"Mount says you conducted most gallantly under fire," said Monroe, smiling.
"No more gallantly than did all at Cresap's fort," said I, annoyed. "We were behind ramparts and dreaded nothing save an arrow or two."
"But you had some warm work with certain Tories, too," began Monroe—"one Walter Butler, I believe."
"How did you hear of that?" I asked, in astonishment.
"Benny Prince brought the news," he replied. "Where he heard it I do not know, but it is noised abroad that you laid no kind hands on Walter Butler and Lord Dunmore. Nay, sir, you should not be surprised. We have our agents everywhere, listening, watching, noting all facts and rumours for those whom I need not name. We know, for instance, that Walter Butler has travelled north in a litter. We know that Dunmore scarce dare show his head in Virginia for the shame you put upon him and the growing hatred of the people he governs. We know that Sir John Johnson is fortifying Johnson Hall and gathering hordes of savages and Tories in Tryon County. Ay, Mr. Cardigan, we know, too, that the son of your father will fight to the death for the cause which his honour demands that he embrace."
"My father died for his King," I said, slowly.
"And mine, too," said Monroe; "but were he not with God to-day, I know where he would be found."
Others began to join our group. Mount, who had been conversing with a handsome and very fashionably dressed young man, approached our table with his companion, and presented me to him.
I had, of course, heard more or less of John Hancock, but had pictured him as an elderly man, sober of costume and stern and gray. Therefore my first meeting with John Hancock was a disappointment. He was young, handsome, decidedly vain, though quite free from affectation of speech or gesture. He appeared to lack that gravity of deportment and deliberation which characterized the company around us; gestures and words were at times impetuous if not whimsical; he appeared not too free from an egotism which, I thought, tinged all he said, so that, somehow, his words lost a trifle of the weight they deserved to carry.
His style of dress was not to my taste, savouring of the French, I thought. He wore an apple-green coat, white silk stockings, very large silver buckles on his pumps, smallclothes of silver-net tied at the knees with pea-green ribbons, which fell to his ankles, and much expensive lace at his throat and cuffs.