His father, glad to be guided in choosing a future for one of so many sons, sent Harry to London in 1770, to see something of life, and so managed matters, through his English relations, that the boy was in 1772, at the age of nineteen, the possessor, by purchase, of an ensign’s commission. He was soon sent to do garrison duty in Ireland, being enrolled with the Sixty-third Regiment of Foot.
He had lived gaily enough during his two years in London, occupying lodgings, being patronized by his relations, seeing enough of society, card-tables, drums, routs, plays, prize-fights, and other diversions. He had made visits in the country and showed what he had learned in Virginia about cock-fighting, fox-hunting and shooting, and had taken lessons from London fencing-masters. A young gentleman from Virginia, if well off and “well connected,” could have a fine time in London in those days; and Harry Peyton had it.
But he could never forget that he was a colonial. If he were treated by his English associates as an equal, or even at times with a particular consideration, there was always a kind of implication that he was an exception among colonials. Other colonial youths were similarly treated, and some of these were glad to be held as exceptions, and even joined in the derision of the colonials who were not. For these Harry Peyton had a mighty disgust and detestation. 67 He did not enjoy receiving as Harry Peyton a tolerance and kindness that would have been denied him as merely an American. And he sometimes could not avoid seeing that, even as Harry Peyton, he was regarded as compensating, by certain attractive qualities in the nature of amiability and sincerity, for occasional exhibitions of what the English rated as social impropriety and bad taste. Often, at the English lofty derision of colonials, at the English air of self-evident superiority, the English pretence of politely concealed shock or pain or offence at some infringement of a purely superficial conduct-code of their own arbitrary fabrication, he ground his teeth in silence; for in one respect, he had as good manners as the English had then, or have now,—when in Rome he did not resent or deride what the Romans did. He began to think that the lot of a self-respecting American among the English, even if he were himself made an exception of and well dealt with, was not the most enviable one. And, after he joined the army, he thought this more and more every day. But he would show them what a colonial could rise to! Yet that would prove nothing for his countrymen, as he would always, on his meritorious side, be deemed an exception.
His military ambition, however, predominated, and he had no thought of leaving the King’s service.
The disagreement between the King and the 68 American Colonies grew, from “a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand,” to something larger. But Harry heard little of it, and that entirely from the English point of view. He received but three or four letters a year from his own people, and the time had not come for his own people to write much more than bare facts. They were chary of opinions. Harry supposed that the new discontent in the Colonies, after the repeal of the Stamp Act and the withdrawal of the two regiments from Boston Town to Castle William, was but that of the perpetually restless, the habitual fomenters, the notoriety-seeking agitators, the mob, whose circumstances could not be made worse and might be improved by disturbances. Now the Americans, from being a subject of no interest to English people, a subject discussed only when some rare circumstance brought it up, became more talked of. Sometimes, when Americans were blamed for opposing taxes to support soldiery used for their own protection, Harry said that the Americans could protect themselves; that the English, in wresting Canada from the French, had sought rather English prestige and dominion than security for the colonials; that the flourishing of the Colonies was despite English neglect, not because of English fostering; that if the English had solicitude for America, it was for America as a market for their own trade. Thereupon 69 his fellow officers would either laugh him out, as if he were too ignorant to be argued with, or freeze him out, as if he had committed some grave outrage on decorum. And Harry would rage inwardly, comparing his own ignorance and indecorousness with the knowledge and courtesy exemplified in the assertion of Doctor Johnson, when that great but narrow Englishman said, in 1769, of Americans, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”
There came to Harry, now and then, scraps of vague talk of uneasiness in Boston Town, whose port the British Parliament had closed, to punish the Yankees for riotously destroying tea on which there was a tax; of the concentration there of British troops from Halifax, Quebec, New York, the Jerseys, and other North American posts. But there was not, in Harry’s little world of Irish garrison life, the slightest expectation of actual rebellion or even of a momentous local tumult in the American Colonies.
Imagine, therefore, his feelings when, one morning late in March in 1775, he was told that, within a month’s time, the Sixty-third, and other regiments, would embark at Cork for either Boston or New York!
There could not be a new French or Spanish invasion. As for the Indians, never again would 70 British regulars be sent against them. Was it, then, Harry’s own countrymen that his regiment was going to fight?
His comrades inferred the cause of his long face, and laughed. He would have no more fighting to do in America against the Americans than he had to do in Ireland against the Irish, or than an English officer in an English barrack town had to do against the English. The reinforcements were being sent only to overawe the lawless element. The mere sight of these reinforcements would obviate any occasion for their use. The regiment would merely do garrison duty in America instead of in Ireland or elsewhere.
He had none to advise or enlighten him. What was there for him to do but sail with his regiment, awaiting disclosures or occurrences to guide? What misgivings he had, he kept to himself, though once on the voyage, as he looked from the rocking transport towards the west, he confided to Lieutenant Dalrymple his opinion that ’twas damned bad luck sent his regiment to America, of all places.
When he landed in Boston, June 12th, he found, as he had expected, that the town was full of soldiers, encamped on the common and quartered elsewhere; but also, as he had not expected, that the troops were virtually confined to the town, which was fortified at the Neck; that the last 71 time they had marched into the country, through Lexington to Concord, they had marched back again at a much faster gait, and left many score dead and wounded on the way; and that a host of New Englanders in arms were surrounding Boston! The news of April 19th had not reached Europe until after Harry had sailed, nor had it met his regiment on the ocean. When he heard it now, he could only become more grave and uneasy. But the British officers were scornful of their clodhopper besiegers. In due time this rabble should be scattered like chaff. But was it a mere rabble? Certainly. Were not the best people in Boston loyal to the King’s government? Some of them, yes. But, as Harry went around with open eyes and ears, eager for information, he found that many of them were with the “rabble.” News was easy to be had. The citizens were allowed to pass the barrier on the Neck, if they did not carry arms or ammunition, and there was no strict discipline in the camp of New Englanders. Therefore Harry soon learned how Doctor Warren stood, and the Adamses, and Mr. John Hancock; and that a Congress, representing all the Colonies, was now sitting at Philadelphia, for the second time; and that in the Congress his own Virginia was served by such gentlemen as Mr. Richard Henry Lee, Mr. Patrick Henry, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, and Colonel Washington. 72 And the Virginians had shown as ready and firm a mind for revolt against the King’s measures as the New Englanders had. Here, for once, the sympathies of trading Puritan and fox-hunting Virginian were one. Moreover, a Yankee was a fellow American, and, after five years of contact with English self-esteem, Harry warmed at the sight of a New Englander as he never would have done before he had left Virginia.
But it did not conduce to peace of mind, in his case, to be convinced that the colonial remonstrance was neither local nor of the rabble. The more general and respectable it was, the more embarrassing was his own situation. Would it really come to war? With ill-concealed anxiety, he sought the opinion of this person and that.
On the fourth day after his arrival, he went into a tavern in King Street with Lieutenant Massay, of the Thirty-fifth, Ensign Charleton, of the Fifth, and another young officer, and, while they were drinking, heard a loyalist tell what one Parker, leader of the Lexington rebels, said to his men on Lexington Common, on the morning of April 19th, when the King’s troops came in sight.
“‘Stand your ground,’ says he. ‘Don’t fire till you’re fired on, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!’”
“And it began there!” said Harry.
The English officers stared at him, and laughed.
“Ay, ’twas the Yankee idea of war,” said one of them. “Run for a stone wall, and, when the enemy’s back is turned, blaze away. I’d like to see a million of the clodhoppers compelled to stand up and face a line of grenadiers.”
“Ay, gimme ten companies of grenadiers,” cried one, who had doubtless heard of General Gage’s celebrated boast, “and I’ll go from one end of the damned country to the other, and drive ’em to their holes like foxes. Only ’tis better sport chasing handsome foxes in England than ill-dressed poltroons in Bumpkin-land.”
“They’re not all poltroons,” said Harry, repressing his feelings the more easily through long practice. “Some of them fought in the French war. There’s Putnam, and Pomeroy, and Ward. I heard Lieutenant-Colonel Abercrombie, of the Twenty-second, say yesterday that Putnam—”
“Cowards every one of ’em,” broke in another. “Cowards and louts. A lady told me t’other day there ain’t in all America a man whose coat sets in close at the back, except he’s of the loyal party. Cowards and louts!”
“Look here, damn you!” cried Peyton. “I want you to know I’m American born, and my people are American, and I don’t know whether they are of the loyal party or not!”
“Oh, now, that’s the worst of you Americans,—always will get personal! Of course, there are exceptions.”
“Then there are exceptions enough to make a rule themselves,” said Harry. “I’m tired hearing you call these people cowards before you’ve had a chance to see what they are. And you needn’t wait for that, for I can tell you now they’re not!”
“Well, well, perhaps not,—to you. Doubtless they’re very dreadful,—to you. You don’t seem to relish facing ’em, that’s a fact! You’ll be resigning your commission one o’ these days, I dare say, if it comes to blows with these terrible heroes!”
Harry saw everybody in the room looking at him with a grin.
“By the Lord,” said he, “maybe I shall!” and stalked hotly out of the place.
His wrath increased as he walked. He noticed now, more than before, the confident, arrogant air of the redcoats who promenaded the streets; how they leered at the women, and made the citizens who passed turn out of the way. Forthwith, he went to his quarters, and wrote his resignation.
When the ink was dry he folded up the document and put it in the pocket of his uniform coat. Then that last tavern speech recurred to him. “If I resign now,” he thought, “they’ll suppose it’s because I really am afraid of fighting, not because the rebels 75 are my countrymen.” So he lapsed into a state of indecision,—a state resembling apathy, a half-dazed condition, a semi-somnolent waiting for events. But he kept his letter of resignation in his coat.
At dawn the next morning, Saturday, June 17th, he was awakened by the booming of guns. He was soon up and out. It was a beautiful day. People were on the eminences and roofs, looking northward, across the mouth of the Charles, towards Charlestown and the hill beyond. On that hill were seen rough earthworks, six feet high, which had not been there the day before. The booming guns were those of the British man-of-war Lively, firing from the river at the new earthworks. Hence the earthworks were the doing of the rebels, having been raised during the night. Presently the Lively ceased its fire, but soon there was more booming, this time not only from the men-of-war, but also from the battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston. After awhile Harry saw, from where he stood with many others on Beacon Hill, some of the rebels emerge from one part of the earthworks, as if to go away. One of these was knocked over by a cannon-ball. His comrades dragged his body behind the earthen wall. By and by a tall, strong-looking man appeared on top of the parapet, and walked leisurely along, apparently giving directions. Harry heard from a citizen, who had a field-glass, the words, “Prescott, of Pepperell.” 76 Other men were now visible on the parapet, superintending the workers behind. And now the booming of the guns was answered by disrespectful cheers from those same unseen workers.
The morning grew hot. Harry heard that General Gage had called a council of war at the Province House; that Generals Howe, Clinton, Burgoyne,[3]—these three having arrived in Boston about three weeks before Harry had,—Pigott, Grant, and the rest were now there in consultation. At length there was the half-expected tumult of drum and bugle; and Harry was summoned to obey, with his comrades, the order to parade. There was now much noise of officers galloping about, dragoons riding from their quarters, and rattling of gun-carriages. The booming from the batteries and vessels increased.
At half-past eleven Harry found himself—for he was scarcely master of his acts that morning, his will having taken refuge in a kind of dormancy—on parade with two companies of his regiment, and he noticed in a dim way that other companies near were from other different regiments, all being supplied with ammunition, blankets, and provisions. When the sun was directly overhead and at its hottest, the order to march was given, and soon he was bearing the colors through the streets of Boston. The roar of the cannon now became deafening. Harry knew 77 not whether the rebels were returning it from their hill works across the water or not. In time the troops reached the wharf. Barges were in waiting, and field-pieces were being moved into some of them. He could see now that all the firing was from the King’s vessels and batteries. Mechanically he followed Lieutenant Dalrymple into a barge, which soon filled up with troops. The other barges were speedily brilliant with scarlet coats and glistening bayonets. Not far away the river was covered with smoke, through which flashed the fire of the belching artillery. A blue flag was waved from General Howe’s barge, and the fleet moved across the river towards the hill where the rebels waited silently behind their piles of earth.
At one o’clock, Harry followed Lieutenant Dalrymple out of the barge to the northern shore of the river, at a point northeast of Charlestown village and east of the Yankees’ hill. There was no molestation from the rebels. The firing from the vessels and batteries protected the hillside and shore. The troops were promptly formed in three lines. Harry’s place was in the left of the front line. Then there was long waiting. The barges went back to the Boston side. Was General Howe, who had command of the movements, sending for more troops? Many of the soldiers ate of their stock of provisions. Harry, in a kind of dream, looked westward up the hill towards 78 the silent Yankee redoubt. It faced south, west, and east. The line of its eastern side was continued northward by a breastwork, and still beyond this, down the northern hillside to another river, ran a straggling rail fence, which was thatched with fresh-cut hay. What were the men doing behind those defences? What were they saying and thinking?
The barges came back across the Charles from Boston, with more troops, but these were disembarked some distance southwest, nearer Charlestown. General Howe now made a short speech to the troops first landed. Then some flank guards were sent out and some cannon wheeled forward. The companies of the front line, with one of which was Harry, were now ordered to form into files and move straight ahead. They were to constitute the right wing of the attacking force, and to be led by General Howe himself. The four regiments composing the two rear lines moved forward and leftward, to form, with the troops newly landed, the left wing, which was to be under General Pigott. The cannonading from the river and from Boston continued.
The companies with which was Harry advanced slowly, having to pass through high grass, over stone fences, under a roasting sun. These companies were moving towards the hay-thatched rail fence that straggled down the hillside from the breastwork north of 79 the redoubt. Harry had a vague sense that the left wing was ascending the southeastern side of the hill, towards the redoubt, at the same time. His eye caught the view at either side. Long files of scarlet coats, steel bayonets, grenadiers’ tall caps. He looked ahead. The stretch of green, grassy hillside, the hay-covered rail fence looking like a hedge-row, the rude breastwork, the blue sky. Suddenly there came from the rail fence the belching of field-pieces. Two grenadiers fell at the right of Harry. One moaned, the other was silent. Harry, shocked into a sense that war was begun between his King and his people, instantly resolved to strike no blow that day against his people. But this was no time for leaving the ranks. Mechanically he marched on.
Heads appeared over the fence-rail, guns were rested on it, and there came from it some irregular flashes of musketry. Then Harry saw a man moving his head and arms, as if shouting and gesticulating. The musket flashes ceased. Harry did not know it then, but the man was Putnam, and he was commanding the Yankees to reserve their fire. The British files were now ordered to deploy into line, and fire. They did so as they advanced, firing in machine-like unison, as if on parade, but aiming high. Nearer and nearer, as Harry went forward, rose the fence ahead and the breastwork on the hill towards the left. Why did not the Yankees fire? 80 Were they, indeed, paralyzed with fear at sight of the lines of the King’s grenadiers?
All at once blazed forth the answer,—such a volley of musketry, at close range, as British grenadiers had not faced before. Down went officers and men, in twos and threes and rows. Great gaps were cut in the scarlet lines. The broken columns returned the volley, but there came another. Harry found himself in the midst of quivering, writhing, yelling death. The British who were left,—startled, amazed,—turned and fled. As mechanically as he had come up, did Harry go back in the common movement. General Howe showed astonishment. The left wing, too, had been hurled back, down the hill, by death-dealing volleys. The rabble had held their rude works against the King’s choice troops. Never had as many officers been killed or wounded in a single charge. There had not been such mowing down at Fontenoy or Montmorenci. These unmilitary Yankees actually aimed when they fired, each at some particular mark! Harry had heard them cheering, and had thought they were about to pursue the King’s troops; they had evidently been ordered back.
The troops re-formed by the shore. Orders came for another assault. Back again went Harry with the right wing, bearing the colors as before. He had secretly an exquisite heart-quickening elation 81 at the success of his countrymen. If they should win the day, and hold this hill, and drive the King’s troops from Boston! He knew, at last, on which side his heart was.
There was more play of artillery during this second charge. Harry could see, too, that the village of Charlestown was on fire, sending flames, sparks, and smoke far towards the sky. It was not as easy to go to the charge this time, there were so many dead bodies in the way. But the soldiers stepped over them, and maintained the straightness of their lines. Again it seemed as if the rebels would never fire. Again, when the King’s troops were but a few rods from them, came that flaming, low-aimed discharge. But the troops marched on, in the face of it, till the very officers who urged them forward fell before it; then they wavered, turned, and ran. Harry’s joy, as he went with them, increased, and his hopes mounted. The left wing, too, had been thrown back a second time.
There was a long wait, and the generals were seen consulting. At last a third charge was ordered. This time the greater part of the right wing was led up the hill against the breastwork. With this part was Harry. One more volley from the rebel defences met the King’s troops. They wavered slightly, then sprang forward, ready for another. But another 82 came not. The rebels’ ammunition was giving out. Harry’s heart fell. The British forced the breastwork, carrying him along. He found himself at the northern end of the redoubt. Some privates lifted him to the parapet; he and a sergeant mounted at the same time, and leaped together into the redoubt. They saw Lieutenant Richardson, of the Royal Irish Regiment, appear on the southern parapet, give a shout of triumph, and fall dead from a Yankee musket-ball. A whole rank that followed him was served likewise, but others surged over the parapet in their places. The rebels were defending mainly the southern parapet. Many were retreating by the rear passageway. Harry saw that the King’s troops had won the redoubt. He took his resolution. He threw the colors to the sergeant, pulled off his coat, handed it to the same sergeant, shouting into the man’s ear, “Give it to the colonel, with the letter in the pocket;” picked up a dead man’s musket, and ran to the aid of a tall, powerful rebel who was parrying with a sword the bayonets of three British privates. The tramp of the retreating rebels, invading British, and hand-to-hand fighters raised a blinding dust. Harry and the tall American, gaining a breathing moment, strode together with long steps, guarding their flank and rear, to the passageway and out of it; and then fought their course between two divisions of British, which had turned the outer corners of the redoubt. There was no firing here, so closely mingled were British and rebels, the former too exhausted to use forcibly their bayonets. So Harry retreated, beside the tall man, with the rebels. A British cheer behind him told the result of the day; but Harry cared little. His mind was at ease; he was on the right side at last.
“‘GIVE IT TO THE COLONEL.’”
Thus did young Mr. Peyton serve on both sides in the same battle, being with each in the time of its defeat, striking no blow against his country, yet deserting not the King’s army till the moment of its victory. His act was indeed desertion, desertion to the enemy, and in time of action; for, though his resignation was written, it was not only unaccepted, but even undelivered. Thus did he render himself liable, under the laws of war, to an ignominious death should he ever fall into the hands of the King’s troops.
During the flight to Cambridge, Harry was separated from the tall man with whom he had come from the redoubt, but soon saw him again, this time directing the retreat, and learned that he was Colonel Prescott, of Pepperell. Some of the rebels discussed Harry freely in his own hearing, inferring from his attire that he was of the British, and wondering why he was not a prisoner. Harry asked to be taken to the commander, and at Cambridge a coatless, bare-headed 84 captain led him to General Ward, of the Massachusetts force. That veteran militiaman heard his story, gave it credit, and, with no thought that he might be a spy, invited him to remain at the camp as a volunteer. Harry obtained a suit of blue clothes, and quartered in one of the Harvard College buildings. In a few days news came that the Congress at Philadelphia had resolved to organize a Continental army, of which the New England force at Cambridge was to be the present nucleus; that a general-in-chief would soon arrive to take command, and that the general-in-chief appointed was a Virginian,—Colonel Washington. Harry was jubilant.
Early in July the new general arrived, and Harry paid his respects to him in the house of the college president. General Washington advised the boy to send another letter of resignation, then to go home and join the troops that his own State would soon be raising. On hearing Harry’s story, Washington had given a momentary smile and a look at Major-General Charles Lee, who had but recently published his resignation of his half-pay as a retired British officer, and who did not know yet whether that resignation would be accepted or himself considered a deserter.
Peyton sent a new letter of resignation to Boston, then procured a horse, and started to ride to Virginia. Six days later he was in New York. In a coffee-house where he was dining, he struck up an 85 acquaintance with three young gentlemen of the city, and told his name and story. One of the three—a dark-eyed man—thereupon changed manner and said he had no time for a rascally turncoat. Harry, in hot resentment, replied that he would teach a damned Tory some manners. So the four went out of the town to Nicholas Bayard’s woods, where, after a few passes with rapiers, the dark-eyed gentleman was disarmed, and admitted, with no good grace, that Harry was the better fencer. Harry left New York that afternoon, having learned that his antagonist was Mr. John Colden, son of the postmaster of New York. His grandfather had been lieutenant-governor.
Harry had for some time thought he would prefer the cavalry, and he was determined, if possible, to gratify that preference in entering the military service of his own country. On arriving home he found his people strongly sympathizing with the revolt. But it was not until June, 1776, that Virginia raised a troop of horse. On the 18th of that month Harry was commissioned a cornet thereof. After some service he found himself, March 31, 1777, cornet in the First Continental Dragoons. The next fall, in a skirmish after the battle of Brandywine, he was recognized by British officers as the former ensign of the Sixty-third. In the following spring, thanks to his activity during the British 86 occupation of Philadelphia, he was made captain-lieutenant in Harry Lee’s battalion of light dragoons. After the battle of Monmouth he was promoted, July 2, 1778, to the rank of captain. In the early fall of that year he was busy in partisan warfare between the lines of the two armies.
And thus it came that he was pursuing a troop of Hessians down the New York and Albany post-road on a certain cold November evening. Eager on the chase, he was resolved to come up with them if it could be, though he should have to ride within gunshot of King’s Bridge itself. Suddenly his horse gave out. He had the saddle taken from the dead animal and given to one of his men to bear while he himself mounted in front of a sergeant, for he was loath to spare a man. Approaching Philipse Manor-house, the party saw a boy leading horses into a stable. Captain Peyton ordered some of his men to patrol the road, and with the rest he went on to the manor-house lawn.
Here he gave further directions, dismounted, knocked at the door, and was admitted to the hall where were Miss Elizabeth Philipse, Major Colden, Miss Sally Williams, and old Matthias Valentine; and, on Elizabeth’s demand, announced his name and rank.
Thanks to the dimness, to his uniform, and to his swift entrance, Peyton had not been recognized by Major Colden until he had given his name. That name had on the major the effect of an apparition, and he stepped back into the dark corner of the hall, drawing his cloak yet closer about him. This alarm and movement were not noticed by the others, as Peyton was the object of every gaze but his own, which was fixed on Elizabeth.
“What do you want?” her voice rang out, while she frowned from her place on the staircase, in cold resentment. Her aunt, meanwhile, made the newcomer a tremulous curtsey.
“I want to see the person in charge of this house, and I want a horse,” replied Peyton, with more promptitude than gentleness, yet with strict civility. Elizabeth’s manner would have nettled even a colder man.
Elizabeth did not keep him waiting for an answer.
“I am at present mistress of this house, and I am neither selling horses nor giving them!”
Peyton stared up at her in wonderment.
The candle-flame struggled against the wind, turning this way and that, and made the vague shadows of the people and of the slender balusters dance on floor and wall. From without came the sound of Peyton’s horses pawing, and of his men speaking to one another in low tones.
“Your pardon, madam,” said Peyton, “but a horse I must have. The service I am on permits no delay—”
“I doubt not!” broke in Elizabeth. “The Hessians are probably chasing you.”
“On the contrary, I am chasing the Hessians. At Boar Hill, yonder, my horse gave out. ’Tis important my troops lose no time. Passing here, we saw horses being led into your stable. I ordered one of my men to take the best of your beasts, and put my saddle on it,—and he is now doing so.”
“How dare you, sir!” and Elizabeth came quickly to the foot of the stairs, a picture of regal, flaming wrath.
“Why, madam,” said Peyton, “’tis for the service of the army. I require the horse, and I have come here to pay for it—”
“It is not for sale—”
“That makes no difference. You know the custom of war.”
“The custom of robbery!” cried Elizabeth.
Captain Peyton reddened.
“Robbery is not the custom of Harry Lee’s dragoons, madam,” said he, “whatever be the practice of the wretched ‘Skinners’ or of De Lancey’s Tory Cowboys. I shall pay you as you choose,—with a receipt to present at the quartermaster’s office, or with Continental bills.”
“Continental rubbish!”
And, indeed, Elizabeth was not far from the truth in the appellation so contemptuously hurled.
“You prefer that, do you?” said Peyton, unruffled; whereupon he took from within his waistcoat a long, thick pocketbook, and from that a number of bills; which must have been for high amounts, for he rapidly counted out only a score or two of them, repocketing the rest, and at that time, thereabouts, “a rat in shape of a horse,” as Washington himself had complained a month before, was “not to be bought for less than £200.”[4] Peyton handed her the bills he had counted out. “There’s a fair price, then,” said he; “allowing for depreciation. The current rate is five to one,—I allow six.”
Elizabeth looked disdainfully at the proffered bills, and made no move to take them.
“Pah!” she cried. “I wouldn’t touch your wretched Continental trash. I wouldn’t let one of my black women put her hair up in it. Money, 90 do you call it? I wouldn’t give a shilling of the King for a houseful of it.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Peyton, cheerfully. “Since July in ’76 there has been no king in America. I leave the bills, madam.” He laid them on the newel post, beside the candlestick. “’Tis all I can do, and more than many a man would do, seeing that Colonel Philipse, the owner of this place, is no friend to the American cause, and may fairly be levied on as an enemy—”
“Colonel Philipse is my father!”
“Then I’m glad I’ve been punctilious in the matter,” said Peyton, but without any increase of deference. “Egad, I think I’ve been as scrupulous as the commander-in-chief himself!”
“The commander-in-chief!” echoed Elizabeth. “Sir Henry Clinton pays in gold.”
“I meant our commander-in-chief,” with a suavity most irritating.
“Mr. Washington!” said Elizabeth, scornfully, with a slight emphasis on the “Mr.”
“His Excellency, General Washington.” Peyton spoke as one would in gently correcting a child who was impolite. Then he added, “I think the horse is now ready; so I bid you good evening!”
And he strode towards the door.
Elizabeth was now fully awake to the certainty that one of the horses would indeed be taken. At 91 Peyton’s movement she ran to the door, reaching it before he did, and looked out. What she saw, transformed her into a very fury.
“Oh, this outrage!” she cried, facing about and addressing those in the hall. “It is my Cato they are leading out! My Cato! Under my very eyes! I forbid it! He shall not go! Where are Cuff and the servants? Why don’t they prevent? And you, Jack?”
She turned to Colden for the first time since Peyton’s arrival.
“My troop would make short work of any who interfered, madam,” said Peyton, warningly, still looking at Elizabeth only.
“Oh, that I should have to endure this!” she said. “Oh, if I had but a company of soldiers at my back, you dog of a rebel!”
And she paced the hall in a great passion. Passing the newel post, she noticed the Continental bills. She took these up, violently tore them across, and threw the pieces about the hall, as one tosses corn about a chicken-yard.
Major Colden had been having a most uncomfortable five minutes. As a Tory officer, he was in close peril of being made prisoner by this Continental captain and the latter’s troop outside, and this peril was none the less since he had so adversely criticised Peyton in the talk which had led to the duel in 92 Bayard’s woods. He had not put himself on friendly terms with Peyton after that affair. There was still no reason for any other feeling towards him, on Peyton’s part, than resentment. Now Jack Colden had no relish for imprisonment at the hands of the despised rebels. Moreover, he had no wish that Elizabeth should learn of his former defeat by Peyton. He had kept the meeting in Bayard’s woods a secret, thanks to Peyton’s having quitted New York immediately after it, and to the relation of dependence in which the two only witnesses stood to him. Thus it was that he had remained well out of view during Elizabeth’s sharp interview with Peyton, being unwilling alike to be known as a Tory officer, and to be recognized by Peyton. His civilian’s cloak hid his uniform and weapons; the dimness of the candle-light screened his face.
But matters had reached a point where he could not, without appearing a coward, refrain longer from taking a hand. He stepped forward from the dark remoteness.
“Sir,” said he to Peyton, politely, “I know the custom of war. But since a horse must be taken, you will find one of mine in the stable. Will you not take it instead of this lady’s?”
Peyton had been scrutinizing Colden’s features.
“Mr. Colden, if I remember,” he said, when the major had finished.
“You remember right,” said Colden, with a bow, concealing behind a not too well assumed quietude what inward tremors the situation caused him.
“And you are doubtless now an officer in some Tory corps?” said Peyton, quickly.
“No, sir, I am neutral,” replied Colden, rather huskily, with an instant’s glance of warning at Elizabeth.
“Gad!” said Peyton, with a smile, still closely surveying the major. “From your sentiments the time I met you in New York in ’75, I should have thought you’d take up arms for the King.”
“That was before the Declaration of Independence,” said Colden, in a tone scarcely more than audible. “I have modified my opinions.”
“They were strong enough then,” Peyton went on. “You remember how you upheld them with a rapier in Bayard’s woods?”
“I remember,” said Colden, faintly, first reddening, then taking on a pale and sickly look, as if a prey to hidden chagrin and rage.
It seemed as if his tormentor intended to torture him interminably. Peyton, who knew that one of his men would come for him as soon as the horse should be saddled and bridled, remained facing the unhappy major, wearing that frank half-smile which, from the triumphant to the crestfallen, seems so insolent and is so maddening.
“I’ve often thought,” said Peyton, “I deserved small credit for getting the better of you that day. I had taken lessons from London fencing-masters.” (Consider that the woman whom Colden loved was looking on, and that this was all news to her, and imagine how he raged beneath the outer calmness he had, for safety’s sake, to wear.) “’Twas no hard thing to disarm you, and I’m not sorry you’re neutral now. For if you wore British or Tory uniform, ’twould be my duty to put you again at disadvantage, by taking you prisoner.”
The face of one of Peyton’s men now appeared in the doorway. Peyton nodded to him, then continued to address the major.
“As for your request, my traps are now on the other horse, and there is not time to change. I must ride at once.”
He stepped quickly to the door, and on the threshold turned to bow.
Then cried Elizabeth:
“May you ride to your destruction, for your impudence, you bandit!”
“Thank you, madam! I shall ride where I must! Farewell! My horse is waiting.”
And in an instant he was gone, having closed the door after him with a bang.
“His horse! The highwayman!” quoth Elizabeth.
“Give the gentleman his due,” said Miss Sally, in a way both mollified and mollifying. “He paid for it with those.” She indicated the strewn fragments of the Continental bills on the floor.
“Forward! Get up!”
It was the voice of Captain Peyton outside. The horses were heard riding away from the lawn.
Elizabeth opened the door and looked out. Her aunt accompanied her. Old Valentine gazed with a sagely deploring expression at the torn-up bills on the floor. Colden stood where he had been, lest by some chance the enemy might return and discover his relief from straint.
“Oh,” cried Elizabeth, at the door, as the light horsemen filed out the gate and up the branch road towards the highway, “to see the miserable rebel mounted on my Cato!”
“He looks well on him,” said her aunt.
It was a brief flow of light from the fresh-risen moon, between wind-driven clouds, that enabled Miss Sally to make this observation.
“Looks well! The tatterdemalion!” And Elizabeth came from the door, as if loathing further sight of him.
But Miss Sally continued to look after the riders, as their dark forms were borne rapidly towards the post-road. “Nay, I think he is quite handsome.”