“Miss Peggy,” he said, holding out his hand with a winning smile, “we are both a long way from home. I little thought to find my girl friend down here. I give you greeting.”
“And I give thee greeting also, sir,” she returned. But she did not put out her hand. She could not.
She had been taught all her life to return good for evil. To submit to baseness and ingratitude with meekness; but Peggy could not bring herself to clasp Benedict Arnold’s hand in greeting. Above the singing of the birds she heard John Drayton’s heart-broken cry, “My general! my general! my general!” She saw again the anguish of strong men at the defection of a brave soldier. How Drayton had loved him—this dashing, daring leader who had ruined his ideal of manhood. The blankness and awfulness of the pall that had settled upon the country after his desertion had not yet been dissipated. Men had not yet ceased to look suspiciously upon each other. Officers spoke with hushed voices even yet of how the great heart of General Washington had been all but crushed by this man’s falseness. And now he stood before her with outstretched hand in the April sunshine.
“I give thee greeting, sir,” she said with unsmiling lips. “Greeting and good-day.” And she made as if to pass him.
“Stay,” he said, his face crimsoned, and dark with anger. “Am I not fit to be spoken to? You regard me as a traitor, do you not? Yes; your eyes tell it though you say it not. My little maid, may not a man change his opinions? Have I not heard that your father was not always of the belief that bloodshed was lawful? Nay; even you yourself have changed since the beginning of the war. Once you and your family held that resistance to the powers that be was wrong. That submission to the king was not only proper but duty as well. Have I not the right to change my views and opinions also?”
“Yes,” she made answer. “Thee has the right. Any man may change.”
“Then why condemn me?” he cried with passion.
“I do not condemn thee, sir; I leave that to God and thy conscience,” she said. “But oh!” she cried unable to control herself longer, “why did thee not do it openly? No man would have held thee to blame had thee come out boldly, and acknowledged thy changed views. But to seek to give our strongest fortress into the hands of the enemy; to betray a brave man to death, to destroy the idol that thee had made for thyself in the hearts of thy soldiers, to bring sorrow to General Washington, who hath so much to bear; this was not well, sir. ’Twas not done in the honorable manner that men had a right to expect of Benedict Arnold. And now, to come with fire and sword against thine own people! How can thee do it? How can thee?”
“You do not understand. There have been men who have been willing to bear infamy that good might come of it. I sought to be one of them. When the colonies have been restored to their rightful allegiance the matter may appear in a different light. Miss Peggy, you do not understand.”
“No,” she answered reluctant to prolong the interview. “I do not, sir; nor do I wish to.”