"They do lie if they connect me with the Baron de Kalb, or with any other of the patriot side. What are they saying?"
"That you come straight from the baron's camp in Virginia—to see what you can see."
"A spy, eh? 'Tis cut out of whole cloth, Dick, my lad. I've never took the oath on either side."
He looked vastly disappointed. "But you will, Jack? Surely, you have not to think twice in such a cause?"
"As between King and Congress, you mean? 'Tis no quarrel of mine."
"Now God Save us, John Ireton!" he burst out in a fine fervor of youthful enthusiasm that made him all the handsomer, "I had never thought to hear your father's son say the like!"
I shrugged.
"And why not, pray? The king's minion, Tryon, hanged my father and gave his estate to his minion's minion, Gilbert Stair. So, in spite of your declarations and your confiscations and your laws against alien landholders, I come back to find myself still the son of the outlawed Roger Ireton, and this same Gilbert Stair firmly lodged in my father's seat."
Jennifer shrugged in his turn.
"Gilbert Stair—for sweet Madge's sake I'm loath to say it—Gilbert Stair blows hot or cold as the wind sets fair or stormy. And I will say this for him: no other Tryon legatee of them all has steered so fine a course through these last five upsetting years. How he trims so skilfully no man knows. A short month since, he had General Rutherford and Colonel Sumter as guests at Appleby Hundred; now it is Sir Francis Falconnet and the British light-horse officers who are honored. But let him rest: the cause of independence is bigger than any man, or any man's private quarrel, friend John; and I had hoped—"