“Greatness, pooh!” says the parson, growling over his wine.
“We walked into Mrs. Washington's tea-room arm-in-arm,” Hal resumed; “she looked up quite kind, and saw we were friends. 'Is it all over, Colonel Harry?' she whispered. 'I know he has applied ever so often about your promotion——'
“'I never will take it,' says I. And that is how I came to do penance,” says Harry, telling me the story, “with Lafayette the next winter.” (Hal could imitate the Frenchman very well.) “'I will go weez heem,' says I. 'I know the way to Quebec, and when we are not in action with Sir Guy, I can hear his Excellency the Major-General say his lesson.' There was no fight, you know we could get no army to act in Canada, and returned to headquarters; and what do you think disturbed the Frenchman most? The idea that people would laugh at him, because his command had come to nothing. And so they did laugh at him, and almost to his face too, and who could help it? If our Chief had any weak point it was this Marquis.
“After our little difference we became as great friends as before—if a man may be said to be friends with a Sovereign Prince, for as such I somehow could not help regarding the General: and one night, when we had sate the company out, we talked of old times, and the jolly days of sport we had together both before and after Braddock's; and that pretty duel you were near having when we were boys. He laughed about it, and said he never saw a man look more wicked and more bent on killing than you did: 'And to do Sir George justice, I think he has hated me ever since,' says the Chief. 'Ah!' he added, 'an open enemy I can face readily enough. 'Tis the secret foe who causes the doubt and anguish! We have sat with more than one at my table to-day, to whom I am obliged to show a face of civility, whose hands I must take when they are offered, though I know they are stabbing my reputation, and are eager to pull me down from my place. You spoke but lately of being humiliated because a junior was set over you in command. What humiliation is yours compared to mine, who have to play the farce of welcome to these traitors; who have to bear the neglect of Congress, and see men who have insulted me promoted in my own army? If I consulted my own feelings as a man, would I continue in this command? You know whether my temper is naturally warm or not, and whether as a private gentleman I should be likely to suffer such slights and outrages as are put upon me daily; but in the advancement of the sacred cause in which we are engaged, we have to endure not only hardship and danger, but calumny and wrong, and may God give us strength to do our duty!' And then the General showed me the papers regarding the affair of that fellow Conway, whom Congress promoted in spite of the intrigue, and down whose black throat John Cadwalader sent the best ball he ever fired in his life.
“And it was here,” said Hal, concluding his story, “as I looked at the Chief talking at night in the silence of the camp, and remembered how lonely he was, what an awful responsibility he carried, how spies and traitors were eating out of his dish, and an enemy lay in front of him who might at any time overpower him, that I thought, 'Sure, this is the greatest man now in the world; and what a wretch I am to think of my jealousies and annoyances, whilst he is walking serenely under his immense cares!'”
“We talked but now of Wolfe,” said I. “Here, indeed, is a greater than Wolfe. To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained—who can say this is not greatness, or show the other Englishman who has achieved so much?”
“I wonder, Sir George, you did not take Mr. Washington's side, and wear the blue and buff yourself,” grumbles Parson Blake.
“You and I thought scarlet most becoming to our complexion, Joe Blake!” says Sir George. “And my wife thinks there would not have been room for two such great men on one side.”
“Well, at any rate, you were better than that odious, swearing, crazy General Lee, who was second in command!” cries Lady Warrington. “And I am certain Mr. Washington never could write poetry and tragedies as you can! What did the General say about George's tragedies, Harry?”
Harry burst into a roar of laughter (in which, of course, Mr. Miles must join his uncle).