“It wouldn’t have done to have left her hereabouts.”
“You placed her with the Hawksworths?”
“Yes. And she is perfectly safe there, for Hawksworth has some British army friends quartered with them—a colonel and a lieutenant-general.”
“Good,” said Mr. Camp, as though greatly relieved. “She’s safe enough, then.”
“It would have been best if you both had remained in New York.”
“I fancied that I left there to escape persecution,” said the old Tory, bitterly. “But I must say that the rebels were as mild as children when compared with these who should be my friends.”
“They tried to be just, at all events,” said Herbert Camp.
“Yes, yes, I see that now, though I didn’t then. But I see many things now, as a matter of fact, that I didn’t see then. I once thought Mr. Washington a great villain; but now I consider him a brave and honest and able gentleman—one who has clung to his beliefs in the face of defeat; and one who will continue to so cling until the last.”
“I have often heard you express admiration for tenacity of purpose and for the man who had the courage of his convictions,” said Herbert. “And yet you were willing enough to have me change my coat.”
“My boy,” and there was a curious little break in the old man’s voice, “the day that you threw down the sword you had taken up for the colonies was one of the bitterest in my life.”