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A Song of a Single Note: A Love Story

by Amelia E. Barr · English · Gutenberg #35358 · 513,882 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Song of a Single Note: A Love Story

Author: Amelia E. Barr


        
Release date: February 22, 2011 [eBook #35358]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35358

Credits: E-text prepared by Darleen Dove, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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[Illustration: THE SONG OF A SINGLE NOTE.]

A SONG OF A SINGLE NOTE

A Love Story

by

AMELIA E. BARR

Author of "The Bow of Orange Ribbon," "The Maid
of Maiden Lane," etc.







[Illustration: Decoration]

New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1902

Copyright, 1902,
By Dodd, Mead & Company.

First Edition published October, 1902.

The Burr Printing House,
New York.




                                   TO
                               MY FRIEND,

                     DR. STEPHEN DECATUR HARRISON:

          An American who loves his country "Right or Wrong,"
                And who always believes she is "Right,"

                               THIS NOVEL
                          IS WITH MUCH ESTEEM
                               DEDICATED.




Contents

    CHAPTER                                                     PAGE

       I. RED OR BLUE RIBBONS   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .      1

      II. THE FAIR AND THE BRAVE    .   .   .   .   .   .   .     21

     III. LIFE IN THE CAPTIVE CITY  .   .   .   .   .   .   .     50

      IV. A SONG OF A SINGLE NOTE   .   .   .   .   .   .   .     75

       V. LOVE'S SWEET DREAM    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    103

      VI. THE INTERCEPTED MESSAGE   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    134

     VII. THE PRICE OF HARRY'S LIFE     .   .   .   .   .   .    160

    VIII. THE HELP OF JACOB COHEN   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    185

      IX. THE TURN OF THE TIDE  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    211

       X. MARIA GOES TO LONDON  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    253

      XI. THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE  .   .   .   .   .   .   .    283

     XII. LOVE AND VICTORY  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .    306




List of Illustrations

                                                                PAGE

    THE SONG OF A SINGLE NOTE--_Frontispiece_.

    MARIA LAY DRESSED UPON HER BED                      _facing_ 100

    THE DRUMMERS AND FIFERS IN FRONT DID NOT
      SEE HIM                                           _facing_ 208

    HE CAUSED THE SMALL BOAT TO PUT HIM ON
      SHORE                                             _facing_ 320




PROLOGUE.


                "Love, its flutes will still be stringing,
                    Lovers still will sigh and kneel;
                 Freedom sets her trumpets ringing
                    To the clash of smiting steel."
                 So I weave of love and glory,
                    Homely toil, and martial show,
                 Fair romance from the grand story
                    Lived a century ago.




A Song of a Single Note


CHAPTER I.

RED OR BLUE RIBBONS.


It was the fourth year of the captivity of New York, and the beleaguered
city, in spite of military pomp and display, could not hide the
desolations incident to her warlike occupation. The beautiful trees and
groves which once shaded her streets and adorned her suburbs had been
cut down by the army sappers; her gardens and lawns upturned for
entrenchments and indented by artillery wheels; and some of the best
parts of the city blackened and mutilated by fire. Her churches had been
turned into prisons and hospitals, and were centres of indescribable
suffering and poisonous infection; while over the burnt district there
had sprung up a town of tents inhabited by criminals and by miserable
wretches whom starvation and despair had turned into highwaymen.

But these conditions were the work of man. Nature still lavished upon
the captive city a glory of sunshine and blue skies, and winds, full of
the freshness and sparkle of the great sea, blew through all her sickly
streets. Wherever the gardens had not been destroyed, there was the
scent of mays and laburnums, and the indescribable beauty of apple
blossoms on the first day of their birth.

In front of one of these fortunate enclosures, belonging to a little
house on Queen Street, an old gentleman was standing, looking wistfully
in at a trellis of small red roses. He turned away with a sigh as a man
dressed like a sailor touched him on the arm, saying, as he did so:

"Well, then, Elder, a good afternoon to you? I am just from Boston, and
I have brought you a letter from your son."

"You, De Vries! I didna look for you just yet."

"You know how it is. I am a man of experience, and I had a good voyage
both ways."

"And Robertson and Elliot and Ludlow will have a good percentage on your
cargoes?"

"That is the way of business. It is as it ought to be. I do not defraud
or condemn the Government. It is the young--who have no knowledge or
experience--who do such things."

"What do you bring in, Captain?"

"Some provisions of all kinds; and I shall take back some merchandise of
all kinds--for them who can not get it in any other way."

"To Boston again?"

"This time only to the Connecticut coast. The goods will easily go
further. The trade is great. What then? I must waste no time; I have to
live by my business."

"And I have nae doubt you think the 'business' on the King's service."

"Every respectable man is of that way of thinking. We carry no military
stores. I am very precise about that. It is one of my principles. And
what, then, would the merchants of New York do without this opening for
trade? They would be ruined; and there would also be starvation. They
who say different are fools; we give help and comfort to the royalists,
and we distress the rebels, for we take from them all their ready money.
If the trade was not 'on the King's service,' the Governor would not be
in it."

"Even so! That circumstance shows it is not far out o' the way."

"'Out of the way!' What the deuce, Elder! I am a deacon in the Middle
Kirk. My respectability and honesty cannot be concealed: any one can see
them. Batavius de Vries would not steal a groschen; no, nor half of
one!"

"Easy, easy, Captain! Why should you steal? It is far mair lucrative to
cheat than to steal; and the first is in the way o' business--as you
were remarking. But this or that, my good thanks for the letter you have
brought me; and is there anything I can do in return for your civility?"

"If you will kindly call at my dwelling and tell Madame I am arrived
here safe and sound; that would be a great satisfaction for us both."

"I pass your door, Captain, and I will tell Madame the good news. Nae
doubt she will gie me a smile for it."

Then De Vries turned away with some remark about business, and Elder
Semple stood still a moment, fingering the bulky letter which had been
given him; and, as he did so, wondering what he should do, for "ill news
comes natural these days," he thought, "and maybe I had better read it
through, before I speak a word to Janet anent it. I'll step into the
King's Arms and see what Alexander has to say."

When he entered the coffee-room he saw his son, Mr. Neil Semple, and
Governor Robertson sitting at a table with some papers between them.
Neil smiled gravely, and moved a chair into place for his father, and
the Governor said pleasantly:

"How are you, Elder? It is a long time since I saw you."

"I am as well as can be expected, considering a' things, Governor; but
what for will I be 'Elder,' when I have nae kirk to serve?"

"Is that my fault, Elder?"

"You might have spoke a word for the reopening of the kirk, and the
return o' Dr. Rogers. Your affirmative would have gone a long way toward
it. And the loyal Calvinists o' New York hae been too long kirkless.
What for didn't you speak the word, Governor? What for?"

"Indeed, Elder, you know yourself that Dr. Rogers is a proved traitor.
As a fundamental rule, a Calvinist is a democrat--exceptions, of
course--like yourself and your worthy sons, but as a fundamental,
natural democrats. There is the Church of England open for all
services."

"Aye; and there is the Kirk o' Scotland closed for all services. What
has the Kirk done against King George?"

"Must I remind you, Elder, that her ministers, almost without exception,
are against the King? Did not this very Dr. Rogers pray in the pulpit
for the success of the rebels? As for the Church of Scotland, she has
been troubling kings, and encouraging rebellion ever since there was a
Church of Scotland. What for? No reason at all, that I can see."

"Yes, she had reason enough. Scotsmen read their Bibles, and they
thought it worth while to fight for the right to do so. There's your
colleague, Judge Ludlow; his great-grandfather fought with Oliver
Cromwell in England in a quarrel of the same kind. He should have said a
word for us."

"Elder, it is undeniable that Dissent and Calvinism are opposed to
royalty."

"The Kirk is not subject to Caesar; she is a law unto hersel'; and the
Methodists are dissenters, yet their chapel is open."

"The loyalty of John Wesley is beyond impeachment. He is a friend of the
King."

"Yet his brother Charles was imprisoned for praying for the Pretender,
and nae doubt at all, he himsel' would gladly have followed Prince
Charlie."

"As the Semples and Gordons _did do_."

"To their everlasting glory and honor! God bless them!"

"Will your Excellency please to sign these papers?" interrupted Neil;
and his calm ignoring of the brewing quarrel put a stop to it. The
papers were signed, and the Governor rising, said, as he offered his
hand to the Elder:

"Our sufferings and deprivations are unavoidable, sir. Is there any use
in quarreling with the wheel that splashes us?"

"There is nane; yet, if men have grievances----"

"Grievances! That is a word that always pleases, and always cheats.
There are no grievances between you and me, I hope."

"None to breed ill-will. Human nature is fallible, but as a rule, Tory
doesna eat Tory."

"And as for the Whigs, Elder, you know the old fable of the wolf and the
lamb. Judging from that past event, Tory and Whig may soon make an
eternal peace."

He went out well pleased at the implication, and Neil, after a few
moments' silence, said, "I am going to register these documents, sir, or
I would walk home with you."

"Much obligated to you, Neil, but I can tak' very good care o' mysel'.
And I have a letter from your brother Alexander. I must see what news he
sends, before I tell your mother."

He was opening his letter as he spoke, carefully cutting round the large
red seal, which bore the arms of the Semples, and which, therefore, he
would have thought it a kind of sacrilege to mutilate. A cup of coffee
had been brought to him, and he took one drink of it, and then no more;
for everything was quickly forgotten or ignored in the intelligence he
was receiving. That it was unexpected and astonishing was evident from
his air of perplexity and from the emotion which quite unconsciously
found relief in his constant ejaculation, _"Most extraordinary! Most
extraordinary!"_

Finally, he folded up the epistle, threw a shilling on the table for his
entertainment, and with more speed than was usual, took the road to the
west of Broadway. He had been remarkable in days past for his erect
carriage, but he walked now with his head bent and his eyes fixed on the
ground. There was so much that he did not want to see, though he was
naturally the most curious and observant of mortals. Fifteen minutes'
walk brought him to the river side, and anon to a large house separated
from his own by a meadow. There were horses tied to the fence and horses
tethered in the garden; and in a summer-house under a huge linden tree,
a party of soldiers drinking and playing dominoes. The front door was
partly open, and a piece of faded red ribbon was nailed on its lintel.
Semple knocked loudly with his walking-stick, and immediately a stout,
rosy woman came toward him, wiping her hands on a clean towel as she did
so.

"Well, then, Elder!" she cried, "you are a good sight! What is the
matter, that you never come once to see us, this long time?"

"I come now to bring you good news Joanna--Madame, I should say."

"No, no! I make not so much ceremony. When you say 'Joanna' I think of
the good days, before everybody was unfriends with each other."

"Well, then, Joanna, your husband is back again; as he says, safe and
sound, and I promised him to let you know as I passed."

"But come in once, Elder--come in!"

"Some day--some day soon. I am in haste at this time--and you have much
company, I see." He spoke with evident disapproval, and Joanna was at
once on the defensive.

"I know not how to alter that. A good wife must do some little thing
these hard times; for what is to come after them, who knows--and there
are many boys and girls--but I am not discontented; I like to look at
the bright side, and that is right, is it not?"

Semple had already turned away, and he only struck his cane on the
flagged walk in answer. For while Joanna was speaking he had casually
noticed the fluttering red ribbon above her head; and it had brought
from the past a memory, unbidden and unexpected, which filled his eyes
with the thin, cold tears of age, and made his heart tremble with a fear
he would not allow himself to entertain.

He was so troubled that he had to consciously gather his forces together
before he entered his own dwelling. It, at least, kept visible state and
order; the garden, perhaps, showed less variety and wealth of flowers;
but the quiet dignity of its handsomely furnished rooms was intact. In
their usual parlor, which was at the back of the house, he found his
wife. "You are late to-day, Alexander," she said pleasantly; "I was just
waiting till I heard your footstep. Now I can make the tea."

"I'll be glad o' a cup, Janet. I'm fairly tired, my dearie."

"What kept you so far ahint your ordinar time? I thought it long waiting
for you."

"Twa or three things kept me, that I am not accountable for. I was on
the way hame, when Batavius De Vries spoke to me."

"He's back again, is he? Few words would do between you and him."

"He brought me a letter from our lad in Boston; and I thought I would go
into the King's Arms and read it."

"You might have come hame."

"I might; but I thought if there was any bad news folded in the paper, I
would just leave it outside our hame."

"There is naething wrang, then?"

"It is an astonishment--the lad has sold all he had and gone to
Scotland. When he can find a small estate that suits him, he thinks o'
buying it, and becoming 'Semple o' that Ilk.' Alexander aye had a
hankering after land."

"He has the siller, I suppose; there is no land given awa in Scotland."

"Alexander wasn't born yesterday. He has been sending siller to England
ever since the first whisper o' these troubles. Ten years ago, he told
me the Stamp Act riots spelt Revolution and maybe Independence; and that
in such case the best we could hope for would be a dozen or mair states,
each with its ain rights and privileges and government; and a constant
war between them. He is a far-seeing lad, is Alexander."

"I think little o' his far sight. There are others who see further and
clearer: petty states and constant war! Na, na! _It's not so written."_

"Perhaps he is right, Janet."

"Perhaps is a wide word, Alexander. Perhaps he is wrang. Has he sailed
yet? And pray, what is to become of the little Maria?"

"He sailed a week since--and Maria is coming to us."

"Coming to us! And what will we do wi' the lassie?"

"We'll just hae to love and comfort her. In a way she has neither
father nor mother--the one being in the grave and the other beyond seas.
She may be a pleasure to our auld age; when she was here last she was a
bonnie, lovesome little creature."

"That is mair than eight years ago, and she was eight years old then;
she'll be sixteen and a half, or, perhaps, nearer seventeen now--you ken
weel what to expect from lassies o' that indiscreet age; or, if you
don't, you ought to."

"I know she is our ain grandbairn and that we be to give her love and
all that love calls for. She was the very image o' yoursel' Janet, and
her father was much set up o'er the extraordinar likeness."

"I thought she favored you, Alexander."

"A little--a little, perhaps--but not enough to spoil her. If she has
kept the Gordon beauty, she will be a' the mair welcome to me. I have
aye had a strong prejudice in its favor;" and he leaned forward and took
Madame's small brown hand, and then there was a look and a smile between
the old lovers that made all words impotent and unnecessary.

Such pauses are embarrassing; the lealest hearts must come back quickly
to ordinary life, and as the Elder passed his cup for more tea, Madame
asked: "What way is the lassie coming? By land or water?"

"She is coming by land, with John Bradley and his daughter."

"How's that?"

"Madame Charlton's school had to be closed, and Agnes Bradley was one of
the scholars. Her father has gone to Boston to bring her hame, and
Maria being her friend and schoolmate, Bradley promised Alexander to
see her safe in our home and care. Doubtless, he is well able to keep
his word. If the Governor and the Commander-in-Chief can do ought to
mak' travel safe, John Bradley will hae their assistance; but I'm vexed
to be put under an obligation to him. I would rather have sent Neil, or
even gane mysel'."

"What ails you at John Bradley? He wears the red ribbon on his breast,
and it blaws o'er his shop door, and he is thick as thack with a' the
dignities--civil and military."

"I don't like him, and I don't like his daughter being friends with my
granddaughter."

"He serves our turn now, and once is nae custom."

"Let alone the fact that girls' friendships are naething but fine words
and sugar candy. I shall put a stop to this one at the very outset."

"You'll do what, gudeman?"

"Put my commands on Maria. I shall tell her that beyond yea and nay, and
a fine day, or the like o' that, she is to have no intercourse wi' John
Bradley's daughter."

"You'll have revolution inside the house, as weel as outside. Let the
girls alane. Some young men will come between them and do your business
for you. You have managed your lads pretty well--wi' my help--but two
schoolgirls in love wi' one anither! they will be aboon your thumb--ane
o' them may keep you busy."

"I shall lay my commands on Maria."

"And if Maria tak's after the Gordons, she'll be far mair ready to give
commands than to tak' them. Let be till she gets here. When did she
leave Boston?"

"Mair than a week ago, but Sunday intromits, and Bradley, being what
they call a local preacher would hae to exploit his new sermon and hold
a class meeting or a love feast; forbye, he wouldna neglect ony bit o'
business that came his way on the road. I shouldn't wonder if they were
at Stamford last Sunday, and if so, they would be maist likely at East
Chester to-night. They might be here to-morrow. I'll ask Neil to ride as
far as the Halfway House; he will either find, or hear tell o' them
there."

"What for should Neil tak' that trouble? You ken, as weel as I do, that
if Bradley promised Maria's father to deliver her into your hand, at
your ain house, he would do no other way. Say you were from hame, he
would just keep the lassie till he could keep his promise. He is a very
Pharisee anent such sma' matters. If you have finished your tea,
gudeman, I will get the dishes put by."

They both rose at these words, Madame pulled a bell rope made of a band
of embroidery, and a girl brought her a basin of hot water and two clean
towels. Semple lit his long, clay pipe and went into the garden to see
how the early peas were coming on, and to meditate on the events the day
had brought to him. Madame also had her meditations, as she carefully
washed the beautiful Derby china, and the two or three Apostle
teaspoons, and put them away in the glass cupboard that was raised in
one corner of the room. Her thoughts were complex, woven of love and
hope and fear and regret. The advent of her granddaughter was not an
unmixed delight; she was past sixty, not in perfect health, and she
feared the care and guiding of a girl of scarce seventeen years old.

"Just the maist unreasonable time of any woman's life," she sighed. "At
that age, they are sure they know a' things, and can judge a' things;
and to doubt it is rank tyranny, and they are in a blaze at a word, for
they have every feeling at fever heat. A body might as well try to
reason wi' a baby or a bull, for they'll either cry or rage, till you
give in to them. However, Maria has a deal o' Gordon in her, and they
are sensible bodies--in the main. I'll even do as the auld song advises:

              "Bide me yet, and bide me yet,
               For I know not what will betide me yet."

When the room was in order, she threw a shawl round her and went to her
husband. "I hae come to bring you inside, Elder," she said, "the night
air is chilly and damp yet, and you arena growing younger."

"I walked down as far as the river bank, Janet," he answered, "and I see
the boat is rocking at her pier. Neil should look after her."

"Neil is looking after another kind of a boat at present. I hope he will
have as much sense as the rats, and leave a sinking ship in good time to
save himsel'."

"Janet, you should be feared to say such like words! They are fairly
wicked--and they gie me a sair heart."

"Oh, forgive me, Alexander! My thoughts will fly to my lips. I forget! I
forget! I hae a sair heart, too"--and they went silently into the house
with this shadow between them until Janet said:

"Let me help you off wi' your coat, dearie. Your soft, warm wrap is here
waiting for you," and against her gentle words and touch he had no
armor. His offense melted away, he let her help him to remove his heavy
satin-lined coat, with its long stiffened skirts, and fold round his
spare form the damasse wrap with its warm lining of flannel. Then, with
a sigh of relief he sat down, loosened his neckband, handed Madame his
laces, and called for a fresh pipe.

In the meantime Madame hung the coat carefully over a chair, and in
flecking off a little dust from its richly trimmed lapel, she tossed
aside with an unconscious contempt, the bit of scarlet ribbon at the
buttonhole. "You are requiring a new ribbon, Alexander," she said. "If
you must wear your colors on your auld breast, I would, at least, hae
them fresh."

He either ignored, or did not choose to notice the spirit of her words;
he took them at their face value, and answered: "You are right, Janet.
I'll buy a half yard in the morning. I tell you, that one bit o' rusty,
draggled red ribbon gave me a heart-ache this afternoon."

Madame did not make the expected inquiry, and after a glance into her
face he continued: "It was at the Van Heemskirk's house. I was talking
to Joanna, and I saw it o'er the door, and remembered the night my
friend Joris nailed up the blue ribbon which Batavius has taken down. I
could see him standing there, with his large face smiling and shining,
and his great arms reaching upward, and I could hear the stroke o' the
hammer that seemed to keep time to his words: '_Alexander myn jougen!_'
he said, 'for Freedom the color is always blue. Over my house door let
it blow; yes, then, over my grave also, if God's will it be.' And I
answered him, 'you are a fool, Joris, and you know not what you are
saying or doing, and God help you when you do come to your senses.' Then
he turned round with the hammer in his hand and looked at me--I shall
never forget that look--and said 'a little piece of blue ribbon,
Alexander, but for a man's life and liberty it stands, for dead already
is that man who is not free.' Then he took me into the garden, and as we
walked he could talk of naething else, 'men do not need in their coffins
to lie stark,' he said, 'they may without that, be dead; walking about
this city are many dead men.'"

"Joris Van Heemskirk is a good man. Wherever he is, I ken well, he is
God's man," said Janet, "doing his duty simply and cheerfully."

"As he sees duty, Janet; I am sure o' that. And as he talked he kept
touching the ribbon in his waistcoat, as if it was a sacred thing, and
when I said something o' the kind, he answered me out o' the Holy Book,
and bid me notice God himself had chosen blue and told Israel to wear it
on the fringes o' their garments as a reminder o' their deliverance by
Him. Then I couldna help speaking o' the Scotch Covenanters wearing the
blue ribbon, and he followed wi' the Dutch Protestors, and I was able
to cap the noble army wi' the English Puritans fighting under Cromwell
for civil and religious liberty."

"And gudeman!" cried Janet, all in a tremble of enthusiasm, "General
Washington is at this very time wearing a broad blue ribbon across his
breast;" and there was such a light in her eyes, and such pride in her
voice, the Elder could not say the words that were on his tongue; he
magnanimously passed by her remark and returned to his friend, Joris Van
Heemskirk. "Blue or red," he continued, "we had a wonderfu' hour, and
when we came to part that night we had no need to take each other's
hands; we had been walking hand-in-hand together like twa laddies, and
we did not know it."

"You'll have many a happy day with your friend yet, gudeman; Joris Van
Heemskirk will come hame again."

"He will hae a sair heart when he sees his hame, specially his garden."

"He will hae something in his heart to salve all losses and all wrongs;
but I wonder Joanna doesna take better care o' her father's place."

"She canna work miracles. I thought when I got her there as tenant o'
the King, she would keep a' things as they were left; but Batavius has
six or eight soldiers boarding there--low fellows, non-commissioned
officers and the like o' them--and the beautiful house is naething but
barricks in their sight; and as for the garden, what do they care for
boxwood and roses? They dinna see a thing beyond their victuals, and
liquor, and the cards and dominoes in their hands. Joanna has mair than
she can manage."

"Didn't Batavius sell his house on the East river?"

"Of course he did--to the Government--made a good thing of it; then he
got into his father-in-law's house as a tenant of the Government. I
don't think he ever intends to move out of it. When the war is over he
will buy it for a trifle, as confiscated property."

"He'll do naething o' the kind! He'll never, never, never buy it. You
may tak' my solemn word for that, Alexander Semple."

"How do you ken so much, Janet?"

"The things we ken best, are the things we were never told. I will not
die till I have seen Joris Van Heemskirk smoking his pipe with you on
his ain hearth, and in his ain summer-house. He can paint some new
mottoes o'er it then."

She was on the verge of crying, but she spoke with an irresistible
faith, and in spite of his stubborn loyalty to King George, Semple could
not put away the conviction that his wife's words were true. They had
all the force of an intuition. He felt that the conversation could not
be continued with Joris Van Heemskirk as its subject, and he said, "I
wonder what is keeping Neil? He told me he would be hame early
to-night."

"Then you saw him to-day?"

"He was in the King's Arms, when I went there to read my letter--he and
Governor Robertson--and I had a few words wi' the Governor anent Dr.
Rogers and the reopening of our kirk."

"You did well and right to speak to them. It is a sin and a shame in a
Christian country to be kept out o' Sabbath ordinances."

"He told me we had the Church o' England to go to."

"Aye; and we hae the King o' England to serve."

"Here comes Neil, and I am glad o' it. Somehow, he makes things mair
bearable."

The young man entered with a grave cheerfulness; he bowed to his father,
kissed his mother, and then drew a chair to the cold hearth. In a few
minutes he rang the bell, and when it was answered, bid the negro bring
hot coals and kindle the fire.

"Neil, my dear lad," said the Elder, "are you remembering that wood is
nearly ungetable--ten pounds or mair a cord? I hae but little left. I'm
feared it won't see the war out."

"If wood is getable at any price, I am not willing to see mother and you
shivering. Burn your wood as you need it, and trust for the future."

"I hae told your father the same thing often, Neil; careful, of course,
we must be, but sparing is not caring. There was once a wife who always
took what she wanted, and she always had enough." The fire blazed
merrily, and Neil smiled, and the Elder stretched out his thin legs to
the heat, and the whole feeling of the room was changed. Then Madame
said:

"Neil, your brother Alexander has gane to Scotland."

"I expected him to take that step."

"And he is sending little Maria to us, until he gets a home for her."

"I should not think she will be much in the way, mother. She is only a
child."

"She is nearly seventeen years old. She won't be much in my way; it is
you that will hae to take her out--to military balls and the like."

"Nonsense! I can't have a child trailing after me in such places."

"Vera likely you will trail after her. You will be better doing that
than after some o' the ladies o' Clinton's court."

"I can tell you, Neil," said Neil's father, "that it is a vera pleasant
sensation, to hae a bonnie lassie on your arm wha is, in a manner, your
ain. I ken naething in the world that gives a man such a superior
feeling."

Neil looked at the speaker with a curious admiration. He could not help
envying the old man who had yet an enthusiasm about lovely women.

"I fancy, sir," he answered, "that the women of your youth were a
superior creation to those of the present day. I cannot imagine myself
with any woman whose society would give me that sensation."

"Women are always the same, Neil--yesterday, to-day, and forever. What
they are now, they were in Abraham's time, and they will be when time
shall be nae langer. Is not that so, mother?"

"Maybe; but you'll tak' notice, they hae suited a' kinds o' men, in a'
countries and in a' ages. I dare say our little Maria will hae her
lovers as well as the lave o' them, and her uncle Neil will be to keep
an eye on them. But I'm weary and sleepy, and if you men are going to
talk the fire out I'll awa' to my room and my bed."

"I have something to say to father," answered Neil, "about the
Government, and so----"

"Oh, the Government!" cried Madame, as she stood with her lighted candle
in her hand at the open door; "dinna call it a government, Neil; call it
a blunderment, or a plunderment, if you like, but the other name is out
o' all befitting."

"Mother, wait a moment," said Neil. "You were saying that Maria would
want to be taken to dances; I got an invitation to-day. What do you say
to this for an introduction?" As he spoke he took out of his pocket a
gilt-edged note tied with transverse bands of gold braid and narrow red
ribbon. Madame watched him impatiently as he carefully and deliberately
untied the bows, and his air of reverential regard put her in a little
temper.

"Cut the strings and be done wi' it, Neil," she said crossly. "There is
nae invite in the world worth such a to-do as you are making. And dinna
forget, my lad, that you once nearly threw your life awa' for a bit o'
orange ribbon! Maybe the red is just as dangerous."

Then Neil took the red ribbon between his finger and thumb, and dropping
it into the fire looked at his mother with the denial in his face. "It
is from Mrs. Percival," he said; and she nodded her understanding, but
could not help giving him a last word ere she closed the door:

"If you hae a fancy for ribbons, Neil, tak' my advice, and get a blue
one; a' the good men in the country are wearing blue."




CHAPTER II.

THE FAIR AND THE BRAVE.


At breakfast next morning the conversation turned naturally upon the
arrival of Maria Semple. The Elder showed far the most enthusiasm
concerning it. He wondered, and calculated, and supposed, till he felt
he had become tiresome and exhausted sympathy, and then he subsided into
that painful attitude of disappointment and resignation, which is, alas,
too often the experience of the aged? His companions were not in
sympathy with him. Madame was telling herself she must not expect too
much. Once she had set her heart upon a beautiful girl who was to become
Neil's wife, and her love had been torn up by the roots: "maist women
carry a cup of sorrow for some one to drink," she thought, "and I'm
feared for them." As for Neil, he felt sure the girl was going to be a
tie and a bore, and he considered his brother exceedingly selfish in
throwing the care of his daughter upon his aged parents.

It was not a pleasant meal, but in good hearts depression and doubt find
no abiding place. When Neil had gone to his affairs, the Elder looked at
his wife, and she gave him his pipe with a smile, and talked to him
about Maria as she put away her china. And she had hardly turned the key
of the glass closet, when the knocker of the front door fell twice--two
strokes, clear, separate, distinct. The Elder rose quickly and with much
excitement. "That is Bradley's knock," he said; "I never heard it
before, but it is just the way he would call any one."

He was going out of the room as he spoke, and Madame joined him. When
they entered the hall the front door was open, and a short, stout man
was standing on the threshold, holding a young girl by the hand. He
delivered her to the Elder very much as he would have delivered a
valuable package intrusted to his care, and then, as they stood a few
moments in conversation, Maria darted forward, and with a little cry of
joy nestled her head on her grandmother's breast. The confiding love of
the action was irresistible. "You darling!" whispered the old lady with
a kiss; "let me look at you!" And she put her at arm's length, and gazed
at the pretty, dark face with its fine color, and fine eyes, charmingly
set off by the scarlet hood of her traveling cloak.

"What do you think o' your granddaughter, Elder?" she asked, when he
joined them, and her voice was trembling with love and pride.

"I think she is yoursel' o'er again; the vera same bonnie Janet Gordon I
woo'd and loved in Strathallen nearly fifty years syne. Come and gie me
twenty kisses, bairnie. You are a vera cordial o' gladness to our
hearts."

Madame had swithered in her own mind before the arrival of Maria about
the room she was to occupy--the little one in the wing, furnished in
rush and checked blue and white linen; or the fine guest room over the
best parlor. A few moments with her grandchild had decided her. "She
shall hae the best we have," she concluded. "What for would I gie it to
my cousin Gordon's wife, and lock my ain flesh and blood out o' it?" So
she took Maria to her best guest chamber, and when the girl stood in the
center of it and looked round with an exclamation of delight, she was
well rewarded.

"This is the finest room I ever saw," said Maria. "I love splendid
rooms, and mahogany makes any place handsome. And the looking glasses! O
grandmother, I can see myself from top to toe!" and she flung aside her
cloak, and surveyed her little figure in its brown camblet dress and
long white stomacher, with great satisfaction.

"And where are your clothes, Maria?" asked Madame.

"I brought a small trunk with me, and Mr. Bradley will send it here this
morning; the rest of my trunks were sent with Captain De Vries. I dare
say they will be here soon."

"They are here already, De Vries arrived yesterday, but the rest o' your
trunks, how many more have you, lassie?"

"Three large, and one little one. Father told me I was to get
everything I wanted, and I wanted so many things. I got them all,
grandmother--beautiful dresses, and mantillas, and pelerines; and dozens
of pretty underwear. I have had four women sewing for me ever since last
Christmas."

"But the expense o' it, Maria!"

"Mrs. Charlton said I had simply received the proper outfit for a young
lady entering society."

"But whatever did your father say?"

"He whistled very softly. There are many ways of whistling, grandmother,
and my father's whistle was his form of saying he was astonished."

"I hae no doubt he was astonished."

"I had to have summer and winter dresses, and ball dresses, and home
dresses, and street dresses; and all the little things which Mrs.
Charlton says are the great things. Father is very generous to me, and
he has ordered Lambert and Co. to send me thirty pounds every month. He
told me that food and wood and every necessity of life was very dear in
New York, and that if I was a good girl I would do my full share in
bearing the burden of life."

This was her pretty way of making it understood that she was to pay
liberally for her board, and then, with a kiss, she added, "let us go
downstairs. I want to see all the house, grandmother. It is like home,
and I have had so little home. All my life nearly has been spent at
school. Now I am come home."

They went down hand in hand, and found the Elder walking about in an
excited manner. "I think I shall bide awa' from business to-day," he
said; "I dinna feel like it. It isna every day a man gets a
granddaughter."

_"Tuts!_ Nonsense, Alexander! Go your ways to the store, then you can
talk to your acquaintance o' your good fortune. Maria and I will hae
boxes to unpack, and clothes to put away; and you might as weel call at
De Vries, and tell him to get Miss Semple's trunks here without
sauntering about them. Batavius is a slow creature. And Neil must hae
the news also, so just be going as quick as you can, Alexander."

He was disappointed; he had hoped that Maria would beg him to stay at
home, but he put on his long coat with affected cheerfulness, and with
many little delays finally took the road. Then the two women went
through the house together, and by that time Bradley had sent the small
trunk, and they unpacked it, and talked about the goods, and about a
variety of subjects that sprang naturally from the occupation.

All at once Madame remembered to ask Maria where she had spent the
previous night, and the girl answered, "I slept at the Bradley's. It was
quite twilight when we reached their house, and Mr. Bradley said this
road was beset by thieves and bad people after dark, and he also thought
you retired early and would not care to be disturbed."

"Vera considerate o' Mr. Bradley, I am sure; perhaps mair so than
necessary. Maria, my dear, I hope you are not very friendly wi' his
daughter."

"Not friendly with Agnes Bradley! Why, grandmother, I could not be happy
without her! She has been my good angel for three years. When she came
to Mrs. Charlton's I had no friends, for I had such a bad temper the
girls called me 'Spitfire' and 'Vixen' and such names, and I was proud
of it. Agnes has made me gentle and wishful to do right. Agnes is as
nearly an angel as a woman can be."

"Fair nonsense, Maria! And I never was fond o' angelic women, they dinna
belong to this world; and your grandfather dislikes John Bradley, he
will not allow any friendship between you and Agnes Bradley. That is
sure and certain."

"What has Mr. Bradley done wrong to grandfather?"

"Naething; naething at all! He just does not like him."

"I shall have to explain things to grandfather. He ought not to take
dislikes to people without reason."

"There's no one can explain things to your grandfather that he does not
want to understand. I know naething o' John Bradley, except that he is a
Methodist, and that kind o' people are held in scorn."

"I think we can use up all our scorn on the Whigs, grandmother, and let
the Methodists alone. Mr. Bradley is a Tory, and trusted and employed by
the Government, and I am sure he preached a beautiful sermon last Sunday
at Stamford."

"Your grandfather said he would preach at Stamford."

"He preached on the green outside the town. There were hundreds to
listen to him. Agnes led the singing."

"Maria Semple! You don't mean to tell me you were at a field preaching!"

"It was a good preaching and----"

"The man is a saddle-maker! I hae seen him working, day in and day out,
in his leather apron."

"St. Paul was a tent-maker; he made a boast of it, and as he was a
sensible man, I have no doubt he wore an apron. He would not want to
spoil his toga."

_"Hush! Hush!_ You must not speak o' Saint Paul in that tempered and
common way. The Apostles belong to the Kirk. Your father was brought up
a good Presbyterian."

"Dear grandmother, I am the strictest kind of Presbyterian. I really
went to hear Agnes. If you had seen her standing by her father's side on
that green hill and heard her sing:

                'Israel, what hast thou to dread?
                   Safe from all impending harms,
                 Round thee, and beneath thee, spread,
                   Are the everlasting arms.'

you would have caught up the song as hundreds did do, till it spread to
the horizon, and rose to the sky, and was singing and praying both.
People were crying with joy, and they did not know it."

"I would call her a dangerous kind o' girl. Has she any brothers or
sisters?"

"Her brother went to an English school at the beginning of the war. He
was to finish his education at Oxford. Annie Gardiner--one of the
schoolgirls--told me so. He was her sweetheart. She has no sisters."

"Sweetheart?"

"Just boy and girl sweethearting. Agnes seldom spoke of him; sometimes
she got letters from him."

"Has Agnes a sweetheart?"

"There was a young gentleman dressed like a sailor that called on her
now and then. We thought he might be an American privateer."

"Then Agnes Bradley is for the Americans! Well, a good girl, like her,
would be sure to take the right side. Nae doubt the hymn she sung
referred to the American army."

"I am sure people thought so; indeed, I fear Agnes is a little bit of a
rebel, but she has to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself."

"Plenty o' folks hae to do the same; thought may be free here, but
speech is bond slave to His Majesty George o' Hanover, or England, or
Brunswick, or what you like."

"Or America!"

"Nae, nae! You may make that last statement wi' great reservation,
Maria. But we must make no statements that will vex your grandfather,
for he is an auld man, and set in his ways, and he does not believe in
being contradicted."

And at this moment they heard the Elder's voice and step. He came in so
happily, and with such transparent excuses for his return home, that the
women could not resist his humor. They pretended to be delighted; they
said, "how nice it was that he had happened to arrive just as dinner was
ready to serve;" they even helped him to reasons that made his return
opportune and fortunate. And Batavius arriving with the trunks
immediately after the meal, Madame made unblushing statements about her
dislike of the man, and her satisfaction in the Elder being at hand to
prevent overcharges, and see to the boxes being properly taken upstairs.

Then Maria begged him to remain and look at her pretty things, and that
was exactly what he wished to do; and so, what with exhibiting them, and
trying some of them on, and sorting, and putting them into drawers and
wardrobes, the afternoon slipped quickly away. The Elder had his pipe
brought upstairs, and he sat down and smoked it on the fine sofa Mrs.
Gordon had covered with her own needlework when she occupied the room;
and no one checked him or made discouraging demurs. He had his full
share of the happy hours; and he told himself so as the ladies were
dressing; and he sat waiting for Neil, alone with his pleasant thoughts
and anticipations.

"Auld age has its compensations," he reflected. "They wouldna hae let
Neil sit and smoke amid their fallals; and it was the bonniest sight to
watch them, to listen to their _Ohs!_ and _Ahs!_ and their selfish bits
o' prattle, anent having what no ither woman was able, or likely to
have. Women are queer creatures, but, Oh, dear me, what a weary world it
would be without them!"

And when Maria came down stairs in a scarlet gown over a white silk
petticoat, a string of gold beads round her neck, and her hair dressed
high and fastened with a gold comb, he was charmed afresh. He rose with
the gallantry of a young man, to get her a chair, but she made him sit
down and brought a stool to his side, and nestled so close to him that
he put his arm across her pretty shoulders. And it added greatly to his
satisfaction that Neil came suddenly in, and discovered them in this
affectionate attitude.

"One o' the compensations o' auld age," he said in happy explanation.
"Here is your niece, Maria Semple, Neil; and proud you may be o'
her!"--and Maria rose, and made her uncle a sweeping courtesy, and then
offered him her hand and her cheek. The young man gave her a warm
welcome, and yet at the same moment wondered what changes the little
lady would bring to the house. For he had sense and experience enough to
know that a girl so attractive would irresistibly draw events to her.

In two or three days the excitement of her advent was of necessity put
under restraint. Age loves moderation in all things, and Maria began to
feel the still, stately house less interesting than the schoolroom.
Whigs and Tories, however unequally, divided that ground, and the two
parties made that quarrel the outlet for all their more feminine
dislikes. Her last weeks at school had also been weeks full of girlish
triumphs; for she was not only receiving a new wardrobe of an elaborate
kind, but she was permitted to choose it; to have interviews with
mantua-makers and all kinds of tradespeople; and above all, she was
going to New York. And New York at that time was invested with all the
romance of a mediaeval city. It was the center around which the chief
events of the war revolved. Within her splendid mansions the officers of
King George feasted, and danced, and planned warlike excursions; and in
her harbor great fleets were anchored whose mission was to subjugate the
whole Southern seaboard. This of itself was an interesting situation,
but how much more so, when Whig and Tory alike knew, that just over the
western shore every hilltop, and every lofty tree held an American
sentinel, while Washington himself, amid the fastnesses of New Jersey,
watched with unerring sagacity and untiring patience the slightest
military movement on Manhattan Island.

Thus, the possibilities and probabilities of her expected change of life
had made her the envy of romantic girls; for all of them, no matter what
their political faith, had their own conception of the great things
which might be achieved in a city full of military and naval officers.
It was the subject on which conversation was always interesting, and
often provocative; thus, in the very last talk she had with her
schoolmates, one little Tory maid said:

"O, the dear officers! How delightful it will be to dance with brave men
so magnificently dressed in scarlet and gold! How I wish that I was you,
Maria!"

"O, the hateful creatures!" ejaculated another girl of different
opinions. "I would not dance a step with one of them; but if I did, I
should be saying to myself all the time: very soon my fine fellow, some
brave man in homespun blue will kill you."

"If I was Maria," said another, "and had a British officer for my
servant, I would coax him to tell me what General Clinton was going to
do; and then I would send word to General Washington."

"O, you mean girl!" answered Maria, "would you be a spy?"

"Yes, I would."

"And so would I!"

"And I!"

"And I!"

"And I!" And then an equal chorus of "What a shame! Just like Whigs!"

Maria missed these encounters. She saw that her grandmother usually
deprecated political conversation, and that her uncle and grandfather
did not include her in the discussion of any public event. On the
fourth day she began to feel herself of less importance than she
approved; and then there followed naturally the demoralizing luxury of
self-pity:

"Because I am a girl, and a very young girl, no one appears to think I
have common sense. I am as loyal to the King as any one. I wish
grandmother would speak out. I believe she is a Whig. Uncle Neil said he
would take me to some entertainments; he has not done so. I am not
tired--that is just an excuse--I want to go out and I want to see Agnes.
I will not give up Agnes--no one, no one shall make me--she is part of
my heart! No, I will not give up Agnes; her father may be a saddler--and
a Methodist--I am above noticing such things. I will love who I
like--about my friends I will not yield an inch--I will not!"

She was busy tatting to this quite unnecessary tirade of protestations
and her grandmother noticed the passionate jerk of the shuttle
emphasizing her thoughts. "What is vexing you, dearie?" she asked.

"Oh, I am wretched about Agnes," she answered. "I am afraid grandfather
has been rude in some way."

"You needna be afraid on that ground, Maria; your grandfather is never
rude where women are concerned."

"But he is unkind. If he was not, there could be no objections to my
calling on Agnes."

"Is it not her place to call on you? She is at home--born and bred in
New York--you are a stranger here. She is older than you are; she seems
to have assumed some kind of care or oversight----."

"She has been my guardian angel."

"Then I think she ought to be looking after a desolate bairn like you;
one would think you had neither kith nor kin near you, Maria." Madame
spoke with an air of offense or injury, and as the words were uttered,
the door was softly moved inward, and Agnes Bradley entered.

She courtesied to Madame, and then stretched out her hands to Maria. The
girl rose with a cry of joy, and all her discontent was gone in a
moment. Madame could not forget so easily; in fact, her sense of
unkindness was intensified by the unlooked-for entrance of its cause.
But there was no escaping the influence of Agnes. She brought the very
atmosphere of peace into the room with her. In ten minutes she was
sitting between Madame and Maria, and both appeared to be alike happy in
her society. She did not speak of the war, or the soldiers, or the
frightful price of food and fuel, or the wicked extravagance of the Tory
ladies in dress and entertainments, or even of the unendurable impudence
of the negro slaves. She talked of Maria, and of the studies she ought
to continue, and of Madame's flowers and needlework, and a sweet feeling
of rest from all the fretful life around was insensibly diffused. In a
short time Madame felt herself to be under the same spell as her
granddaughter, and she looked at the charmer with curious interest; she
wondered what kind of personality this daughter of tranquility
possessed.

A short scrutiny showed her a girl about nineteen years old, tall, but
not very slender, with a great deal of pale brown hair above a broad
forehead; with eyebrows thick and finely arched, and eyelids so
transparent from constant contact with the soul that they seemed to have
already become spiritual. Her eyes were dark grey, star-like, mystical,
revealing--when they slowly dilated--one hardly knew what of the unseen
and heavenly. Her face was oval and well shaped, but a little heavy
except when the warm pallor of its complexion was suddenly transfigured
from within; then showing a faint rose color quickly passing away. Her
movements were all slow, but not ungraceful, and her soft voice had
almost a caress in it. Yet it was not these things, one, or all of them,
that made her so charmful; it was the invisible beauty in the visible,
that delighted.

Without question here was a woman who valued everything at its eternal
worth; who in the midst of war, sheltered life in the peace of God; and
in the presence of sorrow was glad with the gladness of the angels. An
hour with Agnes Bradley made Madame think more highly of her
granddaughter; for surely it was a kind of virtue in Maria to love the
goodness she herself could not attain unto.

Nearly two hours passed quickly away. They walked in the garden and
talked of seeds, and of the green things springing from them; and down
at the lily bed by the river, Madame had a sudden memory of a young
girl, who had one Spring afternoon gone down there to meet her fate; and
she said to Agnes--with a note of resentment still in her voice:

"A lassie I once loved dearly, came here to gather lilies, and to listen
to a lover she had nae business to listen to. She would sit doubtless on
the vera step you are now sitting on, Maria; and she made sorrow and
suffering enough for more than one good heart; forbye putting auld
friends asunder, and breeding anger where there had always been love. I
hope you'll never do the like, either o' you."

"Who was she, grandmother?"

"Her name was Katherine Van Heemskirk. You'll hae heard tell o' her,
Miss Bradley?"

"I saw her several times when she was here four years ago. She is very
beautiful."

Madame did not answer, and Maria stepped lower and gathered a few lilies
that were yet in bloom, though the time of lilies was nearly over. But
Agnes turned away with Madame, and both of them were silent; Madame
because she could not trust herself to begin speech on this subject, and
Agnes because she divined, that for some reason, silence was in this
case better than the fittest words that could be spoken.

After a short pause, Agnes said, "My home is but a quarter of a mile
from here, and it is already orderly and pleasant. Will you, Madame,
kindly permit Maria to come often to see me! I will help her with her
studies, and she might take the little boat at the end of your garden,
and row herself along the water edge until she touches the pier in our
garden."

"She had better walk."

In this way the permission was granted without reserves or conditions.
Madame had not thought of making any, and as soon as she realized her
implied approval, she was resolved to stand by it. "The lassie requires
young people to consort wi'," she thought, "and better a young lass than
a young lad; and if her grandfather says contrary, I must make him
wiser."

With this concession the visit ended, but the girls went out of the
parlor together, and stood talking for some time in the entrance hall.
The parting moment, however, had to come, and Maria lifted her lips to
her friend, and they were kissing each other good-bye, when Neil Semple
and a young officer in the uniform of the Eighty-fourth Royal
Highlanders opened the door. The picture of the two girls in their
loving embrace was a momentary one, but it was flooded with the colored
sunshine pouring on them from the long window of stained glass, and the
men saw and acknowledged its beauty, with an involuntary exclamation of
delight. Maria sheltered herself in a peal of laughter, and over the
face of Agnes there came and went a quick transfiguring flush; but she
instantly regained her mental poise, and with the composure of a goddess
was walking toward the door, when Neil advanced, and assuming the duty
of a host, walked with her down the flagged path to the garden gate.
Maria and the young soldier stood in the doorway watching them; and
Madame at the parlor window did the same thing, with an indescribable
amazement on her face.

"It isna believable!" she exclaimed. "Neil Semple, the vera proudest o'
mortals walking wi' auld Bradley's daughter! his hat in his hand too!
and bowing to her! bowing to his vera knee buckles! After this, the
Stuarts may come hame again, or any other impossible thing happen. The
world is turning tapsalterie, and I wonder whether I am Janet Sample, or
some ither body."

But the world was all right in a few minutes; for then Neil entered the
room with Maria and Captain Macpherson, and the mere sight of the young
Highlandman brought oblivion of all annoyances. Madame's heart flew to
her head whenever she saw the kilt and the plaid; she hastened to greet
its wearer; she took his plumed bonnet from his hand, and said it was
"just out o' calculation that he should go without breaking bread with
them."

Captain Macpherson had no desire to go. He had seen and spoken with
Maria, and she was worth staying for; besides which, a Scot in a strange
land feels at home in a countryman's house. Macpherson quickly made
himself so. He went with Neil to his room, and anon to the garden, and
finally loosed the boat and rowed up the river, resting on the oars at
the Bradley place, hoping for a glance at Agnes. But nothing was to be
seen save the white house among the green trees, and the white shades
gently stirring in the wind. The place was as still as a resting wheel,
and the stillness infected the rowers; yet when Macpherson was in
Semple's garden, the merry ring of his boyish laughter reached Madame
and Maria in the house, and set their hearts beating with pleasure as
they arranged the tea-table, and brought out little dishes of hoarded
luxuries. And though Madame's chickens were worth three dollars each,
she unhesitatingly sacrificed one to a national hero.

When the Elder came home he was equally pleased. He loved young people,
and the boyish captain with his restless, brimming life, was an element
that the whole house responded to. His heart had a little quake at the
abundance of the meal, but it was only a momentary reserve, and he
smiled as his eyes fell on the motto carved around the wooden
bread-plate--_"Spare Not! Waste Not! Want Not!"_

Madame looked very happy and handsome sitting before her tray of pretty
china, and the blended aromas of fine tea and hot bread, of broiled
chicken, and Indian preserves and pickles were made still more
appetizing by the soft wind blowing through the open window, the perfume
of the lilacs and the southernwood. Madame had kept the place at her
right hand for Macpherson; and Maria sat next to him with her
grandfather on her right hand, so that Neil was at his mother's left
hand. Between the two young men the old lady was radiantly happy; for
Macpherson was such a guest as it is a delight to honor. He ate of all
Madame had prepared for him, thoroughly enjoyed it, and frankly said so.
And his chatter about the social entertainments given by Generals
Clinton and Tryon, Robertson and Ludlow was very pleasant to the ladies.
Neil never had anything to say about these affairs, except that they
were "all alike, and all stupid, and all wickedly extravagant;" and such
criticism was too general to be interesting.

Very different was Macpherson's description of the last ball at General
Tryon's; he could tell all its details--the reception of the company
with kettle drums and trumpets--the splendid furniture of his
residence, its tapestries, carpets, and silk hangings--the music, the
dancing, the feasting--the fine dressing of both men and women--all
these things he described with delightful enthusiasm and a little
pleasant mimicry. And when Madame asked after her acquaintances,
Macpherson could tell her what poplins and lutestrings, and lace and
jewels they wore. Moreover, he knew what grand dames crowded William
Street in the mornings and afternoons, and what merchants had the
largest display of the fashions and luxuries of Europe.

"John Ambler," he said, "is now showing a most extraordinary cargo of
English silks and laces, and fine broadcloths, taken by one of Dirk
Vandercliff's privateers. Really, Madame, the goods are worth looking
at. I assure you our beauties lack nothing that Europe can produce."

"Yes, there is one thing the privateers canna furnish you, and that is
fuel. You shivered all last winter in your splendid rooms," said the
Elder.

"True," replied Macpherson. "The cold was frightful, and though General
Clinton issued one proclamation after another to the farmers of Long
Island to send in their wood, they did not do it."

"Why should they?" asked Madame.

"On the King's service, Madame," answered the young man with a final
air.

"Vera good," retorted Madame; "but if the King wanted my forest trees
for naething, I should say, 'your Majesty has plenty o' soldiers wi'
little to do; let them go and cut what they want.' They wouldna waste it
if they had it to cut. But the wastrie in everything is simply sinful,
and I canna think where the Blacks and Vanderlanes, and all the other
'Vans' you name--and whom I never heard tell of in our kirk--get the
money."

"Privateering!" said Macpherson with a gay laugh. "Who would not be a
roving privateer? I have myself longings for the life. I have thoughts
of joining Vandercliff's fleet."

"You are just leeing, young man," interrupted Madame. "It would be a
thing impossible. The Macphersons have nae salt water in their blood.
Could you fling awa' your tartans for a sailor's tarry coat and
breeches? How would you look if you did? And you would feel worse than
you looked."

Macpherson glanced at his garb with a smile of satisfaction. "I am a
Macpherson," he answered, proudly, "and I would not change the colors of
my regiment for a royal mantle; but privateering is no small temptation.
On the deck of a privateer you may pick up gold and silver."

"That is not very far from the truth," said Neil. "In the first year of
the war the rebel privateers took two hundred and fifty West Indiamen,
valued at nearly two millions of pounds, and Mr. Morris complained that
the Eastern states cared for nothing but privateering."

"Weel, Morris caught the fever himself," said the Elder. "I have been
told he made nearly four hundred thousand dollars in the worst year the
rebel army ever had."

"Do the rebels call that patriotism?" asked Macpherson.

"Yes," answered the Elder, "from a Whig point of view it is vera
patriotic; what do you think, Neil?"

"If I was a Whig," answered Neil, "I should certainly own privateers.
Without considering the personal advantage, privateering brings great
riches into the country; it impoverishes the enemy, and it adds
enormously to the popularity of the war. The men who have hitherto gone
to the Arctic seas for whales, find more wealthy and congenial work in
capturing English ships."

"And when men get money by wholesale high-seas robbery----"

"Privateering, Madame," corrected Macpherson.

"Weel, weel, give it any name you like--what I want to say is, that
money got easy goes easy."

"In that, Madame, you are correct. While we were in Philadelphia that
city was the scene of the maddest luxury. While the rebels were begging
money from France to feed their starving army at Valley Forge, every
kind of luxury and extravagance ran riot in Philadelphia. At one
entertainment there was eight hundred pounds spent in pastry alone."

"Stop, Macpherson!" cried Madame, "I will not hear tell o' such
wickedness," and she rose with the words, and the gentlemen went into
the parlor to continue their conversation.

Madame had been pleased with her granddaughter's behavior. She had not
tittered, nor been vulgarly shy or affected, nor had she intruded her
opinions or feelings among those of her elders; and yet her
self-possession, and her expressive face had been full of that charm
which showed her to be an interested and a comprehending listener. Now,
however, Madame wished her to talk, and she was annoyed when she did
not do so. It was only natural that she should express some interest in
the bright young soldier, and her silence concerning him Madame regarded
as assumed indifference. At last she condescended to the leading
question:

"What do you think o' Captain Macpherson, Maria?"

"I do not know, grandmother."

"He is a very handsome lad. It did my heart good to see his bright
face."

"His face is covered with freckles."

"Freckles! Why not? He has been brought up in the wind and the sunshine,
and not in a boarding-school, or a lady's parlor."

"Freckles are not handsome, however, grandmother."

Madame would not dally with half-admissions, and she retorted sharply:

"Freckles are the handsomest thing about a man; they are only the human
sunshine tint; the vera same sunshine that colored the roses and ripened
the wheat gave the lad the golden-brown freckles o' rich young life.
Freckles! I consider them an improvement to any one. If you had a few
yoursel' you would be the handsomer for them."

"Grandmother!"

"Yes, and your friend likewise. She has scarce a mite o' color o' any
kind; a little o' the human sunshine tint--the red and gold on her
cheeks--and she might be better looking."

"Better looking! Why, grandmother, Agnes was the beauty of the school."

"Schoolgirls are poor judges o' beauty. She has a wonderfu' pleasant
way with her, but that isn't beauty."

"I thought you liked her, I am so sorry and disappointed."

"She is weel enough--in her way. There are plenty o' girls not as
pleasant; but she is neither Venus, nor Helen o' Troy. I was speaking o'
Captain Macpherson; when he stood in the garden with your uncle Neil,
his hand on his sword and the wind blowing his golden hair----"

"Grandmother! His hair is red."

"It is naething o' the kind, Maria. It is a bonnie golden-brown. It may,
perhaps, have a cast o' red, but only enough to give it color. And he
has a kindly handsome face, sweet-eyed and fearless."

"I did not notice his eyes. He seems fearless, and he is certainly
good-tempered. Have you known him a long time, grandmother?"

"I never saw him before this afternoon," the old lady answered wearily.
She had become suddenly tired. Maria's want of enthusiasm chilled her.
She could not tell whether the girl was sincere or not. Women generally
have two estimates of the men they meet; one which they acknowledge, one
which they keep to themselves.

When the gentlemen returned to the sitting-room a young negro was
lighting the fire, and Macpherson looked at him with attention. "A
finely built fellow," he said, when the slave had left the room; "such
men ought to make good fighters." Then turning to Madame he added,
"Captain de Lancey lost four men, and Mr. Bayard five men last week.
They were sent across the river to cut wood and they managed to reach
the rebel camp. We have knowledge that there is a full regiment of them
there now."

"They are fighting for their personal freedom," said the Elder, "and who
wouldna fight for that? Washington has promised it, if they fight to the
end o' the war."

"They have a good record already," said Macpherson.

"I have nae doubt o' it," answered the Elder. "Fighting would come
easier than wood cutting, no to speak o' the question o' freedom. I
heard a sough o' rumor about them and the Hessians; true, or not, I
can't say."

"It is true. They beat back the Hessians three times in one engagement."

"I'm glad o' it," said Madame, "slaves are good enough to fight hired
human butchers."

"O, you know, Madame, the Hessians are mercenaries; they make arms a
profession." He spoke with a languid air of defense; the Hessians were
not of high consideration in his opinion, but Madame answered with
unusual warmth:

"A profession! Well, it isn't a respectable one in their hands--men
selling themselves to fight they care not whom, or for what cause. If a
man fights for his country he is her soldier and her protector; if he
sells himself to all and sundry, he is worth just what he sells himself
for, and the black slave fighting for his freedom is a gentleman beside
him." Then, before any one could answer her tart disparagement, she
opened a little Indian box, and threw on the table a pack of cards.

"There's some paper kings for you to play wi'," she said, "and neither
George nor Louis has a title to compare wi' them--kings and knaves!
Ancient tyrants, and like ithers o' their kind, they would trick the
warld awa' at every game but for some brave ace," and the ace of hearts
happening to be in her hand she flung it defiantly down on the top of
the pack; and that with an air of confidence and triumph that was very
remarkable.

With the help of these royalties and some desultory conversation on the
recent alliance of France with the rebels, the evening passed away.
Madame sat quiet in the glow of the fire, and Maria, as Neil's partner,
enlivened the game with many bewitching airs and graces she had not
known she possessed, until this opportunity called them forth. And
whatever Macpherson gained at cards he lost in another direction; for
the little schoolgirl, he had at first believed himself to be
patronizing, reversed the situation. He became embarrassed by a
realization of her beauty and cleverness; and the sweet old story began
to tell itself in his heart--the story that comes no one knows whence,
and commences no one knows how. In that hour of winning and losing he
first understood how charming Maria Semple was.

The new feeling troubled him; he wished to be alone with it, and the
ardent pleasure of his arrival had cooled. The Elder and his wife were
tired, and Neil seemed preoccupied and did not exert himself to restore
the tone of the earlier hours; so the young officer felt it best to make
his adieu. Then, the farewell in a measure renewed the joy of meeting;
he was asked to come again, "to come whenever he wanted to come," said
Madame, with a smile of motherly kindness. And when Maria, with a
downward and upward glance laid her little hand in his, that incident
made the moment wonderful, and he felt that not to come again would be a
great misfortune.

Maria was going to her room soon afterward but Neil detained her. "Can
you sit with me a little while, Maria?" he asked; "or are you also
sleepy?"

"I am not the least weary, uncle; and I never was wider awake in my
life. I will read to you or copy for you----"

"Come and talk to me. The fire still burns. It is a pity to leave its
warmth. Sit down here. I have never had a conversation with you. I do
not know my niece yet, and I want to know her."

Maria was much flattered. Neil's voice had a tone in it that she had
never before heard. He brought her a shawl to throw around her
shoulders, a footstool for her feet, and drawing a small sofa before the
fire, seated himself by her side. Then he talked with her about her
early life; about her father and mother, and Mrs. Charlton, and without
asking one question about Agnes Bradley led her so naturally to the
subject, and so completely round and through it, that he had learned in
an hour all Maria could tell concerning the girl whose presence and
appearance had that day so powerfully attracted him. He was annoyed when
he heard her name, and annoyed at her pronounced Methodism, which was
evidently of that early type, holding it a sin not to glory in the scorn
of those who derided it. Yet he could not help being touched by Maria's
enthusiastic description of the girl's sweet godliness.

"You know, uncle," she said, "Agnes's religion is not put on; it is part
of Agnes; it is Agnes. Girls find one another out, but all the girls
loved Agnes. We were ashamed to be ill-natured, or tell untruths, or do
mean things when she was there. And if you heard her sing, uncle, you
would feel as if the heavens had opened, and you could see angels."

Now there is no man living who does not at some time dream of a good
woman--a woman much better than himself--upon his hearthstone. Neil felt
in that hour this divine longing; and he knew also, that the thing had
befallen him which he had vowed never would befall him again. Without
resistance, without the desire to resist, he had let the vision of Agnes
Bradley fill his imagination; he had welcomed it, and he knew that it
would subjugate his heart--that it had already virtually done so. For
Maria's descriptions of the pretty trivialities of their school life was
music and wine to his soul. He was captivated by her innocent
revelations, and the tall girl with her saintly pallor and star-like
eyes was invisibly present to him. He had the visionary sense, the glory
and the dream of love, and he longed to realize this vision. Therefore
he was delighted when he heard that Maria had permission to continue her
studies under the direction of her friend. It was an open door to him.

It was at this point that Maria made her final admission: "I am obliged
to tell you, uncle, that I am sure Agnes is a Whig." This damaging item
in her idol's character Maria brought out with deprecating apologies
and likelihood of change, "not a bad Whig, uncle; she is so gentle, and
she hates war, and so she feels so sorry for the poor Americans who are
suffering so much, because, you know, they think they are right. Then
her father is a Tory, and she is very fond of her father, and very proud
of him, and she will now be under his influence, and of course do what
he tells her--only--only----"

"Only what, Maria? You think there is a difficulty; what is it?"

"Her lover. I am almost certain he is a rebel."

"Has she a lover? She is very young--you must be mistaken?" He spoke so
sharply Maria hardly knew his voice, and she considered it best to
hesitate a little, so she answered in a dubious manner:

"I suppose he is her lover. The girls all thought so. He sent her
letters, and he sometimes came to see her; and then she seemed so
happy."

"A young man?"

"Yes, a very young man."

"A soldier?"

"I think, more likely, he was a sailor. I never asked Agnes. You could
not ask Agnes things, as you did other girls."

"I understand that."

"He wore plain clothes, but all of us were sure he was a sailor; and
once we saw Agnes watching some ships as far as she could see them, and
he had called on her that day."

Neil did not answer her conjecture. He rose and stood silently on the
hearth, his dark eyes directed outward, as if he was calling up the
vision of the sea, and the ships and the girl watching them. For the
first time Maria realized the personal attractiveness of her uncle. "He
is not old," she thought, "and he is handsomer than any one I ever saw.
Why has he not got married before this?" And as she speculated on this
question, Neil let his eyes fall upon the dead fire and in a melancholy
voice said:

"Maria, my dear, it is very late, I did not remember--you have given me
two pleasant hours. Good-night, child."

He spoke with restraint, coldly and wearily. He was not aware of it, for
his mind was full of thoughts well-nigh unspeakable, and Maria felt
their influence, though they had not been named. She went away depressed
and silent, like one who has suddenly discovered they were no longer
desired.

Neil speedily put out the lights, and went to the solitude his heart
craved. He was not happy; but doubt and fear are love's first food. For
another hour he sat motionless, wondering how this woman, whom he had
not in any way summoned, had taken such possession of him. For not yet
had it been revealed to him, that "love is always a great invisible
presence," and that in his case, Agnes Bradley was but its material
revelation.




CHAPTER III.

LIFE IN THE CAPTIVE CITY.


At this time in New York, John Bradley was a man of considerable
importance. He was not only a native of the city, but many generations
of Bradleys had been born, and lived, and died in the wide, low house
close to the river bank, not far north of old Trinity. They were
originally a Yorkshire family who had followed the great Oliver Cromwell
from Marston Moor to Worcester, and who, having helped to build the
Commonwealth of England, refused to accept the return of royalty. Even
before Charles the Second assumed the crown, Ezra Bradley and his six
sons had landed in New York. They were not rich, but they had gold
sufficient to build a home, and to open near the fort a shop for the
making and repairing of saddlery.

Ever since that time this trade had been the distinctive occupation of
the family, and the John Bradley who represented it in the year 1779,
had both an inherited and a trained capability in the craft. No one in
all America could make a saddle comparable with Bradley's; the trees
were of his own designing, and the leather work unequalled in strength
and beauty. In addition to this important faculty, he was a veterinary
surgeon of great skill, and possessed some occult way of managing
ungovernable horses, which commended itself peculiarly to officers whose
mounts were to be renewed frequently from any available source. And
never had his business been so lucrative as at the present date, for New
York was full of mounted military during the whole period of the war,
and enormous prices were willingly paid for the fine saddlery turned out
of the workshop of John Bradley.

Contrary to all the traditions of his family, he had positively taken
the part of the King, and at the very commencement of the national
quarrel had shown the red ribbon of loyalty to England. His wife dying
at this time, he sent his daughter to a famous boarding-school in
Boston, and his son to the great dissenting academy in Gloucester,
England; then he closed his house and lived solitarily in very humble
fashion above his workroom and shop. In this way, he believed himself to
have provided for the absolute safety of his two children; the boy was
out of the war circle; the thundering drum and screaming fife could not
reach him in the cloistered rooms of the Doddridge School; and as for
Agnes, Mrs. Charlton's house was as secure as a convent; he had no fear
that either English or American soldiers would molest a dwelling full of
schoolgirls. And John Bradley could keep the door of his mouth; and he
believed that a man who could do that might pursue a trade so necessary
as his, with an almost certain degree of safety.

In appearance he was a short, powerful-looking man with tranquil,
meditating eyes and a great talent for silence; an armed soul dwelling
in a strong body. Some minds reflect, shift, argue, and are like the
surface of a lake; but John Bradley's mind was like stubborn clay; when
once impressed it was sure to harden and preserve the imprint through
his life, and perhaps the other one. His Methodism was of this
character, and he never shirked conversation on this subject; he was as
ready to tell his experience to General Howe or General Clinton as to
the members of his own class meeting; for his heart was saturated with
the energy of his faith; he had the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.

On politics he would not talk; he said, "public affairs were in wiser
hands than his, and that to serve God and be diligent in business, was
the length and breadth of his commission." His shop was a place where
many men and many minds met, and angry words were frequently thrown
backward and forward there; yet his needle never paused an instant for
them. Only once had he been known to interfere; it was on a day when one
of De Lancey's troop drew his sword against a boyish English ensign
almost at his side. He stopped them with his thread half drawn out, and
said sternly:

"If you two fools are in a hurry for death, and the judgment after
death, there are more likely places to kill each other than my shop,"
and the words were cold as ice and sharp as steel, and the men went out
rebuked and checked, and washed away their hot temper in wine instead of
blood. For the vision of death, and the judgment after death, which
Bradley's words and manner had evoked, was not to be faced at that hour.
Yet, withal, Bradley was rather a common-looking man, ill-mannered and
rough as hemp to the generality; but not so where childhood or calamity
appealed to his strength or forbearance. In other respects, General Howe
had, not inaptly, described him as "very unlike other men when at
chapel, but not much so, when among horses in the stable, or selling
saddles in the shop."

This was the man who came up from the waterside early one morning in the
beginning of July, singing Dr. Watts' lyrical dream of heaven:

                    "There is a land of pure delight,
                       Where saints immortal reign."

His voice was strong and melodious, and it was evident that Agnes had
inherited her charming vocal power from him. He did not cease as he
entered the house, but continued his hymn until he was in the little
sitting-room, and Agnes finished the verse with him:

                    "And see the Canaan that we love,
                       With unbeclouded eyes."

He sat down to breakfast with the heavenly vision in his heart, and
reluctantly let it pass away. But his spiritual nature had hands as well
as wings, and he felt also the stress of the daily labor waiting him.

"The expedition leaves for the Connecticut coast to-day," he said.
"General Clinton is determined to strike a blow at the people in New
Haven, and Fairfield, and New London."

"Well, father? What do you say to that?"

"I say it is better they should be struck down than that they should lie
down."

"Matthews has but just returned from ravaging the river counties of
Virginia, and Clinton from Stony Point. Have they not made misery enough
for a little while? Who is going with the Connecticut expedition?"

"Tryon, and he goes to do mischief with the joy of an ape."

"I heard trumpets sounding and men mustering, as I was dressing myself."

"Trumpets may sound, and not to victory, Agnes. Fire and pillage are
cowardly arms; but I heard Tryon say, any stick was good enough to beat
a dog with, and all who differ from Tryon are dogs. Vile work! Vile
work! And yet all this does not keep New York from dancing and drinking,
and racing, and gambling, and trading; nor yet New York women from
painting and dressing themselves as if there were no such persons as
King George and George Washington."

"Yes, father, a great many of our best families are very poor."

"Those not employed by the government, or those who are not contractors
or privateers, are whipped and driven to the last pinch by poverty. Ah,
Agnes, remember New York before this war began, its sunny streets shaded
with trees, and its busy, happy citizens talking, laughing, smoking,
trading, loving and living through every sense they had at the same
time. Now there is nothing but covert ill-will and suspicion. Our
violent passions have not cured our mean ones; to the common list of
rogueries, we have only added those of contractors and commissioners."

"I think war is the most terrible calamity that can befall a people,
father."

"The despair of subjugated souls would be worse."

"Do they never doubt you, father?"

"Howe never did. That amiable, indolent officer might have liked me all
the more if he had doubted me. Clinton is a different man; and I think
he may have thought my loyalty to royalty lukewarm, for he sent for me
on the King's birthday, and after some talk about a horse and saddle, he
said, 'Mr. Bradley, it is the King's birthday; shall we drink his
Majesty's health?' And I answered him, 'if it please you, General.' So
he filled a glass with Portugal wine for me, and then filling one for
himself raised it, and waited for me to speak. There were several
officers present, and I lifted my glass and said, 'To King George the
Third! God bless him, and make him and all his officers good John Wesley
Methodists!'"

"Then, father?"

"Clinton put down his glass with a ringing guffaw, and the rest followed
him. Only one bit of a beardless boy spoke, and he said: 'you think,
Bradley, Methodism might make his Majesty a better king?' And I
answered, 'I am not here to judge his Majesty's kingship. I think it
would make him and all present, better and happier men.' I did not try
to go away or shirk questions; I looked squarely in their faces until
General Clinton said, 'Very good, Bradley. You will remember Saladin and
the new saddle for him'; and I answered, 'I will see to it at once,
General.' So I went out then, and I think they were not all sure of me;
but they cannot do without me, and they know it is better to put their
doubts out of inquiry. Wise men obey necessity, and that is true for
them as well as for me. Agnes, I want to know something about that
little girl of Semple's? I don't like her coming here day after day. She
will be seeing or hearing something she ought not to see or hear. Women
are dangerous in politics, for, as a rule, politics either find or leave
them vixens."

"Maria is to be trusted."

"You can not be sure. She is passionate, and though a woman in a temper
may not intend to burn any one, she pokes the fire and makes a blaze and
sets others looking and wondering. I can tell you of many such women in
New York; they think ill of their neighbor, and the thoughts get to
their tongues, and before they know the mischief is done. Then, like the
wolf in the fable, they thank God they are not ferocious. Oh, no! They
have only loosed the dogs of war and left others to set them worrying."

"How you do run on, father! And not one word you have said fits the
little Maria, no, nor any one of the Semples. Indeed, I am sure Madame
is as true a patriot as you could find anywhere."

"The old man is as bitter a royalist as I could find anywhere."

"He is, however, a good old man. Last Monday night, when you had to go
to the leaders' meeting, I walked home with Maria and stayed to tea
there. And after tea Madame asked me to sing a hymn, and I sang the one
you were singing this morning, and when I had finished, the Elder said,
'Now, then, we will supplement Isaac Watts with the Apostle John'; and
he opened the Bible and read aloud John's vision of 'the land of pure
delight' from the twenty-first of Revelation; then standing up, he asked
us all to join in the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we stood up
with him and said to 'Our Father which is in heaven,' the words he
taught us. I felt it to be a very precious few minutes."

"I have nothing to say against such experiences, Agnes. If people would
stick to what Christ says, there might be only one creed and one church;
it is Peter and Paul that make disputing. But if you go to Semple's
house do not stop after sunset. There are bad men about."

"Mr. Neil Semple walked home with me."

"Oh! Mr. Neil Semple! And what had he to say?"

"Very little. He praised my singing, he said it went to his heart; and
he spoke about the moon, and the perfume of the locust flowers. I think
that was all."

"The moon and the locust flowers! What does Mr. Neil Semple know about
the moon and the locust flowers? And he spoke very little! He can talk
fast enough when he is in court, and well paid for it. He is a proud
man--ill-tempered, too, I should think."

"I am sure he is not ill-tempered. He is as sweet as a child to his
father and mother; and Maria says many pleasant things about him."

"Let him pass for what he is worth; but remember always this thing,
Agnes, I am trusting my life in your hands. If you inadvertently
repeated even what I have said this morning, I should be hard put to
answer it."

"You know well that I would die rather than reveal anything you said to
me. My life for yours, father!"

"I trust you as my own soul. You are an inexpressible comfort to me. I
can speak to you. I can open my heart to you. I can get relief and
sympathy from you. Your coming home makes me a hundred-fold safer. If
your brother with his hot temper and young imprudences had been here, no
one knows what would have happened before this. I thank God continually
that he is so far out of the way. Has he left school yet?"

"School does not close until June."

"Then he will go directly to Doctor Brudenel in London?"

"That was your instruction to him."

"When did you have a letter from him?"

"It is nearly a month since."

"When will you write to him next?"

"I write to him every opportunity I have."

"Does he need money? Young men are often extravagant."

"He has never named money to me. He is well and happy."

"Tell him he must not come home, not think of coming home till I give
him permission. Tell him that his being away from home is my great
comfort. Make that plain to him, Agnes, my great comfort. Tell him he
must stay in London till a man can speak his mind safely in New York,
whatever his mind may be."

"I will tell him all, father."

Then Bradley went to his shop and his daughter sat down to consider
with herself. Many persons stimulate or regulate thought in movement and
find a positive assistance to their mental powers in action of some
kind, but Agnes had the reverse of this temperament. She needed quiet,
so closing the door of her room she sat still, recalling, reviewing, and
doing her best to anticipate events. There were certain things which
must be revealed to Maria, wholly, or in part, if she continued to visit
the house, and Agnes saw not how to prevent those visits. Nor did she
wish to prevent them; she loved Maria and delighted in her
companionship. They had many acquaintances and events in common to talk
about, and she was also interested in Maria's life, which was very
different to her own. She felt, too, that her influence was necessary
and valuable to the young girl, suddenly thrown into the midst of what
Agnes regarded as sinful and dangerous society. And then into this
process of self-examination there drifted another form--the stately,
rather sombre, but altogether kindly personality of Neil Semple. It was
linked with Maria, she could not separate the two; and as intrusion
involved some heart-searching she was not inclined to, she rather
promptly decided the question without any further prudential
considerations, and as she did so Maria called her.

She answered the call gladly. It was to her one of those leadings on
which she spiritually relied, and her face was beaming with love and
pleasure as she went down stairs to her friend. Maria was standing in
the middle of the small parlor, most beautifully arrayed in an Indian
muslin, white as snow and lustrously fine, as only Dacca looms could
weave it. Her shoulders were covered with a little cape of the same
material, ruffled and laced and fastened with pink ribbons, and on her
head was a bewitching gypsy hat tied under her chin with bows of the
same color. Her uncle stood at her side, smiling with grave tolerance at
her girlish pride in her dress, and the pretty airs with which she
exhibited it to Agnes.

"Am I not handsome?" she cried. "Am I not dressed in the most perfect
taste? Why do you not say as Miss Robinson is sure to say--'La, child,
you are adorable!'"

Agnes fell quite naturally into her friend's excited mood, and in the
happiest tone of admiring mimicry, repeated the words dictated. She made
the most perfect contrast to Maria; her pale blue gown of simple
material and simple fashion was without ornament of any kind, except its
large falling collar of white muslin embroidery, but the long, unbroken
line of the skirt seemed to Neil Semple the most fitting, the only
fitting, garment he had ever seen on any woman.

"Its modesty and simplicity is an instinct," he thought; "and I have
this morning seen a woman clothed by her raiment. Now I understand the
difference between being dressed and clothed. Maria is dressed, Agnes is
clothed; her garments interpret her."

He was lifted up by his love for her; and her calico gown became a royal
robe in his imagination. Every time he saw her she appeared to have been
adorned for that time only. It was a delightful thing for him to watch
her tenderness and pride in Maria. It was motherly and sisterly, and
without a thought of envy, and he trembled with delight when she turned
her sweet, affectionate face to his for sympathy in it. And really this
morning Agnes might reasonably have given some of her admiring interest
to Maria's escort. He was undeniably handsome. His suit of fine, dark
cloth, his spotless lawn ruffles, his long, light sword, his black
beaver in his hand, were but fitting adjuncts to a noble face, graven
with many experiences and alight with the tender glow of love and the
steady fire of intellectual power and purpose.

He did not stay at this time many minutes, but the girls watched him to
the garden gate and shared the courtly salute of his adieu there. "Is he
not the most graceful and beautiful of men?" asked Maria.

"Indeed he is very handsome," replied Agnes.

"There is not an officer in New York fit to latch his shoe buckles."

"Then why do you dress so splendidly, only to show yourself to them?"

"Well, Agnes, see how _they_ dress. As we were coming here we met men in
all the colors of the rainbow; they were rattling swords and spurs, and
tossing their heads like war horses scenting the battle afar off."

"You are quoting the Bible, Maria."

"Uncle did it first. You don't suppose I thought of that. We passed a
regiment of Hessians with their towering brass-fronted helmets, their
yellow breeches, and black gaiters; really, Agnes, they were
grand-looking men."

"Very," answered Agnes, scornfully. "I have seen them standing like
automatons, taking both the commands and the canes of their officers.
Very grand-looking indeed!"

"You need not be angry at the poor fellows. It must be very disagreeable
for them to be caned in public and not dare to move an eyelash or utter
a word of protest."

"Men that will suffer such things are no better than the beasts of the
field; not as good, for the beasts do speak in their way with hoofs, or
horns, or teeth, or claws, and that to some purpose, when their sense of
justice is outraged."

"It is all military discipline, you know, Agnes. And you must allow, the
regiments make fine appearances. I dare say these Hessians have to be
caned--most men have, in one way or another. Uncle is coming back for me
this afternoon. We are going to see the troops leaving; it will be a
fine sight. I told uncle you might like to go with us, and he said he
would ask you, but he did not."

"He had more grace granted him, Maria."

"I think he is a little afraid of you, Agnes."

"Nothing of the kind. He had sense enough to understand I would not go."
Then, without further thought or preliminary she said: "Sit down here
beside me, Maria, I have something very important to say to you. I know
that I can perfectly trust you, but I want to hear you tell me so. Can
you keep a secret inviolate and sure, Maria?"

"If the secret is yours, Agnes, neither in life nor in the hour of death
would I tell it."

"If you were questioned----"

"I should be stupid and dumb; if it was your secret, fire could not burn
it out of me."

"I believe you. Many times in Boston you must have known that a young
man called on me. You may have seen his face."

"None of the girls saw his face but Sally Laws; we all knew that he
called on you. I should recognize his figure and his walk anywhere, but
his face I never saw. Sally said he was as handsome as Apollo."

"Such nonsense! He has an open, bright, strong countenance, but there is
nothing Greek about him, nothing at all. He is an American, and he loves
his native land, and would give his life for her freedom."

"And he will come here to see you now?"

"Yes, but my father must not know it."

"I thought you were always so against anything being done unknown to our
parents. When I wanted to write good-bye to Teddy Bowen you would not
let me."

"I expected you to remind me of this, and at present I can give you no
explanation. But I tell you positively that I am doing right. Can you
take my word for it?"

"I believe in you, Agnes, as if you were the Bible. I know you will only
do right."

"All that you see or hear or are told about this person must be to you
as if you had dreamed a dream, and you must forget that you ever had
it."

"I have said that I would be faithful. Darling Agnes, you know that you
may trust me."

"Just suppose that my friend should be seen, and that my father should
be told," she was silent a moment in consideration of such an event, and
Maria impulsively continued:

"In that case I would say it was my friend."

"That would not be the truth."

"But he might be my friend, we might have become friends, not as he is
your friend, nothing like that, just a friend. Are you very fond of him,
Agnes?"

"I love him as my own life."

"And he loves you in that way?"

"He loves me! Oh, yes, Maria, he loves me! even as I love him."

"Sweetest Agnes, thank you for telling me. I will see what you tell me
to see, and hear what you tell me to hear; that, and that only. I will
be as true to you as your own heart."

"I am sure you will. Some day you shall know all. Now, we will say no
more until there is a reason; everything is so uncertain. Tell me about
the rout last night."

"It was at Governor Robertson's. His daughter called and asked me to
honor them with my company; and grandmother said I ought to go, and
uncle Neil said I ought to go--so I went. There was a great time
dressing me, but I made a fine appearance when it was done. I wore my
silver-tissue gown, and grandmother loaned me her pearl necklace. She
told me how many generations of Gordon ladies had worn it, and I felt
uncanny as she clasped it round my throat. I wondered if they knew----"

"You should not wonder about such things. Did you dance much?"

"I had the honor to dance with many great people. Every gentleman danced
one minuet with his partner, and then began cotillon and allemand
dances; and there were some songs sung by Major Andre, and a fine supper
at midnight. It was two o'clock when I got home."

"Tell me who you talked with."

"Oh, everybody, Agnes; but I liked most of all, the lady who stays with
the Robertsons--Mrs. Gordon; her husband was with Burgoyne and is a
prisoner yet. She was very pleasant to me; indeed, she told Uncle Neil
'I was the perfectest creature she had ever seen,' and that she was
'passionately taken with me.' She insisted that I should be brought to
her, and talked to me about my dress and my lovers, and also about
grandfather and grandmother."

"She lived with them once, and helped to make great sorrow in their
house."

"I know. Grandmother does not forgive her."

"And your uncle?"

"He is very civil to her, for she is vastly the fashion. She played
cards all the evening, and called me to her side more often than I
liked. She said I brought her luck. I don't think she approved of my
dancing so often with Captain Macpherson. She asked questions about him,
and smiled in a way that was not pleasant, and that made me praise the
Highlander far more than I meant to, and she barely heard me to the end
of my talk ere she turned back to her cards, and as she did so, said:
'What a paragon in tartan! Before this holy war there may have been such
men, but if you are a good child pray that a husband may drop down from
heaven for you; there are no good ones bred here now.' Then every one
near began to protest, and she spread out her cards and cried, 'Who
leads? Diamonds are trump.' When she called me next, she was sweeping
the sovereigns into her reticule; and Governor Ludlow said she was
Fortune's favorite, and uncle Neil said, 'I see, Madame, that you now
play for gold,' and I think uncle meant something that she understood,
for she looked queerly at him for a moment, and then answered, 'Yes I
play for money now. I confess it. Why not? If you take away that excuse,
the rest is sinning without temptation.' She is so well bred, Agnes, and
she speaks with such an air, you are forced to notice and remember what
she says."

Agnes was troubled to think of the innocent child in such society, and
without obtruding counsel, yet never restraining it when needful, she
did her best to keep Maria's conscience quick and her heart right. It
was evident that she regarded the whole as a kind of show, whose color
and sound and movement attracted her; yet even so, this show was full of
temptation to a girl who had no heart care and no lack of anything
necessary for the pride of life.

This afternoon the half-camp and half-garrison condition of New York was
very conspicuous. All was military bustle and excitement; trumpets were
calling, drums beating, and regiments parading the streets once devoted
to peaceful commerce and domestic happiness. Royalist merchants stood in
the doors of their shops exchanging snuff-box compliments and flattering
prophecies concerning the expedition about to leave--prophecies which
did not hide the brooding fear in their eyes or the desponding shake of
the head when sure of a passer's sympathy. And a sensitive observer
would have felt the gloom, the shame and sorrow that no one dared to
express; for, just because no one dared to express it, the very stones
of the streets found a voice that spoke to every heart. The bitterest
royalist remembered. All the riot of military music could not drown the
memory of sounds once far more familiar--the cheerful greeting of men in
the market place, and all the busy, happy tumult of prosperous trade;
the laughter and chatter of joyful women and children, and the music of
the church bells above the pleasant streets.

Neil was silent and unhappy; Maria full of the excitement of the passing
moment. They sat in the open window of Neil's office and watched company
after company march to the warships in which they were to embark:
Grenadiers of Auspach with their towering black caps and sombre military
air; brass-fronted Hessians; gaudy Waldeckers; English corps glittering
in scarlet pomp; and Highlanders loaded with weapons, but free and
graceful in their flowing contour. On these latter especially, both Neil
and Maria fixed their interest. Who can say how long national feeling,
expatriated, may live? Neil leaped to his feet as the plaided men came
in sight. Their bagpipes made him drunk with emotion; they played on his
heartstrings and called up centuries of passionate feelings. He clasped
his sword unconsciously; his hand trembled with that magnetic attraction
for iron that soldiers know. At that moment he said proudly to his soul,
"Thou also art of Scottish birth!" and a vision of hills and straths
and of a tossing ocean filled his spiritual sight.

Maria's interest was of the present and was centered on the young
captain walking at the head of his company; for Quentin Macpherson was a
born soldier, and whatever he might lack in a ball-room, he lacked
nothing at the head of his men. His red hair flowing from under his
plaided bonnet was the martial color; it seemed proper to his stern face
and to the musket and bayonet, the broadsword, dirk and pistols which he
wore or carried with the ease and grace of long usage. He stepped so
proudly to the strains of "Lochaber;" he looked so brave and so
naturally full of authority that Maria was, for the moment, quite
subjugated. She had told him on the previous night, at what place she
was to view the embarkment; and she detected the first movement which
showed him to be on the watch for her.

This fleeting pleasure of exhibiting himself at his best to the girl he
loves, is a soldier's joy; and the girl is heartless who refuses him the
small triumph. Maria was kind, and she shared the triumph with him; she
knew that her white-robed figure was entrancing to the young captain,
and she stood ready to rain down all of Beauty's influence upon his
lifted face. Only a moment was granted them, but in that one moment of
meeting eyes, Maria's handkerchief drifted out of her hand and
Macpherson caught it on his lifted bayonet, kissed, and put it in his
bosom. The incident was accomplished as rapidly and perfectly as events
unpremeditated usually are; for they are managed by that Self that
sometimes takes our affairs out of all other control and does
perfectly, in an instant, what all our desiring and planning would have
failed to do in any space of time.

Neil was much annoyed, and made a movement to stop the fluttering lawn.

"What have you done, Maria?" he asked angrily. "The Van der Donck's and
half a dozen other women are watching you."

"I could not help it, Uncle Neil. I do not know how it happened. I never
intended to let it fall. Honor bright! I did not."

And perhaps Neil understood, for he said no more on the subject as they
walked silently home through the disenchanted city. All the bareness of
its brutal usage was now poignantly evident, and the very atmosphere was
heavy with an unconquerable melancholy. Some half-tipsy members of the
De Lancey militia singing about "King George the Third" only added to
the sense of some incongruous disaster. Everyone has felt the
intolerable _ennui_ which follows a noisy merry-making--the deserted
disorder, the spilled wine, the disdained food, the withered flowers,
the silenced jest, the giving over of all left to desecration and
destruction--all this, and far more was concentrated in that wretched
_ennui_ of unhappy souls which filled the streets of New York that hot
summer afternoon. For an intense dejection lay heavy on every heart.
Like people with the same disease, men avoided and yet sought each
other. They dared not say, they hardly dared to think, that their love
for the King was dying of a disease that had no pity--that their idol
had himself torn away the roots of their loyalty. But they closed their
shops early, and retreated to the citadel of their homes. Melancholy,
hopelessness, silence, infected the atmosphere and became epidemic, and
men and women, sensitive to spiritual maladies, went into their chambers
and shut their doors, but could not shut out the unseen contagion. It
rained down on them in their sleep, and they dreamed of the calamities
they feared.

It was on this afternoon that John Bradley received a new "call" and
answered it. Affected deeply by the events of the day, he left his shop
in the middle of the hot afternoon and went about some business which
took him near the King's College Building, then crowded with American
prisoners. As he came under the windows, he heard a thin, quavering
voice singing lines very dear and familiar to him:

                Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take!
                  The clouds ye so much dread
                Are big with mercy, and shall break
                  In blessings on your head.

                Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
                  But trust him for his grace:
                Behind a frowning providence
                  He hides a smiling face.

Then there was a pause and Bradley called aloud: "Brother, who are you?"

"William Watson," was the answer.

"I thought so. How are you?"

"Dying," then a pause, and a stronger voice added, "and in need of all
things."

"Brother Watson, what do you want that I can get now?"

"Cold water to drink, and some fresh fruit," and then, as if further
instructed the voice added, "when you can, a clean shirt to be buried
in."

"Tell William he shall have them." His whole manner had changed. There
was something he could do, and he went at once for the fruit and water.
Fortunately, he knew the provost of this prison and had done him some
favors, so he had no hesitation in asking him to see that the small
comforts were given to William Watson.

"He was a member of my class meeting, Provost," said Bradley; "a
Methodist leader must love his brother in Christ." Here Bradley's voice
failed him and the Provost added, "I knew him too--he used to live in
good style in Queen Street. I will see that he gets the fruit and
water."

"And if you need anything for yourself in the way of saddlery, Provost,
I will be glad to serve you."

"I was thinking of a new riding whip."

"I will bring you the best I have. One good turn deserves another."

Then, after a little further conversation he turned homeward, and men
who met him on the way wondered what was the matter with John Bradley.
For, without cessation, as he walked, he went over and over the same
three words, _"Christ forgive me!"_ And no one could smile at the
monotonous iteration; the man was in too dead earnest; his face was too
remorseful, his voice too tragic.

The next morning he was very early in Superintendent Ludlow's office.
The great man of the Court of Police had not arrived, but Bradley waited
until he came.

"You are an early visitor, Mr. Bradley," he said pleasantly.

"I have a favor to ask, Judge."

"Come in here then. What is it? You are no place or plunder hunter."

"Judge, a month ago you asked me to make you a saddle."

"And you would not do it. I remember."

"I could not--at least I thought I could not; now, if you will let me, I
will make you the fittest saddle possible--it shall be my own work,
every stitch of it."

"How much money do you want for such a saddle, Bradley?"

"I want no money at all. I want a very small favor from you."

"Nothing for the rebels, I hope. I cannot grant any favor in that
direction."

"I want nothing for the rebels; I want one hour every Sunday afternoon
in the College prison with my class members."

"Oh, I don't know, Bradley----"

"Yes, you know, Judge. You know, if I give you my promise, I will keep
every letter of it."

"What is your promise?"

"I want only to pray with my brothers or to walk awhile with them as
they go through the Valley of the Shadow. I promise you that no word of
war, or defeat or victory; that no breath of any political opinion shall
pass my lips. Nor will I listen to any such."

"Bradley, I don't think I can grant you this request. It would not be
right."

"Judge, this is a thing within your power, and you must grant it. We
shall stand together at the Judgment, and when the Lord Christ says, 'I
was hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no
drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me
not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not:' don't let me be
obliged to plead, 'Lord Christ, I would have fed, and clothed, and
visited the sick and in prison, but this man barred my way.' Open the
door, Judge, and it shall be well with you for it."

Then, without a word, Ludlow turned to his desk and wrote an order
permitting John Bradley to visit his friends for one hour every Sunday
afternoon; and as he did so, his face cleared, and when he signed his
name he had the glow of a good deed in his heart, and he said:

"Never mind the saddle, Bradley. I don't want to be paid for this thing.
You say William Watson is dying--poor Willie! We have fished together
many a long summer day"; and he took a few gold pieces from his pocket
and added, "they are for the old friend, not for the rebel. You
understand. Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Judge. I won't overstep your grant in any way. I know
better."

From this interview he went direct to the prison and sent the gold to
the dying man. And as he stood talking to the provost the dead cart
came, and five nearly naked bodies were thrown into it, their faces
being left uncovered for the provost's inspection. Bradley gazed on them
with a hot heart; emaciated to the last point with fever and want,
there was yet on every countenance the peace that to the living, passeth
understanding. They had died in the night-watches, in the dark, without
human help or sympathy, but doubtless sustained by Him whose name is
_Wonderful!_

"All of them quite common men!" said the provost carelessly--"country
rustics--plebeians!"

But when Bradley told his daughter of this visit, he added,
passionately, _"Plebeians!_ Well, then, Agnes, _Plebeians who found out
the secret of a noble death!"_

              Sweeter than Joy, tho' Joy might abide;
                Dearer than Love, tho' Love might endure,
              Is this thing, for a man to have died
                          For the wronged and the poor!

              Let none be glad until all are free;
                The song be still and the banner furled,
              Till all have seen what the poets see
                          And foretell to the world!




CHAPTER IV.

A SONG OF A SINGLE NOTE.


The next morning, very soon after breakfast, Maria came down stairs
ready to visit her friend. She was dressed like a schoolgirl in a little
frock of India chintz, her black hair combed backward and plaited in two
long, loose braids. One morning she had tied these braids with red
ribbon, and been scornfully criticised by her grandmother for "makin' a
show of herself." The next morning she had tied them with blue, and been
heart-pained by her grandfather's sigh and look of reproach; so this
morning they were tied with ribbons as black as her hair, and as she
turned herself before the long mirror she was pleased with the change.

"They make my braids look ever so much longer," she said with a pretty
toss of her head; "and grandmother can not say I am making a show of
myself. One must have ribbons of some color, and black is really
distinguished. I suppose that is the reason Uncle Neil wears so much
black cloth and velvet."

To these thoughts she ran gaily down stairs. The Elder was reading
Rivington's _Royal Gazette_; Madame had a hank of wool over two chairs,
and was slowly winding it. She looked at Maria with a little
disappointment. Her hat was on her head, her books in her hand, and she
understood where the girl was going; yet she asked: "Is it Agnes Bradley
again, Maria?"

"Yes, grandmother. I said no lessons yesterday. We were watching the
soldiers pass, and the people, and I was expecting Neil, and there
seemed no use in beginning then. I told Agnes I would say extra lessons
to-day."

"And I'm doubting, even with the 'extra,' if the lessons amount to
much."

"Oh grandmother! I have learned a page of 'Magnall's Questions,' and
studied a whole chapter in 'Goldsmith's History' about King John."

"King _who?"_ asked Madame, suspiciously. "I never heard tell o' a King
John. David, and Robert, and James I ken; but John! No, no, lassie!
There's nae King John."

"Maria means John of England," explained the Elder. "He was a vera bad
king."

"John of England, or George of England!" answered Madame disdainfully,
"kings are much of a muchness. And if he was a bad king, he was a bad
man, and ye ought to put your commandments on your granddaughter, Elder,
to learn naething about such wicked men. Ye ken as well as I do, that
the Almighty forbid the children o' Israel even to _inquire_ anent the
doings of thae sinners, the Canaanites. And it is bad enough to hae to
thole the evil doings o' a living king, without inquiring after the
crimes o' a dead one."

"I will give up my history if you wish it, grandmother. I care nothing
about King John."

"Maria must learn what other people learn," said the Elder. "She has to
live in the world, and she has sense enough to make her own reflections.
Give me a kiss, dearie, and study King John if you like to, he was a bad
man, and a bad king, but----"

"Others worse than him!" ejaculated Madame.

"Give me a kiss, darling grandmother, one for myself, and one for Agnes;
she always asks for it."

"Oh, you flattering lassie!" But the old lady gave the two kisses, and
with a sweeping courtesy, Maria closed the door and went humming down
the garden walk: _"Who Saw Fair Pamela?"_

She had not gone far before she met Moselle, the only slave Bradley
possessed. She was in her Sunday clothing, and she said Missee had given
her a whole day's holiday. In that case Agnes would be alone, and Maria
hastened her steps onward. The little house was as calm and peaceful
looking as usual, the windows all open, the mignonette boxes on their
sills in full bloom; the white shades gently stirring in the wind. The
door was closed, but on the latch, and Maria turned the handle and went
into the parlor. It was empty, but the ruffle Agnes was gathering was on
the table, and Maria took off her bonnet and laid it and her books down
on the cushioned seat within the window recess. As she lifted her head
an astonishing sight met her eyes. In the middle of the yard there was a
very handsome young man. He was bareheaded, tall, and straight as a
ramrod, and stood with one hand on his hip and his face lifted to the
sunshine. Maria's heart beat quick, she lifted her bonnet and books,
retreated to the front door, and called "Agnes" in a clear, eager
voice.

In a moment or two, Agnes came in at the opposite door. "Maria!" she
cried, "I am glad to see you. Is your uncle with you? No? That is well.
Come with me to the kitchen. I have given Moselle a holiday. Maria, I
have a friend--a very dear friend. I am cooking him some breakfast. Come
and help me."

Agnes spoke in a hurried, excited manner very unusual to her, and as she
did so, the two girls went into the little outside kitchen. The coffee
was ready, the steak broiled, and as Agnes lifted the food she
continued, "yes, I have a friend this morning. He is going to eat in the
summer-house, and you will help me to wait upon him. Will you not,
Maria? Oh, my dear, I am so happy!" And Maria, who remembered only too
vividly the bare-headed youth she had seen for a moment, gladly accepted
the office. A spirit of keen pleasure was in the dingy little kitchen,
and the girls moved gaily to it. "You shall carry the coffee, and I will
carry the steak," said Agnes; "the bread and the china are already
placed." So laughing and chatting, and delighted with their service the
two girls entered the summer-house.

"Harry," said Agnes, "this is my friend, Maria Semple; and Maria, this
is Harry Deane." And Harry looked with frank eyes into Maria's eyes, and
in a moment they knew each other. What was this strange impression made
by a look? Not a word was spoken, but the soul salutation through
meeting eyes was a far more overwhelming influence than any spoken word
could have evoked. Then came the current forms of courtesy, and the
happy tones of low laughter slipping in between the mingling of voices,
or the soft tinkling of glass and china, and everyone knows that as soon
as talking begins the divine gates close. It mattered not, Maria knew
that something wonderful had happened to her; and never in all her
subsequent life could she forget that breakfast under the clematis
vines.

Swiftly the hot, still hours of the mid-day passed. The city was torpid
in the quivering heat. There was no stir of traffic--no lumbering sound
of loaded wagons--no noise of shouting drivers--no footsteps of hurrying
men. The streets were almost empty; the very houses seemed asleep. Only
the cicadas ran from hedge to hedge calling shrilly; or now and then a
solitary trumpet stirred the drowsy air, or, in the vicinity of the
prisons, the moaning of the dying men, made the silence terribly vocal.

"Let us go into the house," said Agnes, "it will be cooler there." And
they took Maria's hands and went to the shaded parlor. Then Harry drew
some cool water from the well, and as they drank it they remembered the
men in the various prisons and their pitiful need of water at all times.

"They are the true heroes," said Agnes; "tortured by heat and by cold,
by cruel hunger and more cruel thirst, in all extremities of pain and
sorrow, they are paying their life blood, drop by drop, like coin, for
our freedom."

"And when our freedom is won," answered Harry, "we will give to the dead
their due. They, too, have saved us."

"Do you think, Harry, this French alliance is going to end the war?"

"Those who know best say it will. But these Frenchmen are giving
Washington no end of trouble. They are mostly military adventurers. They
worry Washington for promotion and for increase of pay; they have only
their own interest in view. They scorn our privations and simplicity,
and their demands can only be gratified at the expense of native
officers whose rights they unjustly wish to invade. Yet I am told that
without French money and French help we should have to give up the
struggle. I don't believe it. Starving and demoralized as our army is,
there are many who will never give up while Washington is alive to lead
them."

"If I was a rebel," said Maria, "I should want our freedom won by our
own hands only. The French are coming here at the last hour, and they
will get all the credit. Do you think it is for love of freedom they
help the Americans? If so, why do they not give freedom to France? She
has the most tyrannical and despotic of governments; Uncle Neil says so;
and yet she pretends to thrill with indignation because England violates
the liberties of her colonies. France had better mind her own affairs,
or, as grandmother says, she will scald herself with other people's
broth."

"God made the French, and He may understand them, I do not," answered
Harry. "Fancy the French government allowing our Declaration of
Independence to be translated and scattered broadcast all over the
country! No wonder that Lafayette smiled grimly when he heard of it; no
wonder he said that 'the principles of government we had announced
would soon be heard from in France.' He can see the results, but the
king and queen--who catch up every fashion and every enthusiasm with
childish levity--do not imagine any one will have the audacity to apply
American principles of government to the French monarchy. 'Give me good
news from our dear American republicans,' is always Marie Antoinette's
greeting to Franklin, and he himself is one of her prime favorites."

"Oh, he is a cunning old man," said Maria. "I have heard grandfather
talk about him. I am sure he is disagreeable; yet the French have his
picture on their snuff-boxes and rings and brooches. It is such
foolishness. And Uncle Neil--who is a very clever lawyer--says some very
disparaging things about this famous Declaration. It is at least most
inconsistent."

Harry looked his dissent, and Agnes said: "Perhaps you did not
understand your uncle, Maria."

"I am not quite a fool, Agnes. In one respect I am cleverer than Mr.
Jefferson. Imagine an assembly composed largely, like himself, of
slave-owners, saying 'that all men were created equal, and were given by
God an unalienable right to liberty.' And do you think if I were king or
queen of France I would scatter a paper in every house telling my
miserable, starving subjects, that 'whenever a government did not do
what it ought to do, it was the right of the people to alter or abolish
it.' Indeed, I think King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette will be sorry
some day for teaching their people American ideas of government."

"What do they say in England about the French alliance?" asked Agnes.

"The Parliament declares we have not only rebelled against the
mother-country, but also mortgaged ourselves to her enemy; and that if
we are to become an accession to France, self-preservation requires
England to make that accession of as little value as possible. That does
not sound very bad, Agnes, but it means killing men, women and children,
burning houses, ravaging land, and making life so wretched that death
will be preferable. Now you understand such expeditions as Matthew's and
Tryon's. So I say with Miss Semple, it is a pity for many reasons we had
to beg foreign help; especially from the three nations who are
hereditary foes of England."

"The French did not help you much at Newport," said Maria scornfully.

"They left us in the very oncoming of the battle; as soon as Lord Howe
came in sight--sailed away to the West Indies, where they had plans of
their own to carry out. The indignation of our army was beyond
description; no one but Washington could at this time have kept peace
between the French and American soldiers. Their jealousy was flaming,
and Washington could not help saying he wished there was not a foreigner
in the army but Lafayette. But when Necessity compels, it becomes
Destiny, eh, Agnes?"

"Yes. I think England must now be in a very dangerous predicament,
Harry."

"She has thirteen colonies in revolt; France, Spain, Holland, uniting
against her, and a large majority of her own people conspicuously in our
favor. Our old mother-country! I am sorry for her, for she _is ours_,
and we are her sons, even though we have been compelled to rebel against
her."

"I think it is England that has rebelled against us," said Agnes. "She
has repudiated our chartered rights, and made us aliens to the laws and
privileges which are our natural heritage. England is traitor to
America, and I don't see why you should be sorry for her."

"Can you take the English blood out of my heart? No. I want our
Independence, that we must have, nothing less will now satisfy us; but I
don't want to see three other nations, who have no business in our
family quarrel, badgering the old mother. If you had a liking for some
noble old mastiff, and saw him attacked by three strange dogs, how would
you feel?"

"Well, Harry, if the mastiff was hurting me, I might feel obliged to the
strange dogs. I do not wonder that France, Spain, and Holland should
take this opportunity to fight England; but I do wonder that Englishmen,
living in England, should be on our side."

"They have been so from the very first. The King has found it impossible
to get soldiers to fight us. They regard us as their countrymen. They
refuse to acknowledge the war as an 'English' war; they call it 'The
King's War'; and they look upon our victories as triumphs for
representative government. I saw a letter from Judge Curwen of Boston,
in which he says he visited a large factory in Birmingham where they
were making rifles to be used by the English troops in America; and he
found that the proprietor, as well as every man thus employed, was
enthusiastically on our side. Fox spoke of an English success on Long
Island as 'the terrible news from America'; and many say that the Whig
party, of which he is the leader, adopted blue and buff for their
colors, because Washington had chosen them for his troop. In both houses
of Parliament we have many powerful friends, and the American cause is
spoken of throughout England as the cause of Liberty."

"Oh, you must be mistaken!" cried Maria. "Grandfather says things very
different; and if England is for us, why does the war go on? Whose fault
is that."

"It is the fault of King George; the most stupid of men, but with a will
as indomitable as the beasts of the desert. Not even King Charles was so
determined to ruin himself and the nation. He is cruel as he is
immovable. It is _The King's War_, my mistresses, and only the King's
friends and sycophants and the clergy defend it."

"And what will those Englishmen who would not lift a finger against us
do against our allies?"

"Do? They are preparing with joyful enthusiasm to fight their old
enemies. It made my heart throb to hear how they were jumping to arms,
at the mere idea of a French and Spanish fleet in the English Channel."

"You are half an Englishman, Mr. Deane," said Maria.

"No," he answered warmly; "I am out and out, from head to foot, an
American! I was born here, bred here, and I shall live and die here; nor
do I wish to live in any other country. But brave men and free men feel
with a gigantic throb each other's rights and wrongs, even across
oceans--thus we are brothers. And the roots of my being are somewhere in
England; I can not cut myself loose from them; I do not wish to. The
feeling belongs to the unknown side of human reasons--but it governs
me."

"I thought," said Maria, "you would talk about nothing but Washington,
and you have hardly named him. Is he as great a man as we are told he
is? Or does he have faults like the rest of poor mortals?"

"Indeed, Miss Semple, he is so great a man I have forgotten whether he
has a fault. He is such a man as men build their love round while he
leads them on the way to immortality. Often I have seen the whole army
shaken, confused, hopeless; but Washington never shrank, or slipped, or
compromised; he looked unswervingly to the end. He is the Moses of
America; our people's hope, our young men's idol, our old men's staff
and sword. And even physically, who would compare our god-like
Washington with this?" and he took from his pocket-case a pen-and-ink
sketch of King George, taken at the beginning of the war and showed it
to the girls.

They looked at it curiously, and Maria said: "Surely, Mr. Deane, that is
not a true likeness; it is what you call a pasquil--a lampoon--to make
ridiculous his Majesty."

"It is not intended as a lampoon. But I never see it without thinking of
the mighty ghosts of the great Henrys, and the armed Edwards, and then I
wonder if they are not watching, with anger and amazement, the idiotic
folly of this German."

"I must really go home now," said Maria. She spoke as if she had all at
once become aware of the gravity of the words she was listening to. "I
should not have stopped so long. Grandmother is not well."

And she thought Agnes was not sorry to bid her good-bye; "but that is
natural," she reflected, "I suppose I should feel the same. She must
have a great many things to tell such a lover. I dare be bound I have
been much in the way."

Her feelings were captious and impetuous, and she walked rapidly to
them, in spite of the heat. Somehow she was not pleased with Agnes, and
Harry Deane also had bid her but a formal farewell. And yet not formal,
for when he held her hand a moment, he laid it open within his own, and
said with a look she could not forget, "my life lies there. I have put
it in your hand myself, knowingly, willingly." And she had clasped his
hand and answered gravely:

"It is as safe there as it would be in the hand of your mother--or of
Agnes."

It was not Harry that she was fretted at, it was Agnes. She felt that in
some way Agnes had deceived her. She had not said secrecy would include
hours of rebel conversation--"and I wonder at myself for listening to
it," said the little woman angrily. "I suppose it was Mr Deane--men talk
women down. I know I should not have let Agnes talk in that way to
me--just as if I believed all he said! If Uncle Neil had been there, he
would have scattered every word to the four winds with little trouble.
And," she continued, with rising temper, "I don't think Agnes acts
fairly to Uncle Neil. He is her devoted lover, and she knows it, she
must know it. People don't walk slowly up and down in the moonlight and
not know such things. I am, they say, only a child, but I have walked
with Captain Macpherson in the moonlight, and I know how amiable it
makes me feel. I am disappointed in Agnes!" and she really felt at that
moment as if her friend had done her some great wrong. So much easier is
it to blame others than to look deep down into our own hearts for the
reason of dissatisfaction. For whenever we are disappointed, we are
disappointed with ourselves, though we may not admit it.

When she entered the Semple garden she was encompassed with the
delicious perfume of carnations. Then she remembered that they were her
grandfather's favorite flower, and that before the war his garden had
been a wonder and delight with their beauty and fragrance. And in some
subtle way, the flowers made an avenue for a spiritual influence, more
in accord with the natural uprightness of the girl's nature. She sighed
and sauntered through the scented space, and as she did so, began to
make her confession. "Perhaps it was my fault--perhaps I was just a
little jealous--it is not pleasant to be the outside one; if Captain
Macpherson, or even that stupid Lord Medway had been my servant
I should not have felt so small; but that was not the fault of
Agnes--nevertheless, Agnes ought not to treat Uncle Neil badly."

It was a kind of inconsequent reasoning, but it restored her to
herself, and she entered the house very cheerfully, looking into the
parlor first of all, to see whom she could find to talk to. All the
rooms down stairs were sweet with the same enthralling odor of
carnations; but they were dusky, silent and empty; and she went to her
grandmother's room on the second floor. "Are you awake, dear
grandmother?" she asked, as she tapped gently on the door.

"Come in, dearie," was the answer, and Madame raised herself from the
bed as Maria entered and went to a large chair by the open window. "It
is hotter than needs be," she said, "and I have had company."

"Who has been here, grandmother?"

"Mrs. Jermyn brought us an invitation to the Bayards. It is for a three
days' visit."

"I am so happy. I have heard about Colonel Bayard's fine house on the
Heights; you will surely go, grandmother?"

"I can not go, Maria; but Mrs. Jermyn offered to take you in her party;
and to that I am agreeable. Madame Jacobus will go with you, and I am
vera fond o' Madame Jacobus. She is not an ordinary woman; she has had
romantics in her life, and the vera look o' her sets you thinking o' all
sorts o' impossibilities. Tell her Madame Semple keeps good mind o' her,
and would be glad to see her again;" then she added sharply, "Mrs.
Gordon was with her. I was quite taken aback. I was all in a tremble at
first."

"She is so anxious to be friends with you; can't you forgive her,
grandmother? It is a long time since."

"Maria Semple, no one is mair willing than I am, to let byganes be
byganes. But mind this, there are folks simply unlucky to you, and not
intending it; and Adelaide Gordon and Janet Semple are best apart. She
is one o' them women who bring happenings and events, and I notice they
are not pleasant or favorable. You will hae heard say, Maria, _wha_ it
is, that sends a woman, where he canna go himsel'. Cousin Gordon means
no harm--but."

"Indeed, she really likes you. She talks to me of the days she lived
with you, and of all your kindness to her. It was Katherine Van
Heemskirk that behaved badly. I don't think I like that person--and I
want you to forgive Mrs. Gordon."

"I have forgiven Mrs. Gordon, Maria. Do you think I would put the Lord's
prayer behind my back for Adelaide Gordon? And I couldna dare to say it
and not forgive her; but to love your friend, and look to yoursel' isna
out o' the way o' wisdom."

"When am I to go, grandmother?"

"Mrs. Jermyn will call for you at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. How
about thae lessons, and the 'extras' you were speaking o'?"

"It is such warm weather. I think I ought to have my holiday now; and
what about my frocks, grandmother? Shall I not have to pack my small
trunk?"

This subject was, of course, paramount, and Madame went to Maria's room
with her, and the proper garments were selected and packed. Very soon
the whole house was infected with the hurry and excitement of the little
lady, and the Elder tried to join in the discussion and employment; it
being one of his pet ideas that he had a pretty taste about women's
clothing. But his first suggestion that the simple frock of India chintz
Maria was wearing was a most becoming morning gown, met with such a
decided rebuff he had no courage left for further advice. For Maria
looking scornfully down at its short simplicity asked, "Why do you not
advise a white ruffled pinafore also, grandfather? Then I would be fit
for an infant school. I am a young lady now," she continued, as she
spread out its three breadths to their utmost capacity, showing in the
act the prettiest little feet, shod in bronze leather with red rosettes
on the instep. And when a man finds his opinions out of date, what can
he do but retire with them into silence?

The quiet that fell upon the house after Maria's departure was a
grateful respite. The old people sat down with a sigh of relief, and
while they praised their granddaughter's sweet nature, and talked
proudly of all her excellences, they were not sorry to be at rest for a
day or two. Neither was the Elder sorry to casually notice the absence
of Maria to certain royalist upstarts who had won wealth through their
chicaneries, but who had not been able to win the social notice they
craved.

"Elder Semple may be pinched, now and then, for a few sovereigns," he
thought, "but he and his can sit down with the highest of the King's
servants and be counted one o' them. And it will be lang ere the Paynes
and the Bradleys and many others I could name, will get that far!"

Such reflections gave to the old gentleman's steps something of the
carriage of his more prosperous days; he looked outward and upward in
his old manner, and thus saw Mr. Cohen, the Jewish trader, standing in
his shop door. He asked pleasantly after his health, and by so doing
brought a few good words on himself, which somehow went warmly to his
heart. In this amiable temper he passed the famous saddlery shop. John
Bradley was just dismissing a customer. He was wearing his apron of blue
and white ticking, and had a paper cap upon his head, and he looked
precisely what he was--a capable, self-respecting workman. Semple had
always permitted a polite salutation to cover all claims on his courtesy
that Bradley might have; but this morning he said with a friendly air,
"How's all with you, Mr. Bradley? Will you tell your charming daughter
that her friend, Miss Semple, has gone wi' a party o' our military
friends to the Bayards' for a three days' visit?"

"Agnes will miss her friend, Elder."

"Yes, yes! They went off this morning early, up the river wi' music and
singing. Young things, most o' them, Mr. Bradley, and we must make
allowances."

"If we must, we must, Elder. And God knows, if it isn't the lute and the
viol, and the tinkling feet of the foolish maidens, it is the trumpet,
and the sword, and the hell of the battlefield. Evil times we are fallen
on, sir."

"But they are to bring us good times. We must not doubt that. My
respects, sir, to Miss Bradley, who has a voice to lift a soul on the
wings of melody, heavenward. Good day, sir."

Semple went forward a little dashed, he hardly knew why; and Bradley
was chagrined. He had tried to say something that should not only
represent himself, but also acknowledge the kindness he was sensible of;
but he had only blundered into commonplaces, and quite against his will,
shown much of his roughest side. Why did he include the Elder's
granddaughter among the tinkling feet of foolish maidens? She was the
friend of his own child also. He felt that he had had an opportunity and
mismanaged it, and a sense of his inabilities in all social matters
mortified and fretted him all the day afterward.

Maria was expected home in three days, but she did not come. Her party
went directly from the Bayard house to Hempstead, where Colonel Birch
was entertaining a large company from the city; so it was fully a week
before the young lady returned to New York. In the meantime Destiny was
not asleep, and affairs in which Maria was interested did not lie still
waiting for her reappearance.

Maria had left a message for Agnes with her uncle, and he resolved to
take it personally that evening. But as he was drinking his tea the
Elder said, "I saw Mr. Bradley this morning, and I sent word by him to
his daughter anent Maria's absence." Neil did not make any answer, but
his mother noticed the sweep of color up and down his dark face, and she
was on the point of saying, "you hae taken the job out o' hands that
would hae done it better, gudeman." But the wisdom and kindness of
silence was granted her; yet the Elder felt his remark to be
unpropitious, and sighed. There were so many subjects these days that he
made mistakes about; and he had a moment's recollection of his old
authoritative speech, and a wonder as to what had happened him. Was it
that he had fallen out of the ranks of the workers of the world? Or, was
it because he was growing old? He was silent, and so pathetic in his
silence, that Neil observed it and blamed himself.

"Father," he said, "pardon me! I was thinking. I have been with Major
Crosby all day about the Barrack Department finances, and that is not
work to be talked about. It is well you told Mr. Bradley of Maria's
absence."

"I wonder you did not go with Maria; you had an invitation."

"Yes, I had an invitation, but I had engagements of more importance with
Brigadier Skinner and Treasurer McEvers. McEvers is to pay me with wood
from a rebel tract granted him. So when the cold weather comes we shall
not require to count the sticks; we can at least keep warm."

He rose with these words and went to his room. He told himself that he
would there consider a visit to Miss Bradley, and yet he knew that he
intended to make it no matter what considerations came up for his
deliberation. Not for a moment did he deceive himself; he was well aware
that for the first time in his life he was really in love. He admitted
frankly that his early passion for the pretty Katherine Van Heemskirk
had been a selfish affair; and that his duel with Captain Hyde was
fought, not so much for love of Katherine, as for hatred and jealousy of
his rival. He had never loved Katherine as he loved Agnes, for it was
the soul of Agnes that attracted him and drew him to her by a
gravitation, like that which one star exerts upon another. His first
love he had watched grow from childhood to maidenhood; he could count on
his fingers the number of times he had seen Agnes Bradley; and yet from
this slender experience there had sprung an invincible longing to say to
her, "O, Soul of my Soul, I love you! I need you!"

Yet to make Agnes his wife at this time was to make sacrifices that he
durst not contemplate. They included the forfeiture of his social
position, and this loss was certain to entail the same result on his
political standing and emoluments. His father was connected with his
financial affairs, and to ruin himself meant also ruin to the parents he
loved so truly. Then the sudden fear that assails honest lovers made his
heart tremble; Agnes might have scruples and reluctances; she might not
be able to love him; she might love some other man, Maria had named such
a probability; with a motion of his hand he swept all contingencies
aside; no difficulties should abate his ardor; he loved Agnes Bradley
and he was determined to win her.

With this decision he rose, stood before his mirror, and looked at
himself. Too proud a man to be infected with so small a vice as vanity,
he regarded his personality without unreasonable favor. "I am still
handsome," he said. "If I have not youth, I have in its place the
perfection of my own being; I am now in the prime of life, and have not
begun to fall away from it. Many young and beautiful women have shown me
favor I never sought. Now, I will seek favor; I will woo it, beg it,
pray for it. I will do anything within honor and honesty to win this
woman of my soul, this adorable Agnes!"

He found her in the garden of her home; that is, she was sitting on the
topmost step of the short flight leading to the door. Her silent,
penetrative loveliness encompassed her like an atmosphere in which all
the shafts of the shelterless, worrying day fell harmless. She smiled
more than spoke her welcome, and her eyes unbarred her soul so that they
seemed to understand each other at a glance; for Neil's love was set far
above all passionate tones of welcome or personal adulation. Sitting
quiet by her side he noticed a man walking constantly before the house,
and he pointed out the circumstance to Agnes.

"He will walk there until my father comes home," she answered. "It is
Elias Hurd the chapel keeper. Father pays him to come here every day at
sunset and watch till he returns."

"Your words take a great fear from me," said Neil; and then, though his
heart was brim full he could say no more. Silence again enfolded them,
and the song in each heart remained unsung. Yet the overwhelming
influence of feelings which had not found words was upon them, and this
speechless interlude had been to both the clearest of revealers.

After a week's pleasure-seeking Maria returned home. It was in the
middle of a hot afternoon, and life was at its most languid pitch. The
Elder was asleep in his chair, Madame asleep on the sofa, and the
negroes dozing in the kitchen. Her entry aroused the house, her
personality instantly filled it. She was flushed and tired, but alive
with the egotistical spirit of youth. "Were you not expecting me?" she
asked with an air of injury, as she entered the drowsy, tidy house. "And
I do want a cup of tea so much, grandmother."

"You were coming Monday, and then you were coming Wednesday; we did not
know whether you would come to-day or not; but you are very welcome,
dear, and you shall have tea in ten minutes."

She went upstairs while it was preparing, took off her bonnet and her
silk coat, dashed cool water over her flushed face and shoulders and
arms, wet her hair and brushed it backward, and then put on a loose gown
of thin muslin. "Now I can drink my tea in comfort," she said, "and just
talk at my leisure. And dear me! What a week of tumult it has been!"

"Have you enjoyed your visits?" asked the Elder when she reappeared.

"So, so, grandfather," she answered; and as she spoke, she lifted the
small tea-table close to his side, and whispered on his cheek, "you will
have a cup of tea with me, dear grandfather, I shall not enjoy mine
unless you do." He said "pooh! pooh! child," but he was delighted, and
with beaming smiles watched her small hands busy among the china, and
the bread and meat.

"I am downright hungry," she said. "We had breakfast before leaving, but
that seems hours and hours ago, and, O grandmother! there is no tea and
bread like yours in all the world."

Then she began her long gossip concerning people and events: the water
parties on the river, the picnics in the woods, the dancing and
gambling and games in the house. "And I must tell you," she said, "that
really and truly, I was the most admired of all the beauties there. The
ladies all envied my frocks, and asked where I got them, and begged for
the patterns; and I wished I had taken more with me. It is so
exhilarating to have a new one for every evening. Lord Medway said every
fresh one became me better than the last."

"Lord Medway!" said the Elder. "Is he that long, lazy man that trails
after General Clinton like his shadow?"

"Well, they love each other. It seems funny for men to love one another;
but General Clinton and Lord Ernest Medway are like David and Jonathan."

"Maria Semple!" cried Madame, "I think you might even the like o'
Clinton and the English Lord, to some one o' less respectability than
Bible characters."

"O grandmother! General Clinton is just as blood-thirsty as General
David ever was. He hates his enemies quite as perfectly, and wishes them
all the same sorts and kinds of calamities. I don't know whether
Jonathan was good-natured, but Lord Medway is. He danced with me as
often as I would let him, and he danced with nobody else! think of that,
grandmother! the women were all madly jealous of me. I did not care for
that much."

"Janet, dear," said the Elder to his wife, "if you had ever seen this
Lord Medway trailing up William Street or Maiden Lane, you wouldna
believe the lassie. He is just the maist inert piece o' humanity you
could imagine. _Dancing! Tuts! Tuts! lassie!"_

"He can dance, grandfather. Mrs. Gordon said the way he led me through a
minuet was adorable; and Major Andre told me that in a skirmish or a
cavalry charge, no one could match him. He was the hardest rider and
fiercest fighter in the army."

"Weel, weel!" said Madame, "a man that isna roused by anything short o'
a battle or a cavalry charge, might be easy to live with--if you have
any notion for English lords."

"Indeed, I have not any notion for Lord Medway. He is the most provoking
of men. He takes no interest in games, he won't stake money on cards, he
listened to the music with his eyes shut; and when Miss Robertson and
Major Andre acted a little piece the Major had written, he pretended to
be asleep. He was not asleep, for I caught him awake, and he smiled at
me, as much as to say that I knew all about his deception, and
sanctioned it. I told him so afterward, and he laughed so heartily that
every one looked amazed, and what do you think he said? 'It is a fact,
ladies; I really laughed, but it is Miss Semple's fault.' I don't think,
grandmother, I would have been invited to Hempstead if he had not let it
be known that he was not going unless Miss Semple went."

"Is he in love with you?"

"He thinks he is."

"Are you in love with him?"

Maria smiled, and with her teacup half-way to her mouth hummed a line
from an old Scotch song:

                  "I'm glad that my heart's my ain."

Such conversation, touching many people and many topics, was naturally
prolonged, and when Neil came home it was carried on with renewed
interest and vigor. And Maria was not deceived when Neil with some
transparent excuse of 'going to see a friend' went out at twilight.

"He is going to see Agnes," she thought; "my coming home is too good an
excuse to lose, but why did he not tell me? Lovers are so sly, and yet
all their cunning is useless. People always see through their little
moves. In the morning I shall go to Agnes, and I hope she will not be
too advising, because I am old enough to have my own ideas: besides, I
have some experiences."

All the way to her friend's house in the morning, she was making
resolutions which vanished as soon as they were put to the test. It was
only too easy to fall into her old confidential way, to tell all she had
seen and heard and felt; to be petted and admired and advised. Also, she
could relate many little episodes to Agnes that she had not felt
disposed to tell her grandparents, or even Neil--compliments and
protestations, and sundry "spats" of envy and jealousy with the ladies
of the party. But the conversation settled mainly, however often it
diverged, upon Lord Medway. Agnes had often heard her father speak of
him. He knew John Wesley, and had asked him to preach at Market-Medway
to his tenants and servants; and on the anniversary of the Wesley Chapel
in John Street he had given Mr. Bradley twenty pounds toward the Chapel
fund. "He is a far finer man than he affects to be," she added, "and
father says he wears that drawling, trailing habit like a cloak, to
hide his real nature. Do you think he has fallen in love with you,
Maria?"

"Would it be a very unlikely thing to happen, Agnes? He danced only with
me, and when Major Andre arranged the Musical Masque, he consented to
sing only on the condition that I sang with him."

"And what else, Maria?"

"One evening Quentin Macpherson danced the Scotch sword dance--a very
clever barbaric thing--but I did not like it; the man looks better at
the head of his company. However, he sang a little song called 'The
Soldier's Kiss' that was pretty enough. The melody went in this
way"--and Maria hummed a strain that sounded like the gallop of horses
and shaking of bridles--"I only remember the chorus," she said.

                "A kiss, Sweet, a kiss, Sweet,
                 For the drums are beat along the street,
                 And we part, and know not when we meet,
                 With another kiss like this, Sweet.

"And Lord Medway whispered to me that Shakespeare had said it all far
better in one line, _'Touch her soft mouth and march.'_ In Major Andre's
masque we had a charming little verse; I brought you a copy of it, see,
here it is. The first two lines have a sweet crescendo melody; at the
third line there was a fanfare of trumpets in the distance and the
gentlemen rattled their swords. The fourth line we sang alone, and at
the close Lord Medway bowed to me, and the whole room took up the
refrain." Then the girls leaned over the paper, and Agnes read the words
aloud slowly, evidently committing them to her memory as she read:

                "A song of a single note!
                  But it soars and swells above
                 The trumpet's call, and the clash of arms,
                  For the name of the song is Love."

"Now sing me the melody, Maria," said Agnes; and Maria sang, and Agnes
listened, and then they sang it together until it was perfect. "Just
once more," said Maria, and as they reached the close of the verse, a
strong, musical voice joined in the refrain, and then Harry came into
the room singing it.

"Harry! Harry!" cried Agnes, joyfully.

_"And the name of the song is Love!"_ he answered, taking Agnes in his
arms and kissing the word on her lips. Then he turned with a glowing
face to Maria, and she bent her head a little proudly, and remained
silent. But soon Agnes went away to order coffee for her visitor, and
then Harry sat down by Maria, and asked to see the song, and their hands
met above the passionate words, and the dumb letters became vocal. They
sang them over and over, their clear, fresh voices growing softer and
softer, till, almost in a whisper of delight, they uttered the last word
_"Love!"_ Then he looked at her as only a lover can look, and she looked
at him like one who suddenly awakens. Her past was a sleep, a dream;
that moment her life began. And she had all the tremors that mark the
beginnings of life; a great quiet fell upon her, and she wanted to go
into solitude and examine this wonderful experience. For Harry had
stirred one of those unknown soul depths that only Love ventures down
to.

When Agnes returned she said she must go home, her grandmother was not
well; and then she blundered into such a number of foolish excuses as
made Agnes look curiously, perhaps anxiously, at her. And for several
days she continued these excuses; she sent Neil with messages and
letters, but she did not go to her friend. There was something wrong
between them, and Maria finally threw the blame upon Agnes.

"Any one may see that she is deceiving either Harry or uncle Neil--and I
hate a deceiver. It is not fair--I am sure if Harry knew about uncle--if
he was not engaged to Agnes--Oh, no! I must not think of him. Poor uncle
Neil! If Agnes treats him badly, I shall never forgive her, never!"
Thus, and so on, ran her reflections day after day, and yet she had not
the courage to go and talk the matter out with Agnes. But she noticed an
unusual exaltation in her uncle's manner; he dressed with more than his
usual sombre richness; he seemed to tread upon air, and though more
silent than ever, a smile of great sweetness was constantly on his lips.
And one afternoon as Maria sat at her tambour frame, Madame entered the
parlor hastily, looking almost frightened.

"Do you hear him? Your uncle, I mean. Do you hear him, Maria?" she
cried. "He is singing. He must be _fey_. I haven't heard him sing since
he was a lad going to Paul Gerome's singing class. It's uncanny! It
frightens me! And what is he singing, Maria?"

And Maria lifting a calm face answered--_"The name of the song is
Love."_




CHAPTER V.

LOVE'S SWEET DREAM.


It is not truth, but falsehood which requires explanation, and Maria was
sensible of this fact as she sat at her tambour frame thinking of Agnes
and of Harry and of her uncle Neil. There was something not
straightforward in the life of Agnes, and she resolved every day to make
inquiry into it, and every day she made, instead, some deferring excuse.
But one morning, while eating breakfast, they were all sensitive to
unusual movements in the city, and the air was tense with human emotion.
The Elder and Neil became restless and anticipative, and Maria could not
escape the feverish mental contagion. When the men had left the house
she hurried through her few duties, and then went to her friend. Agnes
was standing at the garden gate, watching and listening. "There is news
of some kind, Maria," she said; "I am anxious to know what it is."

"Grandmother says we need not run after news, it will find us out, and I
dare say it is only more Connecticut ravaging."

Then Agnes turned into the house with Maria, for she perceived something
unusual in her voice and manner--dissatisfaction, and perhaps a tone of
injury. There was no pretence of study about her, she had not even
brought her books, and Agnes became silent, and lifted her sewing. At
length Maria spoke:

"What is the matter with you, Agnes?" she asked, and then added: "you
are not like yourself this morning."

"Whatever the matter is, Maria, I caught it from you."

"You are cross."

"I was only curious and anxious when you came. You brought
dissatisfaction and annoyance with you. I think you had better tell me
at once what has displeased you."

"Oh, you must know what displeases me, Agnes. Do you think I can bear to
see you playing with two lovers at once? I am very fond of my uncle
Neil, and he adores you. And when Harry is away, uncle Neil is
everything; but as soon as Harry comes, then Harry is everything. It is
not fair to uncle, and I do not approve of such ways. If I were to act
in that kind of fashion between Lord Medway and Quentin Macpherson, who
would be so shocked as Agnes Bradley? I am so disappointed in you,
Agnes. I have not been able to come and see you for days; this morning I
felt that I must speak to you about things."

"Maria, I once asked you to defer judgment on whatever you saw or heard
or suspected, and to take my word for it being all right. It seems that
I asked too much."

"But how can it be all right, if you allow two men to make love to
you?--and you seem to like it from both of them."

"I do like it--from both of them. The two loves are different."

"Agnes! Agnes! I am shocked at you!" and Maria hid her face on the sofa
cushion and began to cry.

Then Agnes knelt at her side, and lifted her face and kissed it, and
whispered four words in her ear; and there was a look of wonder, and
Maria asked softly, "Why did you not tell me before?"

"I thought every time you saw him you would surely guess the truth."

"I did not."

"You must have seen also that Harry is deeply in love with you. Now, how
could he be in love with me also?"

"Harry in love with me! O Agnes!"

"You know it. Love cannot be hid. Only lovers look at a woman as I have
seen Harry look at you."

"I do think Harry likes me, and I felt as if--I don't know what I felt,
Agnes. I am very unhappy."

"Let me tell you what you felt. You said to yourself: if Harry was not
bound to Agnes he would be my lover; and Agnes does not care for him,
she does not treat him well, and yet she treats him too well to be doing
right to uncle Neil. You would include your uncle, because you would
feel it selfish to be wounded and disappointed only on your own
account."

"You ought not to speak in that way, Agnes. Suppose I had such feelings,
it is not nice of you to put them into words so plain and rude."

"I do not blame you, Maria. Your attitude is natural, and specially
womanly. It is I who have been wrong. I must now excuse myself to you;
once you said you could believe in me without explanations."

"Forgive me, Agnes. I do not want explanations now."

"For I have told you that Harry is my brother, not my lover. That is the
main fact, and accounts for all that specially troubles you. Now you
must know the whole truth. Harry was sent to England out of the way of
the war, for my father lives and moves in his being and welfare. But
Harry wanted to be in the thick of the war; he wanted the post of most
danger for his country's sake. He said he was ashamed to be in England;
that every American who could be in active service ought to be there,
because it might be, God intended to use just him. I gave in to all he
proposed; I had no heart to resist him. I only stipulated that come what
would, our father should not know he was in the country."

"Why did you not tell me at first that he was your brother?"

"Harry is handsome, and I was afraid you might be attracted by him; and
the secrecy and romance of the situation and the danger he was
constantly facing--these are things that capture a woman's imagination.
And marriage is such an important affair, I could not think it right to
run the risk of engaging you to Harry unknown to your father or friends.
I told Harry that you believed him to be my lover, and I was sure that
this belief would save you from thinking of him in any light but that of
a friend or brother."

"It ought to have done, dear Agnes; it did do--but Harry."

"I know, at Harry's second visit, if not at his first, he was your
lover; and I knew that this explanation must come. Now, I can only beg
you to keep the knowledge of Harry Bradley's presence in America
absolutely to yourself. I assure you, if father knew he was here and in
constant danger, he would be distracted."

"But does he not suspect? He must wonder that Harry does not write to
him."

"Harry does write. He sends letters to a friend in London, who re-mails
them to father. About three times a year father gets a London letter,
and that satisfies him. And he so little suspects Harry's presence in
America that the boy has passed his father on the street without the
slightest recognition on father's part; for he has more disguises than
you could believe possible. I have seen him as a poor country doctor,
buying medicines for his settlement; as an old schoolmaster, after a few
books and slates at Rivington's; and a week ago, I met him one day
shouting to the horses which were pulling a load of wood up Golden Hill.
And he has no more transitions than a score of other young men who serve
their country in this secret and dangerous manner. I can assure you
General Washington's agents go in and out of New York constantly, and it
is beyond the power of England to prevent them."

"Suppose in some evil hour he should be suspected! Oh, Agnes!"

"There are houses in every street in the city where a window or a door
is always left open. Harry told me he knew of sixteen, and that he
could pass from one to the other in safety."

"Suppose he should be noticed on the river, at your landing or any
other."

"He can swim like a fish and dive like a seal and run like a deer. The
river banks that look like a tangle to you and me, are clear as a
highway to Harry. And you know it is the East river that is watched; no
one thinks much about the water on this side; especially so near the
fort. I do not think Harry is in any great danger; and he will be mainly
on the river now for some months."

"I wish I had not said a word, Agnes, I am so sorry! So sorry!"

"We are always sorry when we doubt. I felt that you were mistrusting me,
and I promised Harry, on his last visit, to tell you the truth before he
came again. I have been waiting for you all week. I should have told you
to-day, even if you had not said a word."

"I shall never forgive myself."

"I was wrong also, Maria. I ought, at the first, to have trusted you
fully."

"Or not trusted me at all, Agnes."

"You are right, Maria."

A great chagrin made Maria miserable. A little faith, a little patience,
and the information she had demanded in spirit unlovely and unloving,
would have come to her by Harry's desire, and with the affectionate
confidence of Agnes. But neither of the girls were fully satisfied or
happy, and the topic was dropped. Both felt that the matter would have
to rest, in order to clear itself, and Agnes was not unconscious of
those mute powers within, which, if left to themselves, clear
noiselessly away the debris of our disputes and disappointments. She
proposed a walk in the afternoon; she said she had shopping to do, and
if there was any news, they would likely hear it from some one.

There was evidently news, and Agnes at once judged it unfavorable for
the royalists. The military were moving with sullen port; the houses
were generally closed, and the people on the streets not inclined to
linger or to talk. "We had better ask my father," she said, and they
turned aside to Bradley's store to make the inquiry. The saddler was
standing at the door talking to Lord Medway; and his eyes flashed an
instant's triumphant signal as they caught his daughter's glance of
inquiry. But he kept his stolid air, and when he found Lord Medway and
Maria so familiarly pleased to meet each other, he introduced Agnes and
gave a ready acquiescence to Lord Medway's proposal to walk with the
ladies home.

Then, Maria, suddenly brilliant with a sense of her power, asked, "What
is the matter with the city this afternoon? Every one seems so depressed
and ill-humored."

"We have lost Stony Point," answered Medway. "There was a midnight
attack by twelve hundred picked men. It was an incomparable deed of
daring. I would like to have been present. I said to General Clinton
when I heard the story, 'Such men are born to rule, and coming from the
stock they do, you will never subdue them!'"

"Who led the attack?" asked Agnes.

"Anthony Wayne, a brave daring man, they tell me. The Frenchman, De
Fleury, was first in, and he hauled down our flags. _Dash it!_ If it had
been an American, I would not have cared so much. Now, perhaps, Generals
Clinton and Tryon will understand the kind of men they have to fight.
When Americans fight Englishmen, it is Greek meeting Greek. Clinton
tells me the rebels have taken four thousand pounds' worth of ordnance
and stores and nearly seven hundred prisoners. Oh, you know a deed like
this makes even an enemy proud of the men who could do it!"

"Was it a very difficult deed?" asked Maria.

"I am told that Stony Point is a rock two hundred feet high, surrounded
by the Hudson River on three sides, and almost isolated from the land on
the fourth side by a marsh, which at high tide is two feet under water.
They reached the fort about midnight, and while one column drew the
defenders to the front by a rapid continuous fire, two other columns,
armed only with the bayonet, broke into the fort from opposite points.
In five minutes the rebels were rushing through every embrasure, and a
thousand tongues crying 'Victory'! There is no use belittling such an
affair. It was as brave a thing as ever men did, and I wish I had seen
the doing of it."

In such conversation they passed up Maiden Lane, and by the ruins of
Trinity Church to the river side; all of them influenced by the tense
feeling which found no vocal outlet for its passion. Men and women would
appear for a moment at a window, and then disappear. They were American
patriots on the look-out to spread the good news. A flash from the
lifted eyes of Agnes was sufficient. Again they would meet two or three
royalists talking in a dejected, disparaging way of the victory; or else
blustering in anger over the supineness or inefficiency of their
generals.

"I hope General Clinton will now find his soldiers some tougher work
than hay-making," sneered an irate old man who stopped Lord Medway. "If
he goes out hay-making, he ought to leave fighting men in the forts. Why
the commander at Stony Point--Colonel Johnson--I know him, had a wine
party, and the officers from Verplanck's Point were drinking with him,
when Wayne walked into their midst and made them all prisoners. I am
told the sentinels had been secured, the abatis removed, and the rebels
in the works before our fine soldiers knew an enemy was near. And it was
that tanner from Pennsylvania--that Dandy Wayne, that stole the march on
them! It makes me ashamed of our English troops, my lord!

"Well, Mr. Smith, General Clinton will be in New York in a few days.
There will be many to call him to account, I have no doubt."

In this electric atmosphere heart spoke to heart very readily, for in
the midst of great realities conventionalities are of so little
consequence, and genuine feeling, of any kind, forgets, or puts aside,
flatteries or compliments. So when they reached the Bradley house, Agnes
asked Lord Medway if he would enter and rest awhile? And he said he
would, and so sat talking about the war until it was tea-time for the
simple maidens, who ate their dinner at twelve o'clock. Then he saw
Agnes bring in the tray, and take out the china, and lay the round
table with a spotless nicety; and it delighted him to watch the homely
scene. Maria was knitting, and he turned her ball of pink yarn in his
hands and watched her face glow and smile and pout and change with every
fresh sentiment. Or, if he lifted his eyes from this picture, he could
look at Agnes, who had pinned a clean napkin across her breast, and was
cutting bread and butter in the wafer slices he approved. He wondered if
she would ask him to take tea with them; if she did not he was resolved
to ask himself. Then he noticed she had placed three cups on the tray,
and he was sure of her hospitality.

It made him very happy, and he never once fell into the affectation of
talk and manner appropriate to a fashionable tea-table. He seemed to
enjoy both the rebel sentiments of Agnes, and the royalist temper of
Maria; and he treated both girls with such hearty deference and respect
as he did not always show to much more famous dames. And it was while
sitting at this tea-table he gave his heart without reserve to Maria
Semple. If he had any doubts or withdrawals, he abandoned them in that
happy hour, and said frankly to himself:

"I will make her my wife. That is my desire and my resolve; and I will
not turn aside from it for anything, nor for any man living; Maria
Semple is the woman I love, no one else shall have her."

In following out this resolve he understood the value of Agnes; and he
did all he could to gain her good-will. She was well disposed to give
it; her father's approval bespoke hers. A feeling of good comradeship
and confidence grew rapidly as they ate, and drank their tea, and talked
freely and without many reservations, for the sake of their political
feelings. So much so, that when Lord Medway rose to go, there came to
Agnes a sudden fear and chill. She looked at him apprehensively, and
while he held her hand, she said:

"Lord Medway, Maria and I have been very sincere with you, but I am sure
our sincerity cannot wrong us, in your keeping."

This was not very explicit, but he understood her meaning. He laid his
hand upon the table at which they had eaten, and said: "It is an altar
to faith and friendship. When I am capable of repeating anything said at
the table where I sit as guest, I shall be lost to truth and honor, and
be too vile to remember." He spoke with force, and with a certain
eloquence, very different from his usual familiar manner, and both Agnes
and Maria showed him in their shining eyes and confiding air how surely
they believed in him.

After this event there was continual excitement in the city, and General
Clinton returned to it at once. He called in the little army he had
cutting grass for winter fodder, and with twenty thousand troops shut
himself up in New York.

"For once the man has been employing himself well and wiselike," said
Madame Semple. "He has cut all the grass, and cured all the grass round
about Rye, and White Plains, and New Rochelle, and East Chester, and a
few other places; and he has left it all ahint him. What a wiselike
wonderfu' man is General Sir Henry Clinton!"

"And the rebels have carried off the last wisp o' hay he made," said the
Elder angrily. "They were on the vera heels o' our soldiers. It's beyond
believing! It's just the maist mortifying thing that ever happened us."

Madame looked pityingly at her husband, raised her shoulders to
emphasize the look, and then in a thin voice, quavering a little with
her weakness and emotion, began to sing to herself from that old
translation of the Psalms so dear to every Scottish heart:

                "Kings of great armies foiled were
                   And forced to flee away;
                 And women who remained at home
                   Did distribute the prey.
                 God's chariots twenty thousand are,
                   Thousands of angels strong."

"Janet! Janet! Will you sing some kind o' calming verse? The Lord is
naething but a _man of war_ in your thoughts. Do you believe He goes
through the earth wi' a bare, lifted sword in His hand?"

"Whiles He does, Alexander. And the light from that lifted sword
lightens the earth. I hae tasted o' the goodness of the Lord; I know of
old His tender mercy, and His loving kindness, but in these awfu' days,
I am right glad to think o' Him as _The Lord of Hosts!_ He is sure to be
on the right side, and He can make of one man a thousand, and of a
handful, a great multitude."

"It's a weary warld."

"But just yet there's nae better one, my dear auld man! So we may as
well tak' cheerfully what good comes to-day, there will be mair
to-morrow, or I'm far wrang."

If Janet's "to-morrow" be taken as she meant it to be taken, her set
time was long enough for other startling events. Tryon's expedition was
ordered back to New York, and Quentin Macpherson brought the news of his
own return. He did not meet with as warm a welcome as he hoped for.
Madame was contemptuous and indignant over the ravaging character of the
expedition. The Elder said they had "alienated royalists without
intimidating rebels"; and Maria looked critically at the young soldier,
and thought him less handsome than she had supposed: the expedition, so
cowardly and cruel, had been demoralizing and had left its mark on the
young man. He was disappointed, jealous, offended; he had an overweening
opinion of the nobility of his family and not a very modest one as to
his own deserts. He was also tenacious, and the thing he desired grew in
value as it receded from his grasp; so, although angry at Maria, he had
no idea of relinquishing his suit for her hand.

She kept as much as possible out of his company, and this was not
difficult. The troops were constantly on the alert, for one piece of bad
news, for the royalists, followed another. A month after the capture of
Stony Point, the rebels took Paulus Hook in a midnight attack. This fort
had been most tenaciously held by the English from the earliest days of
the war, it being the only safe landing-place in Jersey for their
foraging parties. It was within sight of New York, and almost within
reach of its guns. The shame and anger of the royalist burghers was
unspeakable; they would have openly insulted the military, if they had
dared to do so.

About two weeks later came the news of Sullivan's sweeping victory over
the Six Nations of Indians under Sir John Johnson and the Indian Chief,
Brandt. The Americans turned their country into a desert, and drove the
whole people in headlong flight as far as Niagara. This Autumn also was
rendered remarkable by the astonishing success of the American
privateers; never had they been at once so troublesome and so fortunate.
So that there was plenty for every one to talk about, if there had been
neither lovers nor love-making in the land. But it seemed as if Love
regarded the movement of great armies and the diplomacies of great
nations, as the proper background and vehicles for his expression. While
Medway was talking, or fishing, or hunting with Clinton, he was thinking
of Maria. While Macpherson was inspecting his company, he was thinking
of Maria. While Harry was traversing the woods and the waters, he was
thinking of Maria. And while Neil Semple was drawing out titles, and
making arguments in Court, he was always conscious of the fact that his
happiness was bound up in the love of Agnes Bradley. On every side also,
other lovers were wooing and wedding. The sound of trumpets did not
sadden the music of the marriage feast, nor did the bridal dance tarry a
moment for the tramp of marching soldiers. All the chances and changes
of war were but ministers of Love, and did his pleasure.

In the meantime John Bradley was stitching his saddles, and praying and
working for Washington, the idol of his hopes, quite unconscious of how
completely his home had been confiscated to the service of love and
lovers. No house in all the restless city seemed less likely to be the
rendezvous of meeting hearts; and yet quite naturally, and by the force
of the simplest circumstances, it had assumed this character. It began
with Maria. Her beauty and charm had given her three lovers, who were,
all of them, men with sufficient character to find, or to make a way to
her presence. But every movement, whether of the body or the soul,
takes, by a certain law, the direction in which there is the least
resistance; and the road of least resistance to Maria, was by way of
Agnes Bradley.

At the Semple house, Madame was a barrier Medway could not pass. She
told Maria plainly, "no English lord should cross her doorstep." She
could not believe in his good heart, or his good sense, and she asked
scornfully, "how a close friend of General Clinton's could be fit
company for an American girl? He has nae charm for touching pitch
without being defiled," she said, "and I'll not hae him sitting on my
chairs, and putting his feet on my hearth, and fleching and flattering
you in my house while my name is Janet Semple. And you may tell him I
said so."

And in order to prevent Madame giving her own message, Maria was
compelled to confess to Lord Medway, her grandmother's antagonism. He
was politely sorry for her dislike to Englishmen--for he preferred to
accept it as a national, rather than a personal feeling; but it did not
interfere with his intentions. There was Miss Bradley. She had a kind
feeling toward him, and Maria spent a large part of every day with her
friend. By calling on Miss Bradley he could see Miss Semple. As the
best means toward this end he cultivated Agnes through her father. He
talked with him, listened to his experiences, and gave him subscriptions
for Wesley Chapel, and for the prisoners he could find means to help. He
made such a good impression on John Bradley, that he told his daughter
he felt sure the good seed he had sown would bring forth good fruit in
its season.

Macpherson had a certain welcome at the Semples, but he could not strain
it. Madame was not well, company fatigued her, and, though he did not
suspect this reason, she was feeling bitterly that she must give up her
life-long hospitality--she could not afford to be hospitable any longer.
She did not tell Maria this, she said rather, "the laddie wearied her
mair than once a week. She wasna strong, and she didna approve o' his
excuses for General Clinton. I could tear them all to ravlins," she
said, angrily, "but I wad tear mysel' to pieces doing it. He has the
reiving, reiving Highland spirit, and nae wonder! The Macphersons have
carried fire and sword for centuries."

As for Harry Deane, he, of course, could not come at all, though Madame
might have borne him more than once a week, if she had been trusted. But
Harry was as uncertain as the wind. He came when no one looked for him,
and when he was expected, he was miles away. So there was no possible
neutral ground for Love but such as Agnes in her good-nature and wisdom
would allow. But Agnes was not difficult. Neil Semple had taught her the
sweetness and clemency of love, and she would not deprive Maria of
those pleasant hours, with which so many days were brightened that would
otherwise have been dull and monotonous. For, during the summer's heat
the royalist families, who could afford to do so, left the city, and the
little tea parties at Agnes Bradley's were nearly the only entertainment
at Maria's command.

These were informal and often delightful. Lord Medway knew that about
five o'clock Agnes would be setting the tea-tray, and he liked to sit
beside Maria and watch her do it. And sometimes Maria made the tea, and
poured his out, and put in the sugar and cream with such enchanting
smiles and ways that he vowed never tea in this world tasted so
refreshing and delicious. And not infrequently Quentin Macpherson would
come clattering in when the meal had begun, take a chair at the round
table, and drinking his tea a little awkwardly, soothe his self-esteem
by an aggressive self-importance. For Lord Medway's nonchalant manner
provoked him to such personal assertion as always mortified when the
occasion was over. About half-past seven was Neil's hour, and then the
conversation became general, and love found all sorts of tender
occasions; every glance of meeting eyes, and every clasp of meeting
hands, bearing the one sweet message, "I love you, dear!"

It was usually in the morning that Harry came springing up the garden
path. There was neither work nor lessons that day, nor any pretense of
them. Harry had too much to tell, and both Agnes and Maria hung upon his
words as if they held the secret of life and happiness. Now, granted two
beautiful girls with a moderate amount of freedom, and four lovers in
that pleasantly painful condition between hope and fear that people in
love make, if it is not made for them, and put all in a position where
they have the accessories of sunlight and moonlight, a shady garden, a
noble river, the scent of flowers, the goodness of fine fruit, the
pleasures of the tea-table, and if these young people do not advance in
the sweet study their hearts set them, they must be either coldly
indifferent, or stupidly selfish.

This company of lovers was however neither stupid nor selfish. In the
midst of war's alarms, while fleets and armies were gathering for
battle, they were attending very faithfully to their own little drama.
Quentin Macpherson had one advantage over both his rivals: he went to
the Semple house every Sunday evening, and then he had Maria wholly
under his influence. He walked in the garden with her, she made his tea
for him, he sat by her side during the evening exercise, sung the psalm
from the same Bible, and then, rising with the family, stood, as one of
them, while the Elder offered his anxious yet trustful prayer. It was
Madame who had thought of connecting this service with the young
soldier. "It is little good he can get from thae Episcopals," she said,
"and it's your duty, Alexander, to gie him a word in season," and though
Macpherson was mainly occupied in watching Maria, and listening to her
voice, he had been too well grounded in his faith not to be sensible of
the sacredness of those few minutes, and to be insensibly influenced by
their spirit.

Neil was never present. When the tea-table was cleared, he went quietly
out, and those who cared to follow him would have been led to the little
Wesleyan Chapel on John Street. He always took the same seat in a pew
near the door, and there he worshipped for an hour or two the beautiful
daughter of John Bradley. He was present to watch them enter. Sometimes
the father went to the pulpit, sometimes he went with Agnes to the
singing-pew. And to hear these two translating into triumphant song the
holy aspirations and longings of Watts and Wesley, was reason enough for
any one who loved music to be in Wesley Chapel when they were singing
together.

All who have ever loved, all who yet dream of love, can tell the further
story of those summer days for themselves. They have only to keep in
mind that it had a constant obligato of trumpets and drums and marching
men, and a constant refrain, made up of all the rumors of war, victory,
and defeat; good news and bad news, fear, and hope, and sighing despair.
At length the warm weather gave place to the dreamy hours of the Indian
summer. A heavenly veil of silvery haze lay over the river and the city;
a veil which seemed to deaden every sound but the shrill chirping of the
crickets; and a certain sense of peace calmed for a short time the most
restless hearts. The families who had been at various places during the
hot months returned to their homes in New York, with fresh dreams of
conquest and pleasure, for as yet the terrors of the coming winter were
not taken into thought or account. The war was always going to be "over
very soon," and General Clinton assured the butterflies of his military
court they might eat, drink, and be merry, for he intended at once to
"strike such a blow as would put an end to confederated rebellion for
ever." And they gladly believed him.

In less than a week Maria received half-a-dozen invitations to dinners,
dances, card parties, and musical recitations. She began at once to look
over her gowns, and Agnes came every day to the Semple house to assist
in remodeling and retrimming them. They were delightful days long to be
remembered. Both the Elder and Madame enjoyed them quite as much as the
girls; and even Neil entered into the discussions about colors, and the
suitability of guimpes and fringes, with a smiling gravity that was very
attractive.

"Uncle Neil thinks he is taking depositions and weighing evidence; see
how the claims of pink and amber perplex him!" and then Neil would laugh
a little, and decide in such haste that he generally contradicted his
first opinion.

The Sunday in this happy week was made memorable by the news which
Quentin Macpherson brought. "Some one," he said, "had whispered to
General Clinton that it was the intention of Washington to unite with
the French army and besiege New York, and Clinton had immediately
ordered the troops garrisoning Rhode Island to return to the city with
all possible speed. And would you believe it, Elder?" said the young
soldier, "they came so hastily that they left behind them all the wood
they had cut for winter, and all the forage and stores provided for six
thousand men. No sooner were they out of sight than the American army
slipped in and took possession of everything; and now it appears that
it was a false report--the general is furious, and is looking for the
author of it."

"He needna look very far," answered Semple. "There is a man that dips
his sop in the dish wi' him, and that coils him round his finger wi' a
mouthful o' words, wha could maist likely give him the whole history o'
the matter, for he'll be at the vera beginning o' it."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that our Commander-in-Chief has a traitor for
his friend and confidant and adviser?"

"I mean to say all o' that. But where will you go and not find
Washington's emissaries beguiling thae stupid English?"

"You cannot call the English stupid, sir."

"I can and I will. They are sae sure o' their ain power and wisdom that
they are mair than stupid. They are ridic'lus. It makes them the easy
tools of every clever American that is willing to take a risk--and they
maist o' them are willing."

"But when the English realize----"

"Aye, _when_ they realize!"

"Well, sir, they came to realization last month splendidly in that
encounter with the privateer, Paul Jones. It was the grandest seafight
ever made between seadogs of the same breed. Why, the muzzles of their
guns touched each other; the ships were nearly torn to pieces, and
three-fourths of the men killed or wounded. Gentlemen, too, as well as
fighters though but lowborn men, for I am told they began the combat
with a courtesy worthy of the days of chivalry. Both captains bowed and
remained uncovered until the foremost guns of the English ship bore on
the starboard quarter of the American. Then Captain Paul Jones put on
his hat, as a sign that formalities were over, and the battle began, and
raged until the English ship was sinking; then she surrendered."

"Mair's the pity!" said the Elder, "she ought to have gone down
fighting."

"She saved the great fleet of merchantmen she was convoying from the
Baltic; while she was fighting the American every one of them got safe
away and into port, and the American ship went down two days
afterward--literally died of her wounds and went down to her grave. And
by the bye, Mr. Semple, this Paul Jones is a countryman of ours--a
Scotchman."

"Aye, is he!--from Kirkcudbright. I was told he had an intention o'
sacking Edinburgh. Fair, perfect nonsense!"

"An old friend of the Macphersons--Stuart of Invernalyle--was sought out
to defend the town. I had a letter from the family."

"Weel, Stuart could tak' that job easy. The west wind is a vera reliable
one in the Firth o' Edinburgh, and it is weel able, and extremely
likely, to defend its ain city. In fact, it did do so, for Paul couldna
win near, and so he went 'north about' and found the Baltic fleet with
the _Serapis_ guarding it. Weel, then, he had his fight, though he lost
the plunder. But it was a ridic'lus thing in any mortal, menacing the
capital o' Scotland wi' three brigs that couldna have sacked a Fife
fishing village! And what is mair," added the old man with a tear
glistening in his eyes, "he wouldna have hurt Leith or Edinburgh. Not
he! Scots may love America, but they never hate their ain dear Scotland;
they wouldna hurt the old land, not even in thought. If put to the
question, all o' them would say, as David o' Israel and David o'
Scotland baith said, 'let my right hand forget its cunning----' you ken
the rest, and if you don't, it will do you good to look up the 137th
Psalm."

The stir of admiration concerning these and other events--all favorable
to the Americans--irritated General Clinton and made him much less
courteous in his manner to both friends and foes. And, moreover, it was
not pleasant for him to know that General Washington was entertaining
the first French Minister to the United States at Newburgh, and that
John Jay was then on his way to Madrid to complete with the Spanish
government terms of recognition and alliance. So that even through the
calmness of these Indian summer days there were definite echoes of
defeat and triumph, whether expressed publicly or discussed so privately
that the bird of the air found no whisper to carry.

One day at the end of October, Agnes did not come until the afternoon,
and Maria rightly judged that Harry was in New York. There was no need
to tell her so, the knowledge was an intuition, and when Agnes said to
Madame, "she had a friend, and would like Maria to bring the pelerine
they were retrimming to her house, and spend the evening with her," no
objection was made. "I shall miss you baith; so will the Elder," she
answered, "but I dare say that English lord is feeling I have had mair
than my share o' your company."

"Oh, Madame!" said Agnes, "it is not the English lord, it is a true
American boy from--up the river," and Agnes opened her eyes wide as she
lifted them to Madame's, and there was some sort of instantaneous and
satisfactory understanding. Then she added, "Will you ask Mr. Neil
Semple to come for Maria about eight o'clock?"

"There will be nae necessity to ask him. His feet o' their ain accord
will find their way to your house, Agnes," said Madame. "Before he has
told himsel' where he is going he will be at your doorstep. He must be
very fond o' his niece Maria--or of somebody else," and the old lady
smiled pleasantly at the blushing girl. Then both girls kissed Madame
and stopped at the garden gate to speak to the Elder, and so down the
road together full of happy expectation, divining nothing of _One_ who
went forth with them. How should they? Neither had ever seen the face of
sorrow or broke with her the ashen crust. They were not aware of her
presence and they heard not the stir of her black mantle trailing upon
the dust and the dead leaves as she walked at their side.

"Harry will be here for tea," said Agnes, when they reached the house,
and a soft, delightful sense of pleasure to come pervaded the room as
they sat sewing and talking until it was time to set the table. And as
soon as Agnes began this duty there was a peculiar whistle, and Maria
glanced at Agnes, threw aside her work, and went down the garden to meet
her lover. He was tying his boat to the little jetty, and when the duty
was done they sat down on the wooden steps and talked of this, and that,
and of everything but love, and yet everything they said was a
confession of their interest in each other. But the truest love has
often the least to say, and those lovers are to be doubted and pitied
who must always be seeking assurances, for thus they sow the path of
love with thorns. Far happier are they who leave something unsaid, who
dare to enter into that living silence which clasps hearts like a book
of songs unsung. They will sing them all, but not all at once. One by
one, as their hour comes, they will learn them together.

That calm, sweet afternoon was provocative of this very mood. Maria and
Harry sat watching the river rocking the boat, and listening to the
chirruping of the crickets, and both were satisfied with their own
silence. It was a heavenly hour, hushed and halcyon, full of that lazy
happiness which is the most complete expression of perfect love. When
Agnes called, they walked hand in hand up the garden, and at the
tea-table came back again into the world. Harry had much to tell them,
and was full of confidence in the early triumph of the Americans.

"Then I hope we shall have peace, and all be friends again," said Maria.
She spoke a little wearily, as if she had no faith in her words, and
Harry answered her doubt rather than her hope.

"There will not be much friendship this generation," he said; "things
have happened between England and America which men will remember until
they forget themselves."

After tea, Harry said, "Maria is going with me to the river to see if
the boat is safe," and Agnes, smiling, watched them a little way; then
turned again to her china, and without any conscious application began
to sing softly the aria of an old English anthem by King:

"I went down into the garden of nuts, to see whether the pomegranates
budded--to see whether the pomegranates--the pomegranates budded,"[1]
but suddenly, even as her voice rose and fell sweetly to her thoughts, a
strange chill arrested the flow of the melody; and she was angry at
herself because she had inadvertently wondered, "if the buds would ever
open full and flowerwise?"

    [1] "Solomon's Song," 6:11.

In about half an hour Agnes, having finished her house duties, went to
the door opening into the garden and called Harry and Maria. They turned
toward the house when they heard her voice, and she remained in the open
door to watch them come through the tall box-shrubs and the many-colored
asters. And as she did so, Quentin Macpherson reached the front
door--which also stood open--and perceiving Agnes, he did not knock, but
waited for her to turn inward. Consequently he saw Harry and Maria, and
did not fail to notice the terms of affectionate familiarity between
them. The fire of jealousy was kindled in a moment; he strode forward to
meet the company, and was received with the usual friendly welcome; for
such a situation had often been spoken of as possible, and Agnes was not
in the least disconcerted.

"My friend, Mr. Harry Deane, Captain Macpherson," she said, without
hesitation, and the Captain received the introduction with his most
military air. Then Agnes set herself to keep the conversation away from
the war, but that was an impossible thing; every incident of life
somehow or other touched it, and before she realized the fact, Harry was
deprecating Tryon's outrages in Connecticut, and Macpherson defending
them on the ground that "the towns destroyed had fitted out most of the
privateers which had so seriously interfered with English commerce. Both
the building of the ships and the destruction of the towns for building
them are natural incidents of war," he said, and then pointedly,
"perhaps you are a native of Connecticut?"

"No," answered Harry, "I am a native of New York."

"Ah! I have not met you before."

"I am a great deal away----" then receiving from Agnes a look of anxious
warning, he thought it best to take his leave. Agnes rose and went to
the door with him, and Maria wished Captain Macpherson anywhere but in
her society; especially as he began to ask her questions she did not
wish to answer.

"So Miss Bradley has a lover?" he said, looking pointedly at the couple
as they left the room.

"I used to think so once," answered Maria.

"But not now?"

"But not now. Mr. Deane is an old friend, a playmate even."

"I suppose he is a King's man?"

"Ask him; he is still standing at the gate. I talk to him on much
pleasanter subjects."

"Love, for instance?"

"Perhaps."

"How can you be so cruel, Maria?"

"It is _Miss Semple's_ nature to be cruel."

The reproof snubbed him, and both were silent for some minutes; then the
same kind of desultory fencing was renewed, and Maria felt the time to
be long and the tension unendurable. She could have cried out with
anger. Why had not Agnes let her go to the door with Harry? She had had
no opportunity to bid him "good-bye"; and yet, even after Harry had
gone, there Agnes stood at the gate, "watching for Uncle Neil, of
course," thought Maria, "and no doubt she has a message for me; she
might come and give it to me--very likely Harry is at the boat waiting
for me--oh, dear! Why does she not come?"

With such thoughts urging her, the very attitude of Agnes was beyond
endurance. She stood at the gate as still as if she was a part of it,
and at length Maria could bear the delay no longer.

"I wish to speak to Agnes," she said, "will you permit me a moment?"

"Certainly," he answered with an air of offense. "I fear I am in the way
of some one or something."

"Oh, no, no!" cried Maria, decisively. "I only want to make her come in.
She says the night air is so unhealthy, and yet there she stands in
it--bareheaded, too."

"It is an unusually warm evening."

"Yes, but you know there is the malaria. I shall bring her in a moment,
you shall see how quickly I am obeyed."

In unison with these words, she rose in a hurry, and as she did so there
came through the open window a little stone wrapped in white paper. If
she had not moved, it would have fallen into her lap; as it was, it fell
on the floor and almost at the feet of Macpherson. He lifted it, and
went to the candle. It was a message, as he expected, and read thus:

_"Keep that Scot amused for an hour, and meet me at Semple's landing at
nine o'clock. Harry."_

"Oh! Oh!" he said with an intense inward passion. "I am to be amused! I
am to be cajoled! deceived! _that Scot_ is to be used for some purpose,
and by St. Andrew, I'll wager it is treason. This affair must be looked
into--quick, too." With this thought he put the paper in his pocket, and
followed Maria to the gate where she stood talking with Agnes.

"I will bid you good-night," he said with a purposed air of offense. "I
am sure that I am an intruder on more welcome company."

He would listen to no explanations or requests. Maria became suddenly
kind, and assumed the prettiest of her coaxing ways, but he knew she was
only "amusing" him, and he would not respond to what he considered her
base, alluring treachery.

"There, now, Maria! You have been very foolish," said Agnes. "Captain
Macpherson is angry. You ought to have been particularly kind to him
to-night--after Harry."

"You were so selfish, Agnes--so unreasonably selfish! You might have let
me go to the gate with Harry. I never had a chance to say 'good-bye' to
him; there you stood, watching for Uncle Neil, and I was on pins and
needles of anxiety. Why didn't you stay with the man, and let me go to
the gate?"

"If you must know why; I had some money to give Harry. Could I do that
before Captain Macpherson?"

"I hate the man! I am glad he has gone! I hope he will never come
again!"

"I do not think he will, Maria."

They went into the house thoroughly vexed with each other, and Maria
said in a tone of pique or offense, "I wonder what delays my uncle! I
wish he would come!"

In reality Neil was no later than usual, but Maria was quivering with
disappointment and annoyance, and when he did arrive it was not possible
for any one to escape the influence of an atmosphere charged with the
miserable elements of frustrated happiness. Maria was not a girl to bear
disagreeable things alone or in silence. She would talk only of
Macpherson and his unwelcome visit; "but he always did come when he was
not wanted," she said angrily

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