De Courval listened in astonishment, while Schmidt, laughing, cried, "I will drink to George with pleasure."
"I know," cried Margaret: "to George Washington."
Schmidt laughed. "You are too sharp, Pearl. In a minute, but for your saucy tongue, I should have trapped our Tory friend. To George the greater," said Schmidt.
The Quaker turned down his glass. "Not I, indeed."
"I hope the poor man will never hear of it, Josiah," said Miss Wynne as she rose laughing, and presently Schmidt and the young people went away, followed shortly after by Langstroth.
For a while Margaret walked on in silence, De Courval and the German talking. At last she said: "Thou shouldst know that my uncle is not as bad as he seems. He is really a kind and generous man, but he loves to contradict my aunt, and no one else can so easily make her angry."
"Ah, Pearl, the Madeira was good," said Schmidt—"too good; or, rather, the several Madeiras. In the multitude of vinous counselers there is little wisdom, and the man's ways would tempt an angel to mischief."
Mrs. Swanwick, being alone, had gone out to take supper with a friend, and as Margaret left them in the hall, Schmidt said to De Courval: "Come in. I have a great package from Gouverneur Morris, from Paris. You may as well hear what news there is. I saw your anxiety, but I was of no mind to have that imitation Quaker discuss the agony of a great nation."
It took two months or more to hear from France, and each week added to the gathering anxiety with which De Courval awaited news. He was grateful for the daily labor, with its steady exactions, which forbade excessive thought of the home land, for no sagacity of his friend or any forecast that man could make three thousand miles away was competent to predict the acts of the sinister historic drama on which the curtain was rising far away in France.
As the German opened the envelop and set aside letter after letter, he talked on in his disconnected way. "I could like some bad men more than Josiah Langstroth. He has what he calls opinions, and will say, 'Welladay,'—no, that is my bastard English,—he will say 'Well, at all events, that is my opinion.' What means 'all events,' Herr René? A kick would change them. 'T is an event—a kick. And Mistress Wynne is sometimes not easy to endure. She steps heavily on tender toes, even when on errands of goodness." The younger man scarce heard these comments as letter after letter was put aside, until at last he put down his pipe, and Schmidt said: "I was sorry to keep you, but now this last letter has it all—all. There is no detail, my friend, but enough—enough. He writes me all France is in a ferment. This is from Mr. Morris, whom our mobocrats loathe for an aristocrat. He writes: 'The King has vetoed two bills, one about the priests and one of less moment. La Fayette is in disgrace, and wants the surgeon's courage to let blood. Worst of all, and I write in haste,' he says, 'a mob on June 20th broke into the Tuileries and there, in the Œil de Bœuf, a butcher mocked the King to his face as Monsieur Veto. The King laughed, it is said, and set their damned bonnet on his head, and drew his sword, and cried "Vive la nation!" The war goes ill or well as you please; ill for all, I fear. Dillon was murdered by his own regiment after a retreat.'"