"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?"
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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 CHAPTER IV.
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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 CHAPTER IV.
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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."
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"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 CHAPTER IV.
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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 CHAPTER IV.
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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 CHAPTER IV.
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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.
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"He will walk there until my father