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diff --git a/30589.txt b/30589.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd15305 --- /dev/null +++ b/30589.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8288 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Continental Dragoon, by Robert Neilson +Stephens, Illustrated by H. C. Edwards + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Continental Dragoon + A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 + + +Author: Robert Neilson Stephens + + + +Release Date: December 3, 2009 [eBook #30589] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON*** + + +E-text prepared by David Edwards, Katherine Ward, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from +digital material generously made available by Internet Archive +(http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 30589-h.htm or 30589-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30589/30589-h/30589-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30589/30589-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/continentaldrago00stepiala + +Transcriber's note: + + Hyphenation has been made consistent. + + Archaic and variable spellings are preserved. + + The author's punctuation style is preserved, except quotation + marks, which have been standardized. + + Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + Text in bold face is enclosed by equal signs (=bold=). + + + + + +THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON. + +by + +R. N. STEPHENS. + + * * * * * + +Works of R. N. STEPHENS. + +An Enemy to the King. +The Continental Dragoon. + +_In Press_: +The Road to Paris. + +L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY, Publishers, +(INCORPORATED) +196 Summer St., Boston, Mass. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "_'Take that rebel alive!' ordered Colden._" + +Photogravure from original drawing by H. C. Edwards.] + + +THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON + +A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 + +by + +ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS + +Author of +"An Enemy to the King" + +Illustrated by H. C. Edwards + +"Love's born of a glance, I say" + + + + + + + +Boston +L. C. Page and Company +(Incorporated) +1898 + +Copyright, 1898 +By L. C. Page and Company +(Incorporated) + +Entered at Stationer's Hall, London + +FIFTH THOUSAND + +Colonial Press: +Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. +Boston, U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + Chapter Page + I. The Riders 11 + II. The Manor-house 32 + III. The Sound of Galloping 50 + IV. The Continental Dragoon 65 + V. The Black Horse 87 + VI. The One Chance 116 + VII. The Flight of the Minutes 140 + VIII. The Secret Passage 156 + IX. The Confession 180 + X. The Plan of Retaliation 197 + XI. The Conquest 214 + XII. The Challenge 236 + XIII. The Unexpected 252 + XIV. The Broken Sword 267 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + "'Take that rebel alive!' ordered Colden." Frontispiece + + "'Give it to the Colonel.'" 82 + "Leaned forward on the horse's neck." 111 + "'You are too late, Jack!'" 154 + "'Go, I say!'" 196 + "'I take my leave of this house!'" 248 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE RIDERS. + + +"I dare say 'tis a wild, foolish, dangerous thing; but I do it, +nevertheless! As for my reasons, they are the strongest. First, I wish +to do it. Second, you've all opposed my doing it. So there's an end of +the matter!" + +It was, of course, a woman that spoke,--moreover, a young one. + +And she added: + +"Drat the wind! Can't we ride faster? 'Twill be dark before we reach +the manor-house. Get along, Cato!" + +She was one of three on horseback, who went northward on the Albany +post-road late in the afternoon of a gray, chill, blowy day in +November, in the war-scourged year 1778. Beside the girl rode a young +gentleman, wrapped in a dark cloak. The third horse, which plodded a +short distance in the rear, carried a small negro youth and two large +portmanteaus. The three riders made a group that was, as far as could +be seen from their view-point, alone on the highway. + +There were reasons why such a group, on that road at that time, was an +unusual sight,--reasons familiar to any one who is well informed in +the history of the Revolution. Unfortunately, most good Americans are +better acquainted with the French Revolution than with our own, know +more about the state of affairs in Rome during the reign of Nero than +about the condition of things in New York City during the British +occupation, and compensate for their knowledge of Scotch-English +border warfare in remote times by their ignorance of the border +warfare that ravaged the vicinity of the island of Manhattan, for six +years, little more than a century ago. + +Our Revolutionary War had reached the respectable age of three and a +half years. Lexington, Bunker Hill, Brooklyn, Harlem Heights, White +Plains, Trenton, Princeton, the Brandywine, German-town, Bennington, +Saratoga, and Monmouth--not to mention events in the South and in +Canada and on the water--had taken their place in history. The army of +the King of England had successively occupied Boston, New York, and +Philadelphia; had been driven out of Boston by siege, and had left +Philadelphia to return to the town more pivotal and nearer the +sea,--New York. One British commander-in-chief had been recalled by +the British ministry to explain why he had not crushed the rebellion, +and one British major-general had surrendered an army, and was now +back in England defending his course and pleading in Parliament the +cause of the Americans, to whom he was still a prisoner on parole. Our +Continental army--called Continental because, like the general +Congress, it served the whole union of British-settled Colonies or +States on this continent, and was thus distinguished from the militia, +which served in each case its particular Colony or State only--had +experienced both defeats and victories in encounters with the King's +troops and his allies, German, Hessian, and American Tory. It had +endured the winter at Valley Forge while the British had fed, drunk, +gambled, danced, flirted, and wenched in Philadelphia. The French +alliance had been sanctioned. Steuben, Lafayette, DeKalb, Pulaski, +Kosciusko, Armand, and other Europeans, had taken service with us. One +plot had been made in Congress and the army to supplant Washington in +the chief command, and had failed. The treason of General Charles Lee +had come to naught,--but was to wait for disclosure till many years +after every person concerned should be graveyard dust. We had +celebrated two anniversaries of the Fourth of July. The new free and +independent States had organized local governments. The King's +appointees still made a pretence of maintaining the royal provincial +governments, but mostly abode under the protection of the King's +troops in New York. There also many of those Americans in the North +took refuge who distinctly professed loyalty to the King. New York was +thus the chief lodging-place of all that embodied British sovereignty +in America. Naturally the material tokens of British rule radiated +from the town, covering all of the island of Manhattan, most of Long +Island, and all of Staten Island, and retaining a clutch here and +there on the mainland of New Jersey. + +It was the present object of Washington to keep those visible signs of +English authority penned up within this circle around New York. The +Continental posts, therefore, formed a vast arc, extending from the +interior of New Jersey through Southeastern New York State to Long +Island Sound and into Connecticut. This had been the situation since +midsummer of 1778. It was but a detachment from our main army that had +cooperated with the French fleet in the futile attempt to dislodge a +British force from Newport in August of that year. + +The British commander-in-chief and most of the superior officers had +their quarters in the best residences of New York. That town was +packed snugly into the southern angle of the island of Manhattan, like +a gift in the toe of a Christmas stocking. Southward, some of its +finest houses looked across the Battery to the bay. Northward the town +extended little beyond the common fields, of which the City Hall +Square of 1898 is a reduced survival. The island of Manhattan--with +its hills, woods, swamps, ponds, brooks, roads, farms, sightly +estates, gardens, and orchards--was dotted with the cantonments and +garrisoned forts of the British. The outposts were, largely, entrusted +to bodies of Tory allies organized in this country. Thus was much of +Long Island guarded by the three Loyalist battalions of General Oliver +De Lancey, himself a native of New York. On Staten Island was +quartered General Van Cortlandt Skinner's brigade of New Jersey +Volunteers, a troop which seems to have had such difficulty in finding +officers in its own State that it had to go to New York for many of +them,--or was it that so many more rich New York Loyalists had to be +provided with commissions than the New York Loyalist brigades required +as officers? + +But the most important British posts were those which guarded the +northern entrance to the island of Manhattan, where it was separated +from the mainland by Spuyten Duyvel Kill, flowing westward into the +Hudson, and the Harlem, flowing southward into the East River. King's +Bridge and the Farmers' Bridge, not far apart, joined the island to +the main; and just before the Revolution a traveller might have made +his choice of these two bridges, whether he wished to take the Boston +road or the road to Albany. In 1778 the British "barrier" was King's +Bridge, the northern one of the two, the watch-house being the tavern +at the mainland end of the bridge. Not only the bridge, but the +Hudson, the Spuyten Duyvel, and the Harlem, as well, were commanded by +British forts on the island of Manhattan. Yet there were defences +still further out. On the mainland was a line of forts extending from +the Hudson, first eastward, then southward, to the East River. Further +north, between the Albany road and the Hudson, was a camp of German +and Hessian allies, foot and horse. Northeast, on Valentine's Hill, +were the Seventy-first Highlanders. Near the mainland bank of the +Harlem were the quarters of various troops of dragoons, most of them +American Tory corps with English commanders, but one, at least, native +to the soil, not only in rank and file, but in officers also,--and +with no less dash and daring than by Tarleton, Simcoe, and the rest, +was King George III. served by Captain James De Lancey, of the county +of West Chester, with his "cowboys," officially known as the West +Chester Light Horse. + +Thus the outer northern lines of the British were just above King's +Bridge. The principal camp of the Americans was far to the north. Each +army was affected by conditions that called for a wide space of +territory between the two forces, between the outer rim of the British +circle, and the inner face of the American arc. Of this space the +portion that lay bounded on the west by the Hudson, on the southeast +by Long Island Sound, and cut in two by the southward-flowing Bronx, +was the most interesting. It was called the Neutral Ground, and +neutral it was in that it had the protection of neither side, while it +was ravaged by both. Foraged by the two armies, under the approved +rules of war, it underwent further a constant, irregular pillage by +gangs of mounted rascals who claimed attachment, some to the British, +some to the Americans, but were not owned by either. It was, too, +overridden by the cavalry of both sides in attempts to surprise +outposts, cut off supplies, and otherwise harass and sting. Unexpected +forays by the rangers and dragoons from King's Bridge and the Harlem +were reciprocated by sudden visitations of American horse and light +infantry from the Greenburg Hills and thereabove. The Whig militia of +the county also took a hand against British Tories and marauders. Of +the residents, many Tories fled to New York, some Americans went to +the interior of the country, but numbers of each party held their +ground, at risk of personal harm as well as of robbery. Many of the +best houses were, at different times during the war, occupied as +quarters by officers of either side. Little was raised on the farms +save what the farmers could immediately use or easily conceal. The +Hudson was watched by British war-vessels, while the Americans on +their side patrolled it with whale-boats, long and canoe-like, swift +and elusive. For the drama of partisan warfare, Nature had provided, +in lower West Chester County,--picturesquely hilly, beautifully +wooded, pleasantly watered, bounded in part by the matchless Hudson +and the peerless Sound,--a setting unsurpassed. + +Thus was it that Miss Elizabeth Philipse, Major John Colden, and Miss +Philipse's negro boy, Cuff, all riding northward on the Albany +post-road, a few miles above King's Bridge, but still within territory +patrolled daily by the King's troops, constituted, on that bleak +November evening in 1778, a group unusual to the time and place. + +'Twas a wettish wind, concerning which Miss Elizabeth expressed, in +the imperative mood, her will that it be dratted,--a feminine wind, +truly, as was clear from its unexpected flarings up and sudden +calmings down, its illogical whiskings around and eccentric changes of +direction. Now it swept down the slope from the east, as if it meant +to bombard the travellers with all the brown leaves of the hillside. +Now it assailed them from the north, as if to impede their journey; +now rushed on them from the rear as if it had come up from New York to +speed them on their way; now attacked them in the left flank, armed +with a raw chill from the Hudson. It blew Miss Elizabeth's hair about +and additionally reddened her cheeks. It caused the young Tory major +to frown, for the protection of his eyes, and thus to look more and +more unlike the happy man that Miss Elizabeth's accepted suitor ought +to have appeared. + +"I make no doubt I've brought on me the anger of your whole family by +lending myself to this. And yet I am as much against it as they are!" +So spake the major, in tones as glum as his looks. + +"'Twas a choice, then, between their anger and mine," said Miss +Elizabeth, serenely. "Don't think I wouldn't have come, even if you +had refused your escort. I'd have made the trip alone with Cuff, +that's all." + +"I shall be blamed, none the less." + +"Why? You couldn't have hindered me. If the excursion is as dangerous +as they say it is, your company certainly does not add to my danger. +It lessens it. So, as my safety is what they all clamor about, they +ought to commend you for escorting me." + +"If they were like ever to take that view, they would not all have +refused you their own company." + +"They refused because they neither supposed that I would come alone +nor that Providence would send me an escort in the shape of a surly +major on leave of absence from Staten Island! Come, Jack, you needn't +tremble in dread of their wrath. By this time my amiable papa and my +solicitous mamma and my anxious brothers and sisters are in such a +state of mind about me that, when you return to-night and report I've +been safely consigned to Aunt Sally's care, they'll fairly worship you +as a messenger of good news. So be as cheerful as the wind and the +cold will let you. We are almost there. It seems an age since we +passed Van Cortlandt's." + +Major Colden merely sighed and looked more dismal, as if knowing the +futility of speech. + +"There's the steeple!" presently cried the girl, looking ahead. "We'll +be at the parsonage in ten minutes, and safe in the manor-house in +five more. Do look relieved, Jack! The journey's end is in sight, and +we haven't had sight of a soldier this side of King's Bridge,--except +Van Wrumb's Hessians across Tippett's Vale, and they are friends. +Br-r-r-r! I'll have Williams make a fire in every room in the +manor-house!" + +Now while these three rode in seeming security from the south towards +the church, parsonage, country tavern, and great manor-house that +constituted the village then called, sometimes Lower Philipsburgh and +sometimes Younker's, that same hill-varied, forest-set, stream-divided +place was being approached afar from the north by a company of mounted +troops riding as if the devil was after them. It was not the devil, +but another body of cavalry, riding at equal speed, though at a great +distance behind. The three people from New York as yet neither saw nor +heard anything of these horsemen dashing down from the north. Yet the +major's spirits sank lower and lower, as if he had an omen of coming +evil. + +He was a handsome young man, Major John Colden, being not more than +twenty-seven years old, and having the clearly outlined features best +suited to that period of smooth-shaven faces. His dark eyes and his +pensive expression were none the less effective for the white powder +on his cued hair. A slightly petulant, uneasy look rather added to his +countenance. He was of medium height and regular figure. He wore a +civilian's cloak or outer coat over the uniform of his rank and corps, +thus hiding also his sword and pistol. Other externals of his attire +were riding-boots, gloves, and a three-cornered hat without a military +cockade. He was mounted on a sorrel horse a little darker in hue than +the animal ridden by Miss Elizabeth's black boy, Cuff, who wore the +rich livery of the Philipses. + +The steed of Miss Elizabeth was a slender black, sensitive and +responsive to her slightest command--a fit mount for this, the most +imperious, though not the oldest, daughter of Colonel Frederick +Philipse, third lord, under the bygone royal regime, of the manor of +Philipsburgh in the Province of New York. They gave classic names to +quadrupeds in those days and Addison's tragedy was highly respected, +so Elizabeth's scholarly father had christened this horse Cato. +Howsoever the others who loved her regarded her present jaunt, no +opposition was shown by Cato. Obedient now as ever, the animal bore +her zealously forward, be it to danger or to what she would. + +Elizabeth's resolve to revisit the manor hall on the Hudson, which had +been left closed up in the steward's charge when the family had sought +safety in their New York City residence in 1777, had sprung in part +from a powerful longing for the country and in part from a dream which +had reawakened strongly her love for the old house of her birth and of +most of her girlhood. The peril of her resolve only increased her +determination to carry it out. Her parents, brothers, and sisters +stood aghast at the project, and refused in any way to countenance it. +But there was no other will in the Philipse household able to cope +with Elizabeth's. She held that the thing was most practicable and +simple, inasmuch as the steward, with the aid of two servants, kept +the deserted house in a state of habitation, and as her mother's +sister, Miss Sarah Williams, was living with the widow Babcock in the +parsonage of Lower Philipsburgh and could transfer her abode to the +manor-house for the time of Elizabeth's stay. Major Colden, an unloved +lover,--for Elizabeth, accepting marriage as one of the inevitables, +yet declared that she could never love any man, love being admittedly +a weakness, and she not a weak person,--was ever watchful for the +opportunity of ingratiating himself with the superb girl, and so +fearful of displeasing her that he dared not refuse to ride with her. +He was less able even than her own family to combat her purpose. One +day some one had asked him why, since she called him Jack, and he was +on the road to thirty years, while she was yet in her teens, he did +not call her Betty or Bess, as all other Elizabeths were called in +those days. He meditated a moment, then replied, "I never heard any +one, even in her own family, call her so. I can't imagine any one ever +calling her by any more familiar name than Elizabeth." + +Now it was not from her father that this regal young creature could +have taken her resoluteness, though she may well have got from him +some of the pride that went with it. There certainly must have been +more pride than determination in Frederick Philipse, third lord of the +manor, colonel in provincial militia before the Revolution, graduate +of King's College, churchman, benefactor, gentleman of literary +tastes; amiable, courtly, and so fat that he and his handsome wife +could not comfortably ride in the same coach at the same time. But +there was surely as much determination as pride in this gentleman's +great-grandfather, Vrederyck Flypse, descendant of a line of viscounts +and keepers of the deer forests of Bohemia, Protestant victim of +religious persecution in his own land, immigrant to New Amsterdam +about 1650, and soon afterward the richest merchant in the province, +dealer with the Indians, ship-owner in the East and West India trade, +importer of slaves, leader in provincial politics and government, +founder of Sleepy Hollow Church, probably a secret trafficker with +Captain Kidd and other pirates, and owner by purchase of the territory +that was erected by royal charter of William and Mary into the +lordship and manor of Philipsburgh. The strength of will probably +declined, while the pride throve, in transmission to Vrederyck's son, +Philip, who sowed wild oats, and went to the Barbadoes for his health +and married the daughter of the English governor of that island. +Philip's son, Frederick, being born in a hot climate, and grandson of +an English governor as well as of the great Flypse, would naturally +have had great quantity of pride, whatever his stock of force, +particularly as he became second lord of the manor at the lordly age +of four. And he could not easily have acquired humility in later life, +as speaker of the provincial Assembly, Baron of the Exchequer, judge +of the Supreme Court, or founder of St. John's Church,--towards which +graceful edifice was the daughter of his son, the third lord, +directing her horse this wintry autumn evening. As for this third +lord, he had been removed by the new Government to Connecticut for +favoring the English rule, but, having received permission to go to +New York for a short time, had evinced his fondness for the sweet and +soft things of life by breaking his parole and staying in the city, +under the British protection, thus risking his vast estate and showing +himself a gentleman of anything but the courage now displayed by his +daughter. + +Elizabeth, therefore, must have derived her spirit, with a good +measure of pride and a fair share (or more) of vanity, from her +mother, though, thanks to that appreciation of personal comfort which +comes with middle age, Madam Philipse's high-spiritedness would no +longer have displayed itself in dangerous excursions, nor was it +longer equal to a contest with the fresher energy of Elizabeth. She +was the daughter of Charles Williams, once naval officer of the port +of New York, and his wife, who had been Miss Sarah Olivier. Thus came +Madam Philipse honestly by the description, "imperious woman of +fashion," in which local history preserves her memory. She was a +widow of twenty-four when Colonel Philipse married her, she having +been bereaved two years before of her first husband, Mr. Anthony +Rutgers, the lawyer. She liked display, and her husband indulged her +inclination without stint, receiving in repayment a good nursery-full +of what used, in the good old days, to be called pledges of affection. +Being the daughter of a royal office-holding Englishman, how could she +have helped holding her head mighty high on receiving her elevation to +the ladyship of Philipsburgh, and who shall blame her daughter and +namesake, now within a stone's throw of St. John's parsonage and in +full sight of the tree-bowered manorial home of her fathers, for +holding hers, which was younger, a trifle higher? + +Not many high-held heads of this or any other day are or were finer +than that of Elizabeth Philipse was in 1778, or are set on more +graceful figures. For all her haughtiness, she was not a very large +person, nor yet was she a small one. She was neither fragile nor too +ample. Her carriage made her look taller than she was. She was of the +brown-haired, blue-eyed type, but her eyes were not of unusual size or +surpassing lucidity, being merely clear, honest, steady eyes, capable +rather of fearless or disdainful attention than of swift flashes or +coquettish glances. The precision with which her features were +outlined did not lessen the interest that her face had from her +pride, spirit, independence, and intelligence. She was, moreover, an +active, healthy creature, and if she commanded the dratting of the +wind, it was not as much because she was chilled by it as because it +blew her cloak and impeded her progress. In fine, she was a beauty; +else this historian would never have taken the trouble of unearthing +from many places and piecing together the details of this fateful +incident,--for if any one supposes that the people of this narrative +are mere fictions, he or she is radically in error. They lived and +achieved, under the names they herein bear; were as actual as the +places herein mentioned,--as any of the numerous patriotic Americans +who daily visit the genealogical shelves of the public libraries can +easily learn, if they will spare sufficient time from the laudable +task of hunting down their own ancestors. If this story is called a +romance, that term is used here only as it is oft applied to actual +occurrences of a romantic character. So the Elizabeth Philipse who, +before crossing the Neperan to approach the manor-house, stopped in +front of the snug parsonage at the roadside and directed Cuff to knock +at the door, was as real as was then the parsonage itself. + +Presently a face appeared furtively at one of the up-stairs windows. +The eyes thereof, having dwelt for an instant on the mounted party +shivering in the road, opened wide in amazement, and a minute later, +after a sound of key-turning and bolt-drawing, the door opened, and a +good-looking lady appeared in the doorway, backed up by a servant and +two pretty children who clung, half-curious, half-frightened, to the +lady's skirts. + +"Why, Miss Elizabeth! Is it possible--" + +But Elizabeth cut the speech of the astonished lady short. + +"Yes, my dear Mrs. Babcock,--and I know how dangerous, and all that! +And, thank you, I'll not come in. I shall see you during the week. I'm +going to the manor-house to stay awhile, and I wish my aunt to stay +there with me, if you can spare her." + +"Why, yes,--of course,--but--here comes your aunt." + +"Why, Elizabeth, what in the world--" + +She was a somewhat stately woman at first sight, was Elizabeth's +mother's sister, Miss Sarah Williams; but on acquaintance soon +conciliated and found to be not at all the formidable and haughty +person she would have had people believe her; not too far gone in +middle age, preserving, despite her spinsterhood, much of her bloom +and many of those little roundnesses of contour which adorn but do not +encumber. + +"I haven't time to say what, aunt," broke in Elizabeth. "I want to get +to the manor-house before it is night. You are to stay with me there a +week. So put on a wrap and come over as soon as you can, to be in +time for supper. I'll send a boy for you, if you like." + +"Why, no, there's some one here will walk over with me, I dare say. +But, la me, Elizabeth,--" + +"Then I'll look for you in five minutes. Good night, Mrs. Babcock! I +trust your little ones are well." + +And she rode off, followed by Colden and Cuff, leaving the two women +in the parsonage doorway to exchange what conjectures and what +ejaculations of wonderment the circumstances might require. + +Night was falling when the riders crossed the Neperan (then commonly +known as the Saw Mill River) by the post-road bridge, and gazed more +closely on the stone manor-house. Looking westward, from the main +road, across the hedge and paling fence, they saw, first the vast lawn +with its comely trees, then the long east front of the house, with its +two little entrance-porches, the row of windows in each of its two +stories, the dormer windows projecting from the sloping roof, the +balustraded walk on the roof-top; at both ends the green and brown and +yellow hints of what lay north of the house, between it and the +forest, and west of the house, between it and the Hudson,--the +box-hedged gardens, the terraces breaking the slope to the river, the +deer paddock enclosed by high pickets, the great orchard. The Hudson +was nearer to the house then than now, and its lofty further bank, +rich with growth of wood and leaf, was the backing for the westward +view. To the east, which the riders put behind them in facing the +manor-house, were the hills of the interior. + +"Not a sign of light from the house, and the shutters all closed, as +if it were a tomb! It looks as cold and empty as one. I'll soon make +it warm and live enough inside at least!" said Elizabeth, and turned +westward from the highway into the short road that ran between the +mansion and the north bank of the Neperan, by the grist-mill and the +gate and the stables, down a picturesque descent to a landing where +that stream entered the Hudson. + +She proceeded towards the gate, where, being near the southeast corner +of the house, one could see that the south front was to the east front +as the base to the upright of a capital L turned backward; that the +south front resembled the east in all but in being shorter and having +a single porched entrance, which was in its middle. + +As the party neared the gate, there arose far northward a sound of +many horsemen approaching at a fast gallop. Elizabeth at once reined +in, to listen. Major Colden and Cuff followed her example, both +looking at her in apprehension. The galloping was on the Albany road, +but presently deviated eastwardly, then decreased. + +"They've turned up the road to Mile Square, whoever they are," said +Elizabeth, and led the way on to the gate, which Cuff, dismounting, +quickly opened, its fastening having been removed and not replaced. +"Lead your horse to the door, Cuff. Then take off the portmanteaus and +knock, and tie the horses to the post." + +She rode up to the southern door in the east front, and was there +assisted to dismount by the major, while Cuff followed in obedience. +Colden, as the sound of the distant galloping grew fainter and +fainter, showed more relief than he might have felt had he known that +a second troop was soon to come speeding down in the track of the +first. + +Elizabeth, in haste to escape the wind, stepped into the little porch +and stood impatiently before the dark, closed door of the house of her +fathers. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE MANOR-HOUSE. + + +The stone mansion before which the travellers stood, awaiting answer +to Cuff's loud knock on the heavy mahogany door, had already acquired +antiquity and memories. It was then, as to all south of the porch +which now sheltered the three visitors, ninety-six years old, and as +to the rest of the eastern front thirty-three, so that its newest part +was twice the age of Elizabeth herself. + +Her grandfather's grandfather, the first lord of the manor, built +the southern portion in 1682, a date not far from that of the +erection of his upper house, called Philipse Castle, at what is now +Tarrytown,--but whether earlier or later, let the local historians +dispute. This southern portion comprised the entire south front, its +length running east and west, its width going back northward to, but +not including, the large east entrance-hall, into which opened the +southern door of the east front. The new part, attached to the +original house as the upright to the short, broad base of the +reversed L, was added by Elizabeth's grandfather, the second lord, in +1745. The addition, with the eastern section of the old part, was +thereafter the most used portion, and the south front yielded in +importance to the new east front. The two porched doors in the latter +front matched each other, though the southern one gave entrance to the +fine guests in silk and lace, ruffles and furbelows, who came up +from New York and the other great mansions of the county to grace +the frequent festivities of the Philipses; while the northern one led +to the spacious kitchen where means were used to make the aforesaid +guests feel that they had not arrived in vain. + +The original house, rectangular as to its main part, had two gables, +and, against its rear or northern length, a pent-roofed wing, and +probably a veranda, the last covering the space later taken by the +east entrance-hall. The main original building, on its first floor, +had (and has) a wide entrance-hall in its middle, with one large +parlor on each side. The second floor, reached by staircase from the +lower hall, duplicated the first, there being a middle hall and two +great square chambers. Overhead, there was plentiful further room +beneath the gable roof. Under the western room of the first floor +was the earlier kitchen, which, before 1745, served in relation to +the guests who entered by the southern door exactly as thereafter +the new kitchen served in relation to those entering by the eastern +door,--making them glad they had come, by horse or coach, over the +long, bad, forest-bordered roads. Adjacent to the old kitchen was +abundant cellarage for the stowing of many and diverse covetable +things of the trading first lord's importation. + +The Neperan joined the Hudson in the midst of wilderness, where +Indians and deer abounded, when Vrederyck Flypse caused the old part +of the stone mansion to grow out of the green hill slope in 1682. He +planted a foundation two feet thick and thereupon raised walls whose +thickness was twenty inches. He would have a residence wherein he +might defy alike the savage elements, men and beasts. For the front +end of his entrance-hall he imported a massive mahogany door made in +1681 in Holland,--a door in two parts, so that the upper half could be +opened, while the lower half remained shut. The rear door of that hall +was similarly made. Ponderous were the hinges and bolts, being +ordinary blacksmith work. Solid were the panel mouldings. He brought +Holland brick wherewith to trim the openings of doorways and windows. +He laid the floor of his aforesaid kitchen with blue stone. The +chimney breasts and hearthstones of his principal rooms were seven +feet wide. + +Here, in feudal fashion, with many servants and slaves to do his +bidding, and tenants to render him dues, sometimes dwelt Vrederyck +Flypse, with his second wife, Catherine Van Cortlandt, and the +children left by his first wife, Margaret Hardenbrock; but sometimes +some of the family lived in New York, and sometimes at the upper +stone house, "Castle Philipse," by the Pocantico, near Sleepy Hollow +Church, of this Flypse's founding. He built mills near both his +country-houses, and from the saw-mill near the lower one did the +Neperan receive the name of Saw Mill River. He died in 1702, in his +seventy-seventh year, and the bones of him lie in Sleepy Hollow +Church. + +But even before the first lord went, did "associations" begin to +attach to the old Dutch part of the mansion. Besides the leading +families of the province, the traders,--Dutch and English,--and the +men with whom he held counsel upon affairs temporal and spiritual, +public and private, terrestrial and marine, he had for guests red +Indians, and, there is every reason to believe, gentlemen who sailed +the seas under what particular flag best promoted their immediate +purposes, or under none at all. That old story never _would_ down, to +the effect that the adventurous Kidd levied not on the ships of +Vrederyck Flypse. The little landing-place where Neperan joined +Hudson, at which the Flypses stepped ashore when they came up from New +York by sloop instead of by horse, was trodden surely by the feet of +more than one eminent oceanic exponent of-- + + "The good old rule, the simple plan, + That they should take who have the power + And they should keep who can." + +A great merchant may have more than one way of doing business, and I +would not undertake to account for every barrel and box that was +unladen at that little landing. Nor would I be surprised to encounter +sometime, among the ghosts of Philipse Manor Hall, that of the +immortal Kidd himself, seated at dead of night, across the table from +the first lord of the manor, before a blazing log in the seven-foot +fireplace, drinking liquor too good for the church-founding lord to +have questioned whence it came; and leaving the next day without an +introduction to the family. + +This 1682 part of the house, in facing south, had the Albany road at +its left, the Hudson at its right, and at its front the lane that ran +by the Neperan, from the road to the river. Thus was the house for +sixty-three years. When the first lord's grandson, Elizabeth's +grandfather, in 1745 made the addition at the north, what was the east +gable-end of the old house became part of the east front of the +completed mansion. The east rooms of the old house were thus the +southeast rooms of the completed mansion, and, being common to both +fronts, gained by the change of relation, becoming the principal +parlor and the principal chamber. The east parlor, entered on the +west from the old hall, was entered on the north from the new hall; +and the new hall was almost a duplicate of the old, but its ceiling +decorations and the mahogany balustrade of its stairway were the more +elaborate. This stairway, like its fellow in the old hall, ascended, +with two turns, to a hall in the second story. Besides the new halls, +the addition included, on the first floor, a large dining-room and the +great kitchen; on the second floor, five sleeping-chambers, and, in +the space beneath the roof-tree, dormitories for servants and slaves. +Elizabeth's grandfather gave the house the balustrade that crowns its +roof from its northern to its southern, and thence to its western end. +He had the interior elaborately finished. The old part and its +decorations were Dutch, but now things in the province were growing +less Dutch and more English,--like the Philipse name and blood +themselves,--and so the new embellishments were English. The second +lord imported marble mantels from England, had the walls beautifully +wainscoted, adorned the ceilings richly with arabesque work in wood. +He laid out, in the best English fashion, a lawn between the eastern +front and the Albany post-road. He it was who married Joanna, daughter +of Governor Anthony Brockholst, of a very ancient family of +Lancashire, England; and who left provision for the founding of St. +John's Church, across the Neperan from the manor-house, and for the +endowment of the glebe thereof. And in his long time the manor-house +flourished and grew venerable and multiplied its associations. He had +five children: Frederick (Elizabeth's father), Philip, Susannah, Mary +(the beauty, wooed of Washington in 1756, 'tis said, and later wed by +Captain Roger Morris), and Margaret; and, at this manor-house alone, +white servants thirty, and black servants twenty; and a numerous +tenantry, happy because in many cases the yearly rent was but nominal, +being three or four pounds or a pair of hens or a day's work,--for the +Philipses, thanks to trade and to office-holding under the Crown, and +to the beneficent rule whereby money multiplies itself, did not have +to squeeze a living out of the tillers of their land. The lord of the +manor held court leet and baron at the house of a tenant, and +sometimes even inflicted capital punishment. + +In 1751, the second lord followed his grandfather to the family vault +in Sleepy Hollow Church. With the accession of Elizabeth's father, +then thirty-one years old, began the splendid period of the mansion; +then the panorama of which it was both witness and setting wore its +most diverse colors. The old contest between English and French on +this continent was approaching its glorious climax. Whether they were +French emissaries coming down from Quebec, by the Hudson or by horse, +or English and colonial officers going up from New York in command of +troops, they must needs stop and pay their respects to the lord of the +manor of Philipsburgh, and drink his wine, and eat his venison, and +flirt with his stunning sisters. Soldiers would go from New York by +the post-road to Philipsburgh, and then embark at the little landing, +to proceed up the Hudson, on the way to be scalped by the red allies +of the French or mowed down by Montcalm's gunners before impregnable +Ticonderoga. Many were the comings and goings of the scarlet coat and +green. The Indian, too, was still sufficiently plentiful to contribute +much to the environing picturesqueness. But, most of all, in those +days, the mansion got its character from the festivities devised by +its own inmates for the entertainment of the four hundred of that +time. + +For Elizabeth's mother, of the same given name, was "very fond of +display," and in her day the family "lived showily." Her husband (who +was usually called Colonel Philipse, from his title in the militia, +and rarely if ever called lord) had the house refurnished. It was he +who had the princely terraces made on the slope between the mansion +and the Hudson, and who had new gardens laid out and adorned with tall +avenues of box and rarest fruit-trees and shrubs. Doubtless his deer, +in their picketed enclosure, were a sore temptation to the country +marksmen who passed that way. Lady, or Madam, or Mrs. Philipse, the +colonel's wife, bedazzled the admiring inhabitants of West Chester +County in many ways, but there is a difference between authorities as +to whether it was she that used to drive four superb black horses over +the bad roads of the county, or whether it was her mother-in-law, the +second lord's wife. Certainly it was the latter that was killed by a +fall from a carriage, and certainly both had fine horses and +magnificent coaches, and drove over bad roads,--for all roads were bad +in those days, even in Europe, save those the Romans left. + +Of all the gay and hospitable occasions that brought, through the +mansion's wide doors, courtly gentlemen and high-and-mighty ladies, +from their coaches, sleighs, horses, or Hudson sloops, perhaps none +saw more feasting and richer display of ruffles and brocade than did +the wedding of Mary Philipse and Captain Morris, seven years after the +death of her father, and two after the marriage of her brother. It was +on the afternoon of Sunday, Jan. 15, 1758. In the famous east parlor, +which has had much mention and will have more in course of this +narrative, was raised a crimson canopy emblazoned with the Philipse +crest,--a crowned golden demi-lion rampant, upon a golden coronet. +Though the weather was not severe, there was snow on the ground, and +the guests began to drive up in sleighs, under the white trees, at two +o'clock. At three arrived the Rev. Henry Barclay, rector of Trinity, +New York, and his assistant, Mr. Auchmuty. At half-past three the +beauteous Mary (did so proud a heart-breaker blush, I wonder?) and the +British captain stood under the crimson canopy and gold, and were +united, "in the presence of a brilliant assembly," says the old county +historian.[1] Miss Barclay, Miss Van Cortlandt, and Miss De Lancey +were the bridesmaids, and the groomsmen were Mr. Heathcote (of the +family of the lords of the manor of Scarsdale), Captain Kennedy (of +Number One, Broadway), and Mr. Watts. No need to report here who were +"among those present." The wedding did not occur yesterday, and the +guests will not be offended at the omission of their names; but one of +them was Acting Governor De Lancey. Colonel Philipse--wearing the +ancestral gold chain and jewelled badge of the keepers of the deer +forests of Bohemia--gave the bride away, and with her went a good +portion of the earth's surface, and much money, jewelry, and plate. + +After the wedding came the feast, and the guests--or most of +them--stayed so late they were not sorry for the brilliant moonlight +of the night that set in upon their feasting. And now the legend! In +the midst of the feast, there appeared at the door of the banquet-hall +a tall Indian, with a scarlet blanket close about him, and in solemn +tones quoth he, "Your possessions shall pass from you when the eagle +shall despoil the lion of his mane." Thereupon he disappeared, of +course, as suddenly as he had come, and the way in which historians +have treated this legend shows how little do historians apply to their +work the experiences of their daily lives,--such an experience, for +instance, as that of ignoring some begging Irishwoman's request for "a +few pennies in the Lord's name," and thereupon receiving a volley of +hair-raising curses and baleful predictions. 'Tis easy to believe in +the Indian and the prophecy of a passing of possessions, even though +it was fulfilled; but the time-clause involving the eagle and the lion +was doubtless added after the bird had despoiled the beast. + +It was years and years afterward, and when and because the eagle had +decided to attempt the said despoiling, that there was a change of +times at Philipse Manor Hall. Meanwhile had young Frederick, and +Maria, and Elizabeth, and their brothers and sisters arrived on the +scene. What could one have expected of the ease-loving, beauty-loving, +book-loving, luxury-loving, garden-loving, and wide-girthed lord of +the manor--connected by descent, kinship, and marriage with royal +office-holding--but Toryism? In fact, nobody did expect else of him, +for though he tried in 1775 to conceal his sympathy with the cause of +the King, the powers in revolt inferred it, and took measures to +deter him from actively aiding the British forces. His removal to +Hartford, his return to the manor-house,--where he was for awhile, in +the fall of 1776, at the time of the battle of White Plains,--his +memorable business trip to New York, and his parole-breaking +continuance there, heralded the end of the old regime in Philipse +Manor Hall. The historians say that at that time of Colonel Philipse's +last stay at the hall, Washington quartered there for awhile, and +occupied the great southwestern chamber. Doubtless Washington did +occupy that chamber once upon a time, but his itinerary and other +circumstances are against its having been immediately before or +immediately after the battle of White Plains. Some of the American +officers were there about the time. As for the colonel's family, it +did not abandon the house until 1777. With the occasions when, during +the first months of Revolutionary activity in the county, use was +sought of the secret closets and the underground passage thoughtfully +provided by the earlier Philipses in days of risk from Indians, fear +of Frenchmen, and dealings with pirates, this history has naught to +do. + +In 1777, then, the family took a farewell view of the old house, and +somewhat sadly, more resentfully, wended by familiar landmarks to New +York,--to await there a joyous day of returning, when the King's +regiments should have scattered the rebels and hanged their leaders. +John Williams, steward of the manor, was left to take care of the +house against that day, with one white housemaid, who was of kin to +him, and one black slave, a man. The outside shutters of the first +story, the inside shutters above, were fastened tight; the bolts of +the ponderous mahogany doors were strengthened, the stables and mills +and outbuildings emptied and locked. Much that was precious in the +house went with the family and horses and servants to New York. Yet be +sure that proper means of subsistence for Williams and his two helpers +were duly stowed away, for the faithful steward had to himself the +discharge of that matter. + +So wholesale a departure went with much bustle, and it was not till he +returned from seeing the numerous party off, and found himself alone +with the maid and the slave in the great entrance-hall, which a few +minutes before had been noisy with voices, that Williams felt to the +heart the sudden loneliness of the place. The face of Molly, the maid, +was white and ready for weeping, and there was a gravity on the +chocolate visage of black Sam that gave the steward a distinctly +tremulous moment. Perhaps he recalled the prediction of the Indian, +and had a flash of second sight, and perceived that the third lord of +the manor was to be the last. Howbeit, he cleared his throat and set +black Sam to laying in fire-wood as for a siege, and Molly to righting +the disorder caused by the exodus; betook himself cellarward, and from +a hidden place drew forth a bottle of an old vintage, and comforted +his solitude. He was a snug, honest, discreet man of forty, was the +steward, slim but powerful, looking his office, besides knowing and +fulfilling it. + +But, as the months passed, he became used to the solitude, and the +routine of life in the closed-up, memory-haunted old house took on a +certain charm. The living was snug enough in what parts of the mansion +the steward and his two servitors put to their own daily use. As for +the other parts, the great dark rooms and entrance-halls, we may be +sure that when the steward went the rounds, and especially after a +visit to the wine-cellar, he found them not so empty, but peopled with +the vague and shifting images of the many beings, young and old, who +had filled the house with life in brighter days. Then, if ever, did +noise of creaking stair or sound as of human breath, or, perchance, +momentary vision of flitting face against the dark, betray the present +ghost of some old-time habitue of the mansion. + +When the raiding and foraging and marauding began in the county, the +manor-house was not molested. The partisan warfare had not yet reached +its magnitude. After the battle of White Plains in 1776, the British +had retained New York City, while the main American army, leaving a +small force above, had gone to New Jersey. Late in 1777, the British +main army, leaving New York garrisoned, had departed to contest with +the Americans for Philadelphia. Not until July, 1778, after Monmouth +battle, did the British main army return to New York, and the American +forces form the great arc, with their chief camp in upper West Chester +County. Then was great increase of foray and pillage. The manor-house +was of course exempt from harm at the hands of King's troops and Tory +raiders, while it was protected from American regulars by Washington's +policy against useless destruction, and from the marauding "Skinners" +by its nearness to the British lines and by the solidity of its walls, +doors, and shutters. Its gardens suffered, its picket fences and gate +fastenings were tampered with, its orchards prematurely plucked. But +its trees were spared by the British foragers, and the house itself +was no longer in demand as officers' quarters, being too near King's +Bridge for safe American occupancy, but not sufficiently near for +British. Hessians and Tories, though, patrolled the near-by roads, and +sometimes Continental troops camped in the neighboring hills. In 1778, +the American Colonel Gist, whose corps was then at the foot of Boar +Hill, north of the manor-house, was paying his court to the handsome +widow Babcock, in the parsonage, when he was surprised by a force of +yagers, rangers, and Loyalist light horse, and got away in the nick of +time.[2] The parsonage, unlike the manor-house, was often visited by +officers on their way hither and thither, but I will not say it was +for this reason that Miss Sally Williams, the sister of Colonel +Philipse's wife, preferred living in the parsonage with the Babcocks +rather than in the great deserted mansion. + +On a dark November afternoon, Williams had sent black Sam to the +orchard for some winter apples, and the slave, after the fashion of +his race, was taking his time over the errand. The shades of evening +gathered while the steward was making his usual rounds within the +mansion. Molly, whose housewifely instincts ever asserted themselves, +had of her own accord made a dusting tour of the rooms and halls. She +was on the first landing of the stairway in the east hall, just about +to finish her task in the waning light admitted by the window over the +landing and by the fanlight over the front door, when, as she applied +her cloth to the mahogany balustrade, the door of the east parlor +opened, and Williams came out of that dark apartment. + +"Lord, Molly!" he said, a moment later, having started at suddenly +beholding her. "I thought you were a ghost! It's time to get supper, I +think, from the look of the day outside. I'll have to make a light." + +From a closet in the side of the staircase he took a candle, flint, +and tinder, talking the while to Molly, as she rubbed the balusters. +Having produced a tiny candle-flame that did not light up half the +hall, Williams started towards the dining-room, but stopped at a +distant sound of galloping horses, which were evidently coming down +the Albany road. The steward and the maid exchanged conjectures as to +whether this meant a British patrol or "Rebel" dragoons, "Skinners" or +Hessian yagers, Highlanders, or Loyalist light horse; and then +observed from the sound that the horses had turned aside into the Mile +Square road. + +But now came a new sound of horses, and though it was of only a few, +and those walking, it gave Williams quite a start, for the footfalls +were manifestly approaching the mansion. They as manifestly stopped +before that very hill. And then came a sharp knock on the mahogany +door. + +"See who it is," whispered Molly. + +Williams hesitated. The knock was repeated. + +"Who's there?" called out Williams. + +There was an answer, but the words could not be made out. + +"Who?" repeated Williams. + +This time the answer was clear enough. + +"It's I, Williams! Don't keep me standing here in the wind all +night." + +"It's Miss Elizabeth!" cried Molly; and Williams, in a kind of daze of +astonishment, hastily unlocked, unbolted, and threw open the door. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE SOUND OF GALLOPING. + + +A rush of wind came in from the outer gloom and almost blew out the +candle. Williams held up his hand to protect the flame and stepped +aside from before the doorway. + +The wind was promptly followed by Elizabeth, who strode in with +the air that a king might show on reentering one of his palaces, +still holding her whip in her gloved hand. Behind her came Colden, +the picture of moody dejection. When Cuff had entered with the +portmanteaus, Williams, seeing but three horses without, closed +the door, locked it, and looked with inquiry and bewilderment at +Elizabeth. + +"Br-r-r-r!" she ejaculated. "Light up my chamber, Molly, and have a +fire in it; then make some hot tea, and get me something to eat." + +Elizabeth's impetuosity sent the open-mouthed maid flying up-stairs to +execute the first part of the order, whereupon the mistress turned to +the wondering steward. + +"I've come to spend a week at the manor-house, Williams. Cuff, take +those to my room." + +The black boy, with the portmanteaus, followed in the way Molly had +taken, but with less rapidity. By this time Williams had recovered +somewhat from his surprise, and regained his voice and something of +his stewardly manner. + +"I scarcely expected any of the family out from New York these times, +miss. There----" + +"I suppose not!" Elizabeth broke in. "Have some one put away the +horses, Williams, or they'll be shivering. It's mighty cold for the +time of year." + +"I'll go myself, ma'am. There's only black Sam, you know, and he isn't +back from the orchard. I sent him to get some apples." And the steward +set the candlestick on the newel post of the stairway, and started for +the door. + +"No, let Cuff go," said Elizabeth, sitting down on a settle that stood +with its back to the side of the staircase. "You start a fire in the +room next mine, for aunt Sally. She'll be over from the parsonage in a +few minutes." + +Williams thereupon departed in quest of the stable key, inwardly +devoured by a mighty curiosity as to the wherefore of Elizabeth's +presence here in the company of none but her affianced, and also the +wherefore of that gentleman's manifest depression of spirits. His +curiosity was not lessened when the major called after him: + +"Tell Cuff he may feed my horse, but not take the saddle off. I must +ride back to New York as soon as the beast is rested." + +"Why," said Elizabeth to Colden, "you may stay for a bite of supper." + +"No, thank you! I am not hungry." + +"A glass of wine, then," said the girl, quite heedless of his tone; +"if there is any left in the house." + +"No wine, I thank you!" Colden stood motionless, too far back in the +hall to receive much light from the feeble candle, like a shadowy +statue of the sulks. + +"As you will!" + +Whereupon Elizabeth, as if she had satisfied her conscience regarding +what was due from her in the name of hospitality, rose, and opened the +door to the east parlor. + +"Ugh! How dark and lonely the house is! No wonder aunt Sally chose to +live at the parsonage." After one look into the dark apartment, she +closed the door. "Well, I'll warm up the place a bit. Sorry you can't +stay with us, major." + +"It is only you who send me away," said Colden, dismally and +reproachfully. "I could have got longer leave of absence. You let me +escort you here, because no gentleman of your family will lend himself +to your reckless caprice. And then, having no further present use for +me, you send me about my business!" + +Elizabeth, preferring to pace the hall until her chamber should be +heated, and her aunt should arrive, was striking her cloak with her +riding-whip at each step; not that the cloak needed dusting, but as a +method of releasing surplus energy. + +"But I do have further present use for you," she said. "You are going +back to New York to inform my dear timid parents and sisters and +brothers that I've arrived here safe. They'll not sleep till you tell +them so." + +"One of your slaves might bear that news as well," quoth the major. + +"Well, are you not forever calling yourself my slave? Besides, my +devotion to King George won't let me weaken his forces by holding one +of his officers from duty longer than need be." + +But Colden was not to be cheered by pleasantry. + +"What a man you are! So cross at my sending you back that you'll +neither eat nor drink before going. Pray don't pout, Colden. 'Tis +foolish!" + +"I dare say! A man in love does many foolish things!" + +The utterance of this great and universal truth had not time to +receive comment from Elizabeth before Cuff reappeared, with the stable +key; and at the same instant, a rather delicate, inoffensive knock was +heard on the front door. + +"That must be aunt Sally," said Elizabeth. "Let her in, Cuff. Then go +and stable the horses. My poor Cato will freeze!" + +It was indeed Miss Sarah Williams, and in a state of breathlessness. +She had been running, perhaps to escape the unseemly embraces of the +wind, which had taken great liberties with her skirts,--liberties no +less shocking because of the darkness of the evening; for though De la +Rochefoucauld has settled it that man's alleged courage takes a +vacation when darkness deprives it of possible witnesses, no one will +accuse an elderly maiden's modesty of a like eclipse. + +"My dear child, what could have induced you----" were her first words +to Elizabeth; but her attention was at that point distracted by seeing +Cuff, outside the threshold, about to pull the door shut. "Don't close +the door yet, boy. Some one is coming." + +Cuff thereupon started on his task of stabling the three horses, +leaving the door open. The flame of the candle on the newel post was +blown this way and that by the in-rushing wind. + +"It's old Mr. Valentine," explained Miss Sally to Elizabeth. "He +offered to show me over from the parsonage, where he happened to be +calling, so I didn't wait for Mrs. Babcock's boy----" + +"You found Mr. Valentine pleasanter company, I suppose, aunty, dear," +put in Elizabeth, who spared neither age nor dignity. "He's a widower +again, isn't he?" + +Miss Sally blushed most becomingly. Her plump cheeks looked none the +worse for this modest suffusion. + +"Fie, child! He's eighty years old. Though, to be sure, the attentions +of a man of his experience and judgment aren't to be considered +lightly." + +Those were the days when well-bred people could--and often did, +naturally and without effort--improvise grammatical sentences of more +than twelve words, in the course of ordinary, every-day talk. + +"We started from the parsonage together," went on Miss Sally, "but I +was so impatient I got ahead. He doesn't walk as briskly as he did +twenty years ago." + +Yet briskly enough for his years did the octogenarian walk in through +the little pillared portico a moment later. Such deliberation as his +movements had might as well have been the mark of a proper self-esteem +as the effect of age. He was a slender but wiry-looking old gentleman, +was Matthias Valentine, of Valentine's Hill; in appearance a credit to +the better class of countrymen of his time. His white hair was tied in +a cue, as if he were himself a landowner instead of only a manorial +tenant. Yet no common tenant was he. His father, a dragoon in the +French service, had come down from Canada and settled on Philipse +Manor, and Matthias had been proprietor of Valentine's Hill, renting +from the Philipses in earlier days than any one could remember. His +grandsons now occupied the Hill, and the old man was in the full +enjoyment of the leisure he had won. His rather sharp countenance, +lighted by honest gray eyes, was a mixture of good-humor, childlike +ingenuousness, and innocent jocosity. The neatness of his hair, his +carefully shaven face, and the whole condition of his brown cloth coat +and breeches and worsted stockings, denoted a fastidiousness rarely at +any time, and particularly in the good (or bad) old days, to be found +in common with rustic life and old age. Did some of the dandyism of +the French dragoon survive in the old Philipsburgh farmer? + +He carried a walking-stick in one hand, a lighted lantern in the +other. After bowing to the people in the hall, he set down his +lantern, closed the door and bolted it, then took up his lantern, blew +out the flame thereof, and set it down again. + +"Whew!" he puffed, after his exertion. "Windy night, Miss Elizabeth! +Windy night, Major Colden! Winter's going to set in airly this year. +There ain't been sich a frosty November since '64, when the river was +froze over as fur down as Spuyten Duyvel." + +There was in the old man's high-pitched voice a good deal of the +squeak, but little of the quaver, of senility. + +"You'll stay to supper, I hope, Mr. Valentine." + +From Elizabeth this was a sufficient exhibition of graciousness. She +then turned her back on the two men and began to tell her aunt of her +arrangements. + +"Thankee, ma'am," said old Valentine, whose sight did not immediately +acquaint him, in the dim candle-light, with Elizabeth's change of +front; wherefore he continued, placidly addressing her back: "I +wouldn't mind a glass and a pipe with friend Williams afore trudging +back to the Hill." + +He then walked over to the disconsolate Colden, and, with a very +gay-doggish expression, remarked in an undertone: + +"Fine pair o' girls yonder, major?" + +He had known Colden from the time of the latter's first boyhood visits +to the manor, and could venture a little familiarity. + +"Girls?" blurted the major, startled out of his meditations. + +The old country beau chuckled. + +"We all know what's betwixt you and the niece. How about the aunt and +me taking a lesson from you two, eh?" + +Even the gloomy officer could not restrain a momentary smile. + +"What, Mr. Valentine? Do you seriously think of marrying?" + +"Why not? I've been married afore, hain't I? What's to hinder?" + +"Why, there's the matter of age." Colden rather enjoyed being +inconsiderate of people's feelings. + +"Oh, the lady is not so old," said the octogenarian, placidly, casting +a judicial, but approving look at the commanding figure of Miss +Sally. + +Then, as he had been for a considerable time on his legs, having +walked over from the Hill to the parsonage that afternoon, and as at +best his knees bent when he stood, he sat down on the settle by the +staircase. + +Miss Sally, though she knew it useless to protest further against +Elizabeth's caprice, nevertheless felt it her duty to do so, +especially as Major Colden would probably carry to the family a report +of her attitude towards that caprice. + +"Did you ever hear of such rashness, major? A young girl like +Elizabeth coming out here in time of war, when this neutral ground +between the lines is overridden and foraged to death, and deluged with +blood by friend as well as foe? La me! I can't understand her, if she +_is_ my sister's child." + +"Why, aunt Sally, _you_ stay out here through it all," said Elizabeth, +not as much to depreciate the dangers as to give her aunt an +opportunity of posing as a very courageous person. + +Miss Sally promptly accepted the opportunity. "Oh," said she, with a +mien of heroic self-sacrifice, "I couldn't let poor Grace Babcock stay +at the parsonage with nobody but her children; besides I'm not Colonel +Philipse's daughter, and who cares whether I'm loyal to the King or +not? But a girl like you isn't made for the dangers and privations +we've had to put up with out here since the King's troops have +occupied New York, and Washington's rebel army has held the country +above. I'm surprised the family let her come, or that you'd +countenance it by coming with her, major." + +"We all opposed it," said Colden, with a sigh. "But--you know +Elizabeth!" + +"Yes," said Elizabeth herself with cheerful nonchalance, "Elizabeth +always has her way. I was hungry for a sight of the place, and the +more the old house is in danger, the more I love it. I'm here for a +week, and that ends it. The place doesn't seem to have suffered any. +They haven't even quartered troops here." + +"Not since the American officers stayed here in the fall o' '76," put +in old Mr. Valentine, from the settle. "I reckon you'll be safe enough +here, Miss Elizabeth." + +"Of course I shall. Why, our troops patrol all this part of the +country, Lord Cathcart told us at King's Bridge, and _we_ have naught +to fear from them." + +"No, the British foragers won't dare treat Philipse Manor-house as +they do the homes of some of their loyal friends," said Miss Sally, +who was no less proud of her relationship with the Philipses, because +it was by marriage and not by blood. "But the horrible "Skinners," who +don't spare even the farms of their fellow rebels--" + +"Bah!" said Elizabeth. "The scum of the earth! Williams has weapons +here, and with him and the servants I'll defend the place against all +the rebel cut-throats in the county." + +The major thought to make a last desperate attempt to dissuade +Elizabeth from remaining. + +"That's all well enough," said he; "but there are the rebel regulars, +the dragoons. They'll be raiding down to our very lines, one of these +days, if only in retaliation. You know how Lord Cornwallis's party +under General Grey, over in Jersey, the other night, killed a lot of +Baylor's cavalry,--Mrs. Washington's Light Horse, they called the +troop. And the Hessians made a great foray on the rebel families this +side the river." + +"Ay," chirped old Valentine; "but the American Colonel Butler, and +their Major Lee, of Virginia, fell on the Hessian yagers 'tween +Dobbs's Ferry and Tarrytown, and killed ever so many of 'em,--and I +wasn't sorry for that, neither!" + +"Oho!" said Colden, "you belong to the opposition." + +"Oh, I'm neither here nor there," replied the old man. "But they say +that there Major Lee, of Virginia, is the gallantest soldier in +Washington's army. He'd lead his men against the powers of Satan if +Washington gave the word. Light Horse Harry, they call him,--and a +fine dashing troop o' light horse he commands." + +"No more dashing, I'll wager, than some of ours," said Elizabeth, +whose mood for the moment permitted her to talk with reason and +moderation; "not even counting the Germans. And as for leaders, what +do you say to Simcoe, of the Queen's Rangers, or Emmerick, or +Tarleton, or"--turning to Colden--"your cousin James De Lancey, of +this county, major?" + +The major, notwithstanding his Toryism, did not enter with enthusiasm +into Elizabeth's admiration for these brave young cavalry leaders. +Staten Island and East New Jersey had not offered him as great +opportunities for distinction as they had had. It was, therefore, Miss +Sally who next spoke. + +"Well, Heaven knows there are enough on either side to devastate the +land and rob us of comfort and peace. One wakes in the middle of the +night, at the clatter of horses riding by like the wind, and wonders +whether it's friend or foe, and trembles till they're out of hearing, +for fear the door is to be broken in or the house fired. And the sound +of shots in the night, and the distant glare of flames when some poor +farmer's home is burned over his head!" + +"Ay," added Mr. Valentine, "and all the cattle and crops go to the +foragers, so it's no use raising any more than you can hide away for +your own larder." + +Elizabeth was beginning to be bored, and saw nothing to gain from a +continuation of these recitals. Doubtless, by this time, her room was +lighted and warm. So, thoughtless of Colden, she mounted the first +step of the stairway, and said: + +"I have no doubt Williams has contrived to hide away enough provisions +for _our_ use. So _I_ sha'n't suffer from hunger, and as for Lee's +Light Horse, I defy them and all other rebels. Come, aunt Sally!" + +She had ascended as far as to the fourth step of the stairway, and +Miss Sally was about to follow, when there was heard, above the wind's +moaning, another sound of galloping horses. Like the previous similar +sound, it came from the north. + +Elizabeth stopped and stood on the fourth step. Miss Sally raised her +finger to bid silence. Colden's attitude became one of anxious +attention, while he dropped his hat on the settle and drew his cloak +close about him, so that it concealed his uniform, sword, and pistol. +The galloping continued. + +When time came for it to turn off eastward, as it would do should the +riders take the road to Mile Square, it did not so. Instead, as the +sound unmistakably indicated, it came on down the post-road. + +"Hessians, perhaps!" Miss Sally whispered. + +"Or De Lancey's Cowboys," said Valentine, but not in a whisper. + +Elizabeth cast a sharp look at the old man, as if to show disapproval +of his use of the Whigs' nickname for De Lancey's troop. But the +octogenarian did not quail. + +"They're riding towards the manor-house," he added, a moment later. + +"Let us hope they're friends," said Colden, in a tone low and slightly +unsteady. + +Elizabeth disdained to whisper. + +"Maybe it is Lee's Light Horse," she said, in her usual voice, but +ironically, addressing Valentine. "In that case we should tremble for +our lives, I suppose." + +"Whoever they are, they've stopped before the house!" said Miss Sally, +in quite a tremble. + +There was a noise of horses pawing and snorting outside, of directions +being given rapidly, and of two or three horses leaving the main band +for another part of the grounds. Then was heard a quick, firm step on +the porch floor, and in the same instant a sharp, loud knock on the +door. + +No one in the hall moved; all looked at Elizabeth. + +"A very valiant knock!" said she, with more irony. "It certainly +_must_ be Lee's Light Horse. Will you please open the door, Colden?" + +"What?" ejaculated Colden. + +"Certainly," said Elizabeth, turning on the stairway, so as to face +the door; "to show we're not afraid." + +Jack Colden looked at her a moment demurringly, then went to the door, +undid the fastenings, and threw it open, keeping his cloak close about +him and immediately stepping back into the shadow. + +A handsome young officer strode in, as if 'twere a mighty gust of wind +that sent him. He wore a uniform of blue with red facings,--a uniform +that had seen service,--was booted and spurred, without greatcoat or +cloak. A large pistol was in his belt, and his left hand rested on the +hilt of a sword. He swept past Colden, not seeing him; came to a stop +in the centre of the hall, and looked rapidly around from face to +face. + +"Your servant, ladies and gentlemen!" he said, with a swift bow and a +flourish of his dragoon's hat. His eye rested on Elizabeth. + +"Who are you?" she demanded, coldly and imperiously, from the fourth +step. + +"I'm Captain Peyton, of Lee's Light Horse," said he. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON. + + +The Peytons of Virginia were descended from a younger son of the +Peytons of Pelham, England, of which family was Sir Edward Peyton, of +Pelham, knight and baronet. Sir Edward's relative, the first American +Peyton, settled in Westmoreland County. Within one generation the +family had spread to Stafford County, and within another to Loudoun +County also. Thus it befell that there was a Mr. Craven Peyton, of +Loudoun County, justice of the peace, vestryman, and chief warden of +Shelburne Parish. He was the father of nine sons and two daughters. +One of the sons was Harry. + +This Harry grew up longing to be a soldier. Military glory was his +ambition, as it had been Washington's; but not as a mere provincial +would he be satisfied to excel. He would have a place as a regular +officer, in an army of the first importance, on the fields of Europe. +Before the Revolution, Americans were, like all colonials, very loyal +to their English King. Therefore would Harry Peyton be content with +naught less than a King's commission in the King's army. + +His father, glad to be guided in choosing a future for one of so many +sons, sent Harry to London in 1770, to see something of life, and so +managed matters, through his English relations, that the boy was in +1772, at the age of nineteen, the possessor, by purchase, of an +ensign's commission. He was soon sent to do garrison duty in Ireland, +being enrolled with the Sixty-third Regiment of Foot. + +He had lived gaily enough during his two years in London, occupying +lodgings, being patronized by his relations, seeing enough of society, +card-tables, drums, routs, plays, prize-fights, and other diversions. +He had made visits in the country and showed what he had learned in +Virginia about cock-fighting, fox-hunting and shooting, and had taken +lessons from London fencing-masters. A young gentleman from Virginia, +if well off and "well connected," could have a fine time in London in +those days; and Harry Peyton had it. + +But he could never forget that he was a colonial. If he were +treated by his English associates as an equal, or even at times +with a particular consideration, there was always a kind of +implication that he was an exception among colonials. Other +colonial youths were similarly treated, and some of these were glad +to be held as exceptions, and even joined in the derision of the +colonials who were not. For these Harry Peyton had a mighty disgust +and detestation. He did not enjoy receiving as Harry Peyton a +tolerance and kindness that would have been denied him as merely an +American. And he sometimes could not avoid seeing that, even as +Harry Peyton, he was regarded as compensating, by certain attractive +qualities in the nature of amiability and sincerity, for occasional +exhibitions of what the English rated as social impropriety and +bad taste. Often, at the English lofty derision of colonials, at +the English air of self-evident superiority, the English pretence of +politely concealed shock or pain or offence at some infringement of a +purely superficial conduct-code of their own arbitrary fabrication, +he ground his teeth in silence; for in one respect, he had as good +manners as the English had then, or have now,--when in Rome he did +not resent or deride what the Romans did. He began to think that the +lot of a self-respecting American among the English, even if he +were himself made an exception of and well dealt with, was not the +most enviable one. And, after he joined the army, he thought this +more and more every day. But he would show them what a colonial +could rise to! Yet that would prove nothing for his countrymen, as +he would always, on his meritorious side, be deemed an exception. + +His military ambition, however, predominated, and he had no thought of +leaving the King's service. + +The disagreement between the King and the American Colonies grew, +from "a cloud no bigger than a man's hand," to something larger. +But Harry heard little of it, and that entirely from the English +point of view. He received but three or four letters a year from +his own people, and the time had not come for his own people to write +much more than bare facts. They were chary of opinions. Harry +supposed that the new discontent in the Colonies, after the repeal of +the Stamp Act and the withdrawal of the two regiments from Boston +Town to Castle William, was but that of the perpetually restless, +the habitual fomenters, the notoriety-seeking agitators, the mob, +whose circumstances could not be made worse and might be improved by +disturbances. Now the Americans, from being a subject of no +interest to English people, a subject discussed only when some rare +circumstance brought it up, became more talked of. Sometimes, when +Americans were blamed for opposing taxes to support soldiery used +for their own protection, Harry said that the Americans could protect +themselves; that the English, in wresting Canada from the French, +had sought rather English prestige and dominion than security for the +colonials; that the flourishing of the Colonies was despite English +neglect, not because of English fostering; that if the English had +solicitude for America, it was for America as a market for their own +trade. Thereupon his fellow officers would either laugh him out, +as if he were too ignorant to be argued with, or freeze him out, +as if he had committed some grave outrage on decorum. And Harry would +rage inwardly, comparing his own ignorance and indecorousness with the +knowledge and courtesy exemplified in the assertion of Doctor Johnson, +when that great but narrow Englishman said, in 1769, of Americans, +"Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for +anything we allow them short of hanging." + +There came to Harry, now and then, scraps of vague talk of uneasiness +in Boston Town, whose port the British Parliament had closed, to +punish the Yankees for riotously destroying tea on which there was a +tax; of the concentration there of British troops from Halifax, +Quebec, New York, the Jerseys, and other North American posts. But +there was not, in Harry's little world of Irish garrison life, the +slightest expectation of actual rebellion or even of a momentous local +tumult in the American Colonies. + +Imagine, therefore, his feelings when, one morning late in March in +1775, he was told that, within a month's time, the Sixty-third, and +other regiments, would embark at Cork for either Boston or New York! + +There could not be a new French or Spanish invasion. As for the +Indians, never again would British regulars be sent against them. Was +it, then, Harry's own countrymen that his regiment was going to +fight? + +His comrades inferred the cause of his long face, and laughed. He +would have no more fighting to do in America against the Americans +than he had to do in Ireland against the Irish, or than an English +officer in an English barrack town had to do against the English. The +reinforcements were being sent only to overawe the lawless element. +The mere sight of these reinforcements would obviate any occasion for +their use. The regiment would merely do garrison duty in America +instead of in Ireland or elsewhere. + +He had none to advise or enlighten him. What was there for him to do +but sail with his regiment, awaiting disclosures or occurrences to +guide? What misgivings he had, he kept to himself, though once on the +voyage, as he looked from the rocking transport towards the west, he +confided to Lieutenant Dalrymple his opinion that 'twas damned bad +luck sent _his_ regiment to America, of all places. + +When he landed in Boston, June 12th, he found, as he had expected, +that the town was full of soldiers, encamped on the common and +quartered elsewhere; but also, as he had not expected, that the troops +were virtually confined to the town, which was fortified at the Neck; +that the last time they had marched into the country, through +Lexington to Concord, they had marched back again at a much faster +gait, and left many score dead and wounded on the way; and that a host +of New Englanders in arms were surrounding Boston! The news of April +19th had not reached Europe until after Harry had sailed, nor had it +met his regiment on the ocean. When he heard it now, he could only +become more grave and uneasy. But the British officers were scornful +of their clodhopper besiegers. In due time this rabble should be +scattered like chaff. But was it a mere rabble? Certainly. Were not +the best people in Boston loyal to the King's government? Some of +them, yes. But, as Harry went around with open eyes and ears, eager +for information, he found that many of them were with the "rabble." +News was easy to be had. The citizens were allowed to pass the barrier +on the Neck, if they did not carry arms or ammunition, and there was +no strict discipline in the camp of New Englanders. Therefore Harry +soon learned how Doctor Warren stood, and the Adamses, and Mr. John +Hancock; and that a Congress, representing all the Colonies, was now +sitting at Philadelphia, for the second time; and that in the Congress +his own Virginia was served by such gentlemen as Mr. Richard Henry +Lee, Mr. Patrick Henry, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, and Colonel Washington. +And the Virginians had shown as ready and firm a mind for revolt +against the King's measures as the New Englanders had. Here, for once, +the sympathies of trading Puritan and fox-hunting Virginian were one. +Moreover, a Yankee was a fellow American, and, after five years of +contact with English self-esteem, Harry warmed at the sight of a New +Englander as he never would have done before he had left Virginia. + +But it did not conduce to peace of mind, in his case, to be convinced +that the colonial remonstrance was neither local nor of the rabble. +The more general and respectable it was, the more embarrassing was his +own situation. Would it really come to war? With ill-concealed +anxiety, he sought the opinion of this person and that. + +On the fourth day after his arrival, he went into a tavern in King +Street with Lieutenant Massay, of the Thirty-fifth, Ensign Charleton, +of the Fifth, and another young officer, and, while they were +drinking, heard a loyalist tell what one Parker, leader of the +Lexington rebels, said to his men on Lexington Common, on the morning +of April 19th, when the King's troops came in sight. + +"'Stand your ground,' says he. 'Don't fire till you're fired on, but +if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!'" + +"And it began there!" said Harry. + +The English officers stared at him, and laughed. + +"Ay, 'twas the Yankee idea of war," said one of them. "Run for a stone +wall, and, when the enemy's back is turned, blaze away. I'd like to +see a million of the clodhoppers compelled to stand up and face a line +of grenadiers." + +"Ay, gimme ten companies of grenadiers," cried one, who had doubtless +heard of General Gage's celebrated boast, "and I'll go from one end of +the damned country to the other, and drive 'em to their holes like +foxes. Only 'tis better sport chasing handsome foxes in England than +ill-dressed poltroons in Bumpkin-land." + +"They're not all poltroons," said Harry, repressing his feelings the +more easily through long practice. "Some of them fought in the French +war. There's Putnam, and Pomeroy, and Ward. I heard Lieutenant-Colonel +Abercrombie, of the Twenty-second, say yesterday that Putnam--" + +"Cowards every one of 'em," broke in another. "Cowards and louts. A +lady told me t'other day there ain't in all America a man whose coat +sets in close at the back, except he's of the loyal party. Cowards and +louts!" + +"Look here, damn you!" cried Peyton. "I want you to know I'm American +born, and my people are American, and I don't know whether they are of +the loyal party or not!" + +"Oh, now, that's the worst of you Americans,--always will get +personal! Of course, there are exceptions." + +"Then there are exceptions enough to make a rule themselves," said +Harry. "I'm tired hearing you call these people cowards before you've +had a chance to see what they are. And you needn't wait for that, for +I can tell you now they're not!" + +"Well, well, perhaps not,--to you. Doubtless they're very dreadful,--to +you. You don't seem to relish facing 'em, that's a fact! You'll be +resigning your commission one o' these days, I dare say, if it comes to +blows with these terrible heroes!" + +Harry saw everybody in the room looking at him with a grin. + +"By the Lord," said he, "maybe I shall!" and stalked hotly out of the +place. + +His wrath increased as he walked. He noticed now, more than before, +the confident, arrogant air of the redcoats who promenaded the +streets; how they leered at the women, and made the citizens who +passed turn out of the way. Forthwith, he went to his quarters, and +wrote his resignation. + +When the ink was dry he folded up the document and put it in the +pocket of his uniform coat. Then that last tavern speech recurred to +him. "If I resign now," he thought, "they'll suppose it's because I +really am afraid of fighting, not because the rebels are my +countrymen." So he lapsed into a state of indecision,--a state +resembling apathy, a half-dazed condition, a semi-somnolent waiting +for events. But he kept his letter of resignation in his coat. + +At dawn the next morning, Saturday, June 17th, he was awakened by the +booming of guns. He was soon up and out. It was a beautiful day. +People were on the eminences and roofs, looking northward, across the +mouth of the Charles, towards Charlestown and the hill beyond. On that +hill were seen rough earthworks, six feet high, which had not been +there the day before. The booming guns were those of the British +man-of-war _Lively_, firing from the river at the new earthworks. +Hence the earthworks were the doing of the rebels, having been raised +during the night. Presently the _Lively_ ceased its fire, but soon +there was more booming, this time not only from the men-of-war, but +also from the battery on Copp's Hill in Boston. After awhile Harry +saw, from where he stood with many others on Beacon Hill, some of the +rebels emerge from one part of the earthworks, as if to go away. One +of these was knocked over by a cannon-ball. His comrades dragged his +body behind the earthen wall. By and by a tall, strong-looking man +appeared on top of the parapet, and walked leisurely along, apparently +giving directions. Harry heard from a citizen, who had a field-glass, +the words, "Prescott, of Pepperell." Other men were now visible on +the parapet, superintending the workers behind. And now the booming of +the guns was answered by disrespectful cheers from those same unseen +workers. + +The morning grew hot. Harry heard that General Gage had called a +council of war at the Province House; that Generals Howe, Clinton, +Burgoyne,[3]--these three having arrived in Boston about three weeks +before Harry had,--Pigott, Grant, and the rest were now there in +consultation. At length there was the half-expected tumult of drum and +bugle; and Harry was summoned to obey, with his comrades, the order to +parade. There was now much noise of officers galloping about, dragoons +riding from their quarters, and rattling of gun-carriages. The booming +from the batteries and vessels increased. + +At half-past eleven Harry found himself--for he was scarcely master of +his acts that morning, his will having taken refuge in a kind of +dormancy--on parade with two companies of his regiment, and he noticed +in a dim way that other companies near were from other different +regiments, all being supplied with ammunition, blankets, and +provisions. When the sun was directly overhead and at its hottest, the +order to march was given, and soon he was bearing the colors through +the streets of Boston. The roar of the cannon now became deafening. +Harry knew not whether the rebels were returning it from their hill +works across the water or not. In time the troops reached the wharf. +Barges were in waiting, and field-pieces were being moved into some of +them. He could see now that all the firing was from the King's vessels +and batteries. Mechanically he followed Lieutenant Dalrymple into a +barge, which soon filled up with troops. The other barges were +speedily brilliant with scarlet coats and glistening bayonets. Not far +away the river was covered with smoke, through which flashed the fire +of the belching artillery. A blue flag was waved from General Howe's +barge, and the fleet moved across the river towards the hill where the +rebels waited silently behind their piles of earth. + +At one o'clock, Harry followed Lieutenant Dalrymple out of the barge +to the northern shore of the river, at a point northeast of +Charlestown village and east of the Yankees' hill. There was no +molestation from the rebels. The firing from the vessels and batteries +protected the hillside and shore. The troops were promptly formed in +three lines. Harry's place was in the left of the front line. Then +there was long waiting. The barges went back to the Boston side. Was +General Howe, who had command of the movements, sending for more +troops? Many of the soldiers ate of their stock of provisions. Harry, +in a kind of dream, looked westward up the hill towards the silent +Yankee redoubt. It faced south, west, and east. The line of its +eastern side was continued northward by a breastwork, and still beyond +this, down the northern hillside to another river, ran a straggling +rail fence, which was thatched with fresh-cut hay. What were the men +doing behind those defences? What were they saying and thinking? + +The barges came back across the Charles from Boston, with more +troops, but these were disembarked some distance southwest, nearer +Charlestown. General Howe now made a short speech to the troops +first landed. Then some flank guards were sent out and some cannon +wheeled forward. The companies of the front line, with one of which +was Harry, were now ordered to form into files and move straight +ahead. They were to constitute the right wing of the attacking +force, and to be led by General Howe himself. The four regiments +composing the two rear lines moved forward and leftward, to form, with +the troops newly landed, the left wing, which was to be under General +Pigott. The cannonading from the river and from Boston continued. + +The companies with which was Harry advanced slowly, having to pass +through high grass, over stone fences, under a roasting sun. These +companies were moving towards the hay-thatched rail fence that +straggled down the hillside from the breastwork north of the redoubt. +Harry had a vague sense that the left wing was ascending the +southeastern side of the hill, towards the redoubt, at the same time. +His eye caught the view at either side. Long files of scarlet coats, +steel bayonets, grenadiers' tall caps. He looked ahead. The stretch of +green, grassy hillside, the hay-covered rail fence looking like a +hedge-row, the rude breastwork, the blue sky. Suddenly there came from +the rail fence the belching of field-pieces. Two grenadiers fell at +the right of Harry. One moaned, the other was silent. Harry, shocked +into a sense that war was begun between his King and his people, +instantly resolved to strike no blow that day against his people. But +this was no time for leaving the ranks. Mechanically he marched on. + +Heads appeared over the fence-rail, guns were rested on it, and there +came from it some irregular flashes of musketry. Then Harry saw a man +moving his head and arms, as if shouting and gesticulating. The musket +flashes ceased. Harry did not know it then, but the man was Putnam, +and he was commanding the Yankees to reserve their fire. The British +files were now ordered to deploy into line, and fire. They did so as +they advanced, firing in machine-like unison, as if on parade, but +aiming high. Nearer and nearer, as Harry went forward, rose the fence +ahead and the breastwork on the hill towards the left. Why did not the +Yankees fire? Were they, indeed, paralyzed with fear at sight of the +lines of the King's grenadiers? + +All at once blazed forth the answer,--such a volley of musketry, at +close range, as British grenadiers had not faced before. Down went +officers and men, in twos and threes and rows. Great gaps were cut in +the scarlet lines. The broken columns returned the volley, but there +came another. Harry found himself in the midst of quivering, writhing, +yelling death. The British who were left,--startled, amazed,--turned +and fled. As mechanically as he had come up, did Harry go back in the +common movement. General Howe showed astonishment. The left wing, too, +had been hurled back, down the hill, by death-dealing volleys. The +rabble had held their rude works against the King's choice troops. +Never had as many officers been killed or wounded in a single charge. +There had not been such mowing down at Fontenoy or Montmorenci. These +unmilitary Yankees actually aimed when they fired, each at some +particular mark! Harry had heard them cheering, and had thought they +were about to pursue the King's troops; they had evidently been +ordered back. + +The troops re-formed by the shore. Orders came for another assault. +Back again went Harry with the right wing, bearing the colors as +before. He had secretly an exquisite heart-quickening elation at the +success of his countrymen. If they should win the day, and hold this +hill, and drive the King's troops from Boston! He knew, at last, on +which side his heart was. + +There was more play of artillery during this second charge. Harry +could see, too, that the village of Charlestown was on fire, sending +flames, sparks, and smoke far towards the sky. It was not as easy to +go to the charge this time, there were so many dead bodies in the way. +But the soldiers stepped over them, and maintained the straightness of +their lines. Again it seemed as if the rebels would never fire. Again, +when the King's troops were but a few rods from them, came that +flaming, low-aimed discharge. But the troops marched on, in the face +of it, till the very officers who urged them forward fell before it; +then they wavered, turned, and ran. Harry's joy, as he went with them, +increased, and his hopes mounted. The left wing, too, had been thrown +back a second time. + +There was a long wait, and the generals were seen consulting. At last +a third charge was ordered. This time the greater part of the right +wing was led up the hill against the breastwork. With this part was +Harry. One more volley from the rebel defences met the King's troops. +They wavered slightly, then sprang forward, ready for another. But +another came not. The rebels' ammunition was giving out. Harry's +heart fell. The British forced the breastwork, carrying him along. He +found himself at the northern end of the redoubt. Some privates lifted +him to the parapet; he and a sergeant mounted at the same time, and +leaped together into the redoubt. They saw Lieutenant Richardson, of +the Royal Irish Regiment, appear on the southern parapet, give a shout +of triumph, and fall dead from a Yankee musket-ball. A whole rank that +followed him was served likewise, but others surged over the parapet +in their places. The rebels were defending mainly the southern +parapet. Many were retreating by the rear passageway. Harry saw that +the King's troops had won the redoubt. He took his resolution. He +threw the colors to the sergeant, pulled off his coat, handed it to +the same sergeant, shouting into the man's ear, "Give it to the +colonel, with the letter in the pocket;" picked up a dead man's +musket, and ran to the aid of a tall, powerful rebel who was parrying +with a sword the bayonets of three British privates. The tramp of the +retreating rebels, invading British, and hand-to-hand fighters raised +a blinding dust. Harry and the tall American, gaining a breathing +moment, strode together with long steps, guarding their flank and +rear, to the passageway and out of it; and then fought their course +between two divisions of British, which had turned the outer corners +of the redoubt. There was no firing here, so closely mingled were +British and rebels, the former too exhausted to use forcibly their +bayonets. So Harry retreated, beside the tall man, with the rebels. A +British cheer behind him told the result of the day; but Harry cared +little. His mind was at ease; he was on the right side at last. + +[Illustration: "'GIVE IT TO THE COLONEL.'"] + +Thus did young Mr. Peyton serve on both sides in the same battle, +being with each in the time of its defeat, striking no blow against +his country, yet deserting not the King's army till the moment of its +victory. His act was indeed desertion, desertion to the enemy, and in +time of action; for, though his resignation was written, it was not +only unaccepted, but even undelivered. Thus did he render himself +liable, under the laws of war, to an ignominious death should he ever +fall into the hands of the King's troops. + +During the flight to Cambridge, Harry was separated from the tall man +with whom he had come from the redoubt, but soon saw him again, this +time directing the retreat, and learned that he was Colonel Prescott, +of Pepperell. Some of the rebels discussed Harry freely in his own +hearing, inferring from his attire that he was of the British, and +wondering why he was not a prisoner. Harry asked to be taken to the +commander, and at Cambridge a coatless, bare-headed captain led him +to General Ward, of the Massachusetts force. That veteran militiaman +heard his story, gave it credit, and, with no thought that he might be +a spy, invited him to remain at the camp as a volunteer. Harry +obtained a suit of blue clothes, and quartered in one of the Harvard +College buildings. In a few days news came that the Congress at +Philadelphia had resolved to organize a Continental army, of which the +New England force at Cambridge was to be the present nucleus; that a +general-in-chief would soon arrive to take command, and that the +general-in-chief appointed was a Virginian,--Colonel Washington. Harry +was jubilant. + +Early in July the new general arrived, and Harry paid his respects to +him in the house of the college president. General Washington advised +the boy to send another letter of resignation, then to go home and +join the troops that his own State would soon be raising. On hearing +Harry's story, Washington had given a momentary smile and a look at +Major-General Charles Lee, who had but recently published his +resignation of his half-pay as a retired British officer, and who did +not know yet whether that resignation would be accepted or himself +considered a deserter. + +Peyton sent a new letter of resignation to Boston, then procured a +horse, and started to ride to Virginia. Six days later he was in New +York. In a coffee-house where he was dining, he struck up an +acquaintance with three young gentlemen of the city, and told his name +and story. One of the three--a dark-eyed man--thereupon changed manner +and said he had no time for a rascally turncoat. Harry, in hot +resentment, replied that he would teach a damned Tory some manners. So +the four went out of the town to Nicholas Bayard's woods, where, after +a few passes with rapiers, the dark-eyed gentleman was disarmed, and +admitted, with no good grace, that Harry was the better fencer. Harry +left New York that afternoon, having learned that his antagonist was +Mr. John Colden, son of the postmaster of New York. His grandfather +had been lieutenant-governor. + +Harry had for some time thought he would prefer the cavalry, and +he was determined, if possible, to gratify that preference in +entering the military service of his own country. On arriving home +he found his people strongly sympathizing with the revolt. But it was +not until June, 1776, that Virginia raised a troop of horse. On the +18th of that month Harry was commissioned a cornet thereof. After +some service he found himself, March 31, 1777, cornet in the First +Continental Dragoons. The next fall, in a skirmish after the battle +of Brandywine, he was recognized by British officers as the former +ensign of the Sixty-third. In the following spring, thanks to his +activity during the British occupation of Philadelphia, he was made +captain-lieutenant in Harry Lee's battalion of light dragoons. After +the battle of Monmouth he was promoted, July 2, 1778, to the rank of +captain. In the early fall of that year he was busy in partisan +warfare between the lines of the two armies. + +And thus it came that he was pursuing a troop of Hessians down the New +York and Albany post-road on a certain cold November evening. Eager on +the chase, he was resolved to come up with them if it could be, though +he should have to ride within gunshot of King's Bridge itself. +Suddenly his horse gave out. He had the saddle taken from the dead +animal and given to one of his men to bear while he himself mounted in +front of a sergeant, for he was loath to spare a man. Approaching +Philipse Manor-house, the party saw a boy leading horses into a +stable. Captain Peyton ordered some of his men to patrol the road, and +with the rest he went on to the manor-house lawn. + +Here he gave further directions, dismounted, knocked at the door, and +was admitted to the hall where were Miss Elizabeth Philipse, Major +Colden, Miss Sally Williams, and old Matthias Valentine; and, on +Elizabeth's demand, announced his name and rank. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE BLACK HORSE. + + +Thanks to the dimness, to his uniform, and to his swift entrance, +Peyton had not been recognized by Major Colden until he had given his +name. That name had on the major the effect of an apparition, and he +stepped back into the dark corner of the hall, drawing his cloak yet +closer about him. This alarm and movement were not noticed by the +others, as Peyton was the object of every gaze but his own, which was +fixed on Elizabeth. + +"What do you want?" her voice rang out, while she frowned from her +place on the staircase, in cold resentment. Her aunt, meanwhile, made +the newcomer a tremulous curtsey. + +"I want to see the person in charge of this house, and I want a +horse," replied Peyton, with more promptitude than gentleness, yet +with strict civility. Elizabeth's manner would have nettled even a +colder man. + +Elizabeth did not keep him waiting for an answer. + +"I am at present mistress of this house, and I am neither selling +horses nor giving them!" + +Peyton stared up at her in wonderment. + +The candle-flame struggled against the wind, turning this way and +that, and made the vague shadows of the people and of the slender +balusters dance on floor and wall. From without came the sound of +Peyton's horses pawing, and of his men speaking to one another in low +tones. + +"Your pardon, madam," said Peyton, "but a horse I must have. The +service I am on permits no delay--" + +"I doubt not!" broke in Elizabeth. "The Hessians are probably chasing +you." + +"On the contrary, I am chasing the Hessians. At Boar Hill, yonder, my +horse gave out. 'Tis important my troops lose no time. Passing here, +we saw horses being led into your stable. I ordered one of my men to +take the best of your beasts, and put my saddle on it,--and he is now +doing so." + +"How dare you, sir!" and Elizabeth came quickly to the foot of the +stairs, a picture of regal, flaming wrath. + +"Why, madam," said Peyton, "'tis for the service of the army. I +require the horse, and I have come here to pay for it--" + +"It is not for sale--" + +"That makes no difference. You know the custom of war." + +"The custom of robbery!" cried Elizabeth. + +Captain Peyton reddened. + +"Robbery is not the custom of Harry Lee's dragoons, madam," said he, +"whatever be the practice of the wretched 'Skinners' or of De Lancey's +Tory Cowboys. I shall pay you as you choose,--with a receipt to +present at the quartermaster's office, or with Continental bills." + +"Continental rubbish!" + +And, indeed, Elizabeth was not far from the truth in the appellation +so contemptuously hurled. + +"You prefer that, do you?" said Peyton, unruffled; whereupon he took +from within his waistcoat a long, thick pocketbook, and from that a +number of bills; which must have been for high amounts, for he rapidly +counted out only a score or two of them, repocketing the rest, and at +that time, thereabouts, "a rat in shape of a horse," as Washington +himself had complained a month before, was "not to be bought for less +than L200."[4] Peyton handed her the bills he had counted out. +"There's a fair price, then," said he; "allowing for depreciation. The +current rate is five to one,--I allow six." + +Elizabeth looked disdainfully at the proffered bills, and made no move +to take them. + +"Pah!" she cried. "I wouldn't touch your wretched Continental trash. I +wouldn't let one of my black women put her hair up in it. Money, do +you call it? I wouldn't give a shilling of the King for a houseful of +it." + +"I beg your pardon," said Peyton, cheerfully. "Since July in '76 there +has been no king in America. I leave the bills, madam." He laid them +on the newel post, beside the candlestick. "'Tis all I can do, and +more than many a man would do, seeing that Colonel Philipse, the owner +of this place, is no friend to the American cause, and may fairly be +levied on as an enemy--" + +"Colonel Philipse is my father!" + +"Then I'm glad I've been punctilious in the matter," said Peyton, but +without any increase of deference. "Egad, I think I've been as +scrupulous as the commander-in-chief himself!" + +"The commander-in-chief!" echoed Elizabeth. "Sir Henry Clinton pays in +gold." + +"I meant _our_ commander-in-chief," with a suavity most irritating. + +"Mr. Washington!" said Elizabeth, scornfully, with a slight emphasis +on the "Mr." + +"His Excellency, General Washington." Peyton spoke as one would in +gently correcting a child who was impolite. Then he added, "I think +the horse is now ready; so I bid you good evening!" + +And he strode towards the door. + +Elizabeth was now fully awake to the certainty that one of the horses +would indeed be taken. At Peyton's movement she ran to the door, +reaching it before he did, and looked out. What she saw, transformed +her into a very fury. + +"Oh, this outrage!" she cried, facing about and addressing those in +the hall. "It is my Cato they are leading out! My Cato! Under my very +eyes! I forbid it! He shall not go! Where are Cuff and the servants? +Why don't they prevent? And you, Jack?" + +She turned to Colden for the first time since Peyton's arrival. + +"My troop would make short work of any who interfered, madam," said +Peyton, warningly, still looking at Elizabeth only. + +"Oh, that I should have to endure this!" she said. "Oh, if I had but a +company of soldiers at my back, you dog of a rebel!" + +And she paced the hall in a great passion. Passing the newel post, she +noticed the Continental bills. She took these up, violently tore them +across, and threw the pieces about the hall, as one tosses corn about +a chicken-yard. + +Major Colden had been having a most uncomfortable five minutes. As a +Tory officer, he was in close peril of being made prisoner by this +Continental captain and the latter's troop outside, and this peril was +none the less since he had so adversely criticised Peyton in the talk +which had led to the duel in Bayard's woods. He had not put himself +on friendly terms with Peyton after that affair. There was still no +reason for any other feeling towards him, on Peyton's part, than +resentment. Now Jack Colden had no relish for imprisonment at the +hands of the despised rebels. Moreover, he had no wish that Elizabeth +should learn of his former defeat by Peyton. He had kept the meeting +in Bayard's woods a secret, thanks to Peyton's having quitted New York +immediately after it, and to the relation of dependence in which the +two only witnesses stood to him. Thus it was that he had remained well +out of view during Elizabeth's sharp interview with Peyton, being +unwilling alike to be known as a Tory officer, and to be recognized by +Peyton. His civilian's cloak hid his uniform and weapons; the dimness +of the candle-light screened his face. + +But matters had reached a point where he could not, without appearing +a coward, refrain longer from taking a hand. He stepped forward from +the dark remoteness. + +"Sir," said he to Peyton, politely, "I know the custom of war. But +since a horse must be taken, you will find one of mine in the stable. +Will you not take it instead of this lady's?" + +Peyton had been scrutinizing Colden's features. + +"Mr. Colden, if I remember," he said, when the major had finished. + +"You remember right," said Colden, with a bow, concealing behind a not +too well assumed quietude what inward tremors the situation caused +him. + +"And you are doubtless now an officer in some Tory corps?" said +Peyton, quickly. + +"No, sir, I am neutral," replied Colden, rather huskily, with an +instant's glance of warning at Elizabeth. + +"Gad!" said Peyton, with a smile, still closely surveying the major. +"From your sentiments the time I met you in New York in '75, I should +have thought you'd take up arms for the King." + +"That was before the Declaration of Independence," said Colden, in a +tone scarcely more than audible. "I have modified my opinions." + +"They were strong enough then," Peyton went on. "You remember how you +upheld them with a rapier in Bayard's woods?" + +"I remember," said Colden, faintly, first reddening, then taking on a +pale and sickly look, as if a prey to hidden chagrin and rage. + +It seemed as if his tormentor intended to torture him interminably. +Peyton, who knew that one of his men would come for him as soon as the +horse should be saddled and bridled, remained facing the unhappy +major, wearing that frank half-smile which, from the triumphant to the +crestfallen, seems so insolent and is so maddening. + +"I've often thought," said Peyton, "I deserved small credit for +getting the better of you that day. I had taken lessons from London +fencing-masters." (Consider that the woman whom Colden loved was +looking on, and that this was all news to her, and imagine how he +raged beneath the outer calmness he had, for safety's sake, to wear.) +"'Twas no hard thing to disarm you, and I'm not sorry you're neutral +now. For if you wore British or Tory uniform, 'twould be my duty to +put you again at disadvantage, by taking you prisoner." + +The face of one of Peyton's men now appeared in the doorway. Peyton +nodded to him, then continued to address the major. + +"As for your request, my traps are now on the other horse, and there +is not time to change. I must ride at once." + +He stepped quickly to the door, and on the threshold turned to bow. + +Then cried Elizabeth: + +"May you ride to your destruction, for your impudence, you bandit!" + +"Thank you, madam! I shall ride where I must! Farewell! My horse is +waiting." + +And in an instant he was gone, having closed the door after him with a +bang. + +"_His_ horse! The highwayman!" quoth Elizabeth. + +"Give the gentleman his due," said Miss Sally, in a way both mollified +and mollifying. "He paid for it with those." She indicated the strewn +fragments of the Continental bills on the floor. + +"Forward! Get up!" + +It was the voice of Captain Peyton outside. The horses were heard +riding away from the lawn. + +Elizabeth opened the door and looked out. Her aunt accompanied her. +Old Valentine gazed with a sagely deploring expression at the torn-up +bills on the floor. Colden stood where he had been, lest by some +chance the enemy might return and discover his relief from straint. + +"Oh," cried Elizabeth, at the door, as the light horsemen filed out +the gate and up the branch road towards the highway, "to see the +miserable rebel mounted on my Cato!" + +"He looks well on him," said her aunt. + +It was a brief flow of light from the fresh-risen moon, between +wind-driven clouds, that enabled Miss Sally to make this observation. + +"Looks well! The tatterdemalion!" And Elizabeth came from the door, as +if loathing further sight of him. + +But Miss Sally continued to look after the riders, as their dark forms +were borne rapidly towards the post-road. "Nay, I think he is quite +handsome." + +"Pah! You think every man is handsome!" said the niece, curtly. + +Miss Sally turned from the door, quite shocked. + +"Why, Elizabeth, you know I'm the least susceptible of women!" + +Old Mr. Valentine nodded sadly, as much as to say, "I know that, all +too well!" + +As the racing clouds now rushed over the moon, and the horsemen's +figures, having become more and more blurred, were lost in the +blackness, Miss Sally closed and bolted the door. The horses were +faintly heard coming to a halt, at about the junction of the branch +road with the highway, then moving on again rapidly, not further +towards the south, as might have been expected, but back northward, +and finally towards the east. Meanwhile Elizabeth stood in the hall, +her rage none the less that its object was no longer present to have +it wreaked on him. Such hate, such passionate craving for revenge, had +never theretofore been awakened in her. And when she realized the +unlikelihood of any opportunity for satisfaction, she was exasperated +to the limit of self-control. + +"If you had only had some troops here!" she said to Colden. + +"I know it! May the rascal perish for finding me at such a disadvantage! +'Twas my choice between denying my colors and becoming his prisoner." + +This brought back to Elizabeth's mind the talk between Colden and +Peyton, which her feelings had for the time driven from her thoughts. +But now a natural curiosity asserted itself. + +"So you knew the fellow before?" + +"I met him in '75," said Colden, blurting awkwardly into the +explanation that he knew had to be made, though little was his stomach +for it. "He was passing through New York from Boston to his home in +Virginia, after he had deserted from the King's army--" + +"Deserted?" Elizabeth opened wide her eyes. + +Colden briefly outlined, as far as was desirable, what he knew of +Peyton's story. + +It was Miss Sally who then said: + +"And he disarmed you in a duel?" + +"He had practised under London fencing-masters, as he but now +admitted," replied Colden, grumpily. "He made no secret of his +desertion; and in a coffee-house discussion I said it was a dastardly +act. So we--fought. Since then I've met officers of the regiment he +left. Such a thing was never known before,--the desertion of an +officer of the Sixty-third,--and General Grant, its colonel, has the +word of Sir Henry Clinton that this fellow shall hang if they ever +catch him." + +"Then I hope my horse will carry him into their hands!" said +Elizabeth, heartily. "My poor Cato! I shall never see him again!" + +"We may get him back some day," said Colden, for want of aught better +to say. + +"If you can do that, John Colden, and have this rebel hanged who dared +treat me so--" Elizabeth paused, and her look dwelt on the major's +face. + +"Well?" + +"Then I think I shall almost be really in love with you!" + +But Colden sighed. "A rare promise from one's betrothed!" + +"Heavens, Jack!" said Elizabeth, now diverted from the thought of her +horse. "Don't I do the best I can to love you? I'm sure I come as near +loving you as loving anybody. What more can I do than that, and +promising my hand? Don't look dismal, major, I pray,--and now make +haste back to New York." + +"How can I go and leave you exposed to the chance of another visit +from some troop of rebels?" pleaded Colden, in a kind of peevish +despair, taking up his hat from the settle. + +"Oh, that fellow showed no disposition to injure _me_!" she answered, +reassuringly. "Trust me to take care of myself." + +"But promise that if there's any sign of danger, you will fly to New +York." + +"That will depend on the circumstances. I may be safer in this house +than on the road." + +"Then, at least, you will have guns fired, and also send a man to one +of our outposts for help?" There was no pretence in the young man's +solicitude. Such a bride as Elizabeth Philipse was not to be found +every day. The thought of losing her was poignant misery to him. + +"To which one?" she asked. "The Hessian camp by Tippett's Brook, or +the Highlanders', at Valentine's Hill?" + +"No," said Colden, meditating. "Those may be withdrawn if the weather +is bad. Send to the barrier at King's Bridge,--but if your man meets +one of our patrols or pickets on the way, so much the better. Good-by! +I shall see your father to-night, and then rejoin my regiment on +Staten Island." + +He took her hand, bent over it, and kissed it. + +"Be careful you don't fall in with those rebel dragoons," said +Elizabeth, lightly, as his lips dwelt on her fingers. + +"No danger of that," put in old Valentine, from the settle, for the +moment ceasing to chew an imaginary cud. "They took the road to Mile +Square." The octogenarian's hearing was better than his sight. + +"I shall notify our officers below that this rebel force is out," said +Colden, "and our dragoons may cut it off somewhere. Farewell, then! I +shall return for you in a week." + +"In a week," repeated Elizabeth, indifferently. + +He kissed her hand again, bowed to Miss Sally, and hastened from the +hall, closing the door behind him. Once outside, he made his way to +the stables, where he knew that Cuff, not having returned to +Elizabeth, must still be. + +"It's little reward you give that gentleman's devotion, Elizabeth," +said Miss Sally, when he had gone. + +"Why, am I not going to give him myself? Come, aunty, don't preach on +that old topic. My parents wish me to be married to Jack Colden, and I +have consented, being an obedient child,--in some things." + +"More obedient to your own whims than to anything else," was Miss +Sally's comment. + +The sound of Colden's horse departing brought to the amiable aunt the +thought of a previous departure. + +"That fine young rebel captain!" said she. "If our troops take him +they'll hang him! Gracious! As if there were so many handsome young +men that any could be spared! Why can't they hang the old and ugly +ones instead?" + +Mr. Valentine suspended his chewing long enough to bestow on Miss +Sally a look of vague suspicion. + +The door, which had not been locked or bolted after Colden's going, +was suddenly flung open to admit Cuff. The negro boy had been thrown +by the dragoons' visit into an almost comatose condition of fright, +from which the orders of Colden had but now sufficiently restored him +to enable his venturing out of the stable. He now stood trembling in +fear of Elizabeth's reproof, stammering out a wild protestation of his +inability to save the horse by force, and of his inefficacious +attempts to save him by prayer. + +Elizabeth cut him short with the remark, intended rather for her own +satisfaction than for aught else, that one thing was to be hoped,--the +chance of war might pay back the impertinent rebel who had stolen the +horse. She then gave orders that the hall and the east parlor be +lighted up. + +"For the proper reception," she added to her aunt, "of the next +handsome rebel captain who may condescend to honor us with a visit. +Mr. Valentine, wait in the parlor till supper is ready. I'll have a +fire made there. Come, aunt Sally, we'll discuss over a cup of tea the +charms of your pretty rebel captain and his agreeable way of relieving +ladies of their favorite horses. I'll warrant he'll look handsomer +than ever, on the gallows, when our soldiers catch him." + +And she went blithely up the stairs, which at the first landing turned +rightward to a second landing, and thence rightward again to the upper +hall. The darkness was interrupted by a narrow stream of light from a +slightly open doorway in the north side of this upper hall. This was +the doorway to her own room, and when she crossed the threshold she +saw a bright blaze in the fireplace, lights in a candelabrum, cups and +saucers on a table, and Molly bringing in a steaming teapot from the +next room, which, being northward, was nearer the kitchen stairs. This +next room, too, was lighted up. Solid wooden shutters, inside the +windows of both chambers, kept the light from being seen without, and +the wind from being felt within. + +As Elizabeth was looking around her room, smiling affectionately on +its many well-remembered and long-neglected objects, there was a +sudden distant detonation. Molly looked up inquiringly, but Elizabeth +directed her to place the tea things, find fresh candles, if any were +left in the house, and help Cuff put them on the chandelier in the +lower hall, and then get supper. As Molly left the room, Miss Sally +entered it. + +"Elizabeth! Oh, child! There's firing beyond Locust Hill. It's on the +Mile Square road, Mr. Valentine says,--cavalry pistols and rangers' +muskets." + +"Mr. Valentine has a fine ear." + +"He says the rebel light horse must have met the Hessians! There 'tis +again!" + +"Sit down, aunt, and have a dish of tea. Ah-h! This is comfortable! +Delicious! Let them kill one another as they please, beyond Locust +Hill; let the wind race up the Hudson and the Albany road as it +likes,--we're snugly housed!" + +Williams, who had, from the upper hall, safely overheard Captain +Peyton's intrusion, and had not seen occasion for his own interference, +now came in from the next room, which he had been making ready for Miss +Sally, and received Elizabeth's orders concerning the east parlor. + +Meanwhile, what of Harry Peyton and his troop? + +Riding up the little tree-lined road towards the highway, they saw +dark forms of other riders standing at the point of junction. These +were the men whom Peyton had directed to patrol the road. They now +told him that, by the account of a belated farmer whom they had +halted, the Hessians had turned from the highway into the Mile Square +road. Peyton immediately led his men to that road. Thus, as old +Valentine said, that part of the highway between the manor-house and +King's Bridge remained clear of these rebel dragoons, and Major Colden +stood in no danger of meeting them on his return to New York. The +major, nevertheless, did not spare his horse as he pursued his lonely +way through the windy darkness. When he arrived at King's Bridge he +was glad to give his horse another rest, and to accept an invitation +to a bottle and a game in the tavern where the British commanding +officer was quartered. + +The Hessians had not gone far on the Mile Square road, when their +leader called a halt and consulted with his subordinate officer. They +were now near Mile Square, where the Tory captain, James De Lancey, +kept a recruiting station all the year round, and Valentine's Hill, +where there was a regiment of Highlanders. Their own security was +thus assured, but they might do more than come off in safety,--they +might strike a parting blow at their pursuers. A plan was quickly +formed. A messenger was despatched to Mile Square to request a small +reinforcement. The troop then turned back towards the highway, having +planned for either one of two possibilities. The first was that the +rebel dragoons, not thinking the Hessians had turned into the Mile +Square road, would ride on down the highway. In that case, the +Hessians would follow them, having become in their turn the +pursuers, and would fall upon their rear. The noise of firearms would +alarm the Hessian camp by Tippett's Brook, below, and the rebels +would thus be caught between two forces. The second possibility was +that the Americans would follow into the Mile Square road. When the +sound of their horses soon told that this was the reality, the +Hessians promptly prepared to meet it. + +The force divided into two parts. The foremost blocked the road, near +a turning, so as to remain unseen by the approaching rebels until +almost the moment of collision. The second force stayed some rods +behind the first, forming in two lines, one along each side of the +road. As to each force, some were armed with sabres and cavalry +pistols, but most, being mounted yagers of Van Wrumb's battalion, with +rifles. + +As for the little detachment of Lee's Light Horse that was now +galloping along the Mile Square road, under Harry Peyton's command, +the arms were mainly broadswords and pistols, but some of the men had +rifles or light muskets. + +The troop went forward at a gallop against the wind, there being +just sufficient light for keen eyes to make out the road ahead. +Harry Peyton was inwardly deploring the loss of time at Philipse +Manor-house, and fearing that the prey would reach its covert, when +suddenly the moon appeared in a cloud-rift, the troops passed a turn +in the road, and there stood a line of Hessians barring the way. + +Ere Peyton could give an order, came one loud, flaming, whistling +discharge from that living barrier. Harry's horse--Elizabeth +Philipse's Cato--reared, as did others of his troop. Some of the men +came to a quick stop, others were borne forward by the impetus of +their former speed, but soon reined in for orders. No man fell, though +one groaned, and two cursed. + +Harry got his horse under control, drew his broadsword with his right +hand, his pistol with his left,--which held also the rein,--and +ordered his men to charge, to fire at the moment of contact, then to +cut, slash, and club. So the little troop, the well and the wounded +alike, dashed forward. + +But the line of Hessians, as soon as they had fired, turned and fled, +passing between the two lines of the second force, and stopping at +some further distance to reform and reload. The second force, being +thus cleared by the first, wheeled quickly into the road, and formed a +second barrier against Peyton's oncoming troop. + +Peyton's men, intoxicated by the powder-smell that filled their +nostrils as they passed through the smoke of the Hessians' first +volley, bore down on this second barrier with furious force. They were +the best riders in the world, and many a one of them held his +broadsword aloft in one hand, his pistol raised in the other, the rein +loose on his horse's neck; while those with long-barrelled weapons +aimed them on the gallop. + +The Hessians and Peyton's foremost men fired at the same moment. The +Hessians had not time to turn and flee, for the Americans, unchecked +by this second greeting of fire, came on at headlong speed. "At 'em, +boys!" yelled Peyton, discharging his pistol at a tall yager, who fell +sidewise from his horse with a fierce German oath. The light horse +men dashed between the Hessians' steeds, and there was hewing and +hacking. + +A Hessian officer struck with a sabre at Peyton's left arm, but only +knocked the pistol from his hand. Peyton then found himself threatened +on the right by a trooper, and slashed at him with broadsword. The +blow went home, but the sword's end became entangled somehow with the +breast bones of the victim. A yager, thinking to deprive Peyton of the +sword, brought down a musket-butt heavily on it. But Peyton's grip was +firm, and the sword snapped in two, the hilt in his hand, the point in +its human sheath. At that instant Peyton felt a keen smart in his left +leg. It came from a second sabre blow aimed by the Hessian officer, +who might have followed it with a third, but that he was now attacked +elsewhere. Peyton had no sooner clapped his hand to his wounded leg +than he was stunned by a blow from the rifle-butt of the yager who had +previously struck the sword. Harry fell forward on the horse's neck, +which he grasped madly with both arms, still holding the broken sword +in his right hand; and lapsed from a full sense of the tumult, the +plunging and shrieking horses, the yelling and cursing men, the whirr +and clash of swords, and the thuds of rifle-blows, into blind, red, +aching, smarting half-consciousness. + +When he was again aware of things, he was still clasping the horse's +neck, and was being borne alone he knew not whither. His head ached, +and his left leg was at every movement a seat of the sharpest pain. He +was dizzy, faint, bleeding,--and too weak to raise himself from his +position. He could not hear any noise of fighting, but that might have +been drowned by the singing in his ears. He tried to sit up and look +around, but the effort so increased his pain and so drew on his +nigh-fled strength, that he fell forward on the horse's neck, +exhausted and half-insensible. The horse, which had merely turned and +run from the conflict at the moment of Peyton's loss of sense, +galloped on. + +Clouds had darkened the moon in time to prevent their captain's +unintentional defection from being seen by his troops. They had, +therefore, fought on against such antagonists as, in the darkness, +they could keep located. The moon reappeared, and showed many of the +Hessians making for the wooded hill near by, and some fleeing to the +force that had re-formed further on the road. Some of the Americans +charged this force, which thereupon fired a volley and fled, having +the more time therefor inasmuch as the charging dragoons did not this +time possess their former speed and impetus. The dragoons, in disorder +and without a leader, came to a halt. Becoming aware of Peyton's +absence, they sought in vain the scene of recent conflict. It was +soon inferred that he had been wounded, and, therefore of no further +use in the combat, had retreated to a safe resting-place. It was +decided useless to follow the enemy further towards the near British +posts, whence the Hessians might be reinforced,--as they would have +been, had they held the ground longer. So, having had much the better +of the fight, the surviving dragoons galloped back towards the +post-road, expecting to come upon their captain, wounded, by the +wayside, at any moment. He might, indeed, to make sure of safe refuge, +ride as far towards the American lines as the wound he must have +received would allow him to do. + +Such were the doings, on the windy night, beyond Locust Hill, while +Elizabeth Philipse and her aunt sat drinking tea by candle-light +before a sputtering wood fire. Elizabeth having set the example, the +others in the house went about their business, despite the firing so +plainly heard. Black Sam had, after Elizabeth's arrival, returned from +the orchard, whither he had gone late in the day, lest he might +attract the attention of some dodging whale-boat or skulking Whig to +the few remaining apples. He had been let in at a rear door by +Williams, who had repressed him during the visit of the American +dragoons,--for Sam was a sturdy, bold fellow, of different kidney from +the dapper, citified Cuff. At Williams's order he had made a roaring +fire in the east parlor, to the great comfort of old Mr. Valentine, +and was now putting the dining-room into a similar state of warmth and +light. Williams was setting out provisions for Molly presently to +cook; and the maid herself was, with Cuff's assistance, replenishing +the hall chandelier with fresh candles. + +The sound of firing had put Elizabeth's black boy into a tremulous and +white-eyed state. When Molly, who stood on the settle while he handed +the candles up to her, assured him that the firing was t'other side of +Locust Hill, that the bullets would not penetrate the mahogany door, +and that anyhow only one bullet in a hundred ever hit any one, Cuff +affrightedly observed 'twas just that one bullet he was afraid of; and +when, at the third discharge, Molly dropped a candle on his woolly +head, he fell prostrate, howling that he was shot. Molly convinced him +after awhile that he was alive, but he averred he had actually had a +glimpse of the harps and the golden streets, though the prospect of +soon possessing them had rather appalled him, as indeed it does many +good people who are so sure of heaven and so fond of it. He had been +reassured but a short time, when he had new cause for terror. Again a +horse was heard galloping up to the house. It stopped before the door +and gave a loud whinny. + +[Illustration: "LEANED FORWARD ON THE HORSE'S NECK."] + +Molly exchanged with Cuff a look of mingled wonder, delight, and +doubt; then ran and opened the front door. + +"Yes!" she cried. "It is! It's Miss Elizabeth's horse! It's Cato!" + +Cuff ran to the threshold in great joy, but suddenly stopped short. + +"Dey's a soldier on hees back," he whispered. + +So Molly had noticed,--but a soldier who made no demonstration, a +soldier who leaned forward on the horse's neck and clutched its mane, +holding at the same time in one hand a broken sword, and who tried to +sit up, but only emitted a groan of pain. + +"He's wounded, that's it," said Molly. "Go and help the poor soldier +in, Cuff. Don't you see he's injured? He can't hurt you." + +Molly enforced her commands with such physical persuasions that Cuff, +ere he well knew what he was about, was helping Peyton from the horse. +The captain, revived by a supreme effort, leaned on the boy's shoulder +and came limping and lurching across the porch into the hall. Molly +then went to his assistance, and with this additional aid he reached +the settle, on which he dropped, weak, pale, and panting. He took a +sitting posture, gasped his thanks to Molly, and, noticing the blood +from his leg wound, called damnation on the Hessian officer's sword. +Presently he asked for a drink of water. + +At Molly's bidding the negro boy hastened for water, and also to +inform his mistress of the arrival. Elizabeth, hearing the news, rose +with an exclamation; but, taking thought, sat down again, and, with a +pretence of composure, finished her cup of tea. Cuff returned with a +glass of water to the hall, where Molly was listening to Peyton's +objurgations on his condition. The captain took the glass eagerly, and +was about to drink, when a footstep was heard on the stairs. He turned +his head and saw Elizabeth. + +"Here's my respects, madam," quoth he, and drank off the water. + +Elizabeth came down-stairs and took a position where she could look +Peyton well over. He watched her with some wonderment. When she was +quite ready she spoke: + +"So, it is, indeed, the man who stole my horse." + +"Pardon. I think your horse has stolen _me_! It made me an intruder +here quite against my will, I assure you." + +"You will doubtless not honor us by remaining?" There was more +seriousness of curiosity in this question than Elizabeth betrayed or +Peyton perceived. + +"What can I do? I can neither ride nor walk." + +"But your men will probably come for you?" + +"I don't think any saw the horse bear me from the fight. The field was +in smoke and darkness. My troops must have pursued the enemy. They'll +think me killed or made prisoner. If they return this way, however, I +can have them stop and take me along." + +"Then you expect that, in repayment of your treatment of me awhile +ago--" Elizabeth paused. + +"Madam, you should allow for the exigencies of war! Yet, if you wish +to turn me out--" + +Elizabeth interrupted him: + +"So it is true that, if you fell into the hands of the British, they +would hang you?" + +"Doubtless! But you shouldn't blame _me_ for what _they'd_ do. And how +did you know?" + +"Help this gentleman into the east parlor," said Elizabeth, abruptly, +to Cuff. + +"Ah!" cried Peyton, his face lighting up with quick gratitude. "Madam, +you then make me your guest?" He thrust forward his head, forgetful of +his condition. + +"My guest?" rang out Elizabeth's voice in answer. "You insolent rebel, +I intend to hand you over to the British!" + +There was a brief silence. Each gazed at the other. + +"You will not--do that?" said Peyton, in a voice little above a +whisper. + +"Wait and see!" And she stood regarding him with elation. + +He stared at her in blank consternation. + +Again, the sound of the trample of many horses. + +"Ah!" cried Peyton, joyfully. "My men returning!" + +He rose to go to the door, but his wounded leg gave way, and he +staggered to the staircase, and leaned against the balustrade. + +Elizabeth's look of gratification faded. She ran to the door, fastened +it with bolt and key, and stood with her back against it. + +The sound, first distant as if in the Mile Square road, was now +manifestly in the highway. Would it come southward, towards the house, +or go northward, decreasing? + +"They are my men!" cried Peyton to Cuff. "Call them! They'll pass +without knowing I am here. Call them, I say! Quick! They'll be out of +hearing." + +"Silence!" said Elizabeth to Cuff, in a low tone, and stood +listening. + +Peyton made another attempt to move, but realized his inability. 'Twas +all he could do to support himself against the balustrade. + +"My God, they've gone by!" he cried. "They'll return to our lines, +leaving me behind." And he shouted, "Carrington!" + +The voice rang for a moment in the remoteness of the hall above. Then +complete silence within. All in the hall remained motionless, +listening. The sound of the horses came fainter and fainter. + +"Carrington! Help! I'm in the manor-house,--a prisoner!" + +A look of despair came over his face. On Elizabeth's the suspense gave +way to a smile of triumph. + +The sound of the horses died away. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE ONE CHANCE. + + +Peyton staggered back to the settle and sank down on it, exhausted. +Elizabeth, hearing black Sam moving about in the dining-room, which +was directly north of the hall, bade Molly summon him. When he +appeared, she ordered him and Cuff to carry the settle, with the +wounded man on it, into the east parlor, and to place the man on the +sofa there. She then told Molly to hasten the supper, and to send +Williams to her up-stairs, and thereupon rejoined her excited aunt +above. When Williams attended her, she gave him commands regarding the +prisoner. + +Peyton was thus carried through the deep doorway in the south side of +the hall into the east parlor, which was now exceedingly habitable +with fire roaring and candles lighted. In the east and south sides of +this richly ornamented room were deeply embrasured windows, with low +seats. In the west side was a mahogany door opening from the old or +south hall. In the north side, which was adorned with wooden pillars +and other carved woodwork, was the door through which Peyton had been +carried; west of that, the decorated chimney-breast with its English +mantel and fireplace, and further west a pair of doors opening from a +closet, whence a winding staircase descended cellarward. The ceiling +was rich with fanciful arabesque woodwork. Set in the chimney-breast, +over the mantel, was an oblong mirror. The wainscoting, pillars, and +other woodwork were of a creamy white. But Peyton had no eye for +details at the moment. He noticed only that his entrance disturbed the +slumbers of the old gentleman--Matthias Valentine--who had been +sleeping in a great armchair by the fire, and who now blinked in +wonderment. + +The negroes put down the settle and lifted Peyton to a sofa that stood +against the western side of the room, between a spinet and the +northern wall. At Peyton's pantomimic request they then moved the sofa +to a place near the fire, and then, taking the settle along, marched +out of the room, back to the hall, closing the door as they went. + +Peyton, too pain-racked and exhausted to speak, lay back on the sofa, +with closed eyes. Old Valentine stared at him a few moments; then, +curious both as to this unexpected advent and as to the proximity of +supper, rose and hobbled from the parlor and across the hall to the +dining-room. For some time Peyton was left alone. He opened his eyes, +studied the flying figures on the ceiling, the portraits on the +walls, the carpet,--Philipse Manor-house, like the best English houses +of the time, had carpet on its floors,--the carving of the mantel, the +clock and candelabrum thereupon, the crossed rapiers thereabove, the +curves of the imported furniture. His twinges and aches were so many +and so diverse that he made no attempt to locate them separately. He +could feel that the left leg of his breeches was soaked with blood. + +Finally the door opened, and in came Williams and Cuff, the former +with shears and bands of linen, the latter with a basin of water. +Williams, whom Peyton had not before seen, scrutinized him critically, +and forthwith proceeded to expose, examine, wash, and bind up the +wounded leg, while Cuff stood by and played the role of surgeon's +assistant. Peyton speedily perceived on the steward's part a reliable +acquaintance with the art of dressing cuts, and therefore submitted +without a word to his operations. Williams was equally silent, +breaking his reticence only now and then to utter some monosyllabic +command to Cuff. + +When the wound was dressed, Williams put the patient's disturbed +attire to rights, and adjusted his hair. Peyton, with a feeling of +some relief, made to stretch the wounded leg, but a sharp twinge cut +the movement short. + +"You should make a good surgeon," Peyton said at last, "you tie so +damnably tight a bandage." + +"I've bound up many a wound, sir," said Williams; "and some far worse +than yours. 'Tis not a dangerous cut, yours, though 'twill be +irritating while it lasts. You won't walk for a day or two." + +"It's remarkable your mistress has so much trouble taken with me, when +she intends to deliver me to the British." + +Peyton had inferred the steward's place in the house, from his +appearance and manner. + +"Why, sir," said Williams, "we couldn't have you bleeding over the +floor and furniture. Besides, I suppose she wants to hand you over in +good condition." + +"I see! No bedraggled remnant of a man, but a complete, clean, and +comfortable candidate for Cunningham's gallows!" Peyton here forgot +his wound and attempted to sit upright, but quickly fell back with a +grimace and a groan. + +"Better lie still, sir," counselled Williams, sagely. "If you need any +one, you are to call Cuff. He will be in waiting in that hall, sir." +And the steward pointed towards the east hall. "There will be no use +trying to get away. I doubt if you could walk half across the room +without fainting. And if you could get out of the house, you'd find +black Sam on guard, with his duck-gun,--and Sam doesn't miss once in +a hundred times with that duck-gun. Bring those things, Cuff." +Williams indicated Peyton's hat, remnant of sword, and scabbard, which +had been placed on the armchair by the fireside. + +"Leave my sword!" commanded Peyton. + +"Can't, sir!" said Williams, affably. "Miss Elizabeth's orders were to +take it away." + +Williams thereupon went from the room, crossed the east hall, and +entered the dining-room, to report to Elizabeth, who now sat at supper +with Miss Sally and Mr. Valentine. + +Cuff, with basin of water in one hand, took up the hat, sword, and +scabbard, with the other. + +"Miss Elizabeth!" mused Peyton. "Queen Elizabeth, I should say, in +this house. Gad, to be a girl's prisoner, tied down to a sofa by so +small a cut!" Hereupon he addressed Cuff, who was about to depart: +"Where is your mistress?" + +"In the dining-room, eating supper." + +"And Mr. Colden, whom I saw in that hall about an hour ago, when I +bought the horse?" + +"Major Colden rode back to New York." + +"_Major_ Colden! Major of what?" + +"New Juzzey Vollingteers, sir." + +"What? Then he is in the King's service, after all? And when I was +here with my troops he said he was neutral. I'll never take a Tory's +word again." + +"Am you like to hab de chance, sir?" queried Cuff, with a grin. + +"What! You taunt me with my situation?" And Harry's head shot up from +the sofa as he made to rise and chastise the boy; but he could not +stand on his leg, and so remained sitting, propped on his right arm, +panting and glaring at the negro. + +Cuff, whose whiteness of teeth had shown in his moment of mirth, now +displayed much whiteness of eye in his alarm at Peyton's movement, and +glided to the door. As he went out to the hall, he passed Molly, who +was coming into the parlor with a bowl of broth. + +"Hah!" ejaculated Peyton as she came towards him. "They would feed the +animal for the slaughter, eh?" + +Molly curtseyed. + +"Please, sir, it wa'n't they sent this. I brought it of my own accord, +sir, though with Miss Elizabeth's permission." + +"Oh! so Miss Elizabeth _did_ give her permission, then?" + +"Yes, sir. At least, she said it didn't matter, if I wished to." + +"And you did wish to? Well, you're a good girl, and I thank you." + +Whereupon Peyton took the bowl and sipped of the broth with relish. + +"Thank you, sir," said Molly, who then moved a small light chair from +its place by the wall to a spot beside the sofa and within Peyton's +reach. "You can set the bowl on this," she added. "I must go back to +the kitchen." And, after another curtsey, she was gone. + +The broth revived Peyton, and with all his pain and fatigue he had +some sense of comfort. The handsome, well warmed, well lighted parlor, +so richly furnished, so well protected from the wind and weather by +the solid shutters outside its four small-paned windows, was certainly +a snug corner of the world. So far seemed all this from stress and +war, that Peyton lost his strong realization of the fate that +Elizabeth's threat promised him. Appreciation of his surroundings +drove away other thoughts and feelings. That he should be taken and +hanged was an idea so remote from his present situation, it seemed +rather like a dream than an imminent reality. There surely would be a +way of his getting hence in safety. And he imbibed mouthful after +mouthful of the warm broth. + +Presently old Mr. Valentine reappeared, from the east hall, looking +none the less comfortable for the supper he had eaten. A long pipe was +in his hand, and, that he might absorb smoke and liquor at the same +time, he had brought with him from the table, where the two ladies +remained, a vast mug of hot rum punch of Williams's brewing. He now +set the mug on the mantel, lighted his pipe with a brand from the +fire, repossessed himself of the mug, and sat down in the armchair, +with a sigh of huge satisfaction. It mattered not that this was the +parlor of Philipse Manor-house,--for Mr. Valentine, in his innocent +way, indulged himself freely in the privileges and presumptions of old +age. + +Peyton, after staring for some time with curiosity at the smoky old +gentleman, who rapidly grew smokier, at last raised the bowl of broth +for a last gulp, saying, cheerily: + +"To your very good health, sir!" + +"Thank you, sir!" said the old man, complacently, not making any +movement to reciprocate. + +"What! won't you drink to mine?" + +"'Twould be a waste of words to drink the health of a man that's going +to be hanged," replied Valentine, who at supper had heard the ladies +discuss Peyton's intended fate. He thereupon sent a cloud of smoke +ceiling-ward for the flying cherubs to rest on. + +"The devil! You _are_ economical!" + +"Of words, maybe, not of liquor." The octogenarian quaffed deeply from +the mug. "They say hanging is an easy death," he went on, being in +loquacious mood. "I never saw but one man hanged. He didn't seem to +enjoy it." Mr. Valentine puffed slowly, inwardly dwelling on the +recollection. + +"Oh, didn't he?" said Peyton. + +"No, he took it most unpleasant like." + +"Did you come in here to cheer me up in my last hours?" queried Harry, +putting the empty bowl on the chair by the sofa. + +"No," replied the other, ingenuously. "I came in for a smoke while the +ladies stayed at the table." He then went back to a subject that +seemed to have attractions for him. "I don't know how hanging will go +with you. Cunningham will do the work.[5] They say he makes it as +disagreeable as may be. I'd come and see you hanged, but it won't be +possible." + +"Then I suppose I shall have to excuse you," said Peyton, with +resignation. + +"Yes." The old man had finished his punch and set down his mug, and he +now yawned with a completeness that revealed vastly more of red +toothless mouth than one might have calculated his face could contain. +"Some take it easier than others," he went on. "It's harder with young +men like you." Again he opened his jaws in a gape as whole-souled as +that of a house-dog before a kitchen fire. "It must be disagreeable to +have a rope tightened around your neck. I don't know." He thrust his +pipe-stem absently between his lips, closed his eyes, mumbled +absently, "I don't know," and in a few moments was asleep, his pipe +hanging from his mouth, his hands folded in his lap. + +"A cheerful companion for a man in my situation," thought Peyton. His +mind had been brought back to the future. When would this resolute and +vengeful Miss Elizabeth fulfil her threat? How would she proceed about +it? Had she already taken measures towards his conveyance to the +British lines? Should she delay until he should be able to walk, there +would be two words about the matter. Meanwhile, he must wait for +developments. It was useless to rack his brain with conjectures. His +sense of present comfort gradually resumed sway, and he placed his +head again on the sofa pillow and closed his eyes. + +He was conscious for a time of nothing but his deadened pain, his +inward comfort, the breathing of old Mr. Valentine, the intermittent +raging of the wind without, and the steady ticking of the clock on the +mantel,--which delicately framed timepiece had been started within the +hour by Sam, who knew Miss Elizabeth's will for having all things in +running order. Peyton's drowsiness wrapped him closer and closer. +Presently he was remotely aware of the opening of the door, the tread +of light feet on the floor, the swish of skirts. But he had now +reached that lethargic point which involves total indifference to +outer things, and he did not even open his eyes. + +"Asleep," said Elizabeth, for it was she who had entered with her +aunt. + +Harry recognized the voice, and knew that he was the subject of her +remark; but his feeling towards his contemptuous captor was not such +as to make him take the trouble of setting her right. Therefore, he +kept his eyes closed, having a kind of satisfaction in her being +mistaken. + +"How handsome!" whispered Miss Sally, who beamed more bigly and +benignly after supper than before. + +"Which one, aunty?" said Elizabeth, looking from Peyton to old +Valentine. + +Her aunt deigned to this levity only a look of hopeless reproof. + +Elizabeth sat down on the music-seat before the spinet, and became +serious,--or, more accurately, businesslike. + +"On second thought," said she, "it won't do to keep him here waiting +for one of our patrols to pass this way. In the meantime some of the +rebels might come into the neighborhood and stop here. He must be +delivered to the British this very night!" + +Peyton gave no outward sign of the momentary heart stoppage he felt +within. + +"Why," said the aunt, speaking low, and in some alarm, "'twould +require Williams and both the blacks to take him, and we should be +left alone in the house." + +"I sha'n't send him to the troops," said Elizabeth, in her usual +tone, not caring whether or not the prisoner should be disturbed,--for +in his powerlessness he could not oppose her plans if he did know +them, and in her disdain she had no consideration for his feelings. +"The troops shall come for him. Black Sam shall go to the watch-house +at King's Bridge with word that there's an important rebel prisoner +held here, to be had for the taking." + +"Will the troops at King's Bridge heed the story of a black man?" Aunt +Sally seemed desirous of interposing objections to immediate action. + +"Their officer will heed a written message from me," said the niece. +"Most of the officers know me, and those at King's Bridge are aware I +came here to-day." + +Thereupon she called in Cuff, and sent him off for Williams, with +orders that the steward should bring her pen, ink, paper, and wax. + +"Oh, Elizabeth!" cried Miss Sally, looking at the floor. "Here's some +of the poor fellow's blood on the carpet." + +"Never mind. The blood of an enemy is a sight easily tolerated," said +the girl, probably unaware how nearly she had duplicated a famous +utterance of a certain King of France, whose remark had borne +reference to another sense than that of sight.[6] + +Williams soon came in with the writing materials, and placed them, at +Elizabeth's direction, on a table that stood between the two eastern +windows, and on which was a lighted candelabrum. Elizabeth sat down at +the table, her back towards the fireplace and Peyton. + +"I wish you to send black Sam to me," said she to the steward, "and to +take his place on guard with the gun till he returns from an errand." + +Williams departed, and Elizabeth began to make the quill fly over the +paper, her aunt looking on from beside the table. Peyton opened his +eyes and looked at them. + +"It does seem a pity," said Miss Sally at last. "Such a pretty +gentleman,--such a gallant soldier!" + +"Gentleman?" echoed Elizabeth, writing on. "The fellow is not a +gentleman! Nor a gallant soldier!" + +Peyton rose to a sitting posture as if stung by a hornet, but was +instantly reminded of his wound. But neither Elizabeth nor her aunt +saw or heard his movement. The girl, unaware that he was awake, +continued: + +"Does a gentleman or a gallant soldier desert the army of his king to +join that of his king's enemies?" + +Quick came the answer,--not from aunt Sally, but from Peyton on the +sofa. + +"A gallant soldier has the right to choose his side, and a gentleman +need not fight against his country!" + +Elizabeth did not suffer herself to appear startled at this sudden +breaking in. Having finished her note, she quietly folded it, and +addressed it, while she said: + +"A gallant soldier, having once chosen his side, will be loyal to it; +and a gentleman never bore the odious title of deserter." + +"A gentleman can afford to wear any title that is redeemed by a +glorious cause and an extraordinary danger. When I took service +with the King's army in England, I never dreamt that army would be +sent against the King's own colonies; and not till I arrived in +Boston did I know the true character of this revolt. We thought we +were coming over merely to quell a lawless Boston rabble. I gave in +my resignation--" + +"But did not wait for it to be accepted," interrupted Elizabeth, +quietly, as she applied to the folded paper the wax softened by the +flame of a candle. + +"I _was_ a little hasty," said Harry. + +"The rebel army was the proper place for such fellows," said +Elizabeth. "No true British officer would be guilty of such a deed!" + +"Probably not! It required exceptional courage!" + +Peyton knew, as well as any, that the British were brave enough; but +he was in mood for sharp retort. + +"That is not the reason," said Elizabeth, coldly, refusing to show +wrath. "Your enemies hold such acts as yours in detestation." + +"I am not serving in this war for the approbation of my enemies." + +At this moment black Sam came in. Elizabeth handed him the letter, and +said: + +"You are to take my horse Cato, and ride with this message to the +British barrier at King's Bridge. It is for the officer in command +there. When the sentries challenge you, show this, and say it is of +the greatest consequence and must be delivered at once." + +"Yes, Miss Elizabeth." + +"The commander," she went on, "will probably send here a body of +troops at once, to convey this prisoner within the lines. You are to +return with them. If no time is lost, and they send mounted troops, +you should be back in an hour." + +Peyton could hardly repress a start. + +"An hour at most, miss, if nothing stops," said the negro. + +"If any officer of my acquaintance is in command," said Elizabeth, +"there will be no delay. Cuff shall let the troops in, through that +hall, as soon as they arrive." + +Whereupon the black man, a stalwart and courageous specimen of his +race, went rapidly from the room. + +"One hour!" murmured Peyton, looking at the clock. + +Molly, the maid, now reappeared, carrying carefully in one hand a cup, +from which a thin steam ascended. + +"What is't now, Molly?" inquired Elizabeth, rising from her chair. + +Molly blushed and was much confused. "Tea, ma'am, if you please! I +thought, maybe, you'd allow the gentleman--" + +"Very well," said Elizabeth. "Be the good Samaritan if you like, +child. His tea-drinking days will soon be over. Come, aunt Sally, we +shall be in better company elsewhere." And she returned to the +dining-room, not deigning her prisoner another look. + +Miss Sally followed, but her feelings required confiding in some one, +and before she went she whispered to the embarrassed maid, "Oh, Molly, +to think so sweet a young gentleman should be completely wasted!" + +Molly heaved a sigh, and then approached the young gentleman himself, +with whom she was now alone, saving the presence of the slumbering +Valentine. + +"So your name is Molly? And you've brought me tea this time?" + +"Yes, sir,--if you please, sir." She took up the bowl from the chair +and placed the cup in its stead. "I put sugar in this, sir, but if +you'd rather--" + +"I'd rather have it just as you've made it, Molly," he said, in a +singularly gentle, unsteady tone. He raised the cup, and sipped. +"Delicious, Molly!--Hah! Your mistress thinks my tea-drinking days +will soon be over." + +"I'm very sorry, sir." + +"So am I." He held the cup in his left hand, supporting his upright +body with his right arm, and looked rather at vacancy than at the +maid. "Never to drink tea again," he said, "or wine or spirits, for +that matter! To close your eyes on this fine world! Never again to +ride after the hounds, or sing, or laugh, or chuck a pretty girl under +the chin!" + +And here, having set down the cup, he chucked Molly herself under the +chin, pretending a gaiety he did not feel. + +"Never again," he went on, "to lead a charge against the enemies of +our liberty; not to live to see this fight out, the King's regiments +driven from the land, the States take their place among the free +nations of the world! _By God, Molly, I don't want to die yet!_" + +It was not the fear of death, it was the love of life, and what life +might have in reserve, that moved him; and it now asserted itself in +him with a force tenfold greater than ever before. Death,--or, rather, +the ceasing of life,--as he viewed it now, when he was like to meet it +without company, with prescribed preliminaries, in an ignominious +mode, was a far other thing than as viewed in the exaltation of +battle, when a man chances it hot-headed, uplifted, thrilled, in +gallant comradeship, to his own fate rendered careless by a sense of +his nothingness in comparison with the whole vast drama. Moreover, in +going blithely to possible death in open fight, one accomplishes +something for his cause; not so, going unwillingly to certain death on +an enemy's gallows. It was, too, an exasperating thought that he +should die to gratify the vengeful whim of an insolent Tory girl. + +"Will it really come to that?" asked Molly, in a frightened tone. + +"As surely as I fall into British hands!" + +Peyton remembered the case of General Charles Lee, whose resignation +of half-pay had not been acknowledged; who was, when captured by the +British, long in danger of hanging, and who was finally rated as an +ordinary war prisoner only for Washington's threat to retaliate on +five Hessian field officers. If a major-general, whose desertion, even +if admitted, was from half-pay only, would have been hanged without +ceremony but for General Howe's fear of a "law scrape," and had been +saved from shipment to England for trial, only by the King's fear that +Washington's retaliation would disaffect the Hessian allies, for what +could a mere captain look, who had come over from the enemy in action, +and whose punishment would entail no official retaliation? + +"And your mistress expects a troop of British soldiers here in an hour +to take me! Damn it, if I could only walk!" And he looked rapidly +around the room, in a kind of distraction, as if seeking some means of +escape. Realizing the futility of this, he sighed dismally, and drank +the remainder of the tea. + +"You couldn't get away from the house, sir," said Molly. "Williams is +watching outside." + +"I'd take a chance if I could only run!" Peyton muttered. He had no +fear that Molly would betray him. "If there were some hiding-place I +might crawl to! But the troops would search every cranny about the +house." He turned to Molly suddenly, seeing, in his desperate state +and his lack of time, but one hope. "I wonder, could Williams be +bribed to spirit me away?" + +Molly's manner underwent a slight chill. + +"Oh, no," said she. "He'd die before he'd disobey Miss Elizabeth. We +all would, sir. I'm very sorry, indeed, sir." Whereupon, taking up the +empty bowl and teacup, she hastened from the room. + +Peyton sat listening to the clock-ticks. He moved his right leg so +that the foot rested on the floor, then tried to move the left one +after it, using his hand to guide it. With great pains and greater +pain, he finally got the left foot beside the right. He then undertook +to stand, but the effort cost him such physical agony as could not be +borne for any length of time. He fell back with a groan to the sofa, +convinced that the wounded leg was not only, for the time, useless +itself, but also an impediment to whatever service the other leg might +have rendered alone. But he remained sitting up, his right foot on the +floor. + +Suddenly there was a raucous sound from old Mr. Valentine. He had at +last begun to snore. But this infliction brought its own remedy, for +when his jaws opened wider his tobacco pipe fell from his mouth and +struck his folded hands. He awoke with a start, and blinked +wonderingly at Peyton, whose face, turned towards the old man, still +wore the look of disapproval evoked by the momentary snoring. + +"Still here, eh?" piped Mr. Valentine. "I dreamt you were being hanged +to the fireplace, like a pig to be smoked. I was quite upset over it! +Such a fine young gentleman, and one of Harry Lee's officers, too!" + +And the old man shook his head deploringly. + +"Then why don't you help me out of this?" demanded Peyton, whose +impulse was for grasping at straws, for he thought of black Sam urging +Cato through the wind towards King's Bridge at a gallop. + +"It ain't possible," said Valentine, phlegmatically. + +"If it were, would you?" asked Harry, a spark of hope igniting from +the appearance that the old man was, at least, not antagonistic to +him. + +"Why, yes," began the octogenarian, placidly. + +Harry's heart bounded. + +"If," the old man went on, "I could without lending aid to the King's +enemies. But you see I couldn't. I won't lend aid to neither side's +enemies.[7] I don't want to die afore my time." And he gazed +complacently at the fire. + +Peyton knew the hopeless immovability of selfish old age. + +"God!" he muttered, in despair. "Is there no one I can turn to?" + +"There's none within hearing would dare go against the orders of Miss +Elizabeth," said Mr. Valentine. + +"Miss Elizabeth evidently rules with a firm hand," said Peyton, +bitterly. "Her word--" He stopped suddenly, as if struck by a new +thought. "If I could but move _her_! If I could make her change her +mind!" + +"You couldn't. No one ever could, and as for a rebel soldier--" + +"She has a heart of iron, that girl!" broke in Peyton. "The cruelty of +a savage!" + +Mr. Valentine took on a sincerely deprecating look. "Oh, you mustn't +abuse Miss Elizabeth," said he. "It ain't cruelty, it's only proper +pride. And she isn't hard. She has the kindest heart,--to those she's +fond of." + +"To those she's fond of," repeated Harry, mechanically. + +"Yes," said the old man; "her people, her horses, her dogs and cats, +and even her servants and slaves." + +"Tender creature, who has a heart for a dog and not for a man!" + +The old man's loyalty to three generations of Philipses made him a +stubborn defender, and he answered: + +"She'd have no less a heart for a man if she loved him." + +"If she loved him!" echoed Peyton, and began to think. + +"Ay, and a thousand times more heart, loving him as a woman loves a +man." Mr. Valentine spoke knowingly, as one acquainted by enviable +experience with the measure of such love. + +"As a woman loves a man!" repeated Peyton. Suddenly he turned to +Valentine. "Tell me, does she love any man so, now?" Peyton did not +know the relation in which Elizabeth and Major Colden stood to each +other. + +"I can't say she _loves_ one," replied Valentine, judicially, +"though--" + +But Peyton had heard enough. + +"By heaven, I'll try it!" he cried. "Such miracles have happened! And +I have almost an hour!" + +Old Valentine blinked at him, with stupid lack of perception. "What is +it, sir?" + +"I shall try it!" was Peyton's unenlightening answer. "There's one +chance. And you can help me!" + +"The devil I can!" replied Valentine, rising from his chair in some +annoyance. "I won't lend aid, I tell you!" + +"It won't be 'lending aid.' All I beg is that you ask Miss Elizabeth +to see me alone at once,--and that you'll forget all I've said to you. +Don't stand staring! For Christ's sake, go and ask her to come in! +Don't you know? Only an hour,--less than that, now!" + +"But she mayn't come here for the asking," objected the old man, +somewhat dazed by Peyton's petulance. + +"She _must_ come here!" cried Harry. "Induce her, beg her, entice +her! Tell her I have a last request to make of my jailer,--no, +excite her curiosity; tell her I have a confession to make, a plot +to disclose,--anything! In heaven's name, go and send her here!" + +It was easier to comply with so light a request than to remain +recipient of such torrent-like importunity. "I'll try, sir," said +the peace-loving old man, "but I have no hope," and he hobbled +from the room. He left the door open as he went, and Harry, tortured +by impatience, heard him shuffling over the hall floor to the +dining-room. + +Peyton's mind was in a whirl. He glanced at the clock. These were his +thoughts: + +"Fifty minutes! To make a woman love me! A proud woman, vain and +wilful, who hates our cause, who detests me! To make her love me! How +shall I begin? Keep your wits now, Harry, my son,--'tis for your life! +How to begin? Why doesn't she come? Damn the clock, how loud it ticks! +I feel each tick. No, 'tis my heart I feel. My God, _will_ she not +come? And the time is going--" + +"Well, sir, what is it?" + +He looked from the clock to the doorway, where stood Elizabeth. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE FLIGHT OF THE MINUTES. + + +The silence of her entrance was from her having, a few minutes +earlier, exchanged her riding-boots for satin slippers. + +"I--I thank you for coming, madam," said Peyton, feeling the necessity +of a prompt reply to her imperious look of inquiry, yet without a +practicable idea in his head. "I had--that is--a request to make." + +He was trembling violently, not from fear, but from that kind of +agitation which often precedes the undertaking of a critical task, as +when a suppliant awaits an important interview, or an actor assumes +for the first time a new part. + +"Mr. Valentine said a confession," said Elizabeth, holding him in a +coldly resentful gaze. + +"Why, yes, a confession," said he, hopelessly. + +"A plot to disclose," she added, with sharp impatience. "What is it?" + +"You shall hear," he began, in gloomy desperation, without the +faintest knowledge of how he should finish. "I--ah--it is this--" His +wandering glance fell on the table and the writing materials she had +left there. "I wish to write a letter--a last letter--to a friend." +The vague general outline of a project arose in his mind. + +Elizabeth was inclined to be as laconic as implacable. "Write it," +said she. "There are pen and ink." + +"But I can't write in this position," said Peyton, quickly, lest she +might leave the room. "I fear I can't even hold a pen. Will you not +write for me?" + +"I? Secretary to a horse-thieving rebel!" + +"It is a last request, madam. A last request is sacred,--even an +enemy's." + +"I will send in some one to write for you." And she turned to go. + +"But this letter will contain secrets." + +"Secrets?" The very word is a charm to a woman. Elizabeth's curiosity +was touched but slightly, yet sufficiently to stay her steps for the +moment. + +"Ay," said Peyton, lowering his tone and speaking quickly, "secrets +not for every ear. Secrets of the heart, madam,--secrets so delicate +that, to convey them truly, I need the aid of more than common tact +and understanding." + +He watched her eagerly, and tried to repress the signs of his +anxiety. + +Elizabeth considered for a moment, then went to the table and sat down +by it. + +"But," said she, regarding him with angry suspicion, "the confession,--the +plot?" + +"Why, madam," said he, his heart hammering forcefully, "do you think I +may communicate them to you directly? The letter shall relate them, +too, and if the person who holds the pen for me pays heed to the +letter's contents, is it my fault?" + +"I understand," said the woman, entrapped, and she dipped the quill +into the ink. + +"The letter," began Peyton, slowly, hesitating for ideas, and glancing +at the clock, yet not retaining a sense of where the hands were, "is +to Mr. Bryan Fairfax--" + +"What?" she interrupted. "Kinsman to Lord Fairfax, of Virginia?" + +"There's but one Mr. Bryan Fairfax," said Peyton, acquiring confidence +from his preliminary expedient to overcome prejudice, "and, though +he's on the side of King George in feeling, yet he's my friend,--a +circumstance that should convince even you I'm not scum o' the earth, +rebel though you call me. He's the friend of Washington, too." + +"Poh! Who is your Washington? My aunt Mary rejected him, and married +his rival in this very room!" + +"And a good thing Washington didn't marry her!" said Peyton, +gallantly. "She'd have tried to turn him Tory, and the ladies of this +family are not to be resisted." + +"Go on with your letter," said Elizabeth, chillingly. + +"'Mr. Bryan Fairfax,'" dictated Peyton, steadying his voice with an +effort, "'Towlston Hall, Fairfax County, Virginia. My dear Fairfax: If +ever these reach you, 'twill be from out a captivity destined, +probably, to end soon in that which all dread, yet to which all must +come; a captivity, nevertheless, sweetened by the divinest presence +that ever bore the name of woman--'" + +Elizabeth stopped writing, and looked up, with an astonishment so +all-possessing that it left no room even for indignation. + +Peyton, his eyes astray in the preoccupation of composition, did not +notice her look, but, as if moved by enthusiasm, rose on his right leg +and stood, his hands placed on the back of the light chair by the +sofa, the chair's front being turned from him. He went on, with an +affectation of repressed rapture: "''Twere worth even death to be for +a short hour the prisoner of so superb--'" + +"Sir, what are you saying?" And Elizabeth dropped the pen, and stood +up, regarding him with freezing resentment. + +"My thoughts, madam," said he, humbly, meeting her gaze. + +"How dare you jest with me?" said she. + +"Jest? Does a man jest in the face of his own death?" + +"'Twas a jest to bid me write such lies!" + +"Lies? 'Fore gad, the mirror yonder will not call them lies!" He +indicated the oblong glass set in above the mantel. "If there is +lying, 'tis my eyes that lie! 'Tis only what they tell me, that my +lips report." + +Keeping his left foot slightly raised from the floor, he pushed the +chair a little towards her, and himself followed it, resting his +weight partly on its back, while he hopped with his right foot. But +Elizabeth stayed him with a gesture of much imperiousness. + +"What has such rubbish to do with your confession and your plot?" she +demanded. + +"Can you not see?" And he now let some of his real agitation appear, +that it might serve as the lover's perturbation which it would be well +to display. + +"My confession is of the instant yielding of my heart to the charms of +a goddess." + +In those days lovers, real or pretended, still talked of goddesses, +flames, darts, and such. + +"Who desired your heart to yield to anything?" was Miss Elizabeth's +sharply spoken reply. + +"Beauty _commanded_ it, madam!" said he, bowing low over his +chair-back. + +"So, then, there was no plot?" Her eyes flashed with indignation. + +"A plot, yes!" He glanced sidewise at the clock, and drew self-reliance +from the very situation, which began to intoxicate him. "_My_ plot, to +attract you hither, by that message, that I might console myself for +my fate by the joy of seeing you!" + +"The joy of seeing me!" She spoke with incredulity and contempt. + +A glad boldness had come over Peyton. He felt himself masterful, as +one feels who is drunk with wine; yet, unlike such a one, he had +command of mind and body. + +"Ay, joy," said he, "joy none the less that you are disdainful! Pride +is the attribute of queens, and tenderness is not the only mood in +which a woman may conquer. Heaven! You can so discomfit a man with +your frowns, _what_ might you do with your smile!" + +He felt now that he could dissimulate to fool the very devil. + +But Elizabeth, though interested as one may be in an oddity, seemed +not otherwise impressed. 'Twas something, however, that she remained +in the room to answer: + +"I do not know what I have done with my frown, nor what I might do +with my smile, but, whatever it be, _you_ are not like to see!" + +"That I know," said Peyton, and added, at a reckless venture, "and am +consoled, when I consider that no other man has seen!" + +"How do you know that?" + +"Your smile is not for any common man, and I'll wager your heart is as +whole as your beauty." + +She looked at him for a moment of silence, then: + +"I cannot imagine why you say all this," quoth she, in real +puzzlement. + +"'Tis an easing to the tortured heart to reveal itself," he answered, +"as one would fain uncover an inner wound, though there be no hope of +cure. I can go the calmer to my doom for having at least given outlet +in words to the flame kindled in a moment within me. My doom! Yes, and +none so unwelcome, either, if by it I escape a lifetime of vain +longing!" + +"Your talk is incomprehensible, sir. If you are serious, it must be +that your head is turned." + +"My head is turned, doubtless, but by you!" + +He was now assuming the low, quick, nervous utterance that is often +associated with intense repressed feeling; and his words were +accompanied by his best possible counterfeit of the burning, piercing, +distraught gaze of passion. Though he acted a part, it was not with +the cold-blooded art of a mimic who simulates by rule; it was with the +animation due to imagining himself actually swayed by the feeling he +would feign. While he _knew_ his emotion to be fictitious, he _felt_ +it as if it were real, and his consequent actions were the same as if +real it were. + +"I'm sure the act was not intentional with me," said Elizabeth. "I'd +best leave you, lest you grow worse." And she moved towards the door. + +Peyton had rapid work of it, pushing the chair before him and hopping +after it, so as to intercept her. In the excitement of the moment, he +lost his mastery of himself. + +"But you must not go! Hear me, I beg! Good God, only a half hour +left!" + +"A half hour?" repeated Elizabeth, inquiringly. + +"I mean," said Peyton, recovering his wits, "a half hour till the +troops may be here for me,--only a half hour until I must leave your +house forever! Do not let me be deprived of the sight of you for those +last minutes! Tis so short a time, yet 'tis all my life!" + +"The man is mad, I think!" She spoke as if to herself. + +"Mad!" he echoed. "Yes, some do call it a madness--the love that's +born of a glance, and lasts till death!" + +"Love!" said she. "'Tis impossible you should come to love me, in so +short a time." + +"'Tis born of a glance, I tell you!" he cried. "What is it, if not +love, that makes me forget my coming death, see only you, hear only +you, think of only you? Why do I not spend this time, this last hour, +in pleading for my life, in begging you to hide me and send the troops +away without me when they come? They would take your word, and you are +a woman, and women are moved by pleading. Why, then, do I not, in the +brief time I have left, beg for my life? Because my passion blinds me +to all else, because I would use every moment in pouring out my heart +to you, because my feelings must have outlet in words, because it is +more than life or death to me that you should know I love you!--God, +how fast that clock goes!" + +She had stood in wonderment, under the spell of his vehemence. Now, as +he leaned towards her, over the chair-back, his breath coming rapidly, +his eyes luminous, she seemed for a moment abashed, softened, subdued. +But she put to flight his momentary hope by starting again for the +doorway, with a low-spoken, "I must go!" + +But he thrust his chair in her way. + +"Nay, don't go!" he said. "You may hear my avowal with propriety. My +people are as good as any in Virginia." + +She stood regarding him with a look of scrutiny. + +"You are a rebel against your king," she said, but not harshly. + +"Is not the King soon to have his revenge? And is that a reason why +you should leave me now?" + +"You deserted your first colors." + +"'Twas in extraordinary circumstances, and in the right cause. And is +that a reason why you--" + +"You took my horse." + +"But paid you for it, and you have your horse again. Abuse me, madam, +but do not go from me. Call me rebel, deserter, robber, what you will, +but remain with me. Denunciation from your lips is sweeter than praise +from others. Chastise me, strike me, trample on me,--I shall worship +you none the less!" + +He inclined his body further forward over the chair-back, and thus was +very near her. She put out her hand to repel him. He moved back with +humility, but took her hand and kissed it, with an appearance of +passion qualified by reverence. + +"How dare you touch my hand?" And she quickly drew it from him. + +"A poor wretch who loves, and is soon to die, dares much!" + +"You seem resigned to dying," she remarked. + +"Have I not said 'tis better than living with a hopeless passion?" + +"And yet death," she said, "_that_ kind of a death is not pleasant." + +"I'm not afraid of it," said he, wondering how the minutes were +running, yet not daring the loss of time to look. "'Tis not in +consigning me to the enemy that you have your revenge on me, 'tis in +making me vainly love you. I receive the greater hurt from your +beauty, not from the British provost-marshal!" + +"Bravado!" said she. + +"Time will show," said he. + +"If you are so strong a man that you can endure the one hurt so +calmly, why are you not a little stronger,--strong enough to ignore +this other hurt,--this _love_-wound, as you call it?" + +She blushed furiously, and much against her will, at the mere word, +"love-wound." Her mood now seemed to be one of pretended incredulity, +and yet of a vague unwillingness that the man should be so weak to her +charms. + +Peyton conceived that a change of play might aid his game. + +"By heaven," he cried, "I will! 'Tis a weakness, as you imply! I shall +close my heart, vanquish my feelings! No word more of love! I defy +your beauty, your proud face, your splendid eyes! I shall die free of +your image. Go where you will, madam. It sha'n't be a puling lover +that the British hang. A snap o' the finger for your all-conquering +charms!--why do you not leave me?" + +"What! Do you order me from my own parlor?" + +Hope accelerated Peyton's heart at this, but he feigned indifference. + +"Go or stay," he said; "'tis nothing to me!" + +"You rebel, you speak like that to me!" + +Her speech rang with genuine anger, and of a little hotter quality +than he had thought to raise. + +He was about to answer, when suddenly a sound, far and faint, reached +his ear. "Isn't that--do you hear--" he said, huskily, and turning +cold. + +"Horses?" said Elizabeth. "Yes,--on the road from King's Bridge." + +She went to one of the eastern windows, opened the sash, unfastened +the shutter without, and let in a rush of cold air. Then she closed +the sash and looked out through the small panes. + +"Is it--" said Peyton, quietly, with as much steadiness as he could +command, "I wonder--can it be--" + +"A troop of rangers!" said Elizabeth. "And Sam is with them!" She +closed the shutter, and turned to Peyton, her face still glowing with +the resentment elicited by the cavalier attitude he had assumed before +this alarm. "Go or stay, 'tis nothing to you, you said! The last +insult, Sir Rebel Captain!" and she made for the door. + +"You mustn't go! You mustn't go!" was the only speech he could summon. +But she was already passing him. He snatched a kerchief from her +dress, and dropped it on the floor. She did not observe his act. +"Pardon me!" he cried. "Your kerchief! You've dropped it, don't you +see?" + +She turned and saw it on the floor. + +Peyton quickly stepped from behind his chair, stooped and picked up +the kerchief, kissed it, and handed it to her, then staggered to his +former support, showing in his face and by a groan the pain caused him +by his movement. + +"Your wound!" said Elizabeth, standing still. "You shouldn't have +stooped!" + +Harry's pain and consequent weakness, added to his consciousness of +the rapidly approaching enemy, who had already turned in from the main +road, gave him a pallor that would have claimed the attention of a +less compassionate woman even than Elizabeth. + +"No matter!" he murmured, feebly. Then, as if about to swoon, he threw +his head back, lost his hold of the chair-back, and staggered to the +spinet. Leaning on this, he gasped, "My cravat! I feel as if I were +choking!" and made some futile effort with his hand to unfasten the +neck-cloth. "Would you," he panted, "may I beg--loosen it?" + +She went to his side, undid the cravat, and otherwise relieved his +neck of its confinement. She could not but meet his gaze as she did +so. It was a gaze of eager, adoring eyes. He feebly smiled his +thanks, and spoke, between short breaths, the words, "The hour--I +love you--yes, the troops!" + +The horses were clattering up towards the house. + +A voice of command was heard through the window. + +"Halt! Guard the windows and the rear, you four!" + +"Colden's voice!" exclaimed Peyton. + +Elizabeth was somewhat startled. "He must have been still at King's +Bridge when Sam arrived," said she. + +"He must be a close friend," said Peyton. + +"He is my affianced husband." + +Peyton staggered, as if shot, around the projection of the spinet, and +came to a rest in the small space between that projection and the west +wall of the room. "Her affianced! Then it's all up with me!" + +The outside door was heard to open. Elizabeth turned her back towards +the spinet and Peyton, and faced the door to the hall. That, too, was +flung wide. Peyton dropped on his right knee, behind the spinet, +leaning forward and stretching his wounded leg out behind him, just as +Colden rushed in at the head of six of the Queen's Rangers, who were +armed with short muskets. The major stopped short at sight of +Elizabeth, and the rangers stood behind him, just within the door. +Peyton was hidden by the spinet. + +"Where is the rebel, Elizabeth?" cried Colden. + +She met his gaze straight, and spoke calmly, with a barely perceptible +tremor. + +"You are too late, Jack! The prisoner has eluded me. Look for him on +the road to Tarrytown,--and be quick about it, for God's sake!" + +Colden drew back aghast, thrown from the height of triumph to the +depth of chagrin. Peyton, fearing lest the one joyous bound of his +heart might have betrayed him, remained perfectly still, knowing that +if any movement should take Elizabeth from between the soldiers and +the projection of the spinet, or if the soldiers should enter further +and chance to look under the spinet, he would be seen. + +"Don't you understand?" said Elizabeth, assuming one impatience to +conceal another. "There's no time to lose! 'Twas the rebel Peyton! +He's afoot!" + +"The road to Tarrytown, you say?" replied Colden, gathering back his +faculties. + +"Yes, to Tarrytown! Why do you wait?" Her vehemence of tone sufficed +to cover the growing insupportability of her situation. + +"To the road again, men!" Colden ordered. "Till we meet, Elizabeth!" +And he hastened, with the rangers, from the place. + +[Illustration: "'YOU ARE TOO LATE, JACK!'"] + +Peyton and Elizabeth remained motionless till the sound of the horses +was afar. Then Elizabeth called Williams, who, as she had supposed, +had come into the hall with the rangers. He now entered the parlor. +Elizabeth, whose back was still towards Peyton, who had risen and was +leaning on the spinet, addressed the steward in a low, embarrassed +tone, as if ashamed of the weakness newly come over her. + +"Williams, this gentleman will remain in the house till his wound is +healed. His presence is to be a secret in the household. He will +occupy the southwestern chamber." She then turned and spoke, in a +constrained manner, to Peyton, not meeting his look. "It is the room +your General Washington had when he was my father's guest." + +With an effort, she raised her eyes to his, but shyly dropped them +again. He bowed his thanks gravely, rather shamefaced at the success +of his deception. A moment later, Elizabeth, with averted glance, +walked quickly from the room. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE SECRET PASSAGE. + + +The steward immediately set about preparing the designated chamber for +occupancy, so that Peyton, on being carried up to it a few minutes +later, found it warm and lighted. It was a large, square, panelled +apartment, in which the fireplace of 1682 remained unchanged, a wide, +deep, square opening, faced with Dutch tile, of which there were +countless pieces, each piece having a picture of some Scriptural +incident. Into this fireplace, where a log was burning crisply, Peyton +gazed languidly as he lay on the bed, his clothes having been removed +by black Sam, who had been assigned to attend him, and who now lay in +the wide hall without. Williams had taken another look at the wound, +and expressed a favorable opinion of its condition. A lighted candle +was placed within Peyton's reach, on a table by the bedside. Williams +had brought him, at Elizabeth's orders, part of what remained from the +general supper. The captain felt decidedly comfortable. + +He supposed that Colden, after abandoning the false chase, would make +another call at the house, but he inferred from Elizabeth's previous +conduct that she could and would send the Tory major and the rangers +back to King's Bridge without opportunity of discovering her guest. +And, indeed, Elizabeth had so provided. On returning to the +dining-room from her fateful interview with Peyton, she had answered +the astonished and inquisitive looks of Miss Sally and Mr. Valentine, +by saying, in an abrupt and reserved manner, "For important reasons I +have chosen not to give the prisoner up. He will stay in the house for +a time, and nobody is to know he is here. Please remember, Mr. +Valentine." The old man tried to recall Peyton's words in asking him +to send Elizabeth to the parlor, and made a mental effort to put this +and that together; failing in which, he decided to repeat nothing of +Peyton's conversation, lest it might in some way appear that he had +"lent aid." He now lighted his lantern, and sallied forth on his long +walk homeward over the windswept roads. Elizabeth, who, much to the +dismay of her aunt's curiosity, had not broken silence save to give +orders to the servants, now charged Williams to stay up till Colden +should return, and to inform him that all were abed, that there was no +news of the escaped prisoner, and that she desired the major to hasten +to New York and relieve her family's anxiety. This command the steward +executed about midnight, with the result that the major, utterly +tired out and sadly disappointed, rode away from the manor-house a +third time that night, more disgruntled than on either of the two +previous occasions. By this time the house was dark and silent, +Elizabeth and her aunt having long retired, the latter with a remark +concerning the effect of late hours on the complexion, a hope that Mr. +Valentine would not fall into a puddle on the way home, and a +curiosity as to how the rebel captain fared. + +The rebel captain, afar in his spacious chamber, was mentally in a +state of felicity. As he ceased to remember the conquered, abashed +look Elizabeth's face had last worn, he ceased to feel ashamed of +having deceived her. Her earlier manner recurred to his mind, and he +jubilated inwardly over having got the better of this arrogant and +vengeful young creature. Even had she been otherwise, and had his life +depended on tricking her with a pretence of love, he would have valued +his life far above her feelings, and would not have hesitated to +practise on her a falsehood that many a gentleman has practised on +many a maid for no higher purpose than for the sport or for the +testing of his powers, and often for no other purpose than the maid's +undoing in more than her feelings. How much less, then, need he +consider her feelings when he regarded her as an enemy in war, of whom +it was his right to take all possible advantage for the saving of his +own or any other American soldier's life! These thoughts came only at +those moments when it occurred to him that his act might need +justification. But if he thought he was entitled to avail himself of +these excuses, he deceived himself, for no such considerations had +been in his mind before or during his act. He had proceeded on the +impulse of self-preservation alone, with no further thought as to the +effect on her feelings than the hope that her feelings would be moved +in his behalf. He had been totally selfish in the matter, and yet, +while it is true he had not stopped to reason whether the act was +morally justifiable or not, he had _felt_ that her attitude warranted +his deception, or, rather, he had not felt that the deception was a +discreditable act, as he might have felt had her attitude been +kindlier. Even had he possessed any previous scruples about that act, +he would have overcome them. As it was, the scruples came only when he +thought of that new, chastened, subdued look on her face. Only then +did he feel that his trick might be debatable, as to whether it became +a gentleman. Only then did he take the trouble to seek justifiable +circumstances. Only then did he have a dim sense of what might be the +feelings of a girl suddenly stormed into love. He had never been +sufficiently in love to know how serious a feeling--serious in its +tremendous potency for joy or pain--love is. In Virginia, in London, +and in Ireland, he had indulged himself in such little flirtations, +such amours of an hour, as helped make up a young gentleman's +amusements. But he had long been, as he was now, heart-free, and, +though it occurred to him that, in this girl, so great a change of +mien must arise from a pronounced change of heart, he had no thought +that her new mood could have deep root or long life. So, less from +what thoughts he did have on the subject than from his absence of +thought thereon, he lapsed into peace of mind, and went to sleep, +rejoicing in his security and trusting it would last. Her face did not +appear in his dreams. He had not retained a strong or accurate +impression of that face. His mind had been too full of other things, +even while enacting his impromptu love-scene, to make note of her +beauty. He had been sensible, of course, that she was beautiful, but +there had not been time or circumstance for flirtation. He had not for +an instant viewed her as a possible object of conquest for its own +sake. She had been to him only an enemy, in the shape of a beautiful +young girl, and of whom it had become necessary to make use. And so +his dreams that night were made up of wild cavalry charges, rides +through the wind, and painful crushings and tearings of his leg. + +Elizabeth's thoughts were in a whirl, her feelings beyond analysis. +She was sensible mainly of a wholly novel and vast pleasure at the +adoration so impetuously expressed for her by this audacious +stranger, of a pride in his masterful way, of applause for that very +manner which she had rebuked as insolence. Was this love at last? +Undoubtedly; for she had read all the romances and plays and poems, +and, if this feeling of hers were a thing other than the love they +all described, they would have described such a feeling also. +Because she had never felt its soft touch before, she had thought +herself exempt from it. But now that it had found lodgment in her, +she knew it at once, from the very fact that in a flash she +understood all the romances and plays and poems that had before +interested her but as mere tales, whose motives had seemed arbitrary +and insufficient. Now they all took reality and reason. She knew at +last why Hero threw herself into the Hellespont after Leander, why +all that commotion was caused by Helen of Troy, why Oriana took +such trouble for Mirabel, why Juliet died on Romeo's body, why Miss +Richland paid Honeywood's debts. The moon, rushing through a cleft +in the clouds (she had opened one of the shutters on putting out the +candles), had for her a sudden beauty which accounted for the fine +things the poets had said of it and love together. Yes, because it +opened on her world of romance a magic window, letting in a wondrous +light, waking that world to throbbing life, clothing it with +indescribable charm, she knew the name of the key that had unlocked +her own heart. Now she knew them all,--the heroes, the fairy princes, +the knights errant; perceived that they were real and live, +recognized their traits and manners, their very faces, in that +bold, free, strong young rebel; he was Orlando, and Lovelace, and +Prince Charming, and AEneas, and Tom Jones, and King Harry the Fifth, +and young Marlowe, and even Captain Macheath (she had read forbidden +books guilelessly, in course of reading everything at hand), and +Roderick Random, and Captain Plume, and all the conquering, gallant, +fine young fellows, at the absurd weakness of whose sweethearts she +had marvelled beyond measure. She understood that weakness now, and +knew, too, why those sweethearts had, in the first delicious hours +of their weakness, trembled and dropped their eyes before those young +gentlemen. For, as she mentally beheld his image, she felt her own +cheeks glow, and in imagination was fain to drop her own eyes +before his bold, unquailing look. She wondered, with confusion and +unseen blushes, how she would face him at their next meeting, and +felt that she must not, could not, be the one to cause that +meeting. Right surely had this fair castle, that had withstood +many a long siege, fallen now at a single onslaught, and that but +a sham onslaught. The haughty princess in her tower had not longed +for the prince, but the prince had arrived, not to her rescue, but to +the taming of her. And alas! the prince, whom she fondly thought her +lover, was no more lover of her than of the picture of her female +ancestor on his bedroom wall! + +She gave no thought to consequences, and, as for Jack Colden, she +simply, by power of will, kept him out of her mind. + +It was three days before Peyton could walk about his room, and two +days more before he felt sufficient confidence in his wounded leg to +come down-stairs and take his meals with the household. And even then, +refusing a crutch, he used a stick in moving about. During the five +days when he kept his room, he was waited on alternately by Sam and +Cuff, who served at his bath and brought his food; and occasionally +Molly carried to him at dinner some belated delicacy or forgotten +dish. Williams, too, visited him daily, and expressed a kind of +professional satisfaction at the uninterrupted healing of the wound, +which the steward treated with the mysterious applications known to +home surgery. Williams lent his own clean linen to Harry, while +Harry's underwent washing and mending at the hands of the maid. Old +Valentine, who visited the house every day, the weather being cold and +sometimes cloudy, but without rain, called at the sick chamber now +and then, and filled it with tobacco smoke, homely philosophy, and +rustic reminiscence. Harry had no other visitors. During these five +days he saw not Elizabeth or Miss Sally, save from his window twice or +thrice, at which times they were walking on the terrace. In daytime, +when no artificial light was in the room to betray to some possible +outsider the presence of a guest, he had the shutters opened of one of +the two south windows and of one of the two west ones. Often he +reclined near a window, pleasing his eyes with the view. Westward lay +the terrace, the wide river, the leafy, cliffs, and fair rolling +country beyond. His eye could take in also the deer paddock, which the +hand of war had robbed of its inmates, and the great orchard northward +overlooking the river. Through the south window he could see the +little branch road and boat-landing, the old stone mill, the winding +Neperan and its broad mill-pond, and the sloping, ravine-cut, wooded +stretch of country, between the post-road on the left and the deep-set +Hudson on the right. The spire of St. John's Church, among the +yew-trees, with the few edifices grouped near it, broke gratefully the +deserted aspect of things, at the left. The spacious scene, so richly +filled by nature, had in its loneliness and repose a singular +sweetness. Rarely was any one abroad. Only when the Hessians or +Loyalist dragoons patrolled the post-road, or when some British +sloop-of-war showed its white sails far down the river, was there sign +of human life and conflict. The deserted look of things was in harmony +with the spirit of a book with which Harry sweetened the long hours of +his recovery. It was a book that Elizabeth had sent up for his +amusement, called "The Man of Feeling," and there was something in the +opening picture of the venerable mansion, with its air of melancholy, +its languid stillness, its "single crow, perched on an old tree by the +side of the gate," and its young lady passing between the trees with a +book in her hand, that harmonized with his own sequestered state. He +liked the tale better than the same author's later novel, "The Man of +the World," which he had read a few years before. Every day he +inquired about his hostess's health, and sent his compliments and +thanks. He was glad she did not visit him in person, for such a visit +might involve an allusion to their last previous interview, and he did +not know in what manner he should make or treat such allusion. He felt +it would be an awkward matter to get out of the situation of pretended +adorer, and he was for putting that awkward matter off till the last +possible moment. + +It was necessary for him to think of his return to the army. Duty and +inclination required he should make that return as soon as could be. +His first impulse had been to send word of his whereabouts and +condition. But as Elizabeth had not offered a messenger, he was loath +to ask for one. Moreover, the messenger might be intercepted by the +enemy's patrols and induced by fear to betray the message. Then, too, +even if the messenger should reach the American lines uncaught, a +consequent attempt to convey a wounded man from the manor hall to the +camp might attract the attention of the vigilant patrols, and risk not +only Harry's own recapture, but also the loss of other men. Decidedly, +the best course was to await the healing of his wound, and then to +make his way alone, under cover of night, to the army. He knew that, +whatever might occur, it was now Elizabeth's interest to protect him, +for should she give him up, the disclosure that she had formerly +shielded him would render her liable to suspicion and ridicule. He +felt, too, from the manifestations he had seen of her will and of her +ingenuity, that she was quite able to protect him. So he rested in +security in the quiet old chamber, dreading only the task of taking +back his love-making. Of that task, the difficulty would depend on +Elizabeth's own conduct, which he could not foresee, and that in turn +on her state of heart, which he did not exactly divine. He knew only +that she had, in that critical moment of the troops' arrival, felt for +him a tenderness that betokened love. Whether that feeling had +flourished or declined, he could not, during the five days when they +did not meet, be aware. + +It had not declined. She had gone on idealizing the confident rebel +captain all the while. The fact that he was of the enemy added +piquancy to the sentiments his image aroused. It lent, too, an +additional poetic interest to the idea of their love. Was not Romeo of +the enemies of Juliet's house? The fact of her being now his +protector, by its oppositeness to the conventional situation, gave to +their relation the charm of novelty, and also gratified her natural +love of independence and domination. Yet that very love, in a woman, +may afford its owner keen delight by receiving quick and confident +opposition and conquest from a man, and such Elizabeth's had received +from Peyton, both in the matter of the horse and in that of his +successful wooing. But the greater her softness for him, the greater +was her delicacy regarding him, and the more in conformity with the +strictest propriety must be her conduct towards him. Her pride +demanded this tribute of her love, in compensation for the latter's +immense exactions on the former in the sudden yielding to his wooing. +Moreover, she would not appear in anything short of perfection in his +eyes. She would not make her company cheap to him. If she had been a +quick conquest, up to the point of her first token of submission, she +would be all the slower in the subsequent stages, so that the +complete yielding should be no easier than ought to be that of one +valued as she would have him value her. All this she felt rather than +thought, and she acted on it punctiliously. + +She did not confide in her aunt, though that lady watched her closely +and had her suspicions. Yet there was apparent so little warrant for +these suspicions, save the protection of the rebel in itself, that +Miss Sally often imagined Elizabeth had other reasons, reasons of +policy, for the sudden change of intention that had resulted in that +protection. Elizabeth's conduct was always so mystifying to everybody! +And when this thought possessed Miss Sally, she underwent a pleasing +agitation, which she in turn kept secret, and which attended the hope +that perhaps the handsome captain might not be averse to her +conversation. She had both read and observed that the taste of youth +sometimes was for ripeness. She might atone, in a measure, for +Elizabeth's disdain. She would have liked to visit him daily, with +condolence and comfortings, but she could not do so without previous +sanction of the mistress of the house, which sanction Elizabeth +briefly but very peremptorily refused. Miss Sally thought it a cruelty +that the prisoner should be deprived of what consolation her society +might afford, and dwelt on this opinion until she became convinced he +was actually pining for her presence. This made her poutish and +reproachfully silent to Elizabeth, and sighful and whimsical to +herself. The slightly strained feeling that arose between aunt and +niece was quite acceptable to Elizabeth, as it gave her freedom for +her own dreams, and prohibited any occasion for an expression of +feelings or opinions of her own as to the captain. But Miss Sally's +symptoms were observed by old Mr. Valentine, who, inferring their +cause, underwent much unrest on account of them, became snappish and +sarcastic towards the lady, watchful both of her and of Peyton, and +moody towards the others in the house. It was the old man's +disquietude regarding the state of Miss Sally's affections that +brought him to the house every day. For one brief while he considered +the advisability of transferring his attentions back from Miss Sally +to the widow Babcock, who had possessed them first, but, when he +tarried in the parsonage, his fears as to what might be going on in +the manor-house made his stay in the former intolerable, and led him +irresistibly to the latter. + +Meanwhile the wounded guest, so unconscious of the states of mind +caused by him in the household, was the evoker of flutters in yet +another female breast. The girl, Molly, had read toilsomely through +"Pamela," and saw no reason why an equally attractive housemaid should +not aspire to an equally high destiny on this side of the ocean. But, +often as she artfully contrived that the black boy should forget some +part of the guest's dinner, and timely as she planned her own visits +with the missing portion, she found the officer heedless of her +smiles, engrossed sometimes in his meal, sometimes in his book, +sometimes in both. She conceived a loathing for that book, more than +once resisted a temptation to make way with it, and, having one day +stolen a look into it, thenceforth abominated the poor young lady of +it, with all the undying bitterness of an unpreferred rival. + +Though Elizabeth and her aunt found each other reticent, they yet +passed their time together, breakfasting early, then visiting the +widow Babcock or some tenant, dining at noon, spending the early +afternoon, the one at her book or embroidery, the other in a siesta +before the fireplace, supping early, then preparing for the night by a +brisk walk in the garden, or on the terrace, or to the orchard and +back. Elizabeth had Williams provided with instructions as to his +conduct in the event of a visit from King's troops, and, to make +Peyton's security still less uncertain, she confined her walks to the +immediate vicinity. The house itself was kept in a pretence of being +closed, the shutters of the parlor being skilfully adjusted to admit +light, and yet, from the road, appear fast. + +Thus Elizabeth, finding enjoyment in the very look and atmosphere of +the old house, fulfilled quietly the purpose of her capricious visit, +and at the same time cherished a dreamy pleasure such as she had not +thought of finding in that visit. + +On the fifth day after Peyton's arrival, Williams announced that the +captain would venture down-stairs on the morrow. The next morning +Elizabeth waited in the east parlor to receive him. Whatever inward +excitement she underwent, she was on the surface serene. She was +dressed in her simplest, having purposely avoided any appearance of +desiring to appear at her best. Her aunt, who stood with her, on the +other side of the fireplace, was perceptibly flustered, being got up +for the occasion, with ribbons in evidence and smiles ready for +production on the instant. When the west door opened, and the awaited +hero entered, pale but well groomed, using his cane in such fashion +that he could carry himself erectly, Elizabeth greeted him with formal +courtesy. Though her manner had the repose necessary to conceal her +sweet agitation, an observant person might have noticed a deference, a +kind of meekness, that was new in her demeanor towards men. Peyton, +whose mien (though not his feeling) was a reflex of her own, was +relieved at this appearance of indifference, and hoped it would +continue. His mind being on this, the stately curtsey and profuse +smirks of Miss Sally were quite lost on him. + +The three breakfasted together in the dining-room, a large and +cheerful apartment whose front windows, looking on the lawn, were the +middle features of the eastern facade of the house. The mass of +decorative woodwork, and the fireplace in the north side of the room, +added to its impression of comfort as well as to its beauty. +Conversation at the breakfast was ceremonious and on the most +indifferent subjects, despite the attempts of Miss Sally, who would +have monopolized Peyton's attention, to inject a little cordial +levity. After breakfast Elizabeth, to avoid the appearance of +distinguishing the day, took her aunt off for the usual walk, which +she purposely prolonged to unusual length, much to Miss Sally's +annoyance. Peyton passed the morning in reading a new play that had +made great talk in London the year before, namely, "The School for +Scandal." It was one of the new books received by Colonel Philipse +from London, by a recent English vessel,--plays being, in those days, +good enough to be much read in book form,--and brought out from town +by Elizabeth. The dinner was, as to the attitude of the participants +towards one another, a repetition of the breakfast. In the afternoon, +Peyton having expressed an intention of venturing outdoors for a +little air, Elizabeth assigned Sam to attend him, and said that, as +he had to traverse the south hall and stairs in going to his room, he +might thereafter put to his own service the unused south door in +leaving and entering the house. Harry strolled for a few minutes on +the terrace, but his lameness made walking little pleasure, and he +returned to the east parlor, where Elizabeth sat reading while her +aunt was looking drowsily at the fire. Peyton took a chair at the +right side of the fireplace, and mentally contrasted his present +security with his peril in that place on a former occasion. + +The trampling of horses at a distance elicited from Elizabeth the +words, "The Hessian patrol, on the Albany road, as usual, I suppose." +But, the clatter increasing, she arose and looked through the narrow +slit whereby light was admitted between the almost closed shutters. +After a moment she said, in unconcealed alarm: + +"Oh, heaven! 'Tis a party of Lord Cathcart's officers! They said at +King's Bridge they'd come one day to pay their respects. How can I +keep them out?" + +Peyton arose, but remained by the fireplace, and said, "To keep them +out, if they think themselves expected, would excite suspicion. I will +go to my room." + +Elizabeth, meanwhile, had opened the window to draw the shutter +close; but her trembling movement, assisted by a passing breeze, and +by the perversity of inanimate things, caused the shutter to fly wide +open. + +She turned towards Peyton, with signs of fright on her face. "Back!" +she whispered. "They'll see you through the window. Into the +closet,--the closet!" She motioned imperatively towards the pair of +doors immediately beside him, west of the fireplace. Hearing the +horses' footfalls near at hand, and perceiving, with her, that he +would not have time to walk safely across the parlor to the hall, he +opened one of the doors indicated by her, and stepped into the +closet. + +In the instant before he closed the door after him, he noticed the +stairs descending backward from the right side of the closet. He +foresaw that the British officers would come into the parlor. If they +should make a long stay, he might have to change his position during +their presence. He might thus cause sufficient sound to attract +attention. He would be in better case further away. Therefore, using +his stick and feeling the route with his hand, he made his way down +the steps to a landing, turned to the right, descended more steps, and +found himself in a dark cellar. He had no sooner reached the last step +than a burst of hearty greetings from above informed him the officers +were in the parlor. + +This part of the cellar being damp, he set out in search of a more +comfortable spot wherein to bestow himself the necessary while. +Groping his way, and travelling with great labor, he at last came into +a kind of corridor formed between two rolls of piled-up barrels. He +proceeded along this passage until it was blocked by a barrel on the +ground. On this he sat down, deciding it as good a staying-place as he +might find. Leaning back, he discovered with his head what seemed to +be a thick wooden partition close to the barrel. Changing his +position, he bumped his head against an iron something that lay +horizontally against the partition, and so violent was this collision +that the iron something was moved from its place, a fact which he +noted on the instant but immediately forgot in the sharpness of his +pain. + +Having at last made himself comfortable, he sat waiting in the +darkness, thinking to let some time pass before returning to the +closet stairway. An hour or more had gone by, when he heard a door +open, which he knew must be at the head of some other stairway to the +cellar, and a jocund voice cry: "Damme, we'll be our own tapsters! +Give me the candle, Mr. Williams, and if my nose doesn't pull me to +the barrel in one minute, may it never whiff spirits again!" A moment +later, quick footfalls sounded on the stairs, then candle-light +disturbed the blackness, and Williams was heard saying, "This way, +gentlemen, if you insist. The barrel is on the ground, straight +ahead." Whereupon Peyton saw two merry young Englishmen enter the very +passage at whose end he sat, one bearing the candle, both followed by +the steward, who carried a spigot and a huge jug. + +Harry instantly divined the cause of this intrusion. The servants were +busy preparing refreshments for the officers, and, in a spirit of +gaiety, these two had volunteered to help Williams fetch the liquor +which he, not knowing Harry's whereabouts, was about to draw from the +barrel on which Harry sat. + +It was not Elizabeth who could save him from discovery now. + +The officers came groping towards him up the narrow passage. + +Before the candle-light reached him, he rose and got behind the +barrel, there being barely room for his legs between it and the +partition. He had, in dressing for the day, put on his scabbard and +his broken sword. He now took his stick in his left hand, and drew his +sword with his right. He set his teeth hard together, thought of +nothing at all, or rather of everything at once, and waited. + +"Hear the rats," said one of the Englishmen. It was Peyton's stealthy +movement he had heard. + +"Ay, sir, there's often a terrible scampering of 'em," said Williams. + +"Maybe I can pink a rat or two," said the officer without the candle, +and drew his sword. Harry braced himself rapidly against the woodwork +at his back. The candle-light touched the barrel. + +At that instant Harry felt the woodwork give way behind him, and fell +on his back on the ground. + +"What's that?" cried the officer with the candle, standing still. + +"Tis the scampering of the rats, of course," said the other. + +Harry had apprehended, by this time, that the supposed wooden +partition was in reality a door in the cellar wall. He now pushed it +shut with his foot, remaining outside of it, then rose, and, feeling +about him, discovered that his present place was in a narrow arched +passage that ran, from the door in the cellar wall, he knew not how +far. Recalling the bumping of his head, he inferred now that the iron +something was a bolt, and that his blow had forced it from its too +large socket in the stone wall. + +He proceeded onward in the dark passage for some distance, then +stopped to listen. No sound coming from the door he had closed, he +decided that the officers were satisfied the noise had been of the +rats' making. He sheathed his broken sword, having retained that +and his stick in his fall, and went forward, hoping to find a +habitable place of waiting. Soon the passage widened into a kind of +subterranean room, one side of which admitted light. Going to +this side, Harry stopped short at the verge of a well, on whose +circumference the subterranean chamber abutted. The light came from +the well's top, which was about ten feet above the low roof of the +underground room, the passage from the cellar being on a descent. In +this artificial cave were wooden chests, casks, and covered +earthen vessels, these contents proclaiming the place a secret +storage-room designed for use in siege or in military occupation. +Harry waited here a while that seemed half a day, then returned +through the passage to the door, intending to return to the +cellar. He listened at the door, found all quiet beyond, and made +to push open the door. It would not move. From the feel of the +resistance, he perceived that the bolt had been pushed home again--as +indeed it had, by the steward, who had noticed it while tapping the +barrel, and had imputed its being drawn to some former carelessness +of his own. + +Peyton, finding himself thus barred into the subterranean regions, was +in a quandary. Any alarm he might attempt, by shouting or pounding, +might not be heard, or, if heard, might reach some tarrying British. +In due time, Elizabeth would doubtless have him looked for in the +closet and then in the cellar, but, on his not being found there, +would suppose he had left the cellar by one of the other stairways. +Thus he could little hope to be sought for in his prison. Williams +might at any time have occasion to visit the secret storeroom, but, on +the other hand, he might not have such occasion for weeks. Harry +groped back to the cave, and sought some way of escape by the well, +but found none. + +He then examined the cave more closely, and came finally on another +passage than that by which he had entered. He followed this for what +seemed an interminable length. At last, it closed up in front of him. +He tested the barrier of raw earth with his hands, felt a great round +stone projecting therefrom, pushed this stone in vain, then clasped it +with both arms and pulled. It gave, and presently fell to the ground +at his feet, leaving an aperture two feet across, which let in light. +He crawled the short length of this, and breathed the open air in a +small thicket on the sloping bank of the Hudson.[8] He crept to the +thicket's edge, and saw, in the sunset light, the river before him; on +the river, a British war-vessel; on the vessel, some naval officers, +one of whom was looking, with languid preoccupation, straight at the +thicket from which Harry gazed. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE CONFESSION. + + +"What d'ye spy, Tom?" called out another officer on the deck, to the +one whose attitude most interested Harry. + +"I thought I made out some kind of craft steering through the bushes +yonder," was the answer. + +"I see nothing." + +"Neither do I, now. 'Twasn't human craft, anyhow, so it doesn't +signify," and the officers looked elsewhere. + +Harry lay low in the thicket, awaiting the departure of the vessel or +the arrival of darkness. On the deck there was no sign of weighing +anchor. As night came, the vessel's lights were slung. The sky was +partly clear in the west, and stars appeared in that direction, but +the east was overcast, so that the rising moon was hid. The atmosphere +grew colder. + +When Harry could make out nothing of the vessel on the dark water, +save the lights that glowed like low-placed stars, he crawled from the +bushes and up the bank to the terrace. He then rose and proceeded, +with the aid of his stick, aching from having so long maintained a +cramped position, and from the suddenly increased cold. Before him, as +he continued to ascend, rose the house, darkness outlined against +darkness. No sound came from it, no window was lighted. This meant +that the British officers had left, for their presence would have been +marked by plenitude of light and by noise of merriment. Harry stopped +on the terrace, and stood in doubt how to proceed. What had been +thought of his disappearance? Where would he be supposed to have gone? +Had provision been made for his possible return? Perhaps he should +find a guiding light in some window on the other side of the house; +perhaps a servant remained alert for his knock on the door. His only +course was to investigate, unless he would undergo a night of much +discomfort. + +As he was about to approach the house, he was checked by a sight so +vaguely outlined that it might be rather of his imagination than of +reality, and which added a momentary shiver of a keener sort than he +already underwent from the weather. A dark cloaked and hooded figure +stood by the balustrade that ran along the roof-top. As Peyton looked, +his hand involuntarily clasping his sword-hilt, and the stories of the +ghosts that haunted this old mansion shot through his mind, the figure +seemed to descend through the very roof, as a stage ghost is lowered +through a trap. He continued to stare at the spot where it had stood, +but nothing reappeared against the backing of black cloud. Wondering +much, Harry presently went on towards the house, turned the southwest +corner, and skirted the south front as far as to the little porch in +its middle. Intending to reconnoitre all sides of the house before he +should try one of the doors, he was passing on, after a glance at the +south door lost in the blacker shadows of the porch, when suddenly the +fan-window over the door seemed to glow dimly with a wavering light. +He placed his hand on one of the Grecian pillars of the porch, and +watched. A moment later the door softly opened. A figure appeared, +beyond the threshold, bearing a candle. The figure wore a cloak with a +hood, but the hood was down. + +"All is safe," whispered a low voice. "The officers went hours ago. I +knew you must have escaped from the house, and were hiding somewhere. +I saw you a minute ago from the roof gallery." + +Peyton having entered, Elizabeth swiftly closed and locked the door +behind him, handed him the candle with a low "Good night," and fled +silently, ghostlike, up the stairs, disappearing quickly in the +darkness. + +Harry made his way to his own room, as in a kind of dream. She herself +had waited and watched for him! This, then, was the effect wrought in +the proudest, most disdainful young creature of her sex, by that +feeling which he had, by telling and acting a lie, awakened in her. +The revelation set him thinking. How long might such a feeling last? +What would be its effect on her after his departure? He had read, and +heard, and seen, that, when these feelings were left to pine away +slowly, the people possessing them pined also. And this was the return +he was about to give his most hospitable hostess, the woman who had +saved his life! Yet what was to be done? His life belonged to his +country, his chosen career was war; he could not alter completely his +destiny to save a woman some pining. After all, she _would_ get over +it; yet it would make of her another woman, embitter her, change +entirely the complexion of the world to her, and her own attitude +towards it. He tried to comfort himself with the thought of her +engagement to Colden, of which he had not learned until after the +mischief had been done. But he recalled her manner towards Colden, and +a remark of old Mr. Valentine's, whence he knew that the engagement +was not, on her side, a love one, and was not inviolable. Yet it would +be a crime to a woman of her pride, of her power of loving, to allow +the deceit, his pretence of love, to go as far as marriage. A +disclosure would come in time, and would bring her a bitter awakening. +The falsehood, natural if not excusable in its circumstances, and +broached without thought of ultimate consequence, must be stopped at +once. He must leave her presence immediately, but, before going, must +declare the truth. She must not be allowed to waste another day of her +life on an illusion. Aside from the effect on her heart, of the +continuance of the delusion, it would doubtless affect her outward +circumstances, by leading her to break her engagement with Colden. An +immediate discovery of the truth, moreover, by creating such a +revulsion of feeling as would make her hate him, would leave her heart +in a state for speedy healing. This disclosure would be a devilishly +unpleasant thing to make, but a soldier and a gentleman must meet +unpleasant duties unflinchingly. + +He lay a long time awake, disturbed by thoughts of the task before +him. When he did sleep, it was to dream that the task was in progress, +then that it was finished but had to be begun anew, then that +countless obstacles arose in succession to hinder him in it. Dawn +found him little refreshed in mind, but none the worse in body. He +found, on arising, that he could walk without aid from the stick, and +he required no help in dressing himself. Looking towards the river, he +saw the British vessel heading for New York. But that sight gave him +little comfort, thanks to the ordeal before him, in contemplating +which he neglected to put on his sword and scabbard, and so descended +to breakfast without them. + +That meal offered no opportunity for the disclosure, the aunt being +present throughout. Immediately after breakfast, the two ladies went +for their customary walk. While they were breasting the wind, between +two rows of box in the garden, Miss Sally spoke of Major Colden's +intention to return for Elizabeth at the end of a week, and said, +"'Twill be a week this evening since you arrived. Is he to come for +you to-day or to-morrow?" + +"I don't know," said Elizabeth, shortly. + +"But, my dear, you haven't prepared--" + +"I sha'n't go back to-day, that is certain. If Colden comes before +to-morrow, he can wait for me,--or I may send him back without me, and +stay as long as I wish." + +"But he will meet Captain Peyton--" + +"It can be easily arranged to keep him from knowing Captain Peyton is +here. I shall look to that." + +Miss Sally sighed at the futility of her inquisitorial fishing. Not +knowing Elizabeth's reason for saving the rebel captain, she had once +or twice thought that the girl, in some inscrutable whim, intended to +deliver him up, after all. She had tried frequently to fathom her +niece's purposes, but had never got any satisfaction. + +"I suppose," she went on, desperately, "if you go back to town, you +will leave the captain in Williams's charge." + +"If I go back before the captain leaves," said Elizabeth, thereby +dashing her amiable aunt's secretly cherished hope of affording the +wounded officer the pleasure of her own unalloyed society. + +Elizabeth really did not know what she would do. Her actions, on +Colden's return, would depend on the prior actions of the captain. No +one had spoken to Peyton of her intention to leave after a week's +stay. She had thought such an announcement to him from her might seem +to imply a hint that it was time he should resume his wooing. That he +would resume it, in due course, she took for granted. Measuring his +supposed feelings by her own real ones, she assumed that her loveless +betrothal to another would not deter Peyton's further courtship. She +believed he had divined the nature of that betrothal. Nor would he be +hindered by the prospect of their being parted some while by the war. +Engagements were broken, wars did not last forever, those who loved +each other found ways to meet. So he would surely speak, before their +parting, of what, since it filled her heart, must of course fill his. +But she would show no forwardness in the matter. She therefore avoided +him till dinner-time. + +At the table he abruptly announced that, as duty required he should +rejoin the army at the first moment possible, and as he now felt +capable of making the journey, he would depart that night. + +Miss Sally hid her startled emotions behind a glass of madeira, into +which she coughed, chokingly. Molly, the maid, stopped short in her +passage from the kitchen door to the table, and nearly dropped the +pudding she was carrying. Elizabeth concealed her feelings, and told +herself that his declaration must soon be forthcoming. She left it to +him to contrive the necessary private interview. + +After dinner, he sat with the ladies before the fire in the east +parlor, awaiting his opportunity with much hidden perturbation. +Elizabeth feigned to read. At last, habit prevailing, her aunt fell +asleep. Peyton hummed and hemmed, looked into the fire, made two or +three strenuous swallows of nothing, and opened his mouth to speak. At +that instant old Mr. Valentine came in, newly arrived from the Hill, +and "whew"-ing at the cold. Peyton felt like one for whom a brief +reprieve had been sent by heaven. + +All afternoon Mr. Valentine chattered of weather and news and old +times. Peyton's feeling of relief was short-lasting; it was supplanted +by a mighty regret that he had not been permitted to get the thing +over. No second opportunity came of itself, nor could Peyton, who +found his ingenuity for once quite paralyzed, force one. Supper was +announced, and was partaken of by Harry, in fidgety abstraction; by +Elizabeth, in expectant but outwardly placid silence; by Miss Sally, +in futile smiling attempts to make something out of her last +conversational chances with the handsome officer; and by Mr. +Valentine, in sedulous attention to his appetite, which still had the +vigor of youth. + +Almost as soon as the ladies had gone from the dining-room, Peyton +rose and left the octogenarian in sole possession. In the parlor Harry +found no one but Molly, who was lighting the candles. + +"What, Molly?" said he, feeling more and more nervous, and thinking to +retain, by constant use of his voice, a good command of it for the +dreaded interview. "The ladies not here? They left Mr. Valentine and +me at the supper-table." + +"They are walking in the garden, sir. Miss Elizabeth likes to take the +air every evening." + +"'Tis a chill air she takes this evening, I'm thinking," he said, +standing before the fire and holding out his hands over the crackling +logs. + +"A chill night for your journey," replied Molly. "I should think you'd +wait for day, to travel." + +Peyton, unobservant of the wistful sigh by which the maid's speech was +accompanied, replied, "Nay, for me, 'tis safest travelling at night. I +must go through dangerous country to reach our lines." + +"It mayn't be as cold to-morrow night," persisted Molly. + +"My wound is well enough for me to go now." + +"'Twill be better still to-morrow." + +But Peyton, deep in his own preoccupation, neither deduced aught from +the drift of her remarks nor saw the tender glances which attended +them. While he was making some insignificant answer, the maid, in +moving the candelabrum on the spinet, accidentally brushed therefrom +his hat, which had been lying on it. She picked it up, in great +confusion, and asked his pardon. + +"'Twas my fault in laying it there," said he, receiving it from her. +"I'm careless with my things. I make no doubt, since I've been here, +I've more than once given your mistress cause to wish me elsewhere." + +"La, sir," said Molly, "I don't think--_any_ one would wish you +elsewhere!" Whereupon she left the room, abashed at her own audacity. + +"The devil!" thought Peyton. "I should feel better if some one did +wish me elsewhere." + +As he continued gazing into the fire, and his task loomed more and +more disagreeably before him, he suddenly bethought him that +Elizabeth, in taking her evening walk, showed no disposition for a +private meeting. Dwelling on that one circumstance, he thought for +awhile he might have been wrong in supposing she loved him. But then +the previous night's incident recurred to his mind. Nothing short of +love could have induced such solicitude. But, then, as she sought no +last interview, might he not be warranted in going away and leaving +the disclosure to come gradually, implied by the absence of further +word from him? Yet, she might be purposely avoiding the appearance of +seeking an interview. The reasons calling for a prompt confession came +back to him. While he was wavering between one dictate and another, in +came Mr. Valentine, with a tobacco pipe. + +Like an inspiration, rose the idea of consulting the octogenarian. A +man who cannot make up his own mind is justified in seeking counsel. +Elizabeth could suffer no harm through Peyton's confiding in this sage +old man, who was devoted to her and to her family. Mr. Valentine's +very words on entering, which alluded to Peyton's pleasant visit as +Elizabeth's guest, gave an opening for the subject concerned. A very +few speeches led up to the matter, which Harry broached, after +announcing that he took the old man for one experienced in matters of +the heart, and receiving the admission that the old man _had_ enjoyed +a share of the smiles of the sex. But if the captain had thought, in +seeking advice, to find reason for avoiding his ugly task, he was +disappointed. Old Valentine, though he had for some days feared a +possible state of things between the captain and Miss Sally, had +observed Elizabeth, and his vast experience had enabled him to +interpret symptoms to which others had been blind. "She has acted +towards you," he said to Peyton, "as she never acted towards another +man. She's shown you a meekness, sir, a kind of timidity." And he +agreed that, if Peyton should go away without an explanation, it would +make her throw aside other expectations, and would, in the end, "cut +her to the heart." Valentine hinted at regrettable things that had +ensued from a jilting of which himself had once been guilty, and urged +on Peyton an immediate unbosoming, adding, "She'll be so took aback +and so full of wrath at you, she won't mind the loss of you. She'll +abominate you and get over it at once." + +The idea came to Peyton of making the confession by letter, but this +he promptly rejected as a coward's dodge. "It's a damned unpleasant +duty, but that's the more reason I should face it myself." + +At that moment the front door of the east hall was heard to open. + +"It's Miss Elizabeth and her aunt," said Valentine, listening at the +door. + +"Then I'll have the thing over at once, and be gone! Mr. Valentine, a +last kindness,--keep the aunt out of the room." + +Before Valentine could answer, the ladies entered, their cheeks +reddened by the weather. Elizabeth carried a small bunch of belated +autumn flowers. + +"Well, I'm glad to come in out of the cold!" burst out Miss Sally, +with a retrospective shudder. "Mr. Peyton, you've a bitter night for +your going." She stood before the fire and smiled sympathetically at +the captain. + +But Peyton was heedful of none but Elizabeth, who had laid her flowers +on the spinet and was taking off her cloak. Peyton quickly, with an +"Allow me, Miss Philipse," relieved her of the wrap, which in his +abstraction he retained over his left arm while he continued to hold +his hat in his other hand. After receiving a word of thanks, he added, +"You've been gathering flowers," and stood before her in much +embarrassment. + +"The last of the year, I think," said she. "The wind would have torn +them off, if aunt Sally and I had not." And she took them up from the +spinet to breath their odor. + +Meanwhile Mr. Valentine had been whispering to Miss Sally at the +fireplace. As a result of his communications, whatever they were, the +aunt first looked doubtful, then cast a wistful glance at Peyton, and +then quietly left the room, followed by the old man, who carefully +closed the door after him. + +While Elizabeth held the flowers to her nostrils, Peyton continued to +stand looking at her, during an awkward pause. At length she replaced +the nosegay on the spinet, and went to the fireplace, where she gazed +at the writhing flames, and waited for him to speak. + +Still laden with the cloak and hat, he desperately began: + +"Miss Philipse, I--ahem--before I start on my walk to-night--" + +"Your walk?" she said, in slight surprise. + +"Yes,--back to our lines, above." + +"But you are not going to _walk_ back," she said, in a low tone. "You +are to have the horse, Cato." + +Peyton stood startled. In a few moments he gulped down his feelings, +and stammered: + +"Oh--indeed--Miss Philipse--I cannot think of depriving you--especially +after the circumstances." + +She replied, with a gentle smile: + +"You took the horse when I refused him to you. Now will you not have +him when I offer him to you? You must, captain! I'll not have so fine +a horse go begging for a master. I'll not hear of your walking. On +such a night, such a distance, through such a country!" + +"The devil!" thought Harry. "This makes it ten times harder!" + +Elizabeth now turned to face him directly. "Does not my cloak +incommode you?" she said, amusedly. "You may put it down." + +"Oh, thank you, yes!" he said, feeling very red, and went to lay the +cloak on the table, but in his confusion put down his own hat there, +and kept the cloak over his arm. He then met her look recklessly, and +blurted out: + +"The truth is, Miss Philipse, now that I am soon to leave, I have +something to--to say to you." His boldness here forsook him, and he +paused. + +"I know it," said Elizabeth, serenely, repressing all outward sign of +her heart's blissful agitation. + +"You do?" quoth he, astonished. + +"Certainly," she answered, simply. "How could you leave without saying +it?" + +Peyton had a moment's puzzlement. Then, "Without saying what?" he +asked. + +"What you have to say," she replied, blushing, and lowering her eyes. + +"But what have I to say?" he persisted. + +She was silent a moment, then saw that she must help him out. + +"Don't you know? You were not at all tongue-tied when you said it the +evening you came here." + +Peyton felt a gulf opening before him. "Good heaven," thought he, "she +actually believes I am about to propose!" + +Now, or never, was the time for the plunge. He drew a full breath, and +braced himself to make it. + +"But--ah--you see," said he, "the trouble is,--what I said then is +not what I have to say now. You must understand, Miss Philipse, that I +am devoted to a soldier's career. All my time, all my heart, my very +life, belong to the service. Thus I am, in a manner, bound no less on +my side, than you--I beg your pardon--" + +"What do you mean?" She spoke quietly, yet was the picture of +open-eyed astonishment. + +"Cannot you see?" he faltered. + +"You mean"--her tone acquired resentment as her words came--"that I, +too, am bound on _my_ side,--to Mr. Colden?" + +"I did not say so," he replied, abashed, cursing his heedless tongue. +He would not, for much, have reminded her of any duty on her part. + +She regarded him for a moment in silence, while the clouds of +indignation gathered. Then the storm broke. + +"You poltroon, I _do_ see! You wish to take back your declaration, +because you are afraid of Colden's vengeance!" + +"Afraid? I afraid?" he echoed, mildly, surprised almost out of his +voice at this unexpected inference. + +"Yes, you craven!" she cried, and seemed to tower above her common +height, as she stood erect, tearless, fiery-eyed, and clarion-voiced. +"Your cowardice outweighs your love! Go from my sight and from my +father's house, you cautious lover, with your prudent scruples about +the rights of your rival! Heavens, that I should have listened to such +a coward! Go, I say! Spend no more time under this roof than you need +to get your belongings from your room. Don't stop for farewells! +Nobody wants them! Go,--and I'll thank you to leave my cloak behind +you!" + +[Illustration: "'GO, I SAY!'"] + +Silenced and confounded by the force of her denunciation, he stupidly +dropped the cloak to the floor where he stood, and stumbled from the +room, as if swept away by the torrent of her wrath and scorn. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE PLAN OF RETALIATION. + + +It was in the south hall that he found himself, having fled through +the west door of the parlor, forgetful that his hat still remained on +the table. He naturally continued his retreat up the stairs to his +chamber. The only belongings that he had to get there were his broken +sword, his scabbard, and belt. These he promptly buckled on, resolved +to leave the house forthwith. + +Still tingling from the blow of her words, he yet felt a great relief +that the task was so soon over, and that her speedy action had spared +him the labor of the long explanation he had thought to make. As +matters stood, they could not be improved. Her love had turned to +hate, in the twinkling of an eye. + +And yet, how preposterously she had accounted for his conduct! +Dwelling on his hint, though it was checked at its utterance, that she +was already bound, she had assumed that he held out her engagement to +Colden as a barrier to their love. And she believed, or pretended to +believe, that his regard for that barrier arose from fear of inviting +a rival's vengeance! As if he, who daily risked his life, could fear +the vengeance of a man whom he had already once defeated with the +sword! It was like a woman to alight first on the most absurd +possibility the situation could imply. And if she knew the conjecture +was absurd, she was the more guilty of affront in crying it out +against him. He, in turn, was now moved to anger. He would not have +false motives imputed to him. It would be useless to talk to her while +her present mood continued. But he could write, and leave the letter +where it would be found. Inasmuch as he had faced the worst storm his +disclosure could have aroused, there was no cowardice in resorting to +a letter with such explanations as could not be brought to her mind in +any other form. Two days previously, he had requested writing +materials in his room, for the sketching of a report of his being +wounded, and these were still on a table by the window. He lighted +candles, and sat down to write. + +When he had finished his document, sealed and addressed it, he laid it +on the table, where it would attract the eye of a servant, and looked +around for his hat. Presently he recalled that he had left it in the +parlor. He first thought of seeking a servant, and sending for it, +lest he might meet Elizabeth, should he again enter the parlor. But it +would be better to face her, for a moment, than to give an order to a +servant of a house whence he had been ordered out. And now, as he +intended to go into the parlor, he would preferably leave the letter +in that room, where it would perhaps reach her own eyes before any +other's could fall on it. He therefore took up the letter, thrust it +for the time in his belt, descended quietly to the south hall, +cautiously opened the parlor door, peeped through the crack, saw with +relief that only Miss Sally was in the room, threw the door wide, and +strode quickly towards the table on which he thought he had left his +hat. + +But, as he approached, he saw that the hat was not there. + +In the meantime, during the few minutes he had spent in his room, +things had been occurring in this parlor. As soon as Peyton had left +it, or had been carried out of it by the resistless current of +Elizabeth's invective, the girl had turned her anger on herself, for +having weakened to this man, made him her hero, indulged in those +dreams! She could scarcely contain herself. Having mechanically picked +up her cloak, where Peyton had let it fall, she evinced a sudden +unendurable sense of her humiliation and folly, by hurling the cloak +with violence across the room. At that moment old Mr. Valentine +entered, placidly seeking his pipe, which he had left behind him. + +The octogenarian looked surprisedly at the cloak, then at Elizabeth, +then mildly asked her if she had seen his pipe. + +"Oh, the cowardly wretch!" was Elizabeth's answer, her feelings +forcing a release in speech. + +"What, me?" asked the old man, startled, not yet having thought to +connect her words with his last interview with the American officer. +He looked at her for a moment, but, receiving no satisfaction, calmly +refilled, from a leather pouch, his pipe, which he had found on the +mantel. + +Elizabeth's thoughts began to take more distinct shape, and, in order +to formulate them the more accurately, she spoke them aloud to the old +man, finding it an assistance to have a hearer, though she supposed +him unable to understand. + +"Yet he wasn't a coward that evening he rode to attack the Hessians,--nor +when he was wounded,--nor when he stood here waiting to be taken! He was +no coward then, was he, Mr. Valentine?" Getting no answer, and +irritated at the old man's owl-like immovability, she repeated, with +vehemence, "Was he?" + +Mr. Valentine had, by this time, begun to put things together in his +mind. + +"No. To be sure," he chirped, and then lighted his pipe with a small +fagot from the fireplace, an operation that required a good deal of +time. + +Elizabeth now spoke more as if to herself. "Perhaps, after all, I may +be wrong! Yes, what a fool, to forget all the proofs of his courage! +What a blind imbecile, to think him afraid! It must be that he acts +from a delicate conception of honor. He would not encroach where +another had the prior claim. He considers Colden in the matter. That's +it, don't you think?" + +"Of course," said Valentine, blindly, not having paid attention to +this last speech, and sitting down in his armchair. + +"I can understand now," she went on. "He did not know of my engagement +that time he made love, when his life was at stake." + +"Then he's told you all about it?" said the old man, beginning to take +some interest, now that he had provided for his own comfort. + +"About what?" asked Elizabeth, showing a woman's consistency, in being +surprised that he seemed to know what she had been addressing him +about. + +"About pretending he loved you,--to save his life," replied Mr. +Valentine, innocently, considering that her supposed acquaintance with +the whole secret made him free to discuss it with her. + +Elizabeth's astonishment, unexpected as it was by him, surprised the +old man in turn, and also gave him something of a fright. So the two +stared at each other. + +"Pretending he loved me!" she repeated, reflectively. "Pretending! To +save his life! _Now I see!_" The effect of the revelation on her +almost made Mr. Valentine jump out of his chair. "For only _I_ could +save him!" she went on. "There was no other way! Oh, _how_ I have been +fooled! I--tricked by a miserable rebel! Made a laughing-stock! Oh, to +think he did not really love me, and that I--Oh, I shall choke! Send +some one to me,--Molly, aunt Sally, any one! Go! Don't sit there +gazing at me like an owl! Go away and send some one!" + +Mr. Valentine, glad of reason for an honorable retreat from this +whirlwind that threatened soon to fill the whole room, departed with +as much activity as he could command. + +"Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" Elizabeth asked of the air +around her. "I must repay him for his duplicity. I shall never rest a +moment till I do! What an easy dupe he must think me! Oh-h-h!" + +She brought her hand violently down on the table but fortunately +struck something comparatively soft. In her fury, she clutched this +something, raised it from the table, and saw what it was. + +"_His_ hat!" she cried, and made to throw it into the fire, but, with +a woman's aim, sent it flying towards the door, which was at that +instant opened by her aunt, who saved herself by dodging most +undignifiedly. + +"What is it, my dear?" asked Miss Sally, in a voice of mingled +wonderment and fear. + +"I'll pay him back, be sure of that!" replied Elizabeth, who was by +this time a blazing-eyed, scarlet-faced embodiment of fury, and had +thrown off all reserve. + +"Pay whom back?" tremblingly inquired Miss Sally, with vague +apprehensions for the safety of old Mr. Valentine, who had so recently +left her niece. + +"Your charming captain, your gentleman rebel, your gallant soldier, +your admirable Peyton, hang him!" cried Elizabeth. + +"_My_ Peyton? I only wish he was!" sighed the aunt, surprised into the +confession by Elizabeth's own outspokenness. + +"You're welcome to him, when I've had my revenge on him! Oh, aunt +Sally, to think of it! He doesn't love me! He only pretended, so that +I would save his life! But he shall see! I'll deliver him up to the +troops, after all!" + +"Oh, no!" said Miss Sally, deprecatingly. Great as was the news +conveyed to her by Elizabeth's speech, she comprehended it, and +adjusted her mind to it, in an instant, her absence of outward +demonstration being due to the very bigness of the revelation, to +which any possible outside show of surprise would be inadequate and +hence useless. Moreover, Elizabeth gave no time for manifestations. + +"No," the girl went on. "You are right. He's able-bodied now, and +might be a match for all the servants. Besides, 'twould come out why I +shielded him, and I should be the laugh o' the town. Oh, _how_ shall I +pay him? How shall I make him _feel_--ah! I know! I'll give him six +for half a dozen! I'll make _him_ love _me_, and then I'll cast him +off and laugh at him!" + +She was suddenly as jubilant at having hit on the project as if she +had already accomplished it. + +"Make him love you?" repeated her aunt, dubiously. Her aunt had her +own reasons for doubting the possibility of such an achievement. + +"Perhaps you think I can't!" cried Elizabeth. "Wait and see! But, +heavens! He's going away,--he won't come back,--perhaps he's gone! No, +there's his hat!" She ran and picked it up from the corner of the +doorway. "He won't go without his hat. He'll have to come here for it. +He went to his room for his sword. He'll be here at any moment." + +And she paced the floor, holding the hat in one hand, and lapsing to +the level of ordinary femininity as far as to adjust her hair with the +other. + +"You'll have to make quick work of it, Elizabeth, dear," said the +aunt, with gentle irony, "if he's going to-night." + +"I know, I know,--but I can't do it looking like this." She laid the +hat on the table, in order to employ both hands in the arrangement of +her hair. "If I only had on my satin gown! By the lord Harry, I have a +mind--I will! When he comes in here, keep him till I return. Keep him +as if your life depended on it." She went quickly towards the door of +the east hall. + +"But, Elizabeth!" cried Miss Sally, appalled. "Wait! How--" + +"How?" echoed Elizabeth, turning near the door. "By hook or crook! You +must think of a way! I have other things on my mind. Only keep him +till I come back. If you let him go, I'll never speak to you again! +And not a word to him of what I've told you! I sha'n't be long." + +"But what are you going to do?" asked the aunt, despairingly. + +"Going to arm myself for conquest! To put on my war-paint!" And the +girl hastened through the doorway, crossed the hall, called Molly, and +ran up-stairs to her room. + +Miss Sally stood in the parlor, a prey to mingled feelings. She did +not dare refuse the task thrown on her by her imperative niece. Not +only her niece's anger would be incurred by the refusal, but also the +niece's insinuations that the aunt was not sufficiently clever for the +task. However difficult, the thing must be attempted. And, which made +matters worse, even if the attempt should succeed, it would be a +rewardless one to Miss Sally. If she might detain the captain for +herself, the effort would be worth making. The aunt sighed deeply, +shook her head distressfully, and then, reverting to a keen sense of +Elizabeth's rage and ridicule in the event of failure, looked wildly +around for some suggestion of means to hold the officer. Her eye +alighted on the hat. + +"He won't go without his hat, a night like this!" she thought. "I'll +hide his hat." + +She forthwith possessed herself of it, and explored the room for a +hiding-place. She decided on one of the little narrow closets in +either side of the doorway to the east hall, and started towards it, +holding the hat at her right side. Before she had come within four +feet of the chosen place, she heard the door from the south hall being +thrown open, and, casting a swift glance over her left shoulder, saw +the captain step across the threshold. She choked back her sensations, +and gave inward thanks that the hat was hidden from his sight by +herself. Peyton walked briskly towards the table. + +Suddenly he stopped short, and turned his eyes from the table to Miss +Sally, whose back was towards him. + +"Ah, Miss Williams," said he, politely but hastily, "I left my hat +here somewhere." + +"Indeed?" said Miss Sally, amazed at her own unconsciousness, while +she tried to moderate the beating of her heart. At the same moment, +she turned and faced him, bringing the hat around behind her so that +it should remain unseen. + +Peyton looked from her to the spinet, thence to the sofa, thence back +to the table. + +"Yes, on the table, I thought. Perhaps--" He broke off here, and went +to look on the mantel. + +Miss Sally, who had never thought the captain handsomer, and who +smarted under the sense of being deterred, by her niece's purpose, +from employing this opportunity to fascinate him on her own account, +continued to turn so as to face him in his every change of place. + +"I don't see it anywhere," she said, with childlike innocence. + +Peyton searched the mantel, then looked at the chairs, and again +brought his eyes to bear on Miss Sally. She blinked once or twice, but +did not quail. + +"'Tis strange!" he said. "I'm sure I left it in this room." + +And he went again over all the ground he had already examined. Miss +Sally utilized the times when his back was turned, in making a search +of her own, the object of which was a safe place where she could +quickly deposit the hat without attracting his attention. + +Peyton was doubly annoyed at this enforced delay in his departure, +since Elizabeth might come into the parlor at any time, and the +meeting occur which he had, for a moment, hoped to avoid. + +"Would you mind helping me look for it?" said he. "I'm in great haste +to be gone. Do me the kindness, madam, will you not?" + +"Why, yes, with pleasure," she answered, thinking bitterly how +transported she would be, in other circumstances, at such an +opportunity of showing her readiness to oblige him. + +Her aid consisted in following him about, looking in each place where +he had looked the moment before, and keeping the sought-for object +close behind her. + +Suddenly he turned about, with such swiftness that she almost came +into collision with him. + +"It must have fallen to the floor," said he. + +"Why, yes, we never thought of looking there, did we?" And she +followed him through another tour of the room, turning her averted +head from side to side in pretendedly ranging the floor with her +eyes. + +"I know," he said, with the elation of a new conjecture. "It must be +behind something!" + +Miss Sally gasped, but in an instant recovered herself sufficiently to +say: + +"Of course. It surely _must_ be--behind something." + +Harry went and looked behind the spinet, then examined the small +spaces between other objects and the wall. This search was longer than +any he had made before, as some of the pieces of furniture had to be +moved slightly out of position. + +Miss Sally felt her proximity to the object of this search becoming +unendurable. She therefore profited by Peyton's present occupation to +conduct pretended endeavors towards the closet west of the fireplace. +She noiselessly opened one of the narrow doors, quickly tossed the hat +inside, closed the door, and turned with ineffable relief towards +Peyton. + +To her consternation she found him looking at her. + +"What are you doing there?" he asked. + +"Why,--looking in this closet," she stammered, guiltily. + +"Oh, no, it couldn't be in there," said Peyton, lightly. "But, yes. +One of the servants might have laid it on the shelf." And he made for +the closet. + +"Oh, no!" + +Miss Sally stood against the closet doors and held out her hands to +ward him off. + +"No harm to look," said he, passing around her and putting his hand on +the door. + +Miss Sally felt that, by remaining in the position of a physical +obstacle to his opening the closet, she would betray all. Acting on +the inspiration of the instant, she ran to the centre of the room, and +cried: + +"Oh, come away! Come here!" and essayed a well-meant, but feeble and +abortive, scream. + +"What's the matter?" asked Peyton, astonished. + +"Oh, I'm going to faint!" she said, feigning a sinkiness of the knees +and a floppiness of the head. + +"Oh, pray don't faint!" cried Peyton, running to support her. "I +haven't time. Let me call some one. Let me help you to the sofa." + +By this time he held her in his arms, and was thinking her another +sort of burden than Tom Jones found Sophia, or Clarissa was to +Roderick Random. + +The lady shrank with becoming and genuine modesty from the contact, +gently repelled him with her hands, saying, "No, I'm better now,--but +come," and took him by the arm to lead him further from the fatal +closet. + +But Peyton immediately released his arm. + +"Ah, thank you for not fainting!" he said, with complete sincerity, +and stalked directly back to the closet. Before she could think of a +new device, he had opened the door, beheld the hat, and seized it in +triumph. "By George, I was right! I bid you farewell, Miss Williams!" +He very civilly saluted her with the hat, and turned towards the west +door of the parlor. + +Must, then, all her previous ingenuity be wasted? After having so far +exerted herself, must she suffer the ignominious consequences of +failure? + +She ran to intercept him. Desperation gave her speed, and she reached +the west door before he did. She closed it with a bang, and stood with +her back against it. "No, no!" she cried. "You mustn't!" + +"Mustn't what?" asked Peyton, surprised as much by her distracted +eyes, panting nostrils, and heaving bosom, as by her act itself. + +"Mustn't go out this way. Mustn't open this door," she answered, +wildly. + +He scrutinized her features, as if to test a sudden suspicion of +madness. In a moment he threw off this conjecture as unlikely. + +"But," said he, putting forth his hand to grasp the knob of the door. + +"You mustn't, I say!" she cried. "I can't help it! Don't blame me for +it! Don't ask me to explain, but you must not go out this way!" + +She stood by her task now from a new motive, one that impelled more +strongly than her fear of being reproached and derided by Elizabeth. +Her own self-esteem was enlisted, and she was now determined not to +incur her own reproach and derision. She perceived, too, with a +sentimental woman's sense of the dramatic, that, though denied a drama +of her own in which she might figure as heroine, here was, in +another's drama, a scene entirely hers, and she was resolved to act it +out with honor. Circumstances had not favored her with a romance, but +here, in another's romance, was a chapter exclusively hers, a chapter, +moreover, on whose proper termination the very continuation of the +romance depended. So she would hold that door, at any cost. + +Peyton regarded her for another moment of silence. + +"Oh, well," said he, at last, "I can go the other way." + +And, to her dismay, he strode towards the door of the east hall. She +could not possibly outrun him thither. Her heart sank. The killing +sense of failure benumbed her body. He was already at the door,--was +about to open it. At that instant he stepped back into the parlor. In +through the doorway, that he was about to traverse, came Elizabeth. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE CONQUEST. + + +Miss Sally saw at a glance that her niece was dressed for conquest; +then, with immense relief and supreme exultation, but with a feeling +of exhaustion, knowing that her work was done, she silently left the +room by the door she had guarded, closed it noiselessly behind her, +and went up-stairs to restore her worked-out energies. + +Elizabeth wore a blue satin gown, the one evening dress she had, in +the possibility of a candle-light visit from the officers at the +outpost, brought with her from New York. Her bare forearms, and the +white surface surrounding the base of her neck, were thus for the +first time displayed to Peyton's view. A pair of slender gold +bracelets on her wrists set off the smoothness of her rounded arms, +but she wore no other jewelry. She had not had the time or the +facilities to have her hair built high as a grenadier's cap, but she +looked none the less commanding. She was, indeed, a radiant creature. +Peyton, having never before seen her at her present advantage, opened +wide his eyes and stared at her with a wonder whose openness was +excused only by the suddenness of the dazzling apparition. + +She cast on him a momentary look of perfect indifference, as she might +on any one that stood in her way; then walked lightly to the spinet, +giving him a barely noticeable wide berth in passing, as if he were +something with which it was probably desirable not to come in contact. +Her slight deviation from a direct line of progress, though made +inoffensively, struck him like a blow, yet did not interrupt, for more +than an instant, his admiration. He stood dumbly looking after her, at +her smooth and graceful movement, which had no sound but the rustling +of skirts, her footfalls being noiseless in the satin slippers she +wore. + +Peyton was not now as impatient as he had been to depart. In fact, he +lost, in some measure, his sense of being in the act of departure. +What he felt was an inclination to look longer on this so unexpected +vision. She sat down at the spinet with her back towards him, and +somehow conveyed in her attitude that she thought him no longer in the +room. He felt a necessity for establishing the fact of his presence. + +"Pardon me for addressing you," he said, with a diffidence new to him, +taking up the first pretext that came to mind, "but I fear your aunt +requires looking to. She behaves strangely." + +"Oh," said Elizabeth, lightly, too wise to give him the importance of +pretending not to hear him, "she is subject to queer spells at times. +I thought you had gone." + +She began to play the spinet, very quietly and unobtrusively, with an +absence of resentment, and with a seemingly unconscious indifference, +that gave him a paralyzing sense of nothingness. + +Unpleasant as this feeling made his position, he felt the situation +become one from which it would be extremely awkward to flee. For the +first time since certain boyhood fits of bashfulness, he now +realized the aptness of that oft-read expression, "rooted to the +spot." That he should be thrown into this trance-like embarrassment, +this powerlessness of motion, this feeling of a schoolboy first +introduced to society, of a player caught by stage fright, was +intolerable. + +When she had touched the keys gently a few times, he shook off +something of the spell that bound him, and moved to a spot whence he +could get a view of her face in profile. It had not an infinitesimal +trace of the storm that had driven him from the room a short time +before. It was entirely serene. There was on it no anger, no grief, no +reproach of self or of another, no scorn. There was pride, but only +the pride it normally wore; reserve, but only the reserve habitual to +a high-born girl in the presence of any but her familiars. It was hard +to believe her the woman who had been stirred to such tremendous wrath +a few minutes ago, by the disclosure that she had been deceived, her +love tricked and misplaced. Rather, it was hard to believe that the +scene of wrath had ever occurred, that this woman had ever been so +stirred by such cause, that she had ever loved him, that he had ever +dared pretend love to her. The deception and the confession, with all +they had elicited from her, seemed parts of a dream, of some fancy he +had had, some romance he had read. + +As for Elizabeth, she knew not, thought not, whether, in bearing him +hot resentment, she still loved him. She knew only that she craved +revenge, and that the first step towards her desired end was to assume +that indifference which so puzzled, interested, and confounded him. A +weak or a stupid woman would have shown a sense of injury, with +flashes of anger. An ordinarily clever woman would have affected +disdain, would have sniffed and looked haughty, would have overdone +her pretended contempt. It is true, Elizabeth had moved slightly out +of her way to pass further from him, but she had done this with +apparent thoughtlessness, as if the act were dictated by some inner +sense of his belonging to an inferior race; not with a visible +intention of showing repulsion. It is true she had assumed ignorance +of his presence, but she had given him to attribute this to a belief +that he had left the room. When his voice declared his whereabouts, +she treated him just as she would have treated any other indifferent +person who was _not quite_ her equal. + +Peyton felt more and more uncomfortable. Would she continue playing +the spinet forever, so perfectly at ease, so content not to look at +him again, so assuming it for granted that, the operation of +leave-taking being considered over between hostess and guest, the +guest might properly be gone any moment without further attention on +either side? + +He began to fear that, if he did not soon speak, his voice would be +beyond recovery. So, with a desperate resolve to recover his +self-possession at a single _coup_, he blurted out, bunglingly: + +"'Tis the first time I have seen you in that gown, madam." + +Elizabeth, not ceasing to let her fingers ramble with soft touch over +the keyboard, replied, carelessly: + +"I have not worn it in some time." + +Having found that he retained the power of speech, he proceeded to +utter frankly his latest thought, concealing the slight bitterness of +it with a pretence of playful, make-believe reproach: + +"'Tis not flattering to me, that you never wore it while I was your +guest, yet put it on the moment you thought I had departed." + +She answered with good-humored lightness, "Why, sir, do you complain +of not being flattered? I thought such complaints were made only by +women, and only to their own hearts." + +"If by flattery," said he, "you mean merited compliment, there are +women who can never have occasion to complain of not receiving it." + +"Indeed? When was that discovery made?" + +"A minute ago, madam." + +"Oh!" and she smiled with just such graciousness as a woman might show +in accepting a compliment from a comparative stranger. "Thank you!" + +"When I think of it," said he, "it seems strange that you--ah--never +took pains to--eh--to appear at your best--nay, I should say, as your +real self!--before me." + +"Oh, you allude to my wearing this gown? Why, you must pardon my not +having received you ceremoniously. _Your_ visit began unexpectedly." + +"Then somebody else is about to begin a visit that _is_ expected?" + +"Didn't you know? I thought all the house was aware Major Colden was +to return in a week. He may be here to-night, though perhaps not till +to-morrow." + +"Confound that man!" This to himself, and then, to her: "I was of the +impression you did not love him." + +"Why, what gave you that impression?" + +"No matter. It seems I was wrong." + +"Oh, I don't say that,--or that you're right, either." + +"However," quoth he, with an inward sigh of resignation, "it is for +_him_ that you are dressed as you never were for me!" + +She did not choose to ask what reason had existed for considering him +in selecting her attire. It was better not to notice his presumption, +and she became more absorbed in her music. + +Peyton strode up and down a few moments, then sat by the table, and +rested his cheek on his hand, wearing a somewhat injured look. + +"Major Colden, eh?" he mused. "To think I should come upon him again!" +He essayed to renew conversation. "I trust, Miss Philipse, when I am +gone--" But Elizabeth was now oblivious of surroundings; the notes +from the spinet became louder, and she began to hum the air in a low, +agreeable voice. Peyton looked hopeless. Presently he stood up again, +watching her. + +Elizabeth brought the piece to a lively finish, rose capriciously, +took up the flowers she had laid on the spinet earlier in the evening, +put them in her corsage, and made to readjust the bracelet on her +right arm. In this attempt, she accidentally dropped the bracelet to +the floor. Peyton ran to pick it up. But she quickly recovered it +before he could reach it, put it on, walked to the table and sat down +by it, removed the flowers from her bosom to the table, took up the +volume of "The School for Scandal," and turned the leaves over as if +in quest of a certain page. + +While she was looking at the book, Peyton took up the flowers. +Elizabeth, as if thinking they were still where she had laid them, put +out her hand to repossess them, keeping her eyes the while on the +book. For a moment, her hand ranged the table in search, then she +abandoned the attempt to regain them. + +Peyton held them out to her. + +"No, I thank you," she said, laying down the book, and went back to +the spinet. + +"Ah, you give them to me!" cried Peyton, with sudden pleasure. + +"Not at all! I merely do not wish to have them now." + +"Oh," said he, thinking to make account by finding offence where none +was really expressed, "has my touch contaminated them for you?" + +"How can you talk so absurdly?" And she resumed her seat at the +spinet, and her playing. + +Peyton stood holding the flowers, looking at her, and presently +heaved a deep sigh. This not moving her, he suddenly had an access of +pride, brought himself together, and saying, with quick resolution, "I +bid you good-night and good-by, madam," went rapidly towards the door +of the east hall. But his resolution weakened when his hand touched +the knob, and, to make pretext for further sight of her, he turned and +went to go out the other door. + +Elizabeth had had a moment of alarm at his first sign of departure, +but had not betrayed the feeling. Now when, from her seat at the +spinet, she saw him actually crossing the threshold near her, she +called out, gently, "A moment, captain." + +The pleased look on his face, as he turned towards her inquiringly, +betrayed his gratification at being called back. + +"You are taking my flowers away," she said, in explanation. + +He plainly showed his disappointment. "Your pardon. My thoughtlessness. +But you said you didn't wish to keep them." He laid them on the spinet. + +"I do not,--yet a woman must allow very few hands to carry off flowers +of her gathering." + +She rose and took up the flowers and walked towards the fireplace. + +"Then you at least take them back from my hands," said Peyton. + +"Why, yes,--for this," and she tossed them into the fire. + +He looked at them as they withered in the blaze, then said, "Have you +any objection to my carrying away the ashes, Miss Philipse?" + +She answered, considerately, "'Twill take you more time than you can +lose, to gather them up." + +"Oh, I am in no haste." + +"Oh, then, I ask your pardon. A moment since, you were about to go." + +"But now I prefer to stay." + +"Indeed? May I ask the reason--but no matter." + +But he felt that a reason ought to be forthcoming. "Why, you know, +because--" And here he thought of one. "I wish to stay to meet Major +Colden, of whom you say I am afraid. I shall prove to you at least I +am no coward. After what you have said to me this night, I must in +honor wait to face him." + +"But it is late now. I don't think he will come till to-morrow." + +"Then I can wait till to-morrow." + +"But your duty calls you back to your own camp, now that your wound +has healed." + +"I think my wound has undergone a slight relapse. You shall see, at +least, I am not afraid of your champion." + +"If that is your only reason,--your desire to quarrel with Major +Colden,--I cannot invite you to remain." + +"Well, then, to tell the truth, there _is_ another reason. When I +said, a while since, I had never seen you in that gown, I used too +many words. I should have said I had never really seen you at all." + +"Where were your eyes?" she asked, absently, seeming to take his words +literally and to perceive no compliment. + +"I was in a kind of waking sleep." + +"It has been a time and place of hallucinations, I think. I, too, sir, +have been, since I came here a week ago, under the strangest spell. A +kind of light madness or witchery was over me, and made me act +ridiculously, against my very will. A week ago, when you were +disabled, I intended to give you up to the British,--as I should do +now, if it would not be so troublesome--" + +"'Twould be troublesome to _me_, I assure you," he said, interrupting. + +"But at the last moment," she went on, "I did precisely the reverse of +what I wished. Awhile ago, in this room, I seemed to be in the +possession of some evil spirit, which made me say preposterous things. +I can only remember some wild raving I indulged in, and some +undeserved rudeness I displayed towards you. But, will you believe, +the instant you left me, I recovered my right mind. I am like one +returned from bedlam, cured, and you will pardon any incivility I may +have done you in my peculiar state, I'm sure, since you speak of +having been curiously afflicted yourself." + +"Then you mean," he faltered, "you did not really love me?" + +"Why, certainly I did not! How could you think I did? Something +possessed my will. But, thank heaven, I am myself again. Why, sir, how +could I? You know very little of me, sir, to think--Oh!" She covered +her face with her hands. "What things must I have said and done, in my +clouded state, to make you think that! You,--an enemy, a rebel, a +person whose only possible interest to me arises from his enmity!" + +Dazzled as he was by her newly discovered beauty, the imposition on +him was complete. He saw this covetable being now indifferent to him, +out of his power to possess, likely soon to pass into the possession +of another. + +"Pray try to forget awhile that enmity," he supplicated. + +"I shall try, and then you can have no interest for me at all." + +"Then don't try, I beg. I'd rather have an interest for you as an +enemy than not at all." + +"Why, really, sir--" She seemed half puzzled, half amused. + +"Lord," quoth he, "how I have been deluded! I thought my love-making +that night, feigned though it was, had wakened a response." + +"Love-making, do you say? Will you believe me, sir, I don't remember +what passed here that night, save the unaccountable ending,--my making +you my guest instead of their prisoner." + +"I wish you were pretending all this!" + +"Why, if 'twould make you happier that I were, I wish so, too." + +"How can you speak so lightly of such matters?" + +"What matters?" + +"Love, of course." + +"Why, do men alone, because they laugh at women for taking love +seriously, have the right to take it lightly? And of what love am I +speaking lightly,--the love you say you feigned for me, or the love +you say you thought you had awakened in me?" + +"The love I vow I do _not_ feign for you! The love I wish I _could_ +awaken in you!" + +"Why, captain, what a change has come over you!" + +"Yes. I have risen from my sleep. If you, in waking from yours, put +off love, I, in waking from mine, took on love!" + +She smiled, as with amusement. "A somewhat speedy taking on, I should +say." + +"Love's born of a glance, _I_ say!" + +"Haven't I heard that before?" reflectively. + +"Aye, for I said it here when I did not mean it, and now I say it +again when I do!" + +"And of what particular glance am I to suppose--" + +"Of the first glance I cast on you when you entered this room in that +gown. Yes, born of a glance--" + +"Born of a gown, in that case, don't you mean?" derisively. + +"Of a gown, or a glance, or a what you wish." + +"I don't wish it should be born at all." + +"You don't wish I should love you?" + +"I don't wish you should love me or shouldn't love me. I don't wish +you--anything. Why should I wish anything of one who is nothing to +me?" + +"Nothing to you! I would you were to me what I am to you!" + +"What is that, pray?" + +"An adorer!" + +"You are a--very amusing gentleman." + +"You refuse me a glimpse of hope?" + +"You would like to have it as a trophy, I suppose. You men treasure +the memories of your little conquests over foolish women, as an Indian +treasures the scalps he takes." + +"Lord! which sex, I wonder, has the busier scalping-knife?" + +"I can't speak for all my sex. Some of us seek no scalps--" + +"You don't have to. I make you a present of mine. I fling it at your +feet." + +"We seek no scalps, I say,--because we don't value them a finger-snap." +And she gave a specimen of the kind of finger-snap she did not value +them at. + +"In heaven's name," he said, "say what you do value, that I may strive +to become like it! What do you value, I implore you, tell me?" + +"Oh,--my studies, for one thing,--my French and my music,--" + +"Could I but translate myself into French, or set myself to an air!" + +"Nay, I don't care for _comic_ songs!" + +"I see you like flowers. If I might die, and be buried in your garden, +and grow up in the shape of a rose-bush--" + +"Or a cabbage!" + +"I fear you don't like that flower." + +"Better come up in the form of your own Virginia tobacco." + +"And be smoked by old Mr. Valentine? No, you don't like tobacco. Ah, +Miss Philipse, this levity is far from the mood of my heart!" + +"Why do you indulge in it, then?" + +"I? Is it I who indulge in levity?" + +"Assuredly, _I_ do not!" Oh, woman's privilege of saying unabashedly +the thing which is not! + +"No," said he, "for there's no levity in the coldness with which +beauty views the wounds it makes." + +"I'm sure one is not compelled to offer oneself to its wounds." + +"No,--nor the moth to seek the flame." + +"La, now you are a moth,--a moment ago, a rose-bush,--" + +"And you are ten million roses, grown in the garden of heaven, and +fashioned into one body there, by some celestial Praxiteles!" + +"Dear me, am I all that?" + +"Ay," he said, sadly, "and no more truly conscious of what it means to +be all that, than any rose in any garden is conscious of what its +beauty means!" + +"Perhaps," she said, softly, feeling for a moment almost tenderness +enough to abandon her purpose, "more conscious than you think!" + +"Ah! Then you are not like common beauties,--as poor and dull within +as they are rich and radiant without? You but pretend insensibility, +to hide real feeling." + +"I did not say so," she answered, lightly, bracing herself again to +her resolution. + +"But it is so, is it not?" he went on. "Your heart and mind are as +roseate and delicate as your face? You can understand my praises and +my feelings? You can value such love as mine aright, and know 'tis +worthy some repayment?" + +But she was not again to be duped by low-spoken, fervid words, or by +wistful, glowing eyes. She must be sure of him. + +"I know,--I recall now," she said, with little apparent interest; "you +spoke of love a week ago, with no less eloquence and ardor." + +"More eloquence and ardor, I dare say, for then I did not feel love. +Then my tongue was not tied by sense of a passion it could not hope to +express one hundredth part of! And, even if my tongue had gift to tell +my heart, I should not dare trust myself under the sway of my +feelings. But I _do_ love you now,--I do,--I do!" + +"If now, why not before?" + +"Haven't I said I've been blind to you until to-night? At first I +regarded you as only an enemy to be turned to my use in my peril. +Having been fortunate in that, I gave myself to other thoughts. But, +thinking my false love had drawn true love from you, I saw I could not +in honor leave you under a false belief. But now the falsehood has +become truth. A week ago, I avowed a pretended passion, to gain my +life! Now, I declare a real one, to gain your love!" + +"What, you expect to take my love by storm, in reality, as you did, in +appearance, a week ago?" She had risen from the music seat, and now +stood with her back against the spinet, her hands behind her, her head +turned slightly upward, facing him. + +"I don't expect," said he. "I only hope." + +"And what gives you reason to hope?" + +"My own love for you. Love elicits love, they say." + +"They say wrong, then. If that were true, there would be no unrequited +lovers." + +"Ay, but such love as mine,--how can it so fill me to overflowing, and +not infect you?" + +"Love is not an infectious disease. If it were, I should have no +fear,--knowing myself love-proof." + +"I can't believe that,--for a woman with no spark in herself could not +light so fierce a flame in me, by the mere meeting of our eyes." + +"If it should create in me such a disturbance as you seem to undergo, +I shouldn't wish it to increase. But, I assure you, it isn't in me." + +"Pray think it is. Only imagine it is there, and soon it will be." + +She felt that the time was at hand to strike the blow. + +"If I could be perfectly sure you spoke in earnest," she said, seeming +to search his countenance for testimony. + +"In earnest!" he echoed. "Great heavens, what evidence do you want? If +there is an aspect of love I do not have, tell me, and I shall put it +on." + +"Yes, you are experienced in putting on the _aspects_ of love." + +"Oh, you well know I have no reason now for declaring a love I don't +feel. If you could be sure I spoke in earnest, you said,--what then? +Tell me, and I shall find a way to convince you I _am_ in earnest." + +"Convince me first." + +"'Convince me,' you say. And I say, 'Be convinced.' By the Lord, never +was so great a sceptic! Is not your sense of your own charms +sufficient to convince you of their effect?" + +"Mere words!" + +"I'll prove my love by acts, then!" + +"By what acts?" + +"By fighting for you or suffering for you, dying for you or living for +you, as you may command." + +"You can prove it thus. Say, 'Long live the King!'" + +He gazed at her a moment. "No," he said. + +"Say, 'Long live the King!'" She went to the door, and paused on the +threshold, looking at him, as if to give him a last opportunity. + +"Long live the King--" he said. + +She came back from the door. + +"Of France!" he added. + +"No," she cried, and dictated, "'Long live the King of Great +Britain!'" + +"Long live the King of Great Britain,--but not of America." + +"No! 'Long live George the Third, King of Great Britain and the +American colonies!'" + +"Long live George the Third, King of Great Britain and--Ireland." + +"'And of the American colonies.' Say it! Say it all!" + +"Long live Elizabeth Philipse, queen of beauty in the United States of +America!" he answered. + +"You don't love me," said she, and set her mind to finding some other +means by which he might evince what she knew he would never +demonstrate in the way she had demanded. And she resolved his +humiliation should be all the greater for the delay. "You don't love +me." + +"I do. I swear, on my knees." + +"Then _get_ on your knees!" + +"I do!" He dropped on one knee. + +"Both knees!" + +"Both." He suited action to word. + +"Bow lower." + +"I touch the floor." He did so, with his forehead. "Are you +convinced?" + +"Yes." And she moved thoughtfully towards the door of the east hall. + +"Ah! Convinced that I love you madly?" In obedience to a gesture, he +remained on his knees. + +"Perfectly convinced." + +"Then, the reward of which you hinted?" + +"Reward?" + +"You said, if you could be sure I spoke in earnest. Now you admit you +are sure. What then?" + +She let her eyes rest on him a moment, without speaking, as he looked +ardently and expectantly up at her from his kneeling attitude, while +she took in breath, and then she flung her answer at him. + +"What then? This! That you are now more contemptible and ridiculous +and utterly non-existent, to me, than you have formerly been! That, +whatever I may have done which seemed in your behalf, was partly from +the strange insanity of which I have spoken, and partly from the most +meaningless caprice! That, if you remain here till to-morrow, you may +see me in the arms of the man I really love, and that he may not be as +careless of the fate of a vagabond rebel as I am. And now, Captain +Crayton, or Dayton, or Peyton, or whatever you please, of somebody or +other's light horse, go or stay, as you choose; you're as welcome as +any other casual passer-by, for all the comical figure your impudence +has made you cut! Learn modesty, sir, and you may fare better in your +next love-making, if you do not aim too high! And that piece of advice +is the reward I hinted at! Good night!" + +And she whirled from the room, slamming behind her the mahogany door, +at which Peyton stared for some seconds, in blank amazement, too +overwhelmed to speak or move or breathe or think. + +But gradually he came to life, slowly rose, stood for a moment +thoughtful, fashioned his brows into a frown, drew his lips back hard, +and muttered through his closed teeth: + +"I'll stay and fight that man, at least!" + +And he sat down by the table, to wait. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE CHALLENGE. + + +A very few moments had elapsed, and Peyton still sat by the table, in +a dogged study, when the door from the south hall was opened slightly, +and if he had looked he might have seen a pair of eyes peeping through +the aperture. But he did not look, either then or when, some seconds +later, the door opened wide and Miss Sally bobbed gracefully in. + +It has been related how, after her brilliant but exhausting conduct of +the important scene assigned her, she sought repose in her room. +Looking out of her window presently, she saw something, of which she +thought it advisable to inform Elizabeth. Therefore she came +down-stairs. Did she listen at the door to the last part of that +notable conversation? Ungallant thought, aroint thee! 'Tis well known +women have little curiosity, and what little they have they would not, +being of Miss Sally's station in life, descend to gratify by +eavesdropping. Let it be assumed, therefore, that the much vaunted +informant, feminine intuition, told Miss Sally of the end of the +interview between her niece and the captain, both as to the time of +that end and as to its nature. + +She entered, tremulous with a vast idea that had blazed suddenly on +her mind. Now that Elizabeth was quite through with Peyton, now that +Peyton must be low in his self-esteem for Elizabeth's humiliation of +him, and therefore likely to be grateful for consolatory attentions, +Miss Sally might resume her own hopes. But there was no time to be +lost. + +"Your pardon, captain," she began, sweetly, with her most flattering +smile. "I am looking for Miss Elizabeth." + +"She was here awhile ago," replied Peyton, glumly, not bringing his +eyes within range of the smile. "She went that way. I trust you've +recovered from your attack." + +"My attack?" inquiringly, with surprise. + +"The queer spell, I think Miss Philipse called it. She said you were +subject to them." + +"Well, how does she dare--" She checked her tongue, lest she might +betray the device for his detention. Something in his absent, careless +way of associating her with a queer spell irritated her a little for +the moment, and impelled her to retaliation. "I suppose that was not +the only thing she said to you?" she added, ingenuously. + +"No,--she said other things." He rose and went to the fireplace, +leaned against the mantel, and gazed pensively at the red embers. + +"They don't seem to have left you very cheerful," ventured Miss +Sally. + +"Not so very damned cheerful!--I beg your pardon." + +Miss Sally's moment of resentment had passed. Now was the time to +strike for herself. She thought she had hit on a clever plan of +getting around to the matter. + +"Captain," said she, "you're a man of the world. I know it's +presumptuous of me to ask it, but--if you would give me a word of +advice--" + +Peyton did not take his look from the fire, or his thoughts from their +dismal absorption. He answered, half-unconsciously: + +"Oh, certainly! Anything at all." + +"You are aware, of course," she went on, with smirking, rosy +confusion, "that Mr. Valentine is a widower." + +"Indeed? Oh, yes, yes, I know." + +"Yes, a widower twice over." + +"How sad! He must feel twice the usual amount of grief." + +"Why,--I don't know exactly about that." + +"The poor man has my sympathy. Doubtless he is inconsolable." Peyton +scarce knew what he was saying, or whom it was about. + +"Why, no," said Miss Sally, averting her eyes, with a smiling shyness, +"not altogether inconsolable. That's just it." + +"Oh, is it?" said Peyton, obliviously. + +"You may have noticed that he spends a good deal of time here at +present," she went on. + +"A good deal of time," he repeated. "There's doubtless some strong +attraction." + +"Yes. Perhaps I oughtn't to say it, but there _is_ a strong +attraction. In fact, he has proposed marriage to me, and now, as a man +of the world to a woman of little experience, would you advise me to +accept him?" + +And she looked at the disconsolate officer so sweetly, it seemed +impossible he should do aught but say it would be throwing herself +away to bestow on an old man charms of which younger and warmer eyes +were sensible. But he answered only: + +"Certainly! An excellent match!" + +For a time Miss Sally was speechless, yet open-mouthed. And then, for +the length of one brief but fiery tirade, she showed herself to be her +niece's aunt: + +"Sir! The idea! I wouldn't have that old smoke-chimney if he were the +last man on earth! I'd have given him his conge long ago, if it hadn't +been that he might propose to my friend, the widow Babcock! I've only +kept him on the string to prevent her getting him. When I want your +advice, Captain Peyton, I'll ask for it! Excuse me, I must find +Elizabeth. I've news for her." + +"News?" he echoed, stupidly. + +"Yes. From my chamber window awhile ago I saw some one riding this way +on the post-road,--Major Colden!" + +And she swept out by the same door that had closed, a few minutes +before, on Elizabeth. + +"Major Colden!" Peyton's teeth tightened, his eyes shot fire, his hand +flew to his sword-hilt, as he spoke the name. + +He went to the window, the same window at which Elizabeth had looked +out a week ago, and peered through the panes at the night. + +"Why, the ground is white," he said. "It has begun to snow." + +But, through the large flakes that fell thick and swiftly among the +trees, he did not yet see any humankind approaching. His view of the +branch road was, at some places, obstructed by tall shrubbery that +rose high above the palings and the hedge. + +Yet through those flakes, assaulted by them in eyes and nostrils, +invaded by them in ears and neck, humankind was riding. It was, +indeed, Colden that Miss Sally had seen through a fortuitous opening, +which gave, between the trees, a view of the most eminent point of the +post-road southward. He was to conduct Elizabeth home the next day, +but had availed himself of his opportunity to ride out to the +manor-house that night, so as to have the few more hours in her +society. He had this time taken an escort of two privates of his own +regiment, but these men were not as well mounted as he, and, in his +impatience, having seen the best their horses could do, and having +passed King's Bridge, he had ridden ahead of them, leaving them to +follow to the manor-house in their own speediest time. Thus it was +that now he bore alone down from the post-road, his horse's feet +making on the new-fallen snow no other sound than a soft crunching, +scarce louder than its heavy breathing or its mouth-play on the bit, +or the creak and clank of saddle, bridle, stirrups, pistols, and +scabbard. His eyes dwelt eagerly on the manor-house, where awaited him +light and warmth and wine, refuge from the pelting flakes, and, above +all else, the joy-giving presence of Elizabeth. His breast expanded, +he sighed already with relief; he approached the gate as a released +soul, with admission ticket duly purchased by a deathbed repentance, +might approach the gate of heaven. + +But Peyton, looking out on the white world, saw no one. He did not +change his attitude when the door reopened and Elizabeth and her aunt +came into the parlor, arm in arm. + +"You're sure 'twas he, aunt Sally?" Elizabeth had been saying. + +"Positive. He should be here now," Miss Sally had replied. + +Elizabeth cast a look of secret elation on the unheeding rebel +captain, whose forehead was still against the window-pane. She saw a +possible means of his still further degradation. + +Suddenly he took a quick step back from the window, impulsively +renewed his grasp of his sword-hilt, and showed a face of resolute +antagonism. + +Elizabeth knew from this that he had seen Colden. She gave a smile of +pleasant anticipation. + +But Miss Sally had relapsed into her usual timid self. She held +tightly to Elizabeth's arm. + +"Oh, dear!" she whispered. "Won't something happen when those two +meet?" + +"I hope so!" said Elizabeth, placidly. + +"Why?" demanded Miss Sally, beginning to weaken at the knees. + +"If Colden sends him to the ground, in our presence, that will crown +the fellow's humiliation." + +Five brisk knocks, in quick succession, were heard from the outside +door of the east hall. + +Peyton walked across the parlor, turned, and stood facing the east +hall door, the greater part of the room's length being between him and +it. His hand remained on his sword. He paid no heed to Elizabeth, she +paid none to him. + +"His knock!" she said, and called out through the east hall door: +"'Tis Major Colden, Sam. Show him here at once." She then stepped back +from the door, to a place whence she could see both it and Peyton. Her +aunt clung to her arm all the while, and now whispered, "Oh, +Elizabeth, I fear there will be trouble!" + +"If there is, it won't fall on your silly head," whispered Elizabeth, +in reply. + +From the hall came the sound of the drawing of bolts. Peyton did not +take his eyes from the door. + +A noise of footfalls, accompanied by clank of spurs and weapons, and +in came Colden, his hat in his left hand, snow on his hat and +shoulders, his cloak open, his sword and pistols visible, his right +hand ungloved to clasp Elizabeth's. + +She received him with such a cordial smile as he had never before had +from her. + +"Elizabeth!" he cried,--beheld only her, hastened to her, took her +proffered hand, bent his head and kissed the fingers, raised his eyes +with a grateful, joyous smile,--and saw Peyton standing motionless at +the other side of the room. The smile vanished; a look of amazement +and hatred came. + +"I wish you a very good evening, _Major_ Colden!" + +Peyton said this in a voice as hard and ironical as might have come +from a brass statue. + +For the next few seconds the two men stood gazing at each other, the +women gazing at the men. At last the Tory major found speech: + +"Elizabeth,--what does it mean? Why is this man here,--again?" + +"'Tis rather a long story, Jack, and you shall hear it all in time," +said Elizabeth, determined he should never hear the true story. + +Before she could continue, Colden suffered a start of alarm to possess +him, and asked, quickly: + +"Are any of his troops here?" + +"No; he is quite alone," she answered. + +Colden at once took on height, arrogance, and formidableness. + +"Then why have not your servants made him a prisoner?" he asked. + +"Why," said she, "you being mentioned to-night, in his presence, he +made some kind of boast of not fearing you, and I, divining how soon +you would be here, thought fit his freedom with your name should best +be paid for at _your_ hands, major." + +"Ay, major," put in Peyton, "and I have stayed to receive payment!" + +Colden thought for a short while. Then he said, "A moment, Elizabeth. +Your pardon, Miss Williams," and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to +her in a low tone: "We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men +have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode +ahead, in my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon, +and the business will be done." + +But such doing of the business did not suit Elizabeth's purpose. "I +wish to humiliate the man," she answered Colden, inaudibly to the +others; "to take down his upstart pride! 'Twould be no shame to him, +to be made prisoner by numbers." + +"What, then?" asked Colden, dubiously. + +"Bring down the coxcomb, before us women, in an even match!" + +To prevent objections, she then abruptly went from Colden, and resumed +her place at her aunt's side. + +Colden stood frowning, not half pleased at her hint. It occurred to +him, as it did not to her, that the mere allegiance and favoring +wishes of herself were not sufficient possessions to ensure victory in +such a match as she meant. Elizabeth, accustomed to success, did not +conceive it possible that the chosen agent of her own designs could +fail. But the chosen agent had, in this case, wider powers of +conception. + +All this time, Captain Peyton had stood as motionless as a figure in a +painting. He now interrupted Colden's meditations with the gentle +reminder: + +"I am waiting for my payment, Major Colden." + +Colden was not a man of much originality. So, in his instinctive +endeavor to gain time, he bungled out the conventional reply, "You +wish to seek a quarrel with me, sir?" + +"Seek a quarrel?" retorted Peyton. "Is not the quarrel here? Has not +Miss Philipse spoken of an offence to your name, for which I ought to +receive payment from you? Gad, she'd not have to speak twice to make +_me_ draw!" + +Colden continued to be as conventional as a virtuous hero of a novel. +"I do not fight in the presence of ladies, sir," said he. + +"Nor I," said Peyton. "Choose your own place, in the garden yonder. +With snow on the ground, there's light enough." + +And Harry went quickly, almost to the door, near which he stopped to +give Colden precedence. + +"Nay," put in Elizabeth, "we ladies can bear the sight of a sword-cut +or two. Wait for us," and she would have gone to send for wraps, but +that Colden raised his hand in token of refusal, saying: + +"Nay, Elizabeth. I will not consent." + +"Come, sir," said Peyton. "'Tis no use to oppose a lady's whim. But if +you make haste, we may have it over before they can arrive on the +ground." + +In handling his sword-hilt, Peyton had pulled the weapon a few inches +out of the scabbard, and now, though he did not intend to draw while +in the house, he unconsciously brought out the full length of what +remained of the blade. For the time he had forgotten the sword was +broken, and now he was reminded of it with some inward irritation. + +Meanwhile Colden was answering: + +"There's no regularity in such a meeting. Where are the seconds?" + +"I'll be your second, major," cried Elizabeth. "Aunt Sally, second +Captain Peyton." + +"Ridiculous!" said the major. + +"Anything to bring you out," said Peyton, as desirous of avenging +himself on Elizabeth, through her affianced, as she was to complete +her own revenge through the same instrument. "I'll fight you with half +a sword. I'd forgotten 'tis all I've left." + +"I would not take an advantage," said the New Yorker. + +"Then break your own sword, and make us equal," said the Virginian. + +"I value my weapon too much for that." + +Peyton smiled ironically. But he tried again. + +"Then I shall be less scrupulous," said he. "I _will_ take an +advantage. The greater honor to you, if you defeat me. You take the +broken sword, and lend me yours." + +He held out his hilt for exchange. + +Colden pretended to laugh, saying: + +"Am I a fool to put it in your power to murder me?" + +"_I'll_ tell you what, gentlemen," put in Elizabeth. "Use the swords +above the chimney-place, yonder. They are equal." + +"Yes!" cried Peyton. + +But Colden said: + +"I will not so degrade myself as to cross swords, except on the +battle-field, with one who is a rebel, a deserter, and no gentleman." + +Peyton turned to Elizabeth with a smile. + +"Then you see, madam," said he, "'tis no fault of mine if my affronts +go unpunished, since this gentleman must keep his courage for the +battle-field! Egad," he added, sacrificing truth for the sake of the +taunt, "you Tories need all the courage there you can save up in a +long time! I take my leave of this house!" + +[Illustration: "'I TAKE MY LEAVE OF THIS HOUSE!'"] + +He thrust his sword back into the scabbard, bowed rapidly and low, +with a flourish of his hat, and went out by the same door Elizabeth +had used in her own moment of triumph. He unbolted the outside door +himself, before black Sam could come from the settle to serve him. +Snowflakes rushed in at the open door. He plunged into them, swinging +the door close after him. Out through the little portico he went, down +the walk outside the very parlor window through which he had looked +out awhile ago, but through which he did not now look in as he +passed; through the gate, and up the branch road to the highway. He +was possessed by a confusion of thoughts and feelings,--temporary and +superficial elation at having put Elizabeth's preferred lover in so +bad a light, wild ideas of some future crossing of her path, swift +dreams of a future conquest of her in spite of all, a fierce desire +for such action as would lead to that end. He was eager to rejoin the +army now, to participate in the fighting that would bring about the +humbling of her cause and make it the more in his power to master her. +He heeded little the snow that impeded his steps as his boots sank +into it, and which, in falling, blinded his eyes, tickled his face, +and clung to his hair. The tumult of flakes was akin to that of his +feelings, and he was in mood for encountering such opposition as the +storm made to his progress. + +Arriving at the post-road, he turned and went northward. At his left +lay the great lawn fronting the manor-house, and separated from the +road by hedge and palings. He could see, across the snowy expanse, +between the dark trunks and whitened branches of the trees, the long +front of the manor-house, its roof and its porticoes already covered +with snow, the light glowing in the one exposed window of the east +parlor. As he quieted down within, he felt pleasantly towards the +house, to which his week's half-solitary residence in it, with the +comfort he had enjoyed there and the books he had read, had given him +an attachment. He cast on it a last affectionate look, then breasted +the weather onward, wondering what things the future might have in +store for him. + +He had little fear of not reaching the American lines in safety. It +was unlikely that any of the enemy's marauders would be out on such a +night, and more unlikely that any regular military movement would be +making on the neutral ground. He expected to meet no one on the road, +but he would keep a sharp lookout in all directions as he went, and, +in case of any human apparition, would take to the fields or the +woods. But all the world, thought he, would stay within doors this +white night. + +Sliding back a part of every step he took in the snow, he passed the +boundary of the Philipse lawn, and that of such part of the grounds as +included, with other appurtenances, the garden north of the house. He +had come, at last, to a place where the fence at his left ended and +the forest began. He had, a moment before, cast a long look backward +to assure himself the road was empty behind him. He now trudged on, +his eyes fixed ahead. + +From behind a low pine-tree, at the end of the fence, two dark figures +glided up to the captain's rear, their steps noiseless in the snow. +One of them caught both his forearms at the same instant, and pulled +them back together, as with grips of iron. A second pair of hands +placed a noose about his wrists, and quickly tightened it. Ere he +could turn, his first assailant released the bound arms to the second, +drew a pistol, and thrust the muzzle close to Peyton's cheek, +whereupon the second man said: + +"Your pardon, captain. Come quietly, or you're a dead man!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE UNEXPECTED. + + +Peyton's somewhat elate exit from the parlor was followed by a moment +of silence and inertia on the part of the three who remained there. +But Elizabeth's chagrin was speedily translated into anger against +Major Colden. + +"Why didn't you fight him?" she demanded of that gentleman, who was +flinching inwardly, but who maintained a pale and haughty exterior. + +"What was the use?" he replied. "He's reserved for the gallows. If my +two men were here! Why not send your servants after him? Sam is a +powerful fellow, and Williams is shrewd and strong." + +Elizabeth ignored Colden's reply, and answered her own question, +thus: + +"It was because you remembered the time he disarmed you, three years +ago." + +"You may think so, if you choose," he replied, in the patient manner +of one who quietly endures unjust reproaches when self-defence is +useless. + +"You will find refreshments in the dining-room," said Elizabeth, +coldly. "Sam will show you to your room." + +"I would rather remain with you," he replied. + +"I would rather be alone with my aunt a while." + +A deep sigh expressed his dejecting sense of how futile it would be to +oppose her. + +"As you will," he then said, and, bowing gravely, left the parlor. + +Elizabeth's feelings now burst out. + +"Oh," she exclaimed to her aunt, "what a chicken-hearted copy of a +man! And he calls himself a soldier! I wonder where he found the +spirit to volunteer!" + +"From you, my dear," replied Miss Sally. "Didn't you urge him to take +a commission?" + +"And that rebel fellow had the best of it all through," Elizabeth went +on. "I was to see him laid low by his rival, as my crowning revenge! +How he swaggered out! with what a look of triumph in his eye! +And--aunt Sally! He won't come back! I shall never see him again!" + +"Why, child, do you wish to?" + +"Of course not! But I can't have him go away with the laugh on his +side! He made me ridiculous after my trying to stab him with my love +for the other man. _Such_ another man! Oh, the rebel must come back!" + +"But he isn't likely to," said Miss Sally. + +"Oh, what shall I do?" wailed the niece. + +"Elizabeth, I'll wager you're still in love with him!" + +"I'm not! I hate him!--Well, what if I am? He loved me, I'm sure, the +last time he said it. But, good heavens, he's going farther away every +instant!" + +She clasped her hands, and, for once, looked at her aunt for help, +like a distressed child on the verge of weeping. + +"Why don't you call him back?" said Miss Sally. + +"I? Not if I die for want of seeing him!--I know! I _will_ send the +servants after him." And she started for the door, but stopped at her +aunt's comment: + +"But that will be as bad as calling him yourself." + +"Not at all, you empty pate!" cried Elizabeth, who had become, in a +moment, all action. "While he's going around by the road, Williams and +Sam shall cut across the garden, lie in wait, and take him by +surprise. He has no weapon but a broken sword, and they can make him +prisoner. They shall bring him back here bound, and he'll think he's +to be turned over to the British after all!" + +"But what then?" + +"Why, he shall be left alone here, well guarded, for half an hour, +and then I'll happen in, give him an opportunity to make love again, +and I can yield gracefully! Don't you see?" + +"Then you _do_ love him?" said the aunt. + +"I don't know. However, I don't love Jack Colden. Not a word to him, +of this! I'm going to give orders to the men." + +As she entered the hall, she met Colden, who was coming from the +dining-room with Mr. Valentine. The major had limited his refreshments +to two glasses of brandy and water, swallowed in quick succession. Mr. +Valentine, who was smoking his pipe, held Colden fraternally by the +arm. + +"What, Elizabeth, are you still angry?" said Colden, stopping as she +passed. + +"Excuse me, I have something to see to," said the girl, coolly, +hurrying away from him. + +He made a slight movement to follow her, but old Valentine drew him +into the parlor, saying: + +"Come, major, you'll see the lady enough after she's married to you. I +was just going to say, the last lot of tobacco I got--" + +"Oh, damn your tobacco!" said the other, jerking his arm from the old +man's tremulous grasp. + +"Damn my tobacco?" echoed Mr. Valentine, quite stupefied. + +"Yes. I've matters more important on my mind just now." + +"The deuce!" cried the old man. "What could be more important than +tobacco?" + +And he stood looking into the fire, muttering to himself between +furious puffs. + +Colden sought comfort of Miss Sally. "Was ever a woman as unreasonable +as Elizabeth?" he said to her. "She'd have had me lower myself to meet +that rebel vagabond as one gentleman meets another." + +But Miss Sally was not going to betray her own disappointment by +showing a change from her oft-expressed opinion of the rebel +captain,--particularly in the presence of Mr. Valentine. So she +answered: + +"You met him so once, three years ago." + +"I had a less scrupulous sense of propriety then," replied Colden, +raging inwardly. + +"But, as he's a rebel and deserter," pursued Miss Sally, "was it not +your duty as a soldier to take him, just now?" + +"I'd have done so, had my men been here," growled the major. +"Elizabeth ought to've had her servants hold him. I had half a mind to +order them, in the King's name, but I never can bring myself to oppose +her, she's so masterful! By George, though, I'll have him yet! My two +fellows will soon come up. They shall give chase. He will leave tracks +in the snow." + +Colden went to the window, and peered out as Peyton himself had done +not long before. The flakes were coming down as thick as ever. + +"I don't see my rascals yet!" he muttered. "They've stopped at the +tavern, I'll warrant." + +And he continued to gaze eagerly out, impatient that his men should +arrive before the new-fallen snow should cover his enemy's tracks. + +Old Mr. Valentine, having exhausted his present stock of mutterings, +now walked over to Miss Sally, who had sat down near the spinet. + +"Miss Williams," said he, "this is the first chance I've had to speak +to you alone in a week." + +"But we're not alone," said Miss Sally, motioning her head towards +Colden. + +"He's nobody," contemptuously replied the octogenarian. "A man that +damns tobacco is nobody. So you may go ahead and speak out. What's +your answer, ma'am?" + +"Oh, Mr. Valentine, not now! You must give me time." + +"That's what you said before," he complained. + +She had, indeed, said it before, scores of times. + +"Well, give me more time, then," she replied. + +"How much?" asked the old man, in a matter-of-fact way. + +"Oh, I don't know! Long enough for me to make up my mind." + +Thus far, this conversation had followed in the exact lines of many +that had preceded it, but now Mr. Valentine made a departure from the +customary form. + +"I think," said he, "if my other two wives had taken as long as you to +make up their minds, I shouldn't have been twice a widower by now." + +"Oh, Mr. Valentine!" said Miss Sally, in a sweetly reproachful way. +"Now you know--" + +But he cut her speech off short. "Very likely," said he. "I don't +know. Well, take your time. Only please remember I haven't so very +much time left! Better take me while I'm here to be had! Good night, +ma'am!" And he went to the dining-room to fortify himself for his long +homeward walk through the snow. + +In crossing the hall, he saw Cuff on the settle in Sam's place. In the +dining-room he met Molly, who was clearing the table of the supper +that Colden had disdained. He asked her the whereabouts of Williams, +and she replied that the steward and Sam had gone out on some order of +Miss Elizabeth's. Deciding to await Williams's return, the old man sat +down before the dining-room fire, and was soon peacefully snoring. + +Elizabeth had gone up-stairs to watch from her darkened window the +issue of the expedition of Williams and Sam, who had gone out by the +kitchen, equipped respectively with rope and pistol. While they were +in the immediate vicinity of the house, she could not see them from +her elevation, but presently she beheld them glide swiftly across a +white open space in the garden, cross a stile, and disappear among the +trees and bushes between the garden and the post-road. Turning her +eyes to the road itself, that lonely highway now called Broadway,[9] +she made out a solitary figure toiling forward through the whirling +whiteness,--and she gave a sigh, the deepest and longest with which +her frame had ever trembled. + +Meanwhile Miss Sally remained in the parlor, thinking it best not to +go to Elizabeth unless sent for; while Colden continued to stand at +the window, showing his impatience for the arrival of his two soldiers +in a tense contracting of the brow, in a restless shifting from foot +to foot, and in intermittent stifled curses. + +As he kept his eyes on the place where the branch road left the +highway, he did not see that part of the lawn walk which led from the +garden. But suddenly a slight noise drew his look towards the portico +before the east hall. + +"Who are these coming?" he cried, startling Miss Sally out of her +musings and her chair. + +"Are they your men?" she asked, hastening to join him at the window. + +"No, mine are mounted," said he. "Why,--these are Williams and +Sam,--and they are bringing,--yes, it is he! They're bringing him back +a prisoner! She has done it, after all, without consulting me!" And he +strode to the centre of the room, in the utmost elation. + +Miss Sally weakened at the imminent prospect of a meeting between the +two enemies in the changed circumstances, and felt the need of her +niece's support. + +"I must tell Elizabeth they have him," she said, and ran out to the +east hall, and thence to the dining-room, just in time to avoid seeing +Peyton led in through the outer door, which Cuff had opened at +Williams's call. + +The steward and Sam conducted their prisoner immediately into the +parlor. There Colden stood, with a rancorously jubilant smile, to +receive him. + +Peyton's wrists were as Williams had tied them. He was without his +hat, which had been knocked off in a brief struggle he had essayed +against his captors in a moment when Sam had lowered the pistol. There +was a little fresh snow on his hair, and more on his shoulders. The +feet of his boots were cased with it. His left arm was held by +Williams, who carried the broken sword, having taken it from the +scabbard at the first opportunity. Peyton's other arm was grasped by +the huge, bony left hand of Sam, who held the cocked pistol in his +right. The two men walked with him to the centre of the parlor, and +stopped. + +"By George," said he, turning his face towards Sam, with fire in his +eyes, "had the snow not killed the sound of your sneaking footsteps +till you'd caught my arms behind, I'd have done for the two of you!" + +"Good, Williams!" said Colden. "Place him on that chair, and leave him +here with me. But stay in the hall on guard." + +"So Miss Elizabeth ordered us, sir," said Williams, dryly, and, with +Sam, conducted Peyton to the chair, on which he sat willingly. + +"Of course she did," replied Colden. "Was it not at my suggestion?" + +Peyton looked sharply up at the major, who regarded him with the +undisguised pleasure of hate about to be satisfied. + +Williams handed the broken sword to Colden, saying, "This was the only +weapon he had, sir. We grabbed him before he could use it. We ran out +behind him from the roadside, and he couldn't hear us for the snow." + +"Ay, or the pair of you couldn't have taken me!" said Peyton, with hot +scorn and defiant gameness. + +Colden, with the piece of sword, motioned Williams to go from the +room. + +"Leave the door ajar a little," he added, "so you can hear if I +call." + +Peyton uttered a short laugh of derision at this piece of prudence. +The steward and Sam withdrew to the hall, where Sam remained, while +Williams went in search of Elizabeth for further orders. As soon as +she had assured herself, by watching and listening, that Peyton was +safe in the parlor, she had stolen quietly down-stairs to the +dining-room, where she had met her aunt, with whom the steward now +found her sitting. She told him to get the duck-gun, make sure it was +loaded and primed, and to wait with Sam on the settle in the hall. She +then requested her aunt to remain in the dining-room, silently +returned to the hall, and took station by the door leading from the +parlor,--the door which Williams, at Colden's command, had left +slightly ajar. Her original plan, she felt, might have to be altered +by reason of Colden's having obtruded his hand into the game, a +possibility she had not, in roughly sketching that plan, taken into +account. It was in order to have the guidance of circumstance, that +she now put herself in the way of hearing, unseen, what might pass +between the two men. Meanwhile, through the snow-storm, Colden's two +soldiers, who had indeed tarried at the tavern for the heating up of +their interiors, were blasphemously urging their sleepy horses towards +the manor-house. + +In the parlor, the two enemies were facing each other, Peyton on his +chair, his tied wrists behind him, Colden standing at some distance +from him, holding the broken sword. As soon as they were alone, Peyton +uttered another one-syllabled laugh, and said: + +"The hospitality of this house beats my recollection. One is always +coming back to it." + +"You'll not come back the next time you leave it!" said Major Colden, +his eyes glittering with gratified rancor. + +"And when shall that time be?" asked Peyton, airily. + +"As soon as two of my men arrive, whom I outrode on my way hither +to-night. They attended me out of New York. I shall be generous and +give them over to you, to attend you _into_ New York." + +"Thanks for the escort!" + +"'Tis the only kind you rebels ever have, when you enter New York," +sneered the major. + +"We shall enter it with an escort of our own choosing some day! And a +sorry day that for you Tories and refugees, my dear gentleman!" + +"But if that day ever comes, _you'll_ have been rotting underground a +long time,--and thanks to _me_, don't forget that!" + +"Thanks to _her_, you coward!" cried Peyton. "'Twas she that sent her +servants after me! You didn't dare try taking me, alone!" + +"Bah!" said Colden, hotly, "I might have pistolled you here +to-night"--and he placed his hand on the fire-arm in his belt--"but +for the presence of the ladies!" + +"Was it the ladies' presence," retorted Peyton, contemptuously, "or +the fact that you're a devilish bad shot?" + +Neither man heard the door moved farther open, or saw Elizabeth step +through the aperture to the inner side of the threshold, where she +stopped and watched. Peyton's back was towards her, and Colden's rage +at the last words was too intense to permit his eyes to rove from its +object. + +"Damn you!" cried the major. "I'd show you how bad a shot I am, but +that I'd rather wait and see you on the gallows!" + +"Will _she_ come to see me there, I wonder?" said Peyton, half +thoughtfully. "She ought to, for it's her work sends me there, not +yours! 'Twill not be _your_ revenge when they string me up, my jolly +friend!" + +Taunted beyond all self-control, the Tory yelled: + +"Not mine, eh? Then I'll have mine now, you dog!" + +With that, he strode forward and struck Harry a fierce blow across the +face with the flat side of Harry's own broken sword. + +Harry merely blinked his eyes, and did not flinch. He turned pale, +then red, and in a moment, first clearing his voice of a slight +huskiness, said, quietly: + +"That blow I charge against you both,--the lady as well as you!" + +Colden had stepped back some distance after delivering the blow. +Something in Harry's answer seemed to infuriate still further the +devil awakened in the Tory's body, for he cried out: + +"The lady as well as me,--yes! And this, too!" + +And he advanced on Peyton, to strike a second time. + +"Stop! How dare you?" + +The cry was Elizabeth's. It startled Colden so that he loosened his +hold of the broken sword before he could deliver the blow. At that +instant, she caught his arm in her one hand, the sword-guard in her +other. She tore the weapon from his grasp, and faced him with a +countenance as furious as his own. + +"What do you mean?" he cried. + +For answer she struck him in the face with the flat of the sword, as +he had struck Peyton. "You sneak!" she said. + +He recoiled, and stood staring, a ghastly image of bewilderment and +consternation. After a moment he turned livid. + +"Ah! I see now!" he gasped. "You love him!" + +"Yes!" came the answer, prompt and decided. + +He gazed at her with such an expression as a painter of hell might +put into the face of a lost soul, and he said, faintly, in a kind of +articulate moan: + +"I might have known!" + +Suddenly there came from the outer night the exclamation, quick and +distinct: + +"Whoa!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE BROKEN SWORD. + + +The sound wrought a transformation in Colden. His face lighted up with +malevolent joy. + +"You love too late!" he cried, to Elizabeth. "My men are there! They +shall take him to New York a prisoner, at last!" + +"But not delivered up by me, thank God!" replied Elizabeth, while +Peyton rose quickly from his chair, and Colden reeled like a drunken +man to the window. + +She went behind Peyton, and, with the edge of the broken sword, hacked +rather than cut through one of the outer windings that bound his +wrists together, whereupon she speedily uncoiled the rope. + +"You were my prisoner. I set you free!" she said, dropped the rope to +the floor, and handed him the broken sword. + +He took the weapon in his right hand, and imprisoned Elizabeth with +his left arm. + +"I'm more your prisoner now than ever!" he said. "You've cut these +bonds. Will you put others on me?" + +"Sometime,--if we can save your life!" she answered. + +Both turned their eyes towards Colden. + +The Tory officer had drawn his sword, and was motioning, in great +excitement, to his soldiers outside. + +"This way, men!" he shouted. "To the front door! Damn the louts! Can't +they understand?" He beat upon the window with his sword, knocking out +panes of glass. "Come through that door, I say! Quick, curse you, +there's a prisoner here, with a price for his taking! Ay, that's it! +Some one in the hall there, open the front door to my men!" + +The sound now came of knocks bestowed on the outside door, and of +Sam's heavy tread on the hall floor. + +"Williams! Sam!" shouted Elizabeth. "Don't let them in!" + +The heavy tread was heard to stop short. The knocking on the outer +door was resumed. + +"Let them in, I say," roared Colden, too proud to go himself to the +door. "I command it, in the name of the King!" + +"Obey your mistress," cried Peyton, to those in the hall. "I command +it, in the name of Congress!" + +Colden was silent for a moment, then suddenly threw open the window +and called out, "This way, men! Quick!" + +And he drew pistol, and stood ready with steel and ball to guard the +window by which his men were to enter. A new, wild ferocity was on his +face, a new, nervous hardness in his body, as if the latent resolution +and strength which a prudent man keeps for a great contest, on which +his all may depend, were at last aroused. In such a mood, the man who, +governed by interest, may have seemed a coward all his life becomes +for the once supremely formidable. At last he thinks the stake worth +the play, at last the prize is worth the risk, and because it is so he +will play and risk to the end, hazarding all, not yielding while he +breathes. Having opened the theme which alone, of all themes, shall +transform his irresolution into action, he will, Hamlet like, "fight +upon this theme until" his "eyelids will no longer wag." So was Colden +aroused, transfigured, as he stood doubly armed by the window, waiting +for his men to clamber in. + +"What shall we do, dear?" said Elizabeth. + +"Fight!" replied Peyton, tightening at the same time his right palm +around his broken sword, and his left around the hand she had let him +take,--for she had moved from the embrace of his arm. + +"Ay, there are only two of them," she said, as two burly forms +appeared in the open window, one behind the other. + +"There will be three of us, you'll find!" cried Colden. "This time +I'll take a hand, if need be." + +"You must not stay here," said Peyton to Elizabeth, quickly. "Things +will be flying loose in a moment!" + +"I won't leave you!" said she. + +"Go! I beg you, go!" he said, releasing her hand, and stepping back. + +Meanwhile, Colden's men bounded in through the window. Rough, sturdy +fellows were they, who landed heavily on the parlor floor, and blinked +at the light, drawing the while the breeches of their short muskets +from beneath their coats. Their hats and shoulders were coated with +snow. + +"Take that rebel alive, if you can!" ordered Colden. "He's meant to +hang! Stun him with your musket-butts!" + +The men quickly reversed their weapons, and strode heavily towards +Harry. To their surprise, before they could bring down their muskets, +which required both hands of each to hold, Harry dashed forward +between them, thinking to cut down Colden with his broken sword, +possess himself of the latter's pistol, shoot one of the soldiers, and +meet the other on less unequal terms. He saw a possibility of his +leaping through the open window and fleeing on one of the soldiers' +horses, but the idea was accompanied by the thought that Elizabeth +might be made to suffer for his escape. Her safety now depended on his +getting the mastery over his three would-be captors. So, ere the two +astonished fellows could turn, Harry had leaped within sword's reach +of his doubly armed enemy. + +But Colden was now as alert as rigid, and he opposed his officer's +sword against Peyton's broken cavalry blade, guarding himself with +unexpected swiftness, and giving back, for Harry's sweeping stroke, a +thrust which only the quickest and most dexterous movement turned +aside from entering the Virginian's lungs. As Harry stepped back for +an instant out of his adversary's reach, the Tory raised his pistol. +At the same moment the two soldiers, having turned about, rushed on +Peyton from behind. He heard them coming, and half turned to face +them. Their movement had for him one fortunate circumstance. It kept +Colden from shooting, for his bullet might have struck one of his own +men. + +Now Elizabeth had not been idle. At the moment when Harry had stepped +back from her and bade her go, she had run to the door of the east +hall, and called Williams and Sam. While Peyton had been engaging +Colden near the window, the steward and the negro had entered the +parlor, and she had excitedly ordered them to Peyton's aid. Williams +still had the duck-gun, Sam the pistol. Thus it occurred that, as +Peyton half turned from Colden towards the two soldiers, these +last-named saw Williams and Sam rush in between them and their prey. +Before Williams could bring his duck-gun to bear, he was struck down +senseless by one of the musket blows first intended for Peyton. +Another blow, and from another musket, had been aimed at Sam's woolly +head, but the negro had put up his left hand and caught the descending +weapon, and at the same time had discharged his pistol at the weapon's +holder. But Williams, in falling, had knocked against the darky, and +so disturbed his aim, and the ball flew wide. The man who had brought +down Williams now struck Sam a terrible blow with the musket-club, on +the temple, and the negro dropped like a felled ox. + +During this brief passage, Peyton had returned to close quarters with +Colden. The latter, who had lowered his pistol when his men had last +approached Peyton, and who had resumed the contest of swords unequal +in size and kind, now raised the pistol a second time. But it was +caught by the hands of Elizabeth, who had run around to his left, and +who now, suddenly endowed with the strength of a tigress, wrenched it +from him as she had wrenched the broken sword earlier in the evening. +She tried to discharge the pistol at one of the two soldiers, as they, +relieved of the brief interposition of Williams and Sam, were again +taking position to bring down their muskets on Peyton's head while he +continued at sword-work with Colden. But the pistol snapped without +going off, whereupon Elizabeth hurled it in the face of the man at +whom she had aimed. The blow disconcerted him so that his musket fell +wide of Peyton, who at the same instant, having seen from the corner +of his eye how he was menaced, leaped backward from under the other +descending musket. Then, taking advantage of the moment when the +muskets were down, he ran to the music seat before the spinet, and +mounted upon it, thinking rightly that the infuriated major would +follow him, and that he might the better execute a certain manoeuvre +from the vantage of height. Colden indeed rushed after him, and thrust +at him, Peyton sweeping the thrusts aside with pendulum-like swings of +his own short weapon. His thought was to send the point that menaced +him so astray that he might leap forward and cleave his enemy with a +downward stroke before the Tory could recover his guard. But Colden +pressed him so speedily that he was at last fain to step up from the +music seat to the spinet, landing first on the keyboard, which sent +out a frightened discord as he alighted on it. Finding the keys an +uncertain footing, he took another step, and stood on the body of the +instrument, so that Colden would be at the disadvantage of thrusting +upwards. But Colden, seeming to tire a little after a few such +thrusts, called to his men: + +"Shoot the dog in the legs!" + +Both men aimed at once. Elizabeth screamed. Peyton leaped down from +his height to the little space behind the spinet projection, where he +had hidden a week before. Here he found himself well placed, for here +he could be approached on one side only,--unless his adversaries +should follow his example and come at him from the top of the spinet. + +Colden attacked him with sword, at the open side, and shouted to his +men: + +"One of you get on the spinet. The other crawl under. We have him +now." + +Still guarding himself from his enemy's thrusts, Peyton heard one of +the men leap from the music seat to the spinet, and the other advance +creeping, doubtless with gun before him, under the instrument. Peyton +sank to his knees, placed his shoulder under the back edge of the +spinet's projection, and, warding off a downward movement of Colden's +sword, turned the instrument over on its side, checking the creeping +man under it, and throwing the other fellow to the floor some feet +away. As the spinet fell, one of its legs, rising swiftly into the +air, knocked Colden's blade upward, and the Tory leaped back lest +Peyton might avail himself of the opening. But the spinet-leg itself +hindered Peyton from doing so. Colden rushed forward again, thrusting +as he did so. Peyton leaped aside, made a swift half-turn, and landed +a stroke on Colden's sword-hand, making the Tory cry out and drop the +sword. Harry put his foot on it and cried: + +"You're at my mercy! Beg quarter!" + +But the man who had been thrown from the top of the spinet now +returned to the attack, coming around that end of the upset instrument +which was opposite the end where Colden had menaced Harry. Seeing this +new adversary, Harry retreated past Colden, in order to put himself in +position. The soldier hastened after him, with upraised musket. At +this moment, Peyton saw himself confronted by Elizabeth, who pulled +open the door of the south hall. He stopped short to avoid running +against her. + +"Save yourself!" she cried, and pushed him through the open doorway, +flinging the door shut upon him, a movement which the pursuing +soldier, stayed for a moment by collision with Colden, was not in time +to prevent. Harry heard the key move in the lock, and knew that +Elizabeth had turned it, and that he was safe in the south hall, with +a minute of vantage which he might employ as he would. + +Elizabeth withdrew the key from the locked door, just as the pursuing +soldier arrived at that door. The man, in his excitement, violently +tried to open the door. Colden, who was wrapping a handkerchief around +his wounded hand, shouted to the man: + +"You fool, she has the key! Take it from her!" + +"You shall kill me first!" she cried, and ran from the man towards the +open window, stepping over the prostrate bodies of Sam and Williams as +she went. + +"After her! She'll throw it into the snow!" cried Colden. + +This much Harry heard through the door, and heard also the heavy tread +of the soldier's feet in pursuit of the girl. His mind imaged forth a +momentary picture of the fellow's rough hands laid on the delicate +arms of Elizabeth, of her body clasped by the man in a struggle, her +white skin reddened by his grasp. The spectacle, imaginary and lasting +but an instant, maddened Peyton beyond endurance, made him a giant, a +Hercules. He threw himself against the door repeatedly, plied foot and +body in heavy blows. Meanwhile Elizabeth had reached the window, and +thrown the key far out on the snow-heaped lawn. She had no sooner done +so than the man laid his clutch on her arm. + +"Fly, Peyton, for God's sake! For my sake!" she shouted. + +"You shall pay for aiding the enemy, if he does!" cried Colden. "Don't +let her escape, Thompson!" + +At that instant the locked door gave way, and in burst Harry, having +broken, to save Elizabeth from a rude contact, the barrier she had +closed to save his life. That life, which he had once saved by +callously assailing her heart, he now risked, that her body might not +suffer the touch of an ungentle hand. So swift and sudden was his +entrance, that he had crossed the room, and floored Elizabeth's +captor, with a deep gash down the side of the head, ere Colden made a +step towards him. + +The man who had been under the fallen spinet had now extricated +himself, and regained his feet, and he and Colden rushed on Peyton at +once. Elated by having so speedily wrought Elizabeth's release, and +reduced the number of his able adversaries to two, Peyton bethought +himself of a new plan. He fled through the deep doorway to the east +hall, and took position on the staircase. He turned just in time to +parry Colden's sword, which the major had picked up and made shift to +hold in his wrapped-up, wounded hand. Harry saw that an opportune +stroke might send the sword from his enemy's numb and weakening grasp, +and his heart swelled with anticipated triumph, until he heard +Colden's hoarse cry: + +"Shoot him, James, while I keep him occupied!" + +This order was now the more practicable from Harry's being on the +stairs, above Colden, a great part of his body exposed to an aim that +could not endanger his antagonist. Breathing heavily, his eyes afire +with hatred, Colden repeated his attacks, while Harry saw the other's +musket raised, the barrel looking him in the eyes. He leaped a step +higher, swung his broken sword against the pendent chandelier, +knocked the only burning candle from its socket, and threw the hall +into darkness. A moment later the gun went off, giving an instant's +red flame, a loud crack, and a smell of gunpowder smoke. Harry heard a +swift singing near his right ear, and knew that he was untouched. + +Lest Colden's sword, thrust at random, might find him in the dark, +Harry instantly bestrode the stair-rail, and dropped, outside the +balustrade, to the floor of the hall. He grasped his half-sword in +both hands, so as to put his whole weight behind it, and made a lunge +in the direction of a muttered curse. The curse gave way to a roar of +pain and rage, and Colden's second follower dropped, spurting blood in +the darkness, his shoulder gashed horribly by the blunt end of +Peyton's imperfect weapon. Harry now ran back to the parlor, to deal +with Colden in the light, the latter's greater length of weapon giving +a greater searching-power in the darkness. In the parlor Elizabeth +stood waiting in suspense. Sam was sitting on the floor and staring +stupidly at Williams, who was now awake and rubbing his head, and the +Tory first fallen was still senseless. Harry had no sooner taken this +scene in at a glance, than Colden was upon him. + +The major's eyes seemed to stand out like blazing carbuncles from the +face of some deity of rage. + +"G--d d----n your soul!" he screamed, and thrust. The point went +straight, and Elizabeth, seeing it protrude through the back of +Harry's coat, near the left side of his body, uttered a low cry, and +sank half-fainting to her knees. Colden shouted with triumphant +laughter. "Die, you dog! And when you burn in hell, remember I sent +you there!" + +But the evil joy suddenly faded out of Colden's face, for Harry +Peyton, smiling, took a forward step, grasped near the hilt the sword +that seemed to be sheathed in his own body, forced it from Colden's +hand, and then drew it slowly from its lodgment. No blood discolored +it, and none oozed from Harry's body. + +The Virginian's quick movement to escape the thrust had left only a +part of his loose-fitting coat exposed, and Colden's sword had passed +through it, leaving him unhurt. Colden's momentary appearance of +victory had been the means of actual defeat. + +The Tory major saw his cup of revenge dashed from his lips, saw +himself deprived of sword and sweetheart, neither chance left of +living nor motive left for life. His rage collapsed; his hate burst +like a bubble. + +"Kill me," he said, quietly, to Peyton. + +His look, innocent of any thought to draw compassion, quite disarmed +Harry, who stood for a moment with moistening eyes and a kind of +welling-up at the throat, then said, in a rather unsteady voice: + +"No, sir! God knows I've taken enough from you," and he looked at +Elizabeth, who had risen and was standing near him. Softened by the +triumphant outcome for her love, she, too, was suddenly sensible of +the defeated man's unhappiness, and her eyes applauded and thanked +Harry. + +"You've taken what I never had," said Colden, with a chastened kind of +bitterness, "yet without which the life you give me back is +worthless." + +"Make it worth something with this," and Peyton held Colden's sword +out to him. + +"What! You will trust me with it?" said Colden, amazed and incredulous, +taking the sword, but holding it limply. + +"Certainly, sir!" + +Colden was motionless a moment, then placed his arm high against the +doorway, and buried his face against his arm, to hide the outlet of +what various emotions were set loose by his enemy's display of pity +and trust. + +Harry gently drew Elizabeth to him and kissed her. Yielding, she +placed her arms around his neck, and held him for a moment in an +embrace of her own offering. Then she withdrew from his clasp, and +when Colden again faced them she had resumed that invisible veil which +no man, not even the beloved, might pass through till she bade him. + +"You will find me worthy of your trust, sir," said Colden, brokenly, +yet with a mixture of manly humility and honorable pride.[10] + +"I am so sure of that," said Harry, "that I confide to your care for a +time what is dearest to me in the world. I ask you to accompany Miss +Philipse to her home in New York, when it may suit her convenience, +and to see that she suffer nothing for what has occurred here this +night." + +"You are a generous enemy, sir," said Colden, his eyes moistening +again. "One man in ten thousand would have done me the honor, the +kindness, of that request!" + +"Why," said Harry, taking his enemy's hand, as if in token of +farewell, "whatever be the ways of the knaves, respectable and +otherwise, who are so cautious against tricks like their own, thank +God it's not so rotten a world that a gentleman may not trust a +gentleman, when he is sure he has found one!" + +Turning to Elizabeth, he said: "I beg you will leave this house at +dawn, if you can. Williams and Sam, there, will be little the worse +for their knocks, and can look after the fellows on the floor." + +"And you," she replied, "must go at once. You must not further risk +your life by a moment's waiting. Cuff shall saddle Cato for you. I +sha'n't rest till I feel that you are far on your way." + +He approached as if again to kiss her, but she held out her hand to +stay him. He took the hand, bent over it, pressed it to his lips. + +"But,--" he said, in a tone as low as a whisper, "when--" + +"When the war is over," she answered, softly, "let Cato bring you +back." + + + + +NOTES. + + +NOTE 1. (Page 41.) + +"The old county historian." Rev. Robert Bolton, born 1814, died 1877. +His "History of the County of Westchester," especially the revised +edition published in 1881, is a rich mine of "material." Among other +works that have served the author of this narrative in a study of the +period and place are Allison's "History of Yonkers," Cole's "History +of Yonkers," Edsall's "History of Kingsbridge," Dawson's "Westchester +County during the Revolution," Jones's "New York during the +Revolution," Watson's "Annals of New York in the Olden Time," General +Heath's "Memoirs," Thatcher's "Memoirs," Simcoe's "Military Journal," +Dunlap's "History of New York," and Mrs. Ellet's "Domestic History of +the Revolution." For an excellent description of the border warfare on +the "neutral ground," the reader should go to Irving's delightful +"Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost." Cooper's novel, "The Spy," deals +accurately with that subject, which is touched upon also in that good +old standby, Lossing's "Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution." +Philipse Manor-house has been carefully written of by Judge Atkins in +a Yonkers newspaper, and less accurately by Mrs. Lamb in her "History +of New York City," and Marian Harland in "Some Colonial Homesteads and +Their Stories." Of general histories, Irving's "Life of Washington" +treats most fully of things around New York during the British +occupation, and these things are interestingly dealt with in local +histories, such as the "History of Queens County," Stiles's "History +of Brooklyn," Barber and Howe's "New Jersey Historical Collections," +etc., as well as in such special works as Onderdonk's "Revolutionary +Incidents." + + +NOTE 2. (Page 47.) + +Of Colonel Gist's escape, Bolton gives the following account: "The +house was occupied by the handsome and accomplished widow of the Rev. +Luke Babcock, and Miss Sarah Williams, a sister of Mrs. Frederick +Philipse. To the former lady Colonel Gist was devotedly attached; +consequently, when an opportunity afforded, he gladly moved his +command into that vicinity. On the night preceding the attack, he had +stationed his camp at the foot of Boar Hill, for the better purpose of +paying a special visit to this lady. It is said that whilst engaged in +urging his suit the enemy were quietly surrounding his quarters; he +had barely received his final dismissal from Mrs. Babcock when he was +startled by the firing of musketry.... It appears that all the roads +and bridges had been well guarded by the enemy, except the one now +called Warner's Bridge, and that Captain John Odell upon the first +alarm led off his troops through the woods on the west side of the Saw +Mill [River]. Here Colonel Gist joined them. In the meantime Mrs. +Babcock, having stationed herself in one of the dormer windows of the +parsonage, aided their escape whenever they appeared, by the waving of +a white handkerchief." + +The British attack was under Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, whose journal +shows that his force so far outnumbered Gist's that the latter's only +sensible course was in flight. About the year 1840, trees cut down +near the site of Gist's camp were found to contain balls buried six +inches in the wood. + + +NOTE 3. (Page 76.) + +The three generals arrived on the _Cerberus_, May 25th. All the +histories say that they arrived "with reinforcements." It is true, +troops were constantly arriving at Boston about that time, but none +came immediately with the three generals. The _Connecticut Gazette_ +(published in New London) printed, early in June, this piece of news, +brought by a gentleman who had been in Boston, May 28th: "Generals +Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe arrived at Boston last Friday in a +man-of-war. No troops came with them. They brought over 25 horses." It +is a wonder that Frothingham, in his admirably complete history of the +siege of Boston, missed even this little circumstance. Probably +everybody has read the incident thus related by Irving: "As the ships +entered the harbor and the rebel camp was pointed out, Burgoyne could +not restrain a burst of surprise and scorn. 'What!' cried he; 'ten +thousand peasants keep five thousand King's troops shut up! Well, let +us get in and we'll soon find elbow room!'" I don't think Irving +relates anywhere the sequel, which is that when, after his surrender, +Burgoyne marched with his conquered army into Cambridge, an old woman +shouted from a window to the crowd of spectators, "Give him elbow +room!" This story ought to be true, if it is not. + + +NOTE 4. (Page 89.) + +It was in a letter under date of October 4, 1778, that Washington +wrote: "What officer can bear the weight of prices that every +necessary article is now got to? A rat in the shape of a horse is not +to be bought for less than L200; a saddle under thirty or forty." + + +NOTE 5. (Page 124.) + +Captain Cunningham was the British provost marshal, as everybody +knows, whose name became a synonym for wanton cruelty in the treatment +of war prisoners. He had come to New York before the Revolution, and +had kept a riding school there. As soon as the war broke out he took +the royal side. It was he who had in charge the summary execution of +Nathan Hale. He would often amuse himself by striking his prisoners +with his keys and by kicking over the baskets of food or vessels of +soup brought for them by charitable women, who, he said, were the +worst rebels in New York. He died miserably in England after the war. +His career is briefly outlined in Sabine's "Loyalists." As to the +manner in which Peyton, if caught, would have died, it must be +remembered that in the American Revolution the rope served in many a +case which, occurring in Europe or in one of our later wars, would +have been disposed of with the bullet. Writing of General Charles Lee, +John Fiske says: "There is no doubt that Sir William Howe looked upon +him as a deserter, and was more than half inclined to hang him without +ceremony." Then, as now, a deserter in time of war was liable to death +if caught at any subsequent time, his case being worse than that of a +spy, who was liable to death only if caught before getting back to his +own lines. There was, by the way, much unceremonious hanging on the +"neutral ground." Not far from the Van Cortlandt mansion there still +stood, in Bolton's time, "a celebrated white oak, in the midst of a +pretty glade, called the Cowboy Oak," from the fact that many of the +Tory raiders had been suspended from its branches during the war of +Revolution. + + +NOTE 6. (Page 127.) + +I am not sure whether the saying, "The corpse of an enemy smells +sweet," attributed to Charles IX. of France, in allusion to Coligny, +is historical or was the invention of a romancer. It occurs in Dumas's +"La Reine Margot." + + +NOTE 7. (Page 136.) + +Mr. Valentine's unwillingness to lend aid was doubtless due to the +frequency of such incidents as one that had occurred to his neighbor, +Peter Post, in 1776. Post's estate occupied the site of the present +town of Hastings. He gave information to Colonel Sheldon regarding the +movements of some Hessians, and afterwards deceived the Hessians as to +the whereabouts of Sheldon's own cavalry. Thereby, Sheldon's troop was +enabled to surprise the Hessians, and defeat them in a short and +bloody conflict. The Hessians' comrades later caught Post, stripped +him, beat him to insensibility, and left him for dead. He recovered of +his injuries. His house, a small stone one, became a tavern after the +Revolution, and was a celebrated resort of cock-fighters and +hard-drinkers. Not far north of Hastings is Dobbs Ferry, which was +occupied by both armies alternately, during the Revolution. Further +north is Sunnyside, Irving's house, elaborated from the original +Wolfert's Roost, and beyond that are Tarrytown, where Andre was +stopped and taken in charge, and Sleepy Hollow. Enchanted ground, all +this, hallowed by history, legend, and romance. + + +NOTE 8. (Page 179.) + +The secret passage or passages of Philipse Manor-house have not been +neglected by writers of fiction, history, and magazine articles. The +passage does not now exist, but there are numerous traces of it. The +different writers do not agree in locating it. The author of an +interesting story for children, "A Loyal Little Maid," has it that the +passage was reached through an opening in the panelling of the +dining-room, this opening concealed by a tall clock. I think Marian +Harland says that a closet in one of the parlors or chambers connects +with the secret passage. Both these assumptions are wrong. Mr. R. P. +Getty has pointed out in the northwestern corner of the cellar what +seems to have once been the entrance to the passage. One authority +quotes a belief "that from the cellar there was a passage to a well +now covered by Woodworth Avenue," and that this was to afford access +to what may have been a storage vault. A man who was born in 1821 says +that, when a boy, he saw, near the house, a dry cistern, from the +bottom of which was an arched passage towards the Hudson, large enough +for a man six feet tall to pass through. Judge Atkins says that the +well was opposite the kitchen door, and had, at its western side, +about ten feet deep, a chamber in which butter was kept. One writer +locates an ice-house where Judge Atkins places this well, and says a +subterranean arched way led northward as far as the present Wells +Avenue. "The ice-house was formerly, it is said, a powder-magazine." +Many years ago, the coachman of Judge Woodworth used to say he had +"gone through an underground passage all the way from the manor-house +to the Hudson River." Judge Atkins has written interesting legends of +the manor-house, involving the secret passage and other features. + + +NOTE 9. (Page 259.) + +"That lonely highway now called Broadway." A block of houses and +another street now lie between that highway and the east front of the +manor-house. The building is closely hemmed in by the sordid signs of +progress. Ugly houses, in crowded blocks, cover all the great +surrounding space that once was thick forest, fair orchards, gardens, +fields, and pastoral rivulet. The Neperan or Saw Mill River flows, +sluggish and scummy, under streets and houses. A visit to the +manor-house, now, would spoil rather than improve one's impression of +what the place looked like in the old days. Yet the house itself +remains well preserved, for which all honor to the town of Yonkers. +There is in our spacious America so much room for the present and the +future, that a little ought to be kept for the past. It is well to be +reminded, by a landmark here and there, of our brave youth as a +people. A posterity, sure to value these landmarks more than this +money-grabbing age does, will reproach us with the destruction we have +already wrought. Worse still than the crime of obliterating all +human-made relics of the past, is the vandalism of nature herself +where nature is exceptionally beautiful. To rob millions of +beauty-lovers, yet to live, of the Palisades of the Hudson, would +bring upon us the amazement and execration of future centuries. This +earth is an entailed estate, that each generation is in honor bound to +hand down, undefaced, undiminished, to its successor. In order that a +close-clutched wallet or two may wax a little fatter, shall we bring +upon ourselves a cry of shame that would ring with increasing +bitterness through the ages,--shall we invite the execration merited +by such greed as could so outrage our fair earth, such stolid apathy +as could stand by and see it done? Shall an alien or two, as hard of +soul as the stone in which he traffics, mar the Hudson that Washington +patrolled, rob countless eyes, yet unopened, of a joy; countless +minds, yet to waken, of an inspiration; countless hearts, yet to beat, +of a thrill of pride in the soil of their inheriting? Shall some +future reader wonder why Irving, deeming it "an invaluable advantage +to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some grand and noble +object in nature," should have thanked God he was born on the banks of +the Hudson? I write this with the sound of the blowing up of Indian +Head still echoing in my ears, and knowing nothing done by Government +to protect the next fair Hudson headland from similar destruction. + + +NOTE 10. (Page 281.) + +It is probable that Colden served with his brigade when it fought in +the South in the last part of the war. He was afterwards lost at sea, +leaving no heir. He was of a family prominent in New York affairs, +both before the Revolution and afterwards, and which was intermarried +with other New York families of equal prominence, as may be seen in +the "New York Genealogical and Biographical Record," the "New England +Genealogical and Historical Register," and similar publications. It is +probable that Sabine means this Colden when he mentions a Captain +Colden, of the First Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers. That he was a +major, however, is certain, from the official British Army lists +published in Hugh Gaines's "Universal Register" for the years of the +Revolution. + +People curious about Harry Peyton's military record may consult +Saffel's "Lists of American Officers," Heitman's "Manual," and a large +work on "Virginia Genealogies," by H. E. Hayden, published at +Wilkes-barre. To the reader who demands a happy ending, it need be no +shock to learn that Peyton, having risen to the rank of major, was +killed at Charleston, S. C., May 12, 1780. For a love story, it is a +happy ending that occurs at the moment when the conquest and the +submission are mutual, complete, and demonstrated. A love to be +perfect, to have its sweetness unembittered, ought not to be subjected +to the wear and tear of prolonged fellowship. So subjected, it may +deepen and gain ultimate strength, but it will lose its intoxicating +novelty, and become associated with pain as well as with pleasure. We +may be sure that the love of Peyton and Elizabeth was to Harry a +sweetener of life on many a night encampment, many a hard ride, in the +campaign of 1779, and in the spring of 1780, and exalted him the +better to meet his death on that day when Charleston fell to the +British; and that to Elizabeth, while it receded into further memory, +it kept its full beauty during the half century she lived faithful to +it. Her sisters were married into the English nobility, gentry, and +military, but Elizabeth died in Bath, England, in March, 1828, +unmarried. Colonel Philipse had moved with his family to England when +the British quitted New York in 1783. Many other Tories did likewise. +Some went to England, but more to Canada, the greater part of which +was then a wilderness. Many of the Tory officers got commissions in +the English army. + +No Tory family did more for the King's cause in America, lost more, +or got more in redress, than the De Lancey family, which had been +foremost in the administration of royal government in the province +of New York. It had great holdings of property in New York City, +elsewhere on the island of Manhattan, and in various parts of +Westchester County, notably in Westchester Township, where De +Lancey's mills and a fine country mansion were a famous landmark +"where gentle Bronx clear winding flows." The founder of the +American family was a French Huguenot of noble descent. The family was +represented in the British army and navy before the Revolution. One +member of it, a young officer in the navy, at the breaking out of +the war, resigned his commission rather than serve against the +Colonies, but most of the other De Lancey men were differently +minded. Oliver De Lancey, a member of the provincial council, was +made a brigadier-general in the royal service, and raised three +battalions of loyalists, known as "De Lancey's Battalions." Of +these battalions, the Tory historian, Judge Jones, says: "Two served +in Georgia and the Carolinas from the time the British army landed in +Georgia until the final evacuation of Charleston." One of these, +during this period, was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen De +Lancey, the other by Colonel John Harris Cruger. The third battalion, +during the whole war, was employed solely in protecting the +wood-cutters upon Lloyd's Neck, Queens County, L. I. This General +De Lancey's son, Oliver De Lancey, Junior, was educated in Europe, +took service with the 17th Light Dragoons, was a captain when the +Revolution began, a major in 1778, a lieutenant-colonel in 1781, +and, on the death of Major Andre, adjutant-general of the British army +in America. Returning to England, he became deputy adjutant-general of +England; as a major-general, he was also colonel of the 17th Light +Dragoons; was subsequently barrack-master general of the British +Empire, lieutenant-general, and finally general. When he died he was +nearly at the head of the English army list. This branch of the +family became extinct when Sir William Heathcoate De Lancey, the +quartermaster-general of Wellington's army, was killed at Waterloo. + +The James De Lancey who commanded the Westchester Light Horse was a +nephew of the senior General Oliver De Lancey, and a cousin of the +Major Colden of this narrative. His troop was not "a battalion in the +brigade of his uncle," Bolton's statement that it was so being +incorrect; its operations were limited to Westchester County. It +raided and fought for the King untiringly, until it was almost +entirely killed off, at the end of the war, by the persistent efforts +of our troops to extirpate it. + +The members of this corps were called "Cowboys" because, in their duty +of procuring supplies for the British army, they made free with the +farmers' cattle. Like the other conspicuous Tories, this James De +Lancey was attainted by the new State Government, and his property was +confiscated. Local historians draw an effective picture of him +departing alone from his estate by the Bronx, turning for a last look, +from the back of his horse, at the fair mansion and broad lands that +were to be his no more, and riding away with a heavy heart. He went, +with many shipfuls of Tory emigrants, to Nova Scotia, and became a +member of the council of that colony. His uncle went to England and +died at his country house, Beverly, Yorkshire, in 1785. I allude to +the case of this family, because it was typical of that of a great +many families. The Tories of the American Revolution constitute a +subject that has yet to be made much of. They were the progenitors of +English-speaking Canada. + +The act of attainder that deprived the De Lanceys of their estates, +deprived Colonel Philipse of his. It was passed by the New York +legislature, October 22, 1779. The persons declared guilty of +"adherence to the enemies of the State" were attainted, their estates +real and personal confiscated, and themselves proscribed, the second +section of the act declaring that "each and every one of them who +shall at any time hereafter be found in any part of this State, shall +be, and are hereby, adjudged and declared guilty of felony, and shall +suffer death as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy." Acts +of similar import were passed in other States. Under this act, +Philipse Manor-house was forfeited to the State about a year after the +time of our narrative. The commissioners whose duty it was to dispose +of confiscated property sold the house and mills, in 1785, to +Cornelius P. Lowe. It underwent several transfers, but little change, +becoming at length the property of Lemuel Wells, who held it a long +time and, dying in 1842, left it to his nephew. The town of Yonkers +grew up around it, and on May 1, 1868, purchased it for municipal use. +The fewest possible alterations were made in it. These are mainly in +the north wing, the part added by the second lord of the manor in +1745. On the first floor, the partition between dining-room and +kitchen was removed, and the whole space made into a court-room. On +the second floor, the space formerly divided into five bedrooms was +transformed into a council-chamber, the garret floor overhead being +removed. The new city hall of Yonkers leaves the old manor-house less +necessary for public purposes. May the old parlors, where the besilked +and bepowdered gentry of the province used to dance the minuet before +the change of things, not be given over to baser uses than they have +already served. + +Allusion has been made, in different chapters of this narrative, to +the Hessians who daily patrolled the roads in the vicinity of the +manor-house. This duty often fell to Pruschank's yagers, the troop to +which belonged Captain Rowe, whose love story is thus told by Bolton: +"Captain Rowe appears to have been in the habit of making a daily tour +from Kingsbridge, round by Miles Square. He was on his last tour of +military duty, having already resigned his commission for the purpose +of marrying the accomplished Elizabeth Fowler, of Harlem, when, +passing with a company of light dragoons, he was suddenly fired upon +by three Americans of the water guard of Captain Pray's company, who +had ambuscaded themselves in the cedars. The captain fell from his +horse, mortally wounded. The yagers instantly made prisoners of the +undisciplined water guards, and a messenger was immediately despatched +to Mrs. Babcock, then living below, in the parsonage, for a vehicle to +remove the wounded officer. The use of her gig and horse was soon +obtained, and a neighbor, Anthony Archer, pressed to drive. In this +they conveyed the dying man to Colonel Van Cortlandt's. They appear to +have taken the route of Tippett's Valley, as the party stopped at +Frederick Post's to obtain a drink of water. In the meantime an +express had been forwarded to Miss Fowler, his affianced bride, to +hasten without delay to the side of her dying lover. On her arrival, +accompanied by her mother, the expiring soldier had just strength +enough left to articulate a few words, when he sank exhausted with the +effort." The room in which he died is in the well-known mansion in Van +Cortlandt Park. + +The incident of the horse, related in an early chapter, has a likeness +to an adventure that befell one Thomas Leggett early in the +Revolutionary war. He lived with his father on a farm near Morrisania, +then in Westchester County, and was proud in the possession of a fine +young mare. A party of British refugees took this animal, with other +property. They had gone two miles with it, when, from behind a stone +wall which they were passing, two Continental soldiers rose and fired +at them. The man with the mare was shot dead. The animal immediately +turned round and ran home, followed by the owner, who had dogged her +captors at a distance in the hope of recovering her. + + + + + SELECTIONS FROM + L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY'S + LIST OF NEW FICTION. + + +An Enemy to the King. + +From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire. By +ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS. Illustrated by H. De M. Young. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the +adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV., and +on the field with Henry of Navarre. + + +The Continental Dragoon. + +A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778. By ROBERT NEILSON +STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King." Illustrated by H. C. +Edwards. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and +around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the time +of the story was the central point of the so-called "neutral +territory" between the two armies. + + +Muriella; or, Le Selve. + +By OUIDA. Illustrated by M. B. Prendergast. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +This is the latest work from the pen of the brilliant author of "Under +Two Flags," "Moths," etc., etc. It is the story of the love and +sacrifice of a young peasant girl, told in the absorbing style +peculiar to the author. + + +The Road to Paris. + +By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS, author of "An Enemy to the King," "The +Continental Dragoon," etc. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. (In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +An historical romance, being an account of the life of an American +gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family early settled +in the colony of Pennsylvania. The scene shifts from the unsettled +forests of the then West to Philadelphia, New York, London, Paris, +and, in fact, wherever a love of adventure and a roving fancy can lead +a soldier of fortune. The story is written in Mr. Stephens's best +style, and is of absorbing interest. + + +Rose a Charlitte. + +An Acadien Romance. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe," +etc. Illustrated by H. De M. Young. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +In this novel, the scene of which is laid principally in the land of +Evangeline, Marshall Saunders has made a departure from the style of +her earlier successes. The historical and descriptive setting of the +novel is accurate, the plot is well conceived and executed, the +characters are drawn with a firm and delightful touch, and the +fortunes of the heroine, Rose a Charlitte, a descendant of an old +Acadien family, will be followed with eagerness by the author's host +of admirers. + + +Bobbie McDuff. + +By CLINTON ROSS, author of "The Scarlet Coat," "Zuleika," etc. +Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst. + +1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00= + +Clinton Ross is well known as one of the most promising of recent +American writers of fiction, and in the description of the adventures +of his latest hero, Bobbie McDuff, he has repeated his earlier +successes. Mr. Ross has made good use of the wealth of material at his +command. New York furnishes him the hero, sunny Italy a heroine, grim +Russia the villain of the story, while the requirements of the +exciting plot shift the scene from Paris to New York, and back again +to a remote, almost feudal villa on the southern coast of Italy. + + +In Kings' Houses. + +A Romance of the Reign of Queen Anne. By JULIA C. R. DORR, author of +"A Cathedral Pilgrimage," etc. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +Mrs. Dorr's poems and travel sketches have earned for her a distinct +place in American literature, and her romance, "In Kings' Houses," is +written with all the charm of her earlier works. The story deals +with one of the most romantic episodes in English history. Queen +Anne, the last of the reigning Stuarts, is described with a strong, +yet sympathetic touch, and the young Duke of Gloster, the "little +lady," and the hero of the tale, Robin Sandys, are delightful +characterizations. + + +Sons of Adversity. + +A Romance of Queen Elizabeth's Time. By L. COPE CONFORD, author of +"Captain Jacobus," etc. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +A tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when Protestant +England and Catholic Spain were struggling for naval supremacy. +Spanish conspiracies against the peace of good Queen Bess, a vivid +description of the raise of the Spanish siege of Leyden by the +combined Dutch and English forces, sea fights, the recovery of stolen +treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of unusual +strength. + + +The Count of Nideck. + +From the French of Erckman-Chatrian, translated and adapted by RALPH +BROWNING FISKE. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +A romance of the Black Forest, woven around the mysterious legend of +the Wehr Wolf. The plot has to do with the later German feudal times, +is brisk in action, and moves spiritedly from start to finish. Mr. +Fiske deserves a great deal of credit for the excellence of his work. +No more interesting romance has appeared recently. + + +The Making of a Saint. + +By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM. Illustrated by Gilbert James. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +"The Making of a Saint" is a romance of Mediaeval Italy, the scene +being laid in the 15th century. It relates the life of a young leader +of Free Companions who, at the close of one of the many petty Italian +wars, returns to his native city. There he becomes involved in its +politics, intrigues, and feuds, and finally joins an uprising of the +townspeople against their lord. None can resent the frankness and +apparent brutality of the scenes through which the hero and his +companions of both sexes are made to pass, and many will yield +ungrudging praise to the author's vital handling of the truth. In the +characters are mirrored the life of the Italy of their day. The book +will confirm Mr. Maugham's reputation as a strong and original +writer. + + +Omar the Tentmaker. + +A Romance of Old Persia. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. Illustrated. (In +press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +Mr. Dole's study of Persian literature and history admirably equips +him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the romance, and +the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of Omar Khayyam, +made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply interested in a tale based +on authentic facts in the career of the famous Persian poet. The three +chief characters are Omar Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk, the generous and +high-minded Vizier of the Tartar Sultan Malik Shah of Mero, and Hassan +ibu Sabbah, the ambitious and revengeful founder of the sect of the +Assassins. The scene is laid partly at Naishapur, in the Province of +Khorasan, which about the period of the First Crusade was at its acme +of civilization and refinement, and partly in the mountain fortress of +Alamut, south of the Caspian Sea, where the Ismailians under Hassan +established themselves towards the close of the 11th century. Human +nature is always the same, and the passions of love and ambition, of +religion and fanaticism, of friendship and jealousy, are admirably +contrasted in the fortunes of these three able and remarkable +characters as well as in those of the minor personages of the story. + + +Captain Fracasse. + +A new translation from the French of Gotier. Illustrated by Victor A. +Searles. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +This famous romance has been out of print for some time, and a new +translation is sure to appeal to its many admirers, who have never yet +had any edition worthy of the story. + + +The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore. + +A farcical novel. By HAL GODFREY. Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry. +(In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +A fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age who +are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth and its +blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which possesses the +value of setting backwards the hands of time. No more delightfully +fresh and original book has appeared since "Vice Versa" charmed an +amused world. It is well written, drawn to the life, and full of the +most enjoyable humor. + + +Midst the Wild Carpathians. + +By MAURUS JOKAI, author of "Black Diamonds," "The Lion of Janina," +etc. Authorized translation by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated. (In +press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +A thrilling, historical, Hungarian novel, in which the extraordinary +dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar writer have full +play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary it has never been +surpassed for fidelity and vividness. The translation is exceedingly +well done. + + +The Golden Dog. + +A Romance of Quebec. By WILLIAM KIRBY. New authorized edition. +Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy. + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time of +Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour, when the French colonies were making +their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest +jewels in the colonial diadem of France. + + +Bijli the Dancer. + +By JAMES BLYTHE PATTON. Illustrated by Horace Van Rinth. (In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +A novel of Modern India. The fortunes of the heroine, an Indian Naucht +girl, are told with a vigor, pathos, and a wealth of poetic sympathy +that makes the book admirable from first to last. + + +"To Arms!" + +Being Some Passages from the Early Life of Allan Oliphant, Chirurgeon, +Written by Himself, and now Set Forth for the First Time. By ANDREW +BALFOUR. Illustrated. (In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +A romance dealing with an interesting phase of Scottish and English +history, the Jacobite Insurrection of 1715, which will appeal strongly +to the great number of admirers of historical fiction. The story is +splendidly told, the magic circle which the author draws about the +reader compelling a complete forgetfulness of prosaic nineteenth +century life. + + +Mere Folly. + +A novel. By MARIA LOUISE POOLE, author of "In a Dike Shanty," etc. +Illustrated. (In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.25= + +An extremely well-written story of modern life. The interest centres +in the development of the character of the heroine, a New England +girl, whose high-strung temperament is in constant revolt against the +confining limitations of nineteenth century surroundings. The reader's +interest is held to the end, and the book will take high rank among +American psychological novels. + + +A Hypocritical Romance and other stories. + +By CAROLINE TICKNOR. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy. + +1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00= + +Miss Ticknor, well known as one of the most promising of the younger +school of American writers, has never done better work than in the +majority of these clever stories, written in a delightful comedy +vein. + + +Cross Trails. + +By VICTOR WAITE. Illustrated. (In press.) + +1 vol., library 12mo, cloth =$1.50= + +A Spanish-American novel of unusual interest, a brilliant, dashing, +and stirring story, teeming with humanity and life. Mr. Waite is to be +congratulated upon the strength with which he has drawn his +characters. + + +A Mad Madonna and other stories. + +By L. CLARKSON WHITELOCK, with eight half-tone illustrations. + +1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00= + +A half dozen remarkable psychological stories, delicate in color and +conception. Each of the six has a touch of the supernatural, a quick +suggestion, a vivid intensity, and a dreamy realism that is matchless +in its forceful execution. + + +On the Point. + +A Summer Idyl. By NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, author of "Not Angels Quite," +with dainty half-tone illustrations as chapter headings. + +1 vol., large 16mo, cloth =$1.00= + +A bright and clever story of a summer on the coast of Maine, fresh, +breezy, and readable from the first to the last page. The narrative +describes the summer outing of a Mr. Merrithew and his family. The +characters are all honest, pleasant people, whom we are glad to know. +We part from them with the same regret with which we leave a congenial +party of friends. + + +Cavalleria Rusticana; or, Under the Shadow of Etna. + +Translated from the Italian of Giovanni Verga, by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE. +Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry. + +1 vol., 16mo, cloth =$0.50= + +Giovanni Verga stands at present as unquestionably the most prominent +of the Italian novelists. His supremacy in the domain of the short +story and in the wider range of the romance is recognized both at home +and abroad. The present volume contains a selection from the most +dramatic and characteristic of his Sicilian tales. Verga is himself a +native of Sicily, and his knowledge of that wonderful country, with +its poetic and yet superstitious peasantry, is absolute. Such pathos, +humor, variety, and dramatic quality are rarely met in a single +volume. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON*** + + +******* This file should be named 30589.txt or 30589.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/5/8/30589 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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