a man in years may not think upon with joy.

Suddenly two hands from behind are over my eyes; ah, well I know their tender touch! Says a dear voice I hope to hear till life is over--and after that, I trust--“What are you thinking of, Hugh Wynne?”

“Of how sweet you have made my life to me, my darling.”

“Thank God!”

THE END.

[Transcriber’s Note: The word “harmy” in chapter 20 appears thus in our print copy. In chapter 25, “sorrrow” was corrected to “sorrow.”]

End of Project Gutenberg’s Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker, by S. Weir Mitchell