"Sir, I scorn your proposition, and I trust that you will never again insult me in my present distressed and unfortunate condition, by making me an offer which plainly implies that you consider me a scoundrel."
At last we were discharged, Captain Morgan on parole, and were carried in transports to New York. I saw Morgan as he stepped off the boat, in the brilliant light of a harvest moon, stoop and kiss the soil, and heard him whisper in a sort of ecstasy, "My country, my country!" My own heart swelled within me, and I could have done likewise with full meaning.
Great things, of which we had heard but vague rumors, had happened in our absence. Boston had been evacuated by the enemy, the attack on Fort Moultrie had failed, and the Declaration of Independence had been declared by all the thirteen States. On the other hand, General Washington had been compelled to yield New York to Howe, and to fall back to New Jersey, and England was making ready to send army after army across the ocean to conquer her rebellious colonies.
Though my term of enlistment had already expired, I could not go home in the midst of such stirring events, so I made haste to Morristown, there reënlisted, and was put to service as special courier to General Washington. And now, for the first time, I saw the man to whom all patriotic hearts turned with hope and pride. His soldierly, dignified bearing, the look of resolute, yet not arrogant self-consciousness upon his face, his courteous manner, and the perfectly controlled tone of voice in which he issued a command, or uttered a rebuke, impressed me with a confidence that made me from that hour sure of our cause. "With such leaders as Washington, Arnold and Morgan," I thought, with fervid enthusiasm and pride, "how can we fail to win?"
Not many weeks later my beloved captain, who had been exchanged, and made a colonel by act of Congress, marched into our camp with one hundred and eight recruits, most of them from the valley, at his back. I could hardly wait till he had reported at headquarters before I sought him.
"'Tis my old comrade, Donald McElroy!" he said, scarcely less moved than I. "Have you been on duty all this time, lad, with no furlough, no rest? Ah, many's the time I've told Arnold, that with ten thousand such troops as my Scotch Irish riflemen, I'd undertake to whip all the armies that could be sent to these shores."
"I believe you could do it, Colonel," answered I, "but your health, sir? Are you quite strong again?"
"Never better, lad; even my rheumatism is gone. I've been home, you know, for five months, and have had nothing but coddling from that good wife of mine. Six months more of it, and I'd have been unfitted for further service to my country. My lad, you should marry—how old are you, sir?"
"In my twenty-third year, Colonel, but as yet I have had no time to look for a wife," and I blushed like a lass.