"Glory to God! Such men as ours cannot be beaten. But the town is on fire. Young Reginald Bromfeld, who hath of kith and kin in Boston, is about to start with a company of youths for Boston, and declareth that he can scarcely wait to perform the journey, so anxious is he to shoulder a musket, aye, and use it too. I can but wish the lad Godspeed!
"Sir Percival Grandison, whom I cannot but hold as a good man, hath forbidden his son—most unwisely, I fear—to take part with the colonists either here or elsewhere. And Sir Percival is a man of iron will. Beshrew me! but I have it in my heart to believe that he would keep the lad from Boston by force, could he do it in no other way.
"And it hath also been told that the proud maid, Rosamond Earlscourt, hath said all in her power to make him feel that he is acting both unjustly and unkindly in taking a different side from that of parents and sweetheart—for such she seemeth to hold herself to be. No Southern gentleman would like such words.
"And report hath it that Sir Percival meaneth to go to England for a time, as soon as business matters can be settled here and permit. Ah, but he must act swiftly!"
Sally had listened with ears that tingled.
But all this time there was in her heart a puzzling question, and it had to do with the soldier's card. By the light of a candle, the night she received it, she had seen a name that made her start. For she saw at once that it was the same that she had seen on the cape and in the letter in Mistress Brace's little trunk.
"What could it mean?" Sally dreaded to know, because the name was plainly a French one. She had no love or liking for British soldiers, still less for a French soldier who would take up arms against her own dear land.
"For it shall be my own dear land," she said, the determined cleft settling in her chin.
But small time there was to spend over mysteries or hidden things. War had begun, and her Prince at Ingleside must fight his nearest friends if to battle he would go.
"I would that I could help thee, Fairy Prince!" she cried in her heart.