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.



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.



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!"