She was seated before her glass in her chamber, and the red-cheeked Irish maid she had brought from New York was exceedingly busy curling her hair.
"Oh, Jack!" said Lady Johnson softly, and holding out to me one hand to be saluted, "they told me you were in the village. Has it become necessary that I must send for an old friend who should have come of his own free will?"
"I thought perhaps you and Sir John might not take pleasure in a visit from me," I replied, honestly enough.
"Why? Because last winter you answered the district summons and were on guard at the church with the Rebel Mohawk company?"
So she knew that, too. But I had scarcely expected otherwise. And it came into my thought that the dwarfish Bartholomews had given her news of my doings and my whereabouts.
"Come," said she in her lively manner, "a good soldier obeys his colonel, whoever that officer may chance to be—for the moment. And, were you even otherwise inclined, Jack, of what use would it have been to disobey after Philip Schuyler disarmed our poor Scots?"
"If Sir John feels as you do, it makes my visit easier for all," said I.
"Sir John," she replied, "is not a whit concerned. We here at the Hall have laid down our arms; we are peaceably disposed; farm duties begin; a multitude of affairs preoccupy us; so let who will fight out this quarrel in Massachusetts Bay, so only that we have tranquillity and peace in County Tryon."
I listened, amazed, to this school-girl chatter, marvelling that she herself believed such pitiable nonsense.
Yet, that she did believe it I was assured, because in my Lady Johnson there was nothing false, no treachery or lies or cunning.