“So, Hal, the cat's out of the bag!” I said.
He gave me a hard look. “I guess there's wilder cats in it. It must come to this, George. I say, you mustn't tell Madam,” he adds.
“Good God!” I cried, “do you mean that with fellows such as those I saw yonder, you and your friends are going to make fight against the greatest nation and the best army in the world?”
“I guess we shall get an awful whipping,” says Hal, “and that's the fact. But then, George,” he added, with his sweet kind smile, “we are young, and a whipping or two may do us good. Won't it do us good, Dolly, you old slut?” and he gives a playful touch with his whip to an old dog of all trades, that was running by him.
I did not try to urge upon him (I had done so in vain many times previously) our British side of the question, the side which appears to me to be the best. He was accustomed to put off my reasons by saying, “All mighty well, brother, you speak as an Englishman, and have cast in your lot with your country, as I have with mine.” To this argument I own there is no answer, and all that remains for the disputants is to fight the matter out, when the strongest is in the right. Which had the right in the wars of the last century? The king or the parliament? The side that was uppermost was the right, and on the whole much more humane in their victory than the Cavaliers would have been had they won. Nay, suppose we Tories had won the day in America; how frightful and bloody that triumph would have been! What ropes and scaffolds one imagines, what noble heads laid low! A strange feeling this, I own; I was on the Loyalist side, and yet wanted the Whigs to win. My brother Hal, on the other hand, who distinguished himself greatly with his regiment, never allowed a word of disrespect against the enemy whom he opposed. “The officers of the British army,” he used to say, “are gentlemen: at least, I have not heard that they are very much changed since my time. There may be scoundrels and ruffians amongst the enemy's troops; I dare say we could find some such amongst our own. Our business is to beat his Majesty's forces, not call them names;—any rascal can do that.” And from a name which Mr. Lee gave my brother, and many of his rough horsemen did not understand, Harry was often called “Chevaleer Baird” in the Continental army. He was a knight, indeed, without fear and without reproach.
As for the argument, “What could such people as those you were drilling do against the British army?” Hal had as confident answer.
“They can beat them,” says he, “Mr. George, that's what they can do.”
“Great heavens!” I cry, “do you mean with your company of Wolfe's you would hesitate to attack five hundred such?”
“With my company of the 67th, I would go anywhere. And, agreed with you, that at this present moment I know more of soldiering than they;—but place me on that open ground where you found us, armed as you please, and half a dozen of my friends, with rifles, in the woods round about me; which would get the better? You know best, Mr. Braddock's aide-de-camp!”
There was no arguing with such a determination as this. “Thou knowest my way of thinking, Hal,” I said; “and having surprised you at your work, I must tell my lord what I have seen.”