"Let us have no more of this cant of sacred vows, Ellen. Think you God has cared to register a disobedient girl's sick fancy that, by immolating herself, she could render Him special homage, or add one ounce to His power and His influence? You say I do not need your life, that I can find happiness without you—thus casting back my words as too light for belief, and my heart, my very soul, as of small value beside your vaunted vow. I would I could believe, Ellen, that happiness were possible for me without you. But it is too late for that, and if in perversity of stubborn superstition you condemn me to a lonely, loveless life, I can but endure it with such fortitude as I may learn to command. It would seem to me but poor reflection for quiet convent hours—that an honest man's life had been wrecked—that a noble family name had perished from the earth—all that one more nun might count her beads and offer up prayers in needless repetition to an all powerful God who has no need of such mummery to help him rule with eternal wisdom a universe of worlds."
"So far apart are we in mind and heart, Donald McElroy," answered Ellen, with flashing eyes, having reined her horse to a standstill that she might fully face me, "if these be your true sentiments, that never could we hope to be one in spirit; never would I dare to unite my life with yours," and, putting whip to her horse, she joined Thomas and Nelly, nor deigned to show consciousness of my presence again that evening.
The next day she kept her room, "with headache," said Jean. The morning after she came down only at the last moment to say good-by to our guests and me. Vainly I sought the chance to whisper my regret and repentance in her ear; she was careful to give me opportunity only for a formal farewell in the presence of them all.
To Buford and his sister I said good-by, after I had settled them comfortably in Staunton, almost with coolness. They, it seemed to me, had repaid my generous wish to more than return their kindness by a crass indifference to my feelings.
Then I faced to the scene of war, once more, with fierce satisfaction. For the first time I felt a thirst for danger. Since I had thrown away all chance for happiness, I would win a glorious death in the last glorious and successful struggle of my country for liberty!
CHAPTER XXIX
The battle of Green Spring, fought the third day after I had rejoined General Lafayette—that gallant officer being now in pursuit of Cornwallis, who was slowly retreating to a less hazardous position, near the sea coast—was the one engagement Lafayette allowed himself during the tedious game of march and countermarch at which the opposed armies had been playing for three months. Fighting was much more to the taste of the ardent Lafayette, but he had learned the art of war in the school of Washington, and knew that a timely and skillful retreat is often worth more than a victory. By such "Fabian policy" as the great leader himself had condescended to use, to the open scorn of his enemies, Lafayette had completely aborted the concerted invasion of Virginia, and had gradually turned Cornwallis on to the open mouth of the trap which was later to prove so fatal to him. The fight above mentioned was undecisive, and had no other effect than to hurry Cornwallis' retreat to the seashore—at a dear cost to us of one hundred and fifty men.
At Yorktown, the British awaited their fleet with convoys of needed supplies, and hoped daily for reënforcements from General Clinton; meantime working industriously to entrench themselves. We sat down at Malvern Hill, watching, like a bull-dog before his enemy's gate. The sea protected Cornwallis' position on three sides, and a few days sufficed to erect strongly fortified works on their fourth—there was small chance for the bull-dog, unless the desired prey could somehow be driven from cover. But he crouched and waited on. This stubborn vigilance was rewarded on the last day of August when the flagship of Count de Grasse sailed into the Chesapeake Bay at the head of the French fleet.
Our camp went mad with joy as the three thousand French troops under Marquis de Saint Simon landed to unite with us, and on the next day we took position across the neck of the peninsula at Williamsburg. Cornwallis was in the trap, and Lafayette had sprung shut the last door which offered possible chance of escape. Admiral Graves with the English fleet arrived too late. We watched anxiously the naval battle between him and Count de Grasse, and exulted wildly when the defeated fleet sailed away. Nine days' later, General Washington arrived, his presence the final assurance of coming victory, and close on his heels the whole northern army; by the twenty-sixth of September, the American and French forces confronting Cornwallis were sixteen thousand strong. It was only a question of days now. The brave British, inspired ever by the intrepid Cornwallis, could not hold out long in their cramped condition, without adequate supplies, and decimated daily by the deadly fire we were presently ready to pour into the town. Our first parallel was opened on the sixth of October; the men were so impatient with the prospect of speedy victory after our long struggle against heavy odds, and so reckless with mad enthusiasm, that it took all the authority of the older and more prudent officers to restrain acts of needless risk and exposure.