Ah! there rides Frazer, gallant soldier, rallying the disheartened British troops. Frazer is a host in himself. If he succeeds, he may turn the tide of battle. What! he reels in his saddle and aides ride to his side and he leaves the field to die a few hours later. Those Rangers back on the hill seldom miss the mark.
The enemy shield themselves behind their entrenchments, and the Americans, flushed with victory, are charging them, and there goes Arnold riding the field like a madman, though Gates has ordered him to remain in camp. It shall not be said he resigned through fear, if he dies for it. But this desperate charge could not succeed, and Morgan’s men turn back and Arnold 236 is wounded in the same leg that was shot during the attack on Quebec. The British admire bravery and Arnold’s portrait is to decorate shop windows in London for the curious to gape at. Alas for Arnold that the bullet was not better aimed!
At last it is night. The Americans have not been able to deliver the finishing stroke, but the British have learned that their fate is not to be a pleasant one, whatever happens.
These are but glimpses of that eventful struggle. The history of it is another story and a thrilling one.
We may think of Rodney and Zeb exulting as the days passed and they saw the American lines tighten about the hesitating enemy, hesitating only to be lost. Conrad, true to the manners of his adopted people, sat in stolid silence, seeing much and saying nothing, while his wound quickly healed. And there is Gates, so anxious for glory––he thinks now that he may get Washington’s place,––that he is willing to agree that Burgoyne’s soldiers may return to England if only they’ll fight no more against America, and we may imagine the smile on the face of the English general. Nor is it difficult to imagine the dark red of anger in Colonel Morgan’s face when Gates seeks his support for the place of commander-in-chief, and the “old wagoner” curtly tells him that he will have no part in such a scheme, that he will fight under Washington or not fight at all.
Zeb was sufficiently recovered from his wound to be able to see the British troops march past on the day of 237 the surrender, looking down the ranks of Americans, some trim and soldierly, as were the Continentals, and others clad in homespun or the skins of the forest. And in the ranks filing past in dejection Rodney saw the sneering face of Mogridge. The flower of the British aristocracy, sons of nobility and members of Parliament, had been subalterns under Burgoyne. Mogridge, as ever, had followed in the wake of those having money so that he might live as the leech lives.
“I have got a furlough, and as soon as this wound will let me I’m going to Boston to see the folks.” And at the moment Zeb said this he was carrying, in an inside pocket of his dirty hunting shirt, a letter from Melicite, the fair young French girl whose kindness to him and young Lovell in Quebec had won from him more than mere friendship.[3]
“And I’m going down into Connecticut to find the girl who sewed her name inside my coat,” remarked a militia man standing by; for there were girls who won husbands by this simple little device, stitching their fate into the homespun coats they made for the soldiers.
Rodney turned away, feeling a bit lonely. He would find Conrad.
“Conrad, if I can get you freed will you promise me to live a friend to Americans and, on getting back to your people, will find Louis and bring him to my home in Charlottesville?”