III
IN WHICH MY ENEMY SCORES FIRST
True to his promise, Richard Jennifer met me in the cool gray birthlight of the new day at a turn in the river road not above a mile or two from the rendezvous, and thence we jogged on together.
After the greetings, which, as you may like to know, were grateful enough on my part, I would fain inquire how the baronet had taken his second's defection; but of this Jennifer would say little. He had broken with his principal, whether in anger or not I could only guess; and one of Falconnet's brother officers, that younger of the twain who had cried shame at the baronet's vile boast, was to serve in his stead.
It was such a daydawn as I have sometimes seen in the Carpathians; cool and clear, but with that sweet dewy wetness in the lower air which washes the over-night cobwebs from the brain, and is both meat and drink to one who breathes it. On the left the road was overhung by the bordering forest, and where the branches drooped lowest we brushed the fragrance from the wild-grape bloom in passing. On the right the river, late in flood, eddied softly; and sounds other than the murmuring of the waters, the matin songs of the birds, and the dust-muffled hoof-beats of our horses there were none. Peace, deep and abiding, was the key-note of nature's morning hymn; and in all this sylvan byway there was naught remindful of the fierce internecine warfare aflame in all the countryside. Some rough forging of this thought I hammered out for Jennifer as we rode along, and his laugh was not devoid of bitterness.
"Old Mother Nature ruffles her feathers little enough for any teapot tempest of ours," he said. "But speaking of the cruelties, we provincial savages, as my Lord Cornwallis calls us, have no monopoly. The post-riders from the south bring blood-curdling stories of Colonel Tarleton's doings. 'Tis said he overtook some of Mr. Lincoln's reinforcements come too late. They gave battle but faint-heartedly, being all unready for an enemy, and presently threw down their arms and begged for quarter—begged, and were cut down as they stood."
"Faugh!" said I. "That is but hangman's work. And yet in London I heard that this same Colonel Tarleton was with Lord Howe in Philadelphia and was made much of by the ladies."
Jennifer's laugh was neither mirthful nor pleasant.
"'Tis a weakness of the sex," he scoffed. "The women have a fondness for a man with a dash of the brute in him."
I laughed also, but without bitterness.