Part 15 (2/2)

_Annie_. Refugees! Refugee! Helen!

_Mrs. G_. It sounds strange for one of us I know. You will grow used to it soon. Helen belongs to the British side, she will go over to them to-day, but she must go alone, for none of us would be safe in British hands, at least I trust so--this morning's experience might make me doubtful, but I trust we are all true here yet beside.

_Annie_. Have I heard aright, Helen?--or is this all some fearful dream?

You and I, who have lived together all the years of our lives, to be parted this moment, and for ever,--no, no!

(_A young American Officer enters hastily_.)

_Capt. Grey_. Softly, softly! What is this? Are you in this conspiracy to disgrace me, mother? Oh, very well; if you have all decided to stay here, I'll take my leave.

_Annie_. Oh, Henry, stay. You can persuade her it may be.

_Capt. G. Persuade_! What's all this! A goodly time for rhetoric forsooth! Who's this that's risking all our lives, waiting to be persuaded now?

_Mrs. G_. That Tory, Henry! We should have thought of this. Ah, if we had gone yesterday,--that haughty Maitland,--she will stay here to meet him! She will marry him, my son.

_Capt. G_. Maitland!--and stay here!

_Helen_. Dear Henry, let us part in kindness. Do not look on me with that angry eye. It was I that played with you in the woods and meadows, it was I that roamed with you in those autumn twilights,--you loved me then, and we are parting for ever it may be..

_Capt. G_. (_To the children at the door_.) Get you down, young ones, get you down. Pray, mother, lead the way, will you?--break up this ring.

Come, Helen, you and I will talk of this as we go on, only in pa.s.sing give me leave to say, of all the mad pranks of your novel ladies, this caps the chief. You have outdone them, Helen; I'll give you credit for it, you have outdone them all.

Why you'll be chronicled,--there's nothing on record like it, that ever I heard of; I am well-read in romances too. We'll have a new love-ballad made and set to tune, under the head of ”Love and Murder,” it will come though, if you don't make haste a little. Come, come.

_Helen_. Henry!

_Capt. G_. Are you in earnest, Helen? Did you suppose that we were mad enough to leave you here? You'll not go with us? But you will, by Heaven!

_Helen_. Henry! Mother!--Nay, Henry, this is vain. I shall stay here, I shall--I shall stay here,--so help me Heaven.

_Capt. G_. Helen Grey! Is that young lioness there my sometime sister?--my delicate sister?--with her foot planted like iron, and the strength of twenty men nerving her arm?

_Helen_. Let go.--I shall stay here.

_Capt. G_. Well, have your way, young lady, have your way; but--Mother, if you choose to leave that mad girl here, you can,--but as for this same Everard Maitland, look you, my lady, if I don't stab him to his heart's core, never trust me.

(_He goes out--Mrs. Grey follows him to the door_.)

_Mrs. G_. Stay, Henry,--stay. What shall we do?

_Capt. G_. Do!--Indeed, a straight waistcoat is the only remedy I know of, Madam, for such freaks as these. If you say so, she shall go with us yet.

_Mrs. G_. Hear me. This is no time for pa.s.sion now Hear me, Henry. This Maitland, _Tory_ as he is, is her betrothed husband, and she has chosen her fate with him; we cannot keep her with us; nay, with what we have now seen, it would be vain to think of it, to wish it even. She must go to him,--it but remains to see that she meets him safely. Noon is the hour appointed for his coming. Could we not stay till then?

_Capt. G_. Impossible. Noon?--well.--Oh, if its all fixed upon;--if you have settled it between yourselves that Helen is to abandon us and our protection, for Everard Maitland's and the British, the sooner done, the better. She's quite right,--she's like to find no safer chance for it than this. Noon,--there is a picket left on yonder hill till after that time, certainly, and a hundred men or so in the fort. I might give Van Vechten a hint of it--nay, I can return myself this afternoon, and if she is not gone then, I will take it upon me she is not left a second time. Of course Maitland would be likely to care for her safety. At all events there's nothing else for us to do, at least there's but one alternative, and that I have named to you.

<script>