“France in alliance,” said the Governor. “May France herself live to become a republic. And the Queen has espoused our cause!”
Peter went from the office with heart full of joy. Good news from the seat of war made his heart as light as a bird—it made him whittle and whistle.
Out in the cold, watching nights, Peter’s heart turned to the wood-chopper, who had seemed to love the King more than him. He felt that the old man must be lonely in his cabin, with only the blue jays and the squirrels, and the like to cheer him. Peter could seem to hear him chop, chop, chopping wood.
He met him once in the way, and the old man talked of the King—“my king.”
“He is only a man,” said Peter, in defense of the cause.
“Only a man?” said the wood-chopper. “His arms are like the lion and unicorn—and they have taken down the King’s arms in Philadelphia and overturned his statue in New York. But the lion and the unicorn still stand on the old State-house, Boston. Hurrah for King George III! They may do what they will with me, but my heart will still say: ‘Long live the King!’”
He seemed to think that the King wore a real lion and unicorn on his arms, or to so imagine him.
Poor old man on the by-way of the Lebanon cedars! Peter pitied him, for he felt that he had, after all, a very human heart.
Dennis went again to the camp of Washington to confer with the General in regard to movements of powder, and there he saw Lafayette.
The Frenchman, indeed, did not look like a prophet now, nor like one of the yeomen of the hill-towns of Connecticut.