The lad laughed.
“Nay,” he returned. “We should need a flag that would show that we were non-combatants. No; ’twill not do. I shall go back to the army, and you——”
“Yes?” she questioned. “And I, my cousin? What shall I do? Twice already in the past month thy army hath visited this city. How often it will come from now on none can tell. All tide-water Virginia seems swept by them as by a pestilence. Get me a flag and let me pass to my home.”
“’Tis not to be thought of for a moment,” he answered quickly. “I will not even consider the thing. I have deliberated the matter, and, as I feel to some extent responsible for your well-being, I have finally decided what were best to be done. Know then, Mistress Peggy, that I shall in a few days conduct you to Portsmouth, where the frigate ‘Iris’ lies preparing to return to New York. I shall send you on her to that port.”
Peggy was too astonished for a moment to speak. The youth spoke with the quiet assurance of one who expects no opposition to his decision. The girl chafed under his manner.
“Thee takes my submission to thy authority too much for granted, Cousin Clifford,” she remarked presently, and her voice trembled slightly. “I am not going to New York. I spent a year there among the British, and ’tis an experience that I do not care to repeat. Thee does not choose to be a prisoner, my cousin; neither do I.”
“If you were ever a prisoner there I know naught concerning it,” he answered. “Surely if Harriet is there, as you would have me believe, ’tis the place for you. If you are the friends you seem to be what would be more natural than for you to go to her, since to return to your own home is out of the question? The vessel sails the first of June. I shall put you on her. There is naught else to do.”
“I go not to New York,” was all the girl said. She had not told Clifford any of the unpleasant incidents connected with his father, or sister. She had been taught to speak only good, forgetting the evil. Now, however, she wondered if it would not have been better to have enlightened him concerning some of the events.
“We will not discuss the matter further for the present,” he said stiffly. “I know best what to do in the matter, and you will have to abide by it. I see naught else for you to do.”
Peggy’s experience with boy cousins had been limited to this one, so she was ignorant of the fact that they often arrogate to themselves as a right the privilege of ordering their girl relatives’ affairs. She did not know that these same masculine relatives often assumed more authority than father and brother rolled into one. She was ignorant of these things and so sat, a wave of indignant protest surging to her lips. Fearing to give utterance to the feeling that overwhelmed her she rose abruptly, and left the grounds.