“Yes,” he replied, with that audacity which, even in danger, could not be quelled; “my superior in the ways of wooing as well as in the ways of war, since against him I have no chance to win a smile from your lips. You will have much to say to him in these last moments—and Mistress Hamlin is going,” he added with a quick throb of gratitude as the party across the pavilion left their seats.
“You need not leave us,” she said with half-hearted politeness; but already Grant was at the foot of the steps, and, with an audacious kiss upon the hand she held out to him, Richard turned, and, with a beating heart but no seeming haste, fell into the rear of the company across the pavilion, descending the steps so close behind them as to seem to an onlooker to be a member of the party. Every moment was precious to him, and yet he loitered along the lighted sward as if eternity were his. As he reached the corner of the building he heard Grant call:—
“Barry, Barry!”
But he pretended not to hear, and sauntered on into the shadow. There his pace quickened. No one stopped him, for his military cloak completely disguised him, and presently he found himself near the landing. In an empty boat-house he cast aside his borrowed garment, and soon found Dunn near the barge at the appointed place of meeting. The old scout listened to his adventure with amazement not unmixed with anger.
“You confounded dare-devil, you might have spoiled the whole plan,” he cried; yet acknowledging inwardly that he knew no one else who would have dared to thrust his neck so far into a noose. He himself had not been idle, and piecing together their bits of information, they made out that La Fayette had crossed the Schuylkill and taken a post of observation on a range of knobs known as Barren Hill, and that Howe’s plan was to capture him as a brilliant close to a campaign that had been so much criticised. It became therefore instantly necessary to warn the marquis of the plot. The details Richard had gotten from the unsuspecting girl gave them all they needed to round out their plan; the one thing now was to escape and carry the information to La Fayette. This Richard found more difficult than he had imagined from their easy entrance; for they had no friendly carter and market-maid beside them, and despite the festivity, the pickets were keeping strict watch at the outposts. Finally, by creeping on their hands for half a mile behind a hedge, they managed to evade detection; but the sun was already high over the eastern horizon before they gained the banks of the Schuylkill. Keeping close to the stream and avoiding the open road, they finally came upon a row-boat hidden among the reeds in a cove. This, without ceremony, they appropriated, and were soon making more rapid progress on their journey. For a long while nothing but the oars was heard; then suddenly Richard laughed aloud.
“Suppose that young gallant had come back for his cloak while I was talking with the girl?”
“You’d have had to content yourself with the angels—or the imps—hereafter,” growled Dunn.
But Richard laughed again. “Well, I’m glad he stayed away, for ’tis pleasanter entertaining beautiful girls. It will be great sport to say in my home letters that I, a private in the Continental army, was one of Mistress Singleton’s attendants at General Howe’s fête! Mary will get it all from Joscelyn and write it back to the lady, and she will then know who the supposed Barry was. Who is Barry, anyhow?”
“One of the finest of the young officers that wears the red—a soldier and a lady-killer, so they tell me.” Long afterward Richard recalled the words.
Presently Dunn, who had been looking intently ahead, said: “This is the place; yonder are the two dead oaks by which I always locate Matson’s ford. We will tie up here and cut across country to the hills, trusting to luck to find the way to La Fayette. Grant’s guides, knowing their road, give him the advantage, for I have never been sent to this part of the country, so am ignorant of my bearings. It must be near to noon, and the British column has long ago started.”