“The army, Hugh?”
“Yes; my mind is made up. My two homes are hardly mine any longer. Every day is a reproach. For my father I can do little. His affairs are almost entirely wound up. He does not need me. The old clerk is better.”
“Will it be hard to leave me, my son?”
“You know it will,” said I. She had risen, tall and large, her eyes soft with tears.
“You must go,” she said, “and may God protect and keep you. I shall be very lonely, Hugh. But you must go. I have long seen it.”
Upon this, I begged she would see my father often, and give me news of him and of Darthea whenever occasion served. Then she told me Darthea was to return to the city in two days, and she herself would keep in mind all I had wished her to do. After this I told her of the difficulties I should meet with, and we talked them over. Presently she said, “Wait;” then left the room, and, coming back, gave me a sword the counterpart of Jack’s.
“I have had it a year, sir. Let me see,” she cried, and would have me put it on, and the sash, and the buff-and-blue sword-knot. After this she put a great hand on each shoulder just as she had done with Jack, and, kissing me, said, “War is a sad thing, but there are worse things. Be true to the old name, my son.” Nor could she bide it a moment longer, but hurried out with her lace handkerchief to her eyes, saying as she went, “How shall I bear it! How shall I bear it!”
She also had for me a pair of silver-mounted pistols, and an enamelled locket with my mother’s ever dear face within, done for her when my mother was in England by the famous painter of miniatures, Mr. Cosway.
And now I set about seeing how I was to get away. Our own forces lay at Pennypacker’s Mills, or near by; but this I did not know until later, and neither the British nor I were very sure as to their precise situation. It was clear that I must go afoot. As I walked down Second street with this on my mind, I met Colonel Montresor with a group of officers. He stopped me, and, after civilly presenting me, said:
“Harcourt and Johnston”—this latter was he who later married the saucy Miss Franks and her fortune—“want to know if you have duck-shooting here on the Schuylkill.”