"Yes, Miss Elizabeth."
"The commander," she went on, "will probably send here a body of troops at once, to convey this prisoner within the lines. You are to return with them. If no time is lost, and they send mounted troops, you should be back in an hour."
Peyton could hardly repress a start.
"An hour at most, miss, if nothing stops," said the negro.
"If any officer of my acquaintance is in command," said Elizabeth, "there will be no delay. Cuff shall let the troops in, through that hall, as soon as they arrive."
Whereupon the black man, a stalwart and courageous specimen of his race, went rapidly from the room.
"One hour!" murmured Peyton, looking at the clock.
Molly, the maid, now reappeared, carrying carefully in one hand a cup, from which a thin steam ascended.
"What is"t now, Molly?" inquired Elizabeth, rising from her chair.
Molly blushed and was much confused. "Tea, ma"am, if you please! I thought, maybe, you"d allow the gentleman--"
"Very well," said Elizabeth. "Be the good Samaritan if you like, child. His tea-drinking days will soon be over. Come, aunt Sally, we shall be in better company elsewhere." And she returned to the dining-room, not deigning her prisoner another look.
Miss Sally followed, but her feelings required confiding in some one, and before she went she whispered to the embarra.s.sed maid, "Oh, Molly, to think so sweet a young gentleman should be completely wasted!"
Molly heaved a sigh, and then approached the young gentleman himself, with whom she was now alone, saving the presence of the slumbering Valentine.
"So your name is Molly? And you"ve brought me tea this time?"
"Yes, sir,--if you please, sir." She took up the bowl from the chair and placed the cup in its stead. "I put sugar in this, sir, but if you"d rather--"
"I"d rather have it just as you"ve made it, Molly," he said, in a singularly gentle, unsteady tone. He raised the cup, and sipped.
"Delicious, Molly!--Hah! Your mistress thinks my tea-drinking days will soon be over."
"I"m very sorry, sir."
"So am I." He held the cup in his left hand, supporting his upright body with his right arm, and looked rather at vacancy than at the maid. "Never to drink tea again," he said, "or wine or spirits, for that matter! To close your eyes on this fine world! Never again to ride after the hounds, or sing, or laugh, or chuck a pretty girl under the chin!"
And here, having set down the cup, he chucked Molly herself under the chin, pretending a gaiety he did not feel.
"Never again," he went on, "to lead a charge against the enemies of our liberty; not to live to see this fight out, the King"s regiments driven from the land, the States take their place among the free nations of the world! _By G.o.d, Molly, I don"t want to die yet!_"
It was not the fear of death, it was the love of life, and what life might have in reserve, that moved him; and it now a.s.serted itself in him with a force tenfold greater than ever before. Death,--or, rather, the ceasing of life,--as he viewed it now, when he was like to meet it without company, with prescribed preliminaries, in an ignominious mode, was a far other thing than as viewed in the exaltation of battle, when a man chances it hot-headed, uplifted, thrilled, in gallant comradeship, to his own fate rendered careless by a sense of his nothingness in comparison with the whole vast drama. Moreover, in going blithely to possible death in open fight, one accomplishes something for his cause; not so, going unwillingly to certain death on an enemy"s gallows. It was, too, an exasperating thought that he should die to gratify the vengeful whim of an insolent Tory girl.
"Will it really come to that?" asked Molly, in a frightened tone.
"As surely as I fall into British hands!"
Peyton remembered the case of General Charles Lee, whose resignation of half-pay had not been acknowledged; who was, when captured by the British, long in danger of hanging, and who was finally rated as an ordinary war prisoner only for Washington"s threat to retaliate on five Hessian field officers. If a major-general, whose desertion, even if admitted, was from half-pay only, would have been hanged without ceremony but for General Howe"s fear of a "law sc.r.a.pe," and had been saved from shipment to England for trial, only by the King"s fear that Washington"s retaliation would disaffect the Hessian allies, for what could a mere captain look, who had come over from the enemy in action, and whose punishment would entail no official retaliation?
"And your mistress expects a troop of British soldiers here in an hour to take me! d.a.m.n it, if I could only walk!" And he looked rapidly around the room, in a kind of distraction, as if seeking some means of escape. Realizing the futility of this, he sighed dismally, and drank the remainder of the tea.
"You couldn"t get away from the house, sir," said Molly. "Williams is watching outside."
"I"d take a chance if I could only run!" Peyton muttered. He had no fear that Molly would betray him. "If there were some hiding-place I might crawl to! But the troops would search every cranny about the house." He turned to Molly suddenly, seeing, in his desperate state and his lack of time, but one hope. "I wonder, could Williams be bribed to spirit me away?"
Molly"s manner underwent a slight chill.
"Oh, no," said she. "He"d die before he"d disobey Miss Elizabeth. We all would, sir. I"m very sorry, indeed, sir." Whereupon, taking up the empty bowl and teacup, she hastened from the room.
Peyton sat listening to the clock-ticks. He moved his right leg so that the foot rested on the floor, then tried to move the left one after it, using his hand to guide it. With great pains and greater pain, he finally got the left foot beside the right. He then undertook to stand, but the effort cost him such physical agony as could not be borne for any length of time. He fell back with a groan to the sofa, convinced that the wounded leg was not only, for the time, useless itself, but also an impediment to whatever service the other leg might have rendered alone. But he remained sitting up, his right foot on the floor.
Suddenly there was a raucous sound from old Mr. Valentine. He had at last begun to snore. But this infliction brought its own remedy, for when his jaws opened wider his tobacco pipe fell from his mouth and struck his folded hands. He awoke with a start, and blinked wonderingly at Peyton, whose face, turned towards the old man, still wore the look of disapproval evoked by the momentary snoring.
"Still here, eh?" piped Mr. Valentine. "I dreamt you were being hanged to the fireplace, like a pig to be smoked. I was quite upset over it!
Such a fine young gentleman, and one of Harry Lee"s officers, too!"
And the old man shook his head deploringly.
"Then why don"t you help me out of this?" demanded Peyton, whose impulse was for grasping at straws, for he thought of black Sam urging Cato through the wind towards King"s Bridge at a gallop.
"It ain"t possible," said Valentine, phlegmatically.
"If it were, would you?" asked Harry, a spark of hope igniting from the appearance that the old man was, at least, not antagonistic to him.
"Why, yes," began the octogenarian, placidly.
Harry"s heart bounded.
"If," the old man went on, "I could without lending aid to the King"s enemies. But you see I couldn"t. I won"t lend aid to neither side"s enemies.[7] I don"t want to die afore my time." And he gazed complacently at the fire.
Peyton knew the hopeless immovability of selfish old age.
"G.o.d!" he muttered, in despair. "Is there no one I can turn to?"
"There"s none within hearing would dare go against the orders of Miss Elizabeth," said Mr. Valentine.
"Miss Elizabeth evidently rules with a firm hand," said Peyton, bitterly. "Her word--" He stopped suddenly, as if struck by a new thought. "If I could but move _her_! If I could make her change her mind!"
"You couldn"t. No one ever could, and as for a rebel soldier--"
"She has a heart of iron, that girl!" broke in Peyton. "The cruelty of a savage!"
Mr. Valentine took on a sincerely deprecating look. "Oh, you mustn"t abuse Miss Elizabeth," said he. "It ain"t cruelty, it"s only proper pride. And she isn"t hard. She has the kindest heart,--to those she"s fond of."
"To those she"s fond of," repeated Harry, mechanically.
"Yes," said the old man; "her people, her horses, her dogs and cats, and even her servants and slaves."
"Tender creature, who has a heart for a dog and not for a man!"