Part 14 (2/2)

”I know nothing of that,” says she, ”but I do know whose sister will be the toast of the British Army before a month is past!”

If the king's troops acquired a toast upon entering New York, the rebels had gained a volunteer upon leaving it. One day, just before Was.h.i.+ngton's army fled, Tom Faringfield came to me with a face all amus.e.m.e.nt.

”Who do you think is the latest patriot recruit?” cried he. It was our custom to give the rebels ironically their own denomination of patriots.

”Not you nor I, at any rate,” said I.

”But one of the family, nevertheless.”

”Why, surely--your father has not--”

”Oh, no; only my father's eldest.”

”Ned?”

”n.o.body else. Fancy Ned taking the losing side! Oh, 'fore G.o.d, it's true! He came home in a kind of uniform to-day, and told father what he had done; the two had a long talk together in private after that; and though father never shows his thoughts, I believe he really has some hopes of Ned now. The rebels made a lieutenant of him, on father's account. I wonder what his game is.”

”I make no doubt, to curry favour with his father.”

”Maybe. But perhaps to get an excuse for leaving town, and a way of doing so. I've heard some talk--they say poor Sally Roberts's condition is his work.”

”Very like. Your brother is a terrible Adonis--with ladies of a certain kind.”

”Not such an Adonis neither--at least the Adonis that Venus courted in Shakespeare's poem. Rather a Jove, I should say.”

We did not then suspect the depth of Mr. Ned's contrivance or duplicity. He left New York with the rebels, and 'twas some time ere we saw, or heard of, him again.

And now at last several loyalist brigades were formed as auxiliaries to the royal army, and Tom and I were soon happy in the consciousness of serving our king, and in the possession of the green uniforms that distinguished the local from the regular force. We were of Colonel Cruger's battalion, of General Oliver De Lancey's brigade, and both were so fortunate as to obtain commissions, Tom receiving that of lieutenant, doubtless by reason of his mother's relations.h.i.+p to General De Lancey, and I being made an ensign, on account of the excellent memory in which my father was held by the loyal party. Mr.

Faringfield, like many another father in similar circ.u.mstances, was outwardly pa.s.sive upon his son's taking service against his own cause: as a prudent man, he had doubtless seen from the first the advantage of having a son actually under arms for the king, for it gave him and his property such safety under the British occupation as even his lady's loyalist affiliations might not have sufficed to do. Therefore Tom, as a loyalist officer, was no less at home than formerly, in the house of his rebel father. I know not how many such family situations were brought about by this strange war.

CHAPTER VIII.

_I Meet an Old Friend in the Dark._

I shall not give an account of my military service, since it entered little into the history of Philip Winwood. 'Twas our duty to help man the outposts that guarded the island at whose Southern extremity New York lies, from rebel attack; especially from the hara.s.sments of the partisan troops, and irregular Whiggery, who would swoop down in raiding parties, cut off our foragers, drive back our wood-cutters, and annoy us in a thousand ways. We had such raiders of our own, too, notably Captain James De Lancey's Westchester Light Horse, Simcoe's Rangers, and the Hessian yagers, who repaid the visits of our enemies by swift forays across the neutral ground between the two armies.

But this warfare did not exist in its fulness till later, when the American army formed about us an immense segment of a circle, which began in New Jersey, ran across Westchester County in New York province, and pa.s.sed through a corner of Connecticut to Long Island Sound. On our side, we occupied Staten Island, part of the New Jersey sh.o.r.e, our own island, lower Westchester County, and that portion of Long Island nearest New York. But meanwhile, the rebel main army was in New Jersey in the Winter of 1776-77, surprising some of our Hessians at Trenton, overcoming a British force at Princeton, and going into quarters at Morristown. And in the next year, Sir William Howe having sailed to take Philadelphia with most of the king's regulars (leaving General Clinton to hold New York with some royal troops and us loyalists), the fighting was around the rebel capital, which the British, after two victories, held during the Winter of 1777-78, while Was.h.i.+ngton camped at Valley Forge.

In the Fall of 1777, we thought we might have news of Winwood, for in the Northern rebel army to which General Burgoyne then capitulated, there were not only many New York troops, but moreover several of the officers taken at Quebec, who had been exchanged when Philip had. But of him we heard nothing, and from him it was not likely that we should hear. Margaret never mentioned him now, and seemed to have forgotten that she possessed a husband. Her interest was mainly in the British officers still left in New York, and her impatience was for the return of the larger number that had gone to Philadelphia. To this impatience an end was put in the Summer of 1778, when the main army marched back to us across New Jersey, followed part way by the rebels, and fighting with them at Monmouth Court House. 'Twas upon this that the lines I have mentioned, of British outposts protecting New York, and rebel forces surrounding us on all sides but that of the sea, were established in their most complete shape; and that the reciprocal forays became most frequent.

And now, too, the British occupation of New York a.s.sumed its greatest proportions. The kinds of festivity in which Margaret so brilliantly shone, lent to the town the continual gaiety in which she so keenly delighted. The loyalist families exerted themselves to protect the king's officers from dulness, and the king's officers, in their own endeavours to the same end, helped perforce to banish dulness from the lives of their entertainers. 'Twas a gay town, indeed, for some folk, despite the vast ugly blotches wrought upon its surface by two great fires since the war had come, and despite the scarcity of provisions and the other inconveniences of a virtual state of siege. Tom and I saw much of that gaiety, for indeed at that time our duties were not as active as we wished they might be, and they left us leisure enough to spend in the town. But we were pale candles to the European officers--the rattling, swearing, insolent English, the tall and haughty Scots, the courtly Hessians and Brunswickers.

”What, sister, have we grown invisible, Bert and I?” said Tom to Margaret, as we met her in the hall one night, after we had returned from a ball in the a.s.sembly Rooms. ”Three times we bowed to you this evening, and got never a glance in return.”

”'Faith,” says she, with a smile, ”one can't see these green uniforms for the scarlet ones!”

”Ay,” he retorted, with less good-humour than she had shown, ”the scarlet coats blind some people's eyes, I think, to other things than green uniforms.”

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