“I mean,” replied Barclugh dryly, “that both General and Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., are very much deluded personages as to the task before them.”
General Clinton now turned and bowed to Roderick Barclugh and, with lips firmly compressed, said:
“Mr. Barclugh, I have done with your information. I thank you.”
Then Sir Henry remarked as he took Arnold’s arm in his own:
“General Arnold, we better retire.”
The two generals, in oppressive silence, now turned their backs on Barclugh and stalked out of the room.
Barclugh stood and watched their departure. He dropped his head in silent reflection. Raising his eyes, the pent-up fire of an indignant soul shone out of them. He said:
“Let them go! The hirelings of kingly power as I have been! They plan to flatter the King and consider as a reward only the gold that they receive.
“It is well that kings have gold for their use. For the bones that they throw to their dogs would soon play out, unless the dry bones that are rattled scare the whelps.
“My mission has failed! Why? The Americans are superior to the system that makes hirelings of us all. No system of finance affects them. They refused my gold. Mutual trust in each other, as men, made their pieces of commissary paper as useful as my gold. Of all the men that I met, Arnold was the only one that I could convince with an Englishman’s argument, pounds sterling. American manhood is a product of American soil. It has grown out of the forests and the streams. It is incorruptible. If its ideals are lost in the greed for gold, the debased have to flee America and seek an asylum, like Arnold, in the bosom of the Englishman where pounds sterling can outweigh character and manhood.