"Though on the wing, Miss Lindsay," said his lordship, as he respectfully met the lady and her brother upon the porch of the dwelling-house, "I have made it a point of duty to postpone weighty matters of business to receive your commands."
Mildred bowed her head, and after a few words of courtesy on either side, and a formal introduction of herself and her brother to the general as the children of Philip Lindsay, "a gentleman presumed to be well known to his lordship," and some expressions of surprise and concern on the part of the chief at this unexpected announcement, she begged to be permitted to converse with him in private. When, in accordance with this wish, she found herself and her brother alone with the general, in the small parlor of the house, she began, with a trembling accent and blanched cheek—
"I said, my lord, that we were the children of Philip Lindsey, of the Dove Cote, in Amherst, in the province of Virginia; and being taught to believe that my father has some interest with your lordship—"
"He is a worthy, thoughtful, and wise gentleman, of the best consideration amongst the friends of the royal cause," interrupted the earl, "so speak on, madam, and speak calmly. Take your time, your father's daughter shall not find me an unwilling listener."
"My father was away from home," interposed Henry, "and tidings came to us that a friend of ours was most wickedly defamed and belied, by a charge carried to the ears of your lordship; as we were told, that Major Arthur Butler of the Continental army who had been made a prisoner by your red-coats somehow or other—for I forget how—but the charge was that he had contrived a plan to carry off my father from the Dove Cote—if not to kill him, which was said, besides—and upon that charge, it was reported that your people were going to hang or shoot him—hang, I suppose, from what we just now saw over here in the woods—and that your lordship had given orders to have the thing put off until the major could prove the real facts of the case."
"The tale is partly true, young sir," said Cornwallis. "We have a prisoner of that name and rank."
"My sister Mildred and myself, thinking no time was to be lost, have come to say to your lordship that the whole story is a most sinful lie, hatched on purpose to make mischief, and most probably by a fellow by the name of——"
"My brother speaks too fast," interrupted Mildred. "It deeply concerned us to do justice to a friend in this matter. If my father had been at home a letter to your lordship would have removed all doubts; but, alas! he was absent, and I knew not what to do, but to come personally before your lordship, to assure you that to the perfect knowledge of our whole family, the tale from beginning to end is a malicious fabrication. Major Butler loves my father, and would be accounted one of his nearest and dearest friends."
Cornwallis listened to this disclosure with a perplexed and bewildered conjecture, to unravel the strange riddle which it presented to his mind.
"How may I understand you, Miss Lindsay?" he said; "this Major Butler is in the service of Congress?"