“I have ever loved martial music.” Then, because there seemed naught else than waiting before her, she sank down under the tree where Clifford and she had sat that very morning, now so long ago, to listen to the music that he loved. Suddenly, as she listened, there came to the girl a dim sort of understanding. There was a permeating tonal effect in the music, striking at times, merely suggestive at others, which seemed to breathe the spirit of bivouac and battle, of suffering and patriotism, and the yearning of great devotion. A lump came into her throat. An indefinable emotion swept her with an appreciation of the spirit of a soldier which renders him happy at the thought of dying in his country’s battles. The flood-gates of Peggy’s tears were open, and she wept unrestrainedly. Presently Colonel Dayton saw her sitting there, and came to her side.
“My child,” he said sitting down by her, “I have just been in to see your cousin. Your visit hath cheered him greatly. He bears up wonderfully. Manly he is, and noble. Never hath a duty been so repugnant to my feelings as this one is. Were it not just I could not perform it.”
“I cannot speak of justice, sir, when my cousin is to die,” sobbed she. “It may be just. I know not. My countrymen are not unkind; they are not stirred by vengeful thoughts. It must be right, else General Washington would not sanction it; I am but a girl. I do not know. But oh, sir! to those of us who love my cousin it doth seem that mercy should temper justice.”
“Affection blinds us, Miss Peggy,” he said, and sighed. “Under its influence we are apt to forget that other boy to whom not even justice was given. If men were always just there would be no necessity for mercy. Had justice been rendered Captain Johnson your cousin would not stand in need of clemency.”
“True,” she said. “True. It must be right, since such good men say so. I cannot see it now. All sense of equity is lost to me, lost because the victim is my cousin. Some time——” She paused unable to proceed.
Presently she looked up at him. “Colonel Dayton,” she said, “it hath occurred to me that the matter may not end here. That perchance the enemy in reprisal for this—the loss of one of their officers—may wreak vengeance upon one of ours of like rank. That would necessitate another retaliation; to be followed by still another on the part of the enemy. Sir, where will it stop?”
“That very thought hath come to me, child,” he said gravely. “And the thing is possible. This matter hath distressed General Washington greatly. He hath never been so troubled since the treason of General Arnold, and the execution of Major André. The affair hath been considered impartially by the principal men of the army, by Congress, and by General Washington. Miss Peggy, as there is a God in heaven, we believe that we are doing right. There is not one of us whose inclination does not prompt to mercy, but we dare not show it. The peculiarly atrocious murder of Captain Johnson cannot be ignored.”
“I know, I know,” she murmured, passing her hand over her brow, and looking at him with eyes full of pain. “’Tis strange that Fairfax, who was my friend, and Clifford, who is my cousin, should both be concerned in this.”
“It is strange and hard, my child. But vex not yourself with questioning. ’Tis better to accept the inevitable with resignation, as your cousin hath done. He doth not question the justice of the decree.”