Peggy Owen and Liberty Part 42

"HOW COULD SHE KNOW?"

"To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him!"

--"_Measure for Measure._"

Colonel Dayton met them as they reentered the camp. His brow was wrinkled with anxiety, but it cleared as if by magic at sight of them.

"Odds life, captain!" he cried. "I feared lest something had befallen you. It is long past your usual hour for returning."

"Something did befall, sir," answered Clifford, who had expected questioning. "I crave pardon for the delay. We were like not to have come back at all, but through no fault of ours. In fact, sir, we were set upon by a party of miscreants in the glen beyond the five k.n.o.b tree, and captured. At the place to which we were conducted was a person through whom----" He hesitated unwilling that Harriet should be connected with the affair. "In short, Colonel Dayton," he said frankly, "I would prefer that you do not question me concerning the manner of our release. As soon as possible we came back."

"Say no more, sir," exclaimed Colonel Dayton. "That you did come back proves you an honorable gentleman. I might have had to mourn a prisoner, but once more hath martial faith received justification. It will give me great pleasure to report your conduct to the commander-in-chief."

Much relieved that the matter was to be probed no further the cousins dismounted, and were preparing to retire to their respective domiciles when the voice of Colonel Dayton arrested them.

"I wonder," he was saying, "if this doth not explain the letter that I received to-day from General Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"What letter, sir?" asked Clifford quickly. "May I inquire if it contained any further orders regarding me?"

"Certainly; and I am obliged to answer that it does contain orders.

Listen, and you shall hear them, though it gives me great pain to read them. They mean a curtailment of your privileges, captain."

Whereupon he produced the missive, and read as follows: "Sir, I am informed that Captain Williams is at the camp without a guard, and under no restraint whatever. This, if true, is certainly wrong; I wish to have the young gentleman treated with all possible tenderness consistent with his present situation, but considered a close prisoner and kept with the greatest security. It is well to be careful. There are many rumors afloat anent a rescue, which may be but idle talk.

Still, when dealing with a foe every precaution should be used that there is no weakness in our defenses of which he may take advantage."

"So end our rides, Peggy," remarked Clifford, smiling slightly. "'Tis a preliminary to the final order."

"I trust not, captain," exclaimed the officer. "This merely limits you to the confines of the cantonment. I should not like the general to consider that I was negligent. It would have been the same, sir, had not your misadventure of to-day occurred."

"I understand, colonel," answered the youth deferentially. "I appreciate the courtesy you have ever shown me. I think, on the whole, 'tis best. And it might be worse."

"Yes," spoke Peggy. "It might be worse, Clifford."

So there were no more rides; but as the weather began to be very hot, and exceedingly dry, they consoled themselves with the reflection that riding would be extremely unpleasant under such conditions. Another week glided by, in which there was no sign of Harriet, nor was there any further order from the commander-in-chief. It seemed as though they had been set down in the midst of the cantonment and forgotten.

The strain began to tell upon Clifford.

"Would that it were over," burst from him one morning as he sat with Peggy under the shade of a tree near the quarters of the Dayton family. In the distance a company was drilling, and the orders of its officer came to them faintly.

Peggy let fall the ox-eyed daisy whose petals she had been counting, and turned toward him in dismay.

"Clifford, thee don't mean that," she cried.

"But I do, Peggy," he answered pa.s.sionately. "The fluctuations from hope to despair, and from despondency to hope again are far more trying than a certain knowledge of death would be. It keeps me on tenter-hooks. So long as the thing is inevitable, I wish it would come."

Peggy looked at him anxiously. His face was pale, and there were deep circles under his eyes that spoke of wakeful nights. His experience with his sister had been far more distressing than she had realized.

It came to the girl with a shock just how care-worn he was.

"Would that father were here that he might comfort thee," she cried tearfully. "Thee needs him, my cousin."

"An he were, he would say--'My lad, thy promise was that Peggy should not be saddened by talk of thy woes; yet here thee is dwelling upon thy sorrow both to thy detriment and hers.'"

The transition to David Owen's manner was so abrupt that Peggy smiled through her tears.

"I did not know that thee was possessed of the art of mimicry, my cousin," she remarked. "Harriet hath it to perfection, but thee has never shown sign of it before."

"'Tis only one whom I know well that I can mimic," he told her.

"Sometimes, I believe that I know Cousin David better than father."

"And thou shouldst have been my father's son," she cried. "Why, thee looks enough like him to be his son. Then thee would have been my brother, as thou shouldst have been."

Clifford smiled at her warmth.

"In that case," he said quizzically, "I should have been an American.

I wonder if I should have been a Quaker, and a rebel with the rest of you? Or should I have been a Tory?"

"Oh, a rebel! A rebel!" she replied promptly, pleased that his melancholy was vanis.h.i.+ng.

"I doubt it. I cannot imagine myself as other than loyal to my king any more than I can think of myself as a Quaker."

"Neither can I think of thee as a Quaker," she said. "Some way thee doesn't fit in with the Society."

At this Clifford laughed outright.

"That is because you know me as I am," he observed. "Now I cannot think of you as being anything but a little Quakeress. You see, we get our ideas of persons when we first know them, and then we cannot change."

"'And cannot change,'" she repeated with some amus.e.m.e.nt. "Clifford Owen, thee didn't like me at all at first."

"No, I did not," he responded, and laughed again. "'Twas because I did not know you aright. Peggy, see how light-hearted you have made me.

Our merriment hath caused Colonel Dayton to give us unusual attention."

Peggy glanced at the officer. He had been watching the drill, but several times had turned to look at them. As the drill ended he came slowly toward them.

"You seem quite happy this morning," he observed. Something in his manner struck the girl with foreboding.

"Yes, colonel," answered Clifford. "I had an attack of the blues, but my cousin hath charmed them away. We were trying to imagine me an American."

"We should welcome you, sir," spoke the colonel courteously. "May I speak to you a moment, captain?"

Clifford rose instantly.

"It hath come then?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," answered the colonel huskily. "It was hard to break in upon your mirth, but I thought you would prefer to have me tell you than to hear it from another."

"You are most kind, sir." The youth's voice trembled ever so little.

"We were too merry, my cousin. 'Against ill chances men are ever merry. But heaviness foreruns the good event.'" His tones were steady as he finished the quotation, and he added: "I am ready at any time."