Part 16 (1/2)
”Sure the devil's in it,” said I, when he had told me this, ”if the rebels' praying men are as sanguinary as you showed yourself to-night--leaping out to pursue your beaten enemy, as you did.”
”Why,” he replied, self-reproachfully, in his mildest voice, ”I find, do what I can, I have at bottom a combative spirit that will rise upon occasion. I had thought 'twas long since quelled. But I fear no man is always and altogether his own master. I saw even General Was.h.i.+ngton, at Monmouth--but no matter for that. Especially of late, I have found my demon of wrath--to speak figuratively--too much for me. 'Twas too violently roused, maybe, that night your General Grey and his men fell upon us as we slept, yonder across the Hudson, and slaughtered us like sheep in the barn we lay in.”
”Why, were you in that too?” I asked, surprised. ”I thought that troop was called Lady Was.h.i.+ngton's Light Horse.”[3]
”Ay, we were then of that troop, Captain Winwood and I. 'Twas for his conduct in that affair, his valour and skill in saving the remnant of the troop, that he was put, t'other day, in command of an independent company. I may take some pride in having helped him to this honour; for his work the night General Grey surprised us was done so quietly, and his report made so little of his own share in the business, 'twould have gone unrecognised, but for my account of it. Though, to be sure, General Was.h.i.+ngton said afterward, in my hearing, that such bravery and sagacity, coupled with such modesty, were only what he might expect of Captain Winwood.”
Cornelius had shared Philip's fortunes since their departure from New York. When Winwood fell wounded in the snow, between the two blockhouses at the foot of the cliff, that night the rebels met defeat at Quebec, the pedagogue remained to succour him, and so was taken prisoner with him. He afterward helped nurse him in the French religious house, in the walled ”upper town,” to which the rebel wounded were conveyed.
Upon the exchange of prisoners, Philip, having suffered a relapse, was unable to accompany his comrades homeward, and Cornelius stayed to care for him. There was a Scotchwoman who lived upon a farm a few miles West of Quebec, and whose husband was serving on our side as one of Colonel Maclean's Royal Highlanders. She took Winwood and the pedagogue into her house as guests, trusting them till some uncertain time in the future might find them able to pay.
When at last Philip dared hazard the journey, the rebel siege of Quebec, which had continued in a half-hearted manner until Spring brought British reinforcements up the river in s.h.i.+p-loads, had long been raised, and the rebels had long since flown. Provided by Governor Carleton with the pa.s.sports to which in their situation they were ent.i.tled, the two started for New York, bound by way of the St.
Lawrence, the Richelieu, the lakes, and the Hudson. It was now Winter, and only Winwood's impatience to resume service could have tempted them to such a journey in that season.
They came part way afoot, receiving guidance now from some solitary fur-capped _courier du bois_ clad in skins and hoofed with snow-shoes, now from some peaceful Indian, now from the cowled brothers of, some forest monastery which gave them a night's shelter also. Portions of the journey they made upon sledges driven by poor _habitans_ dwelling in the far-apart villages or solitary farmhouses. At other times they profited by boats and canoes, propelled up the St. Lawrence by French peasants, befringed hunters, or friendly red men. Their entertainment and housing were sometimes from such people as I have mentioned; sometimes of their own contriving, the woods furnis.h.i.+ng game for food, f.a.gots for fuel, and boughs for roof and bedding.
They encountered no danger from human foes until they were in the province of New York, and, having left the lakes behind them, were footing it Southward along the now frozen Hudson. The Indians in Northern New York had been won to our interest, by Sir John Johnson, of Johnson Hall, in the Mohawk Valley, and were more than formerly inclined to vigilance regarding travellers in those lonely regions.
Upon waking suddenly one night when camped in the woods, Philip saw by the firelight that he was surrounded by a party of silent savages; his sword and pistol, and Cornelius's rifle, being already in their possession. The two soldiers were held as prisoners for several days, and made to accompany their captors upon long, mysterious peregrinations. At last they were brought before Sir John Johnson, at one of his forts; and that gentleman, respecting Governor Carleton's pa.s.ses, and the fact that Captain Winwood was related by marriage to the De Lanceys, sent them with a guide to Albany.
Here they reported to General Schuyler; and Philip, having learned by the experience of his journey that his wound left him incapacitated for arduous service afoot, desired an arrangement by which he might join the cavalry branch of the army. Mr. Schuyler was pleased to put the matter through for him, and to send him to Morristown, New Jersey, (where the rebel main force was then in Winter quarters) with a commendatory letter to General Was.h.i.+ngton. Cornelius, whose time of service had expired, was free to accompany him.
Philip, being enrolled, without loss of nominal rank, in Lady Was.h.i.+ngton's Light Horse, which Cornelius entered as a trooper, had now the happiness of serving near the person of the commander-in-chief. He was wounded again at the Brandywine, upon which occasion Cornelius bore him off the field without their being captured. During the Winter at Valley Forge, and at the battle of Monmouth, and in the recent partisan warfare on both sides of the Hudson, their experiences were those of Was.h.i.+ngton's army as a whole, of which there are histories enough extant: until their troop was cut to pieces by Earl Grey, and Captain Winwood was advanced to an independent command. This was but a recent event.
”And did he never think of us in New York,” said Tom, ”that he sent us no word in all this time?”
”Sure, you must thank your British occupation of New York, if you received none of our messages. General Was.h.i.+ngton allowed them to pa.s.s.”
”Ay, 'tis not easy for rebels to communicate with their friends in New York,” quoth I, ”despite the traffic of goods between the Whig country folk and some of our people, that Captain De Lancey knows about.”
”Tut, man!” said De Lancey. ”Some things must be winked at; we need their farm stuff as much as they want our tea and such. But correspondence from rebels must go to headquarters--where 'tis like to stop, when it's for a family whose head is of Mr. Faringfield's way of thinking.”
”Well,” said Mr. Cornelius, ”Captain Winwood and I have discussed more than one plan by which he might perchance get sight of his people for a minute or so. He has hoped he might be sent into New York under a flag of truce, upon some negotiation or other, and might obtain permission from your general to see his wife while there; but he has always been required otherwise when messengers were to be sent. He has even thought of offering to enter the town clandestinely--”
”Hus.h.!.+” I interrupted. ”You are indiscreet. We are soldiers of the king, remember. But, to be sure, 'tis nonsense; Phil would not be such a fool as to risk hanging.”
”Oh, to be sure; nonsense, indeed!” Cornelius stammered, much upset at the imprudence due to his thoughtlessness. ”And yet,” he resumed presently, ”never did a man more crave a sight of those he left behind. He would barter a year of his life, I think, for a minute's speech with his wife. He talks of her by the hour, when he and I are alone together. There was some coolness, you will remember, before their parting; but 'twas not on his side, and his lady seemed to have dropped it when he was taking leave of her; and three years of absence have gone since then. So I am sure she has softened quite, and that she desires his return as much as he longs for her presence. And though he knows all this must be so, he keeps me ever rea.s.suring and persuading him it is. Ah, sir, if ever there was a man in love with his wife!”
I made no reply. I had previously informed him of her good health, in answer to a question whose eagerness came of his friends.h.i.+p for Philip. I asked myself whether his unsuspecting mind was like to perceive aught that would pain him for Philip's sake, in her abandonment to the gaieties of the town, to the attentions of the king's officers, to the business of making herself twice as charming as the pedagogue had ever seen her.
We got it arranged that our prisoner should be put on parole and quartered at Mr. Faringfield's house, where his welcome was indeed a glad one. When Margaret heard of his presence in the town, she gave a momentary start (it seemed to me a start of self-accusation) and paled a little; but she composed herself, and asked in a sweet and gracious (not an eager) tone:
”And Philip?”
I told her all I had learned from Cornelius, to which she listened with a kindly heedfulness, only sometimes pressing her white teeth upon her lower lip, and other times dropping her l.u.s.trous eyes from my purposely steady, and perhaps reproachful, gaze.
”So then,” said she, as if to be gay at the expense of her husband's long absence, ”now that three years and more have brought him so near us, maybe another three years or so will bring him back to us!” 'Twas affected gaiety, one could easily see. Her real feeling must have been of annoyance that any news of her husband should be obtruded upon her.
She had entered into a way of life that involved forgetfulness of him, and for which she must reproach herself whenever she thought of him, but which was too pleasant for her to abandon. But she had the virtue to be ashamed that reminders of his existence were unwelcome, and consequently to pretend that she took them amiably; and yet she had not the hypocrisy to pretend the eager solicitude which a devoted wife would evince upon receiving news of her long-absent soldier-husband.
Such hypocrisy, indeed, would have appeared ridiculous in a wife who had scarce mentioned her husband's name, and then only when others spoke of him, in three years. Yet her very self-reproach for disregarding him--did it not show that, under all the feelings that held her to a life of gay coquetry, lay her love for Philip, not dead, nor always sleeping?
When Cornelius came to the house to live, she met him with a warm clasp of the hand, and with a smile of so much radiance and sweetness, that for a time he must have been proud of her on Phil's behalf; and so dazzled that he could not yet see those things for which, on the same behalf, he must needs be sorrowful.