I might have saved my breath so far as striving to hide from the good woman who loved me so dearly, the possible dangers in the path we had chosen. She had pictured them all in her mind, and I am bound to give her credit for not having magnified them in the lightest degree. She viewed the situation as you might expect a soldier's wife would, carefully weighing this possibility and that, until she had come to have even a better knowledge of all which threatened than had we ourselves.
It was, however, when I told her we had been forced to make a prisoner of Horry Sims that she grew white lipped, pressing me suddenly to her arms as if imminent danger threatened, and from that moment it was necessary I bring to bear upon her every argument at my command, else would she have set her foot down flatly that I should not return to the town of York.
I believe of a verity all my attempts at making her more friendly with our scheme which had been marred by the capture of the Tory cur, had been in vain but for the fact that I could plead the shame which would come upon me if I should abandon Pierre, Saul, or even Uncle 'Rasmus, after having done my share toward luring them into a position of peril.
She realized even better than I that it was my duty, having set out upon the road with these companions and accompanied them thus far, to bear my full share of all that might result. As a consequence, instead of demanding that I remain with her on the plantation, she held me pressed closely to her bosom while the tears ran down her cheeks unrestrained, until I was grown so faint-hearted and so grieved because of having involuntarily caused her suffering, that a feeling of timorousness began to creep over me.
Fortunately, however, I succeeded in calling back some portion of the courage which had fled before my mother's tears, and realized that if I would do my full duty, as a boy of Virginia should toward the comrades with whom he had bound himself, it was necessary I leave home without delay, for verily I believe had I remained there until the next morning I could not have summoned up spirit enough to venture into that town of York where the king's soldiers, like a pack of ravening wolves, were denned up after having committed upon a defenceless people all the injury within their power.
Of the parting with my mother that noon I cannot speak, even at this late day, so painful was it. I can see now her pale face as she stood on the veranda watching me walk away, doing my best not to look back upon that mournful picture, and yet turning my head again and again despite all efforts to the contrary.
Unkind though it may sound for me to say so, I must confess to a feeling of actual relief when a turn of the road shut out from my view the house and the dear, mournful figure on the threshold.
Once that had been blotted from my vision by distance I quickened my pace, and with every yard traversed on the road to York did my courage revive, until when I had arrived where it was necessary to put on an appearance of idle curiosity and total disregard as to the wasting of time, I felt almost as if I could work out alone and unaided this plan which we had formed to outwit the officer who represented the king.
It must seem strange to have one claim that at such a time, when my Lord Cornwallis's army was penned up so thoroughly by the French fleet to the seaward and Lafayette's forces to the landward, that a lad like me could wander at will inside the encampment.
Soldiers not familiar with what was done in Virginia at that day, might say it would be an absolute impossibility for even a lad like myself to pass through the lines unchallenged, because Lord Cornwallis knew well that a great number of us in Virginia were those whom he called rebels, and I was of sufficient age and intelligence to carry information to the Americans.