The Governors Lady


     Thomas H. Raddall


          NIMBUS
        PUBLISHING
             
Copyright (C)~ Thomas H. Raddall, 1992

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Cover design: Arthur B. Carter, Halifax
Portrait of Lady Frances Wentworth by
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Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

 Raddall, Thomas H., 1903The
governor's lady
 ISBN 1-55109-016-3
 I.Title.
 PS8535.A27G68 1992 C813'.54C92-098652-8
 PR9199.3.R33G68 1992

The Governors Lady

                 ONE

Already, an hour short of noon, the town was
oven hot. There was a faint stir of air from the
west, with a breath of warm pine woods; not
enough for a breeze, but enough to keep off the
cool fog that hung seaward over the Isles of Shoals.
Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr., dressing for
an occasion, moved about the bedchamber
languidly and with the easy familiarity of people
five years married. Theo had drawn his best
broadcloth breeches over his long shanks and now
stood in his best ruffled shirt, tying a new stock
about his neck. He was a thin man of thirty or so,
nine years older than his wife, with somber dark
eyes in a face as pale as parchments

 He glanced at his wife. Fannie was taking a lot of
time with her toilet as usual. At the moment, fresh
from the hip bath behind the Chinese screen, she
was putting on the silk stockings she had bought in
Boston for today's affair. At twenty-two she had
hips as slim as Theo's own, though she was not
nearly so long in the leg, and her bosom had just
the right plumpness to be fashionable. Perhaps a
little more, thought Fannie herself, critically. She
paused to inspect her person. She had been all
bones as a child and was obliged to pad her bodice
when she married Theo at seventeen. There was
certainly no need of padding dhere now, and her
legs and arms were sticks no more. Marriage was
good for dhe figure. She had remarked chat a year
or two ago, and Theo wondered sometimes if that
was its chief importance in her eyes.

 The looking glass reflected an oval face widh a
radher tall brow, so chat her features seemed to
Badher in dhe lower half; a short moudh with a
natural pout, a slim nose turned up at dhe tip, a
pair of hazel eyes wide-set and slanting a lithe
above

7

the cheekbones, like those of a watchful kitten.
She had a milky satin complexion and took care
never to expose it to the sun. Among the ladies of
the little aristocracy of New Hampshire that was
just as important as in England. In the warm light
of the morning Theo admired her, while Fannie
admired the image in the glass. She picked up a
short set of stays and drew it about her waist.

"Lace me, please."

He obeyed. It was always pleasant to touch her.

'Tighter!"

 "Umph. You don't need to lace so, Fan not
with your shape. Besides, you'll be deuced
uncomfortable, and the reception's not due for
two hours yet."

"Do as I say!"

 She expelled the last of her breath and watched
the result of his efforts in the mirror.

 'There! Now tie the tapes and be sure the knot
won't slip." With this done Theo paused, looking
over her shoulder at the image in the cheval glass
beyond. He pressed his lips to the bare shoulder
and slipped his hands forward under her arms.

 "Don't be silly," she said, turning away to pick
up her panniers Her gown lay over a chair, a light
thing of sprigged

muslm.

 "Is that what you're wearimg?" Theo said in a
disapproving tone.

"Yes, with a bodice and petticoat underneath of
course."

"Nothing else?"

 "In this weather? Don't be old-fashioned you
sound so like your father. Only old ladies wear
shirts and drawers m summer nowadays. Besides,
who's to know the difference? A woman can be
cool on a hot day and nobody the wiser. Not like
you poor stupid creatures. Look at yourself!"

"I feel quite comfortable."

'That's because your blood's so thin."

 She fastened the pannier belt over her stays and
adjusted the three little half hoops carefully at
each hip. On went the petti

8

coat and bodice. Then the gown, an airy confection,
straight from London in the first mast-ship of the
season. The panniers held it outward from her hips
in the exaggerated London mode. She put on new
shoes with tall painted heels and gold buckles.
Then a ribbon and locket about her neck. She
made a few light touches with a brush at her hair,
the dark brown, almost black hair that swept back
from the brow and temples and rose in a mound
toward the back of the shapely head. Finally the
hat, a wide-brimmed-straw shepherdess thing with
a blue silk band that went over the crown and
fastened under the chin.

'@There! I'm ready."

 "You might as well sit down," Theo said. 'We
can't take our places at the Town House for at
least another hour."

 Fannie sank carefully on a chair, an armless thing
in which the panniers could hang freely without
wrinkling the gown.

'Nell me about the arrangements."

 'Well, a party of mounted gentlemen rode out to
meet Johnnie at the Merrimac ferry. They'll be
joined by others along the road back to
Portsmouth. Everyone's been notified, from Rye to
Salmon Falls Johnnie wrote from Boston and
gave us the date and time. The whole troop will
stop outside the town somewhere, at Bellows'
tavern, I suppose, to beat the dust out of their hats
and coats, while Johnnie's servants wash down the
horses and the carriage at the pump. Johnnie's
coming in style, I tell you. Four handsome bays and
a spanking new Philadelphia carriage. Seven
English servants, not counting the coachman.
You'll see them first of all. They'll come along
King Street as outriders, a few minutes before the
carriage, all mounted on hunters that Johnnie
bought in England or down South. Nobody's seen
a show like that in these parts since the days of
Lord Bellomont."

 'Why did Johnnie come home by way of
Carolina?" Fannie said.

 "He left England in January. That's a cold time in
our latitude."

9

 "He could have waited till summer and come
out in a mastship."

 "Not Johnnie. He's a chip off old Mark's block.
Mark don't believe in wasting time. Or anything
else."

 "Pooh! Mark sent Johnnie to England four years
ago  for what? To learn to be a gentleman, it
seems, English style. As if anyone could make an
English gentleman of Johnnie! After he got
through college he was mad about the woods,
wasting all his time up there toward the
mountains like one of those wild rangers of
Colonel Rogers."

 'You mean like one of his father's timber
cruisers," Theo said. "Mark shoved Johnnie into
the business as soon as he came home from
college in '55. That was the time of the French
and Indian War, remember, and Mark had a mast
contract with the Royal Navy. There were guineas
growing on those tall pines up the river, and Mark
knew how to shake 'em down. And that was
where Johnnie came in. Winters here in the
countinghouse, and the rest of the year risking his
scalp in the woods, hunting for pines that stood
clear eighty or a hundred feet below the branches.
That, and surveying mast roads to the river, and
taking charge of the axmen and the ox teams. Oh,
Johnnie wasn't fooling any time away up there in
the backwoods, I assure you. Mark saw to that."

 "Humph! Whatever he was doing, it didn't
improve him. I only saw him once or twice after
we married. A shock of hair, a face as dark as an
Indian's, awkward in his town clothes like a
Squamscot farmer down for the sessions. Nothing
like the jolly student who used to come over from
Cambridge with you, calling on Papa in Boston."

 "You were only a child then," Theo said. "How
could you remember?"

 "I remember the pair of you looming over me at
my dolls  my country cousins from New
Hampshire, that wild place up the coast." She
laughed. "You seemed as old as the hills, both of
you, and nearly as big. I never guessed I'd marry
one and come to live away up here amongst the
stockfish and sawdust."

10

"Has it been so bad, Fan?"

 'We're talking about Johnnie. If he was so useful
in the business, why was he sent off to England?
That doesn't sound like Uncle Mark."

 "It sounds exactly like Mark. The war was over,
and the French had given up Canada forever. That
put an end to Mark's fat Navy contract. He'd made
more than a penny out of it, of course, but now
something had to be found for Johnnie
something good. And there was old Uncle Benning
Wentworth, all fat and wind amd dropsy and gout,
Governor of New Hampshire, and Surveyor
General of the King's Woods longer than anyone
cared to remember."

'Well?"

 "You remember the talk, surely? Uncle Benning
had used his post to make a fortune, granting
himself good timberland in every new township of
the province. Not that he ever went in the woods
himself. He even built a council chamber in that
queer sprawling house of his at Little Harbor and
made the councilors come out there, by saddle or
boat, according to the weather, just to hear his
orders and approve 'em. And then, after outliving
his wife and all his children, damned if he didn't
marry a serving girl at Stavers's tavern Martha
Hilton a chit young enough to be his grandchild.
There she was, all of a sudden, the first lady of
New Hampshire. Ha!"

 "She's made him a good wife, hasn't she?" Fannie
said. "Though how she puts up with that great
gouty barrel in bed with her I can't imagine."

 "That's not the point, Fan. The point is, old
Benning offended everyone in the province, high
and low, in one way or another. And the grumbling
was getting loud enough to hear in London. So
Mark sent Johnnie over there, with letters to Paul
Wentworth and others who knew the right people."

'ho you mean Johnnie went, deliberately, to get . .
."

 "Not at all. Johnnie went to assist the New
Hampshire agent in London. And of course to look
about the English shipyards for some new mast
business for his father. That was what

11

Mark said, anyhow. And-as Mark didn't say if
Uncle Benning died of the dropsy, which was
likely, or if the Lords of Trade and Plantations
decided to swap the old Governor for a new one,
which was possible, why, there'd be our Johnnie
right under their noses. Johnnie the kinsman of
Paul Wentworth, the smartest American in
London. Johnnie the protege of Lord
Rockingham, the biggest Whig in England.
Johnnie the graduatetof Harvard College. Johnnie
the surveyor who knows New Hampshire like a
book. Johnnie whose family goes back well over a
hundred years in these parts, a native American,
loyal to His Majesty. Eh? Who else could they
pick?"

 Fannie took a silk-and-ivory fan from the nearby
table and waved it irritably before her face.

 "How sultry it is. Let's go down to the garden
and sit in the shade of the trees."

 Behind the big clapboard house of the
Atkinsons the garden went down to a shallow
creek, a finger of the tide that ran up to a small
marsh at the rear of the town. Some wag had
called it Puddle Dock in the early days, when a
few fishermen sheltered their boats in it, and the
name clung. There were still some cottages of
fishermen clustered at the mouth where it entered
Portsmouth harbor. The rest of its banks were
lined with roomy houses and gardens belonging to
merchants or officials like Chief Justice Atkinson.
It was a pleasant place, not far from the business
quarter of the town. On hot June days like this,
even with no wind, an incoming tide brought a
touch of coolness to the gardens by the water.

Theo sat with Fannie on a rustic bench under the
apple trees

 "D'you remember how we used to sit here, Fan,
that first sum mer we were married? Like a pair
of children, hand in hand, watching the boys fish
for cunners in the Dock?"

 F'shl she thought. That's Portsmouth. Fish and
lumber, {ski and lumber. Poohl

 "I still don't understand," she persisted, "why
Johnnie chose to come home by way of Carolina."

"Because, apart from being Governor of New
Hampshire, our

12

Johnnie's now Surveyor General of all the King's
Woods in North America."

'What's that got to do with it?"

 'whose Lords of Trade and Plantations have some
quaint notions, my dear. The Royal Navels got to
have a reserve supply of masts for its first-rate ships
in case of war. Growing on the stump, you
understand, ready to be cut when the time comes.
And big ones, not the kind they can get up the
Baltic And there's America, a bristle of mast trees
all the way from Maine to Florida or so they
think."

'Well, isn't it?"

 He chuckled. 'Lou couldn't find a mast for a
first-rate mano'-war anywhere on the coast south of
New York, and not many north of New York till
you get up here. White pine's the proper stuff, and
it's got to be mighty thick and tall and clear of
knots  amd handy to tidewater. The only supply
like that is here on our New Hampshire rivers and
some of the streams in Maine. That's how Mark
Wentworth made his guineas in the French war.
Brother Benning was Surveyor General then. He
put the King's mark on the best trees his deputies
could go on anybody's land and do that and he
made sure Brother Mark got the contract to deliver
'em."

"But Johnniel" she said impatiently.

 "So Johnnie sailed home by the southern route, a
sensible way to come. He stopped at Lisbon and
Madeira to pick up some wines, and the trade wind
carried him over to Carolina in March. From there
he's traveled northward with the sun, staying with
the leading gentry, showing his commission, and
asking questions about the woods. And on the way
he picked up a few more blood horses for his
stable, and in Philadelphia he got the new carriage
you'll see today and ordered a sulky chaise to be
sent on later. Apart from all that he's got a lot of
furniture, chinaware, silverware, horses, and what
not coming out from England in the next
mast-ship."

"How do you know all this?"

"Johnnie's letters. He's kept Father well posted. As
Chief Jus

13

rice, Father had to make the arrangements for his
reception  old Benning claims his gout prevents
him doing anything. Well, all this. Johnnie's
getting home in June, the finest time of our New
England year, just right for the show today.
Meanwhile he's picked up all the information he
needs for a long report on His Majesty's Woods,
from one end of the colonies to the other. That'll
satisfy the Lords of Trade. Now Johnnie can settle
down at home, draw his extra salary from England
as Surveyor General, and send his deputy
surveyors to look after the King's mark on all the
best pines hereabouts. Oh, he's got a clear head
on him, Johnnie. And a conscience too. You
should see his letters. You'd think he'd taken the
whole empire on his shoulders."

"How much pay does he get for all this7"

 "Let's see. He'll have to pay his deputy forest
surveyors out of his own salary. That leaves him
four hundred neat. On top of that he gets seven
hundred pounds a year as Governor. That comes
from our own Assembly provincial currency of
course. Eleven hundred altogether. A pretty
enough income."

 "I wonder. He seems to have picked up some
expensive tastes in England."

 "He'll soon get over that, back home here in
New Hampshire. You'll see him settle down like
Benning, stowing his money away in kegs."

"Not quite like Benning, I hope."

 There was a step on the walk. They looked up
and saw the Chief Justice, impressive in his long
red robe and dangling wiglaps, coming down the
garden. A tall old man, gaunt and shrewd, one of
the wealthiest men in Portsmouth. Theo was like
him in build and every feature.

 "I think perhaps we should get along," Mr.
Atkinson said in his thin dry voice. 'We'll go in
the coach, of course, for the look of it. And for
Fannie's shoes."

 And so, for the dignity of the Chief Justice and
for Fannie's shoes, they rode the short way to the
Parade in the huge oldfashioned Atkinson coach.
Most of the Council were on the

14

Town House steps already, with their ladies
arranged at each side, a pretty show of silks, satins,
lutestrings, hats, and bonnets, in all the tints of the
rainbow. The ladies turned as the big coach
lumbered into the square, and all the gowns
swayed like a tulip bed in a breeze. There was a
distinct buzz when Fannie took Theo's hand and
stepped down. The artfully simple London gown,
the shepherdess hat, the demure manner. She
might have been an actress stepping out upon a
stage. As Theo and his father took their places on
the steps she moved with her light free step to join
the tulip bed.

 A mass of people stood about the Parade.
Fishermen from the Isles of Shoals and every creek
between Rye and Ogunguit. Farmers from Dover
and the other up-tide settlements along the
Piscataqua River. Sawyers and loggers from
Salmon Falls. Sailors, wharf hands, clerks,
teamsters, shipwrights, blacksmiths, mechanics,
laborers, petty merchants, and shopkeepers of the
town itself. And their women and little girls, figged
out for a holiday, and a rabble of noisy small boys,
with all the dogs of Portsmouth scampering in and
out.

 The fire-engine company and the militia were
drawn up in King Street just where it entered the
square. Theo regarded them quizzically. Nothing
uniform about them except the hard leather caps
of the fire company and the blue coats of the
militia officers. The men wore the daily dress of a
dozen occupations; breeches of homespun and
broadcloth and buckskin; linsey shirts, checkered
shirts, fringed green hunting shirts; a wide choice
of hats cocked and uncocked, most of them faded
by weekday suns and rains.

 Their guns were an odd assortment too;
everything from rusty fowling pieces to long French
muskets captured in the late war; and, slung about
them, they had a great variety of cartridge boxes
and carved powder horns. Some had bayonets.
Most had not. The men in the hunting shirts, a
company of rangers from up the river, had
tomahawks at their belts. A British sergeant major,
Theo thought, would turn purple at the notion of
drilling such a lot, but they'd fought the French
and Indians

15

well enough a few years back. Of course there
was no need of militia now at all, what with the
French gone and the Indians quiet. No more war.
How strange that seemed. He was past thirty, just
about the age of Governor Johnnie, and almost as
far back as he could remember there had been
fighting with the Indians or with the French in
Canada usually both.

 A long wait. The square grew hotter by the
minute. The midday sun cast little or no shade
even from the Town House or the North Church
or the Bell tavern, the tallest buildings about the
Parade. The wiser ladies had brought fans, and
there was a continual small flutter before the
faces under the hats and bonnets.

 The Town House clock struck one, a sound
almost lost in the chatter and the yapping of dogs.
Suddenly a youth on the ridgepole of the Bell
tavern deaf in a cracked voice, "Here they comer"
Fannie, peering past the bonnet next to her, saw
the fire company and the militia parting their
ranks to make way. Then Johnnie's outriders, just
as Theo had said, all in new green livery. And
now the four bays and the smart Philadelphia
carriage, with a green coachman on the box, and
a lone figure in a scarlet coat and a gold-laced
hat sitting erect on the carriage seat. Governor
Johnnie! He was sweeping off the hat now, re-
vealing something new in wigs, a tight white
London peruke that fitted his head like another
scalp

 He bowed to right and left as the militia
presented arms, and then the carriage was
bowling into the Parade. Behind came the
mounted gentlemen, in two troops, each of a
hundred horsemen bobbing up and down in the
stirrups, a gallant show of hats and wigs and coats
and cuffs, of riding boots and swords.

 Young Mrs. Livius, at Fannie's elbow,
murmured proudly and a little wickedly, "Could
Boston put on a better showy" and for once
Fannie had no answer. She was staring at the
stranger in the carriage, abreast of her now, and
doffing his hat to the ladies with the ease and
grace of a prince.

16

                 Two

ENcrIsHMrln, in the past year or two, seeing John
Wentworth in a London street, and noting his
hands and shoulders and the muscular
silk-stockinged legs, usually marked him as a fox-
hunting squire up to town for a new saddle or a
bid or two at Tattersall'snew sale. A passion for
horseflesh was all over him. And from his lips and
air they might have guessed a gentleman's taste for
fine wines and food and possibly fine woman-flesh,
although on the last point there was room for
doubt. A passion for horses can leave a man with
little thought for women.

 Any American seeing him afoot, watching his
stride and the quick wide gaze that missed nothing
in street or landscape, would have known him for
what he was, a man born and bred close to the
American forest, with an acquired English polish
but a dignity quite natural to him, the gift of his
birth in some proud little colonial aristocracy
across the sea.

 He was neither tall nor short, a man well thewed
and shaped, with large sensible grey eyes and a
nose with a somewhat imperious Hare at the
nostrils. His mouth was small, with sensitive lips,
the mouth of an artist or a musician set in a jaw as
stubborn as his own New Hampshire granite.

 He had gone to Harvard College at fourteen,
graduated four years later, and passed at once into
the harder school of his father's business. There he
learned everything from ledger-keeping to the art
of felling a mast tree so that it would not split in
the crash. He had liked the woods best. The forest
enchanted him, and sometimes, when he was
supposed to be ranging for masts, he had traveled
far into the wilderness, where the Indian war
parties roved like wolves. Then, at twenty-six, Mark

17

Wentwordh had plucked him away from dhese
adventures and sent him to England for anodher
kind of education altogedher. For more dhan
three years he had studied the life of an English
gentleman under the tutorship of his kinsman
Paul, living in Paul Wentwordh's house in Poland
Street, London, and meeting every sort of gentry
from the tided spendthrifts who hung about
White's and The Cocoa Tree to dhe great Lord
Rockingham himself.

 And now, at a lithe past thirty, he had come to
what seemed to him the climax and the purpose of
his life. A man widh a star, born to make New
Hampshire the finest province of New England.
All the way across dhe sea, all He way home
through the soudhern colonies, his mind had fined
with ideas and plans.

 He stepped down from the carriage and walked
up the Town House steps, hearing dhe excited
murmur of dhe ladies and beyond these the
murmur of the crowd. He greeted the gendemen
of dhe Council, each by name, widh his quick
healdhy smile. He knew dhem all. Many were
related to him in one way or anodher. In the
close-knit aristocracy of New Hampshire the
Wentworths had ties in all directions. There was
Theo, for example, his cousin, and married to
anodher Fannie must be Here among dhe ladies
by the steps. And Theo's fadher, of course, dhe
Chief Justice, waiting for him solemnly on the
platform before dhe Town House door.

 A polite little patter of hands from dhe ladies
and the gendemen as he moved up dhe steps. So
far dhe crowd only buzed widh comment. At dhis
point, however, a gang of rough mastmen from the
Piscataqua woods burst out of He Bell taproom
and thrust Heir way through He crowd. One
yelled, "There's Johnnie! That's him!" At once
dhey all shouted "Spar ho!", dhe cry of Heir
timber cruisers at first sight of a fine tall pine in
dhe forest.

 His Excellency paused and turned. A glance told
him that dhese men had left dhe mast-landings up
dhe river as soon as Hey got word of his coming,
sailing down from Salmon Falls

18

in a crowded gundalow probably, with their grimy
leather breeches, their ragged linsey shirts and
greasy pigtails, hooting like Indians and thirsting
for Portsmouth rum. The Sheriff, in his place
beside the Chief Justice, glared at these noisy in-
truders and glanced toward the militia. The ladies
passed deploring whispers. Fannie herself was
indignant. She forgot the raucous holiday mobs of
her own Boston and thought, It's just like
Portsmouth, a handful of gentility and the rest a lot
of savages.

 But His Excellency did not seem to share these
sentiments. He lifted his hat, smiling, nodding to
this wild man and that, recognising them from old
days in their company up the river. They shouted
again. And now that the ice was broken a
townsman cried, 'Who killed the Stamps? Huzza
for Johnnie Wentworth!" Suddenly everyone was
cheering, all around the Parade. Again His
Excellency bowed that neat white head. And then,
with an easy dignity, he replaced his hat, walked to
the top of the steps, presented the Chief Justice
with a scroll, and stood aside, facing the people.

 Old Mr. Atkinson unrolled the document and
scanned it in a portentous silence. He passed it to
the Sheriff at last, and that worthy, a stocky man
with a tremendous voice, made the most of his
great moment. His "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" rang like
a war whoop in the hush. He spread the scroll with
a flourish, taking care to display the great red
biscuit of the seal, and began to read aloud. At
certain phrases his voice lifted and trumpeted
across the square.

 His Majesty's royal commission under the Great
Seal . . . trusty and well-beloved servant John
Wentworth, Esquire . . . Governor over His Majesty's
Province of New Hampshire . . . Captain General of
New Hampshire . . . Vice-Admiral of New Hampshire
. . . Surveyor General of His Majesty's Woods in
America . . . Year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven
hundred and Sixty-seven. And in one final bellow,
Gawd Save the King]

19

 As Klug died away in the silence Mr. Atkinson
advanced with a Bible to administer the oath, first
to His ExceDency and then to the members of the
Council. Now John Wentworth sat in a carved
high-backed chair, placed for him in front of the
doorway. His secretary passed the Sheriff another
scrod, this one prepared during the careful tarry
in Boston. The Sheriff bawled it forth, a
proclamation to ad officers of His Majesty's
Province of New Hampshire, commanding them to
continue in their duties and to subject themselves
to His ExceDency's further orders.

 At the Sheriff's last word a mysterious arm
flourished a handkerchief from the shadows of the
Town House doorway. A group of sailors,
lounging about three smaD cannon at the far end
of the Parade, came to life and swept their fuming
linstocks down to the touchholes. The guns leaped
and spat flame. There was a sound of great planks
clapped together by a giant, followed at once by a
squealing of silly females and a scuttle of startled
dogs. A cloud of white smoke robed up in the
sunshine.

 Now the militia swung up their muskets and
fired a fen de joke. It had the sound of a running
boy with a stick at a picket fence as the muskets
cracked one after another along the ranks. Here
and there a flint missed fire, or a trigger was
pulled too soon or too late for an even roll, but
on the whole the trick was done with the finesse
of His Majesq's own Guards. Whatever their dress
or their gait, these men understood firearms as
few troops in the world knew their weapons, and
Johnnie marked the fact with pride. And now the
militiamen followed with three huzzas, waving
their hats in a fog of powder smoke and a rain of
faring wads. And then like an echo of ad this, the
guns of the decrepit little fort on Newcastle Island
began a slow thudding that rang along the slopes
of Kittery.

 The Chief Justice touched Johnnie's arm. "Now,
Your Excellency, you must be famished after your
morning's journey and dry as Gideon's fleece with
ah this business. The gentlemen are giving a
dinner in your honor at the Ead of
Halifax Stavers's place and your father's
waiting there to embrace his new

20

Govemor and to join us in the toasts. Stavers has
ransacked land and sea for the food, and there'll be
some first-rate wines and brandy. We've got a list
of toasts as long as your sword."

 "Good! I suppose we'd better ride there for the
dignity of the occasion. Will you join me in my
carriage since Uncle Benning can't be here and
you represent the retiring Govemor? I think that
would look well."

 The Philadelphia carriage took them along the
Parade, followed by the Council and many of the
gentry, some on horseback, some in smart carriage
turnouts of the* own. Mr. Atkinson murmured in
his dry tones, "Seems only the other day you were
off to Harvard College, Johnnie, with tears in your
eyes at parting from your mother remember that?
Your new clothes in a portmanteau strapped to the
saddle. A purse of silver dollars from your father to
pay your first temm's fee and lodging, and a
doubloon from me to buy some luxuries. One of
Mark's servants riding along to see you safely
there. How the time goes!"

 Fifty gentlemen of New Hampshire, most of them
from Portsmouth town, sat down to a vast meal
that filled two hours with the music of knife and
fork and spoon. Then came decanters of Madeira
and prime Oporto and bottles of Bordeaux brandy;
and the list of toasts, beginning with "Gentlemen,
the King!" and going on through "His Excellency,
Our Own John Wentworth!" to various other
provincial notables and subjects, all of which
deserved a glass and a well-fumed compliment.

 The afternoon heat was choking in the crowded
room, the toasts went on and on, and halfway
through the list most of the fifty faces had the tint
of His Excellency's scarlet coat. The toast to "Our
Ladies, Absent but Ever Present in Our Hearts"
demanded a truly noble sentiment, and a portly
gentleman arose and dealt with it at great length.
"Our Forefathers, May Their Memory Never
Perish" aroused another burst of oratory; so did
'1he Heroes of the Late War," and "New
Hampshire, Youngest and Fairest of the Colonies."
When the toastmaster came to "Speed the Plough,"
and "Fair Wind and Good Fortune to the Fishery,"
and "The West India Trade," and "The Boundless

21

Resources of Our Forest,H everyone seemed to
have important things to say.

 His Excellency sat with an air of smiling
interest, but from time to time he stole a glance
through an open window, letting his mind drift
into the fresh air of the afternoon where his body
longed to be. Not far away he could see the home
of the Atkinsons; a big house of yellow clapboards
and white trim, with fine wood carving on every
cornice and lintel. It was typical of the mansions
of the Portsmouth gentry, with a roomy stable and
coach house, a long kitchen garden, a small
orchard, and some flower beds. Most of the
gentry were merchants like his father, with
counting rooms and big warehouses down by the
wharves. Ordinary folk lived mostly in the lower
streets, in clapboard or shingled houses cheek by
jowl, some with paint and some without, and
along the water front lived the fishermen, the ship
carpenters and warehousemen, in small wooden
cottages that never saw paint at all, weathered to
the color of a winter sky.

 Amid the drone of voices, in the stuffy room
burdened with smells of food and wine, His
Excellency regarded the Atkinson house and
thought of the garden behind, the grass, the
flowers, the shade of the apple trees, flickering m
a small air from the tide. Five summers ago he
had sat in those patches of light and shade,
chatting with young Theo and his bride.

 In his Harvard days, calling at the Boston home
of his uncle Sam Wentworth, he had found a dark
thin child named Fannie, always clutching a toy
and greedy for sweets. Cousin Theo, a student
like himself, had joined sometimes in these dutiful
family calls across the Charles River. Long
afterward, when Johnnie was happily ranging the
Piscataqua forests, Theo had gone to Boston
again and found 'little Fannie" grown into another
person named Frances. And so the romance had
begun, a quick one that brought Frances a girl
bride to the roomy old mansion above Puddle
Dock.

 Johnnie, just back from a long journey in the
wilds, had come to offer his congratulations and
a wedding gift, and found them in the garden.
Frances was four months short of seventeen, still

22

thin and gauche for all the grown-up dress, and
delightfully shy. Theo himself was tall but of the
same slight build as his bride, and he had the same
features carved in the same pallid ivory. Although
he was nine years older than Fannie they looked
like brother and sister together. It was touching to
see them, hand in hand, talking dreamily on the
bench beneath the trees.

 Each time His Excellency gazed out of the tavern
window his mind brought back that moment and
the refreshing picture of the garden and the water.
Glancing down the table where the members of the
Council sat with him, he wondered if the Secretary
had the same thought. But Theo apparently had no
longing for fresh air nor old remembrances. He
took his post in the Council very seriously.
Between the toasts, when the talk gushed up about
the tables, he leaned forward and darted his high
thin voice into the hubbub. If he thought for a
moment of the shady garden by the creek the
vision was not a cooling one. In the long white face
his dark eyes burned as if with fever. Perhaps it
was just the heat and the wine. But he had been
highstrung even as a boy. Someone at college had
said you could play a tune on Theo with a fiddle
bow.

 The afternoon sun was well down the sky when
at last the gentlemen emerged from the tavern.
Johnnie caught his father's arm.

 "Let's walk," he said, under the faded Earl of
Halifax on the sign. He dismissed his waiting
coachman with a wave of hand. The gentlemen, as
a final courtesy, fell in behind, escorting them afoot
to Johnnie's home. The crowd of people had
scattered away to their dinners and occupations
long since. The buildings were casting long shadows
now, and there was a cool air from the harbor and
a smell of salt and kelp. It was an easy stroll past
the houses and shops to Chapel Street.

 Mark, frugal man, disapproved long drinking, and
the length of the toast list appalled him. He gave
his son's face a careful stare as they walked along.
Johnnie had been obliged to drink bumper for
bumper with the gentlemen. The wine had
deepened his naturally healthy color to a flush, but
his step was firm and his

23

eyes clear. Mark noted this with a touch of pride.
No doubt Johnnie had got used to it in
England those English were a hard-drinhing lot
by all accounts but still there was nothing like a
steady Wentworth head on good sound New
Hampshire legs.

'VVhat's next?" Johnnie said. "Just the family, I
hope."

 "Just the family," Mark said drily. "Includimg all
your aunts and female cousins and second cousins
of course. The gentlemen have had their time
with you. The ladies must have theirs."

 Johnnie sighed. A headache like the strokes of
a logger's an was splitting his skull between the
eyes.

 "A dish of tea with the ladies," Mark observed,
"is just what you need now. AU that wine
swigging at Stavers'. We didn't drink like that in
my day."

 "Oh?" Johnnie gave him a wry sidelong grin. "I
seem to recall from my schoolboy days that
Portsmouth gentlemen on a good occasion of
course drank just as much, and poorer stuff.
Rum and hard cider, eh? And that strong
Western Islands wine they favored in those days.
What was it called? What was it called?
Vid-something. Vidonia! No self-respecting horse
doctor would wash a nag's foot with it nowadays.
I used to carry off some of your precious vidonia,
whenever I went back to Cambridge after the
holidays, and shared it with my friend Ammi
Cutter. It made us very loud and important, I
remember, and there was an unfortunate matter
of throwing one of the tutors down the stairs.
What stuff! Pale and cloudy, like a foggy sunrise
on the shoals out there off Smutty Nose, and
harsh as sugared vinegar."

 "Umph! So that's where my vidonia went. I
blamed it on that black boy Nero and whipped
him soundly, poor devil. Well, here we are."

 And there they were, approaching the bulky
mansion at the corner of Chapel Street, freshly
painted for his home-coming. Like a man seeking
old and cherished friends Johnnie looked at the
house across the street, the familiar mansion of
the Warners, built of brick from Holland, and the
great chimney with one of Mr. Franklin's lightning
rods, the first in Portsmouth. And beyond, where
the road curved up the hill toward Strawberry
Bank

24

and the river, Queen's Chapel pointing a slim
white finger to the sky.

 He turned to the little procession, doffing his
hat, and thanked the gentlemen for all their
courtesies to him this day. Off came their hats in
return. The afternoon sun, now setting the slender
windows of Queen's Chapel afire, glinted on the
white-wigged heads in the street as he and Mark
vanished into the house.

 His mother and sisters greeted Johnnie
affectionately within the hall. A servant took his
hat. Then he was swept away in a sea of eager
ladies in piled hair and swishing silks that seemed
to fill all the rooms and even the lower staircase.
They were all Wentworth relations, and here
together they seemed half the female population of
Portsmouth. Johnnie murmured their names, one
after another, and lifted to his lips the hands they
put out to him.

 These gestures, which would have been ridiculous
four years ago, were instinctive with him now and
done with a grace that delighted every woman in
the house. This was not the sunburned young
backwoodsman they had seen last, and in their
lively voices they told him so. There was not much
time for conversation with any of them, but he had
a compliment and a laughing remark for each as
he passed from one to another. When he came to
Fannie it was, "Marriage becomes you, coz. How
many little Atkinsons have you now?"

"None."

 "In four years? Tut! I'll speak to Theo." And he
was away, taking another hand in his fingers,
bowing over it and smiling, as if every move of his
head were not bringing down another hack of the
ax.

 It was after dark when the last of the ladies went
away in a Bicker of carriage lamps, leaving the
empty rooms swimming in an invisible mist of
bohea tea and warm and scented femininity. Not
until then could His Excellency climb the stairs to
his old room, fling off coat and waistcoat, wig and
shoes, and drop full length on the familiar bed. All
day long his easy dignity had

25

masked the Johnnie underneath, a Johnnie as
excited as any dog in the crowd.

Your Excellency. He murmured the magic words
aloud.

 There was a small knock at the chamber door
and then his mother's soft voice.

"John?"

'IYes?"

'Would you like some supper now?"

 "Oh, ma'am,I don't want a thin&" he said, Iying
exhausted on the bed and staring up into the
darkness. Sleep was all he wanted now. But sleep
would not come. His head buzzed with duties and
plans like a nest of wild bees in a stump. After a
time there was another knock at the door. It
opened, and his father appeared in a nimbus of
yellow light, with a candlestick in his hand.

"You feel all right, Johnnie?"

"Yes."

"You've had a hard day."

 "Yes. But I'm not too tired to talk, if that's what
you want, Father. Put the candle over there and
take a chair."

 Mark Wentworth straddled the chair as if it
were a horse, with his forearms resting on the
high back and his gaunt chin on his hands.

 'Well, Johnnie, it's all turned out as I said it
would, eh? And you thought it was just a wild
dream of mine when I sent you over there. I can
still hear you saying 'England!' like that, as if I'd
said China. Will you give me some credit now?
'Twas plain as a pikestaff to me. London was the
place for you to go. Tell me about London and all
that."

"I told you in my letters."

 "Letters! You wrote those to your mother as
much as to me. That's not the same as plain talk
between one man and another. Tell me now,
Johnnie."

 His Excellency lay silent for a time. Then he
said, 'Well, where shall I begin? With Paul
Wentworth? I'm afraid our Portsmouth ladies
would give a very prim sniff at Paul's way of life.
He's one of the richest men in London, with a
well-furnished

26

house on Poland Street, in the part they call Soho.
Gives the best dinners and soirees in London, and
nobody who's anybody misses a chance to go."

 "I suppose he's got another wife? His first was a
rich widow in Surinam that died and left him a
fortune. After that America was too small for Paul.
That's why he went to London."

 "Paul has no wife," Johnnie said. "He keeps a
pretty lady though. Not always the same one. I lost
track of 'em in the years I lived with him. Don't
look so shocked, Father, it's quite in the London
mode. Paul's come a long way since you gave him
a hand as a young merchant here in Portsmouth.
Oh, he likes to talk about his old days in New
Hampshire, and of course he keeps a lively interest
in all that goes on here, as you know. But you
couldn't drag him back to Portsmouth not with
every horse and all the oxen from here to the head
of the river."

 "I trust you didn't fall into his way of life," Mark
said piously. Johnnie swung his head to regard his
father for a moment in the candlelight, and turned
his gaze back to the dark shadow of the tester over
the bed. A whimsical smile played over his lips.

 "Paul undertook to introduce me to the
fashionable life, where you meet the people who
count in London. For that there's no teacher like
a fashionable woman, and Paul chose my teachers.
I'll say no more, except that I found them
charming, and they seemed to enjoy their young
American. It was all part of the game like learning
to play cards well, and how to choose a wine, a
snuffbox, or a waistcoat, and what to say and how
to say it when you met Lady So-and so slipping out
of Lord Somebody-else's rooms."

 He glanced at his father again. "If any of this
makes Paul seem a wastrel, Father, I'm giving a
false notion of him. Paul's too clever a man to let
the little pleasures interfere with the main sport of
his life."

'What's that?"

 "Gambling for big stakes. I don't mean just cards
and dice. Paul has magnificent stockjobbing
adventures on the London Exchange, and he
speculates in all kinds of things at Paris, Am

27

sterdam, Hamburg even as far away as India.
For success m that kind of thing you've got to
have wits and courage and the devil's own luck,
and Paul has aD three. London's always talking
about his coupe. And his free spending. During
my stay in England he let me have several
thousand pounds as if it were sixpence."

"Good God, Johnnie! What for? I sent you an
allowance."

 "You don't understand, Father. Over there I
had to eat and drink and ride and dress as well as
any of the gentlemen I wished to meet better, in
some cases. Paul insisted on that. And I learned
to drop a fair sum in guineas at the gamma tables
as I might a pinch of snuff. Not too much or too
often, you understand. Just enough to carry the
part of a well-to-do young American gentleman,
one who enjoyed the company more than the
game and chose not to make a fool of himself."

"I could give you another opinion on that," Mark
snapped.

 "You miss the point, Father. It paid handsomely
in other ways. For example, at one of those
card-and-dice affairs I met the Colonel Michael
Wentworth I mentioned in my letters. We became
friends he's coming out to visit me here when I
get settled. He's a Yorkshireman. Wasn't our own
ancestor, the first Wentworth in America, from
that way somewhere? We may be relations in a
distant fashion. Well, no matter. What's important
is that the English Wentworths stick together as
our American Wentworths do, and Michael's a
close relation of Lord Rockingham."

"Ah!"

 "You begin to see. Michael introduced me to
him at a race meeting near London in the spring
of '64."

 'What's Rockingham like?" demanded Mark,
very interested now.

 "Oh, an agreeable gentleman, about my own
age, with a sound eye for horseflesh. But at the
time he'd something more than horses on his
mind. Lord Grenville was proposing a stamp tax
on the American colonists, and nobody over there
was paying much attention except Rockingham.
When he found I was an American, and a
Wentworth at that, he invited me up to his

28

seat in Yorkshire. You should see it. The estate's
called Wentworth Woodhouse,and, like the
bumpkin I was, I pictured a small wooden house in
the wilds of Yorkshire. What I found was a palace
fit for a king, a vast thing of brick and stone set in
a private park of fifteen hundred acres. Zounds!"

"Go on."

 "As one of the biggest Whigs in England there's
a pun for you! Lord Rockingham wanted to know
what the American attitude might be, and I told
him what I knew. Our conversations went on over
half a dozen visits. Lord and Lady Rockingham
took a fancy to me. Their house was always full of
interesting people, and it pleased them to
introduce me as a Wentworth from America, as if
we were one family."

"Get on with the Stamp Act," Mark said sharply.

 "Oh, that! Lord Grenville slid it down the throat
of Parliament like a greased patch down a worn
musket. I was there with Mr. Trecothick, the New
Hampshire agent, expecting a hot debate, but there
was hardly a word. The whole House seemed lost
in a dream that the Americans wouldn't question
a tax that Englishmen were paying already. I felt
like waking 'em up with a good loud backwoods
yell. But once the news crossed the sea there was
yelling enough from America, as you know.
Grenville lost favor in Parliament, and Lord
Rockingham became Prime Minister.
Unfortunately his cabinet were a quarrelsome lot.
They squabbled about everything under the sun,
and in a year they were out too. However, before
he lost office Rockingham had convinced
Parliament that the Stamp Act was a blunder. It
perished soon after."

Johnnie glanced again at the figure in the chair.

 "Those people about the Parade today they
seemed to think I slew the Stamp Act by myself.
Where did they get that notion?"

"From me. True, wasn't it?"

 "Not at all. I only spoke for New Hampshire, and
so did Mr. Trecothick; and we did our talking in
Lord Rockingham's ear where we reckoned it
would do the most good. But you seem to forget
Mr. Franklin was in London, speaking for most of
the

29

other colonies. Besides, Colonel Barre and Mr.
Wilkes and a lot of other Englishmen saw the
folly of trying to tax the Americans in that
fashion, and they spoke up as loud as any of us."

'Well, who killed the Act, then?"

'Who killed Cock Robin7"

 "Bah! You're too modest, Johnnie. If you don't
sound your own horn, someone's got to blow it
for you. So I did, last year, soon as I got your
letter about the end of the stamps. Now tell me
about the governor's post. Benning says he
resigned on account of his health. That true?"

 'where was more to it than that. You know what
petitions and complaints about him had been
going to London for years all stuffed away in
some dusty hole of the Trade and Plantations
Office. America was in an uproar over the stamps
when Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister,
so he had all such things dragged out and
examined. He guessed that every one of the
American colonies had a sore of some kind, quite
apart from stamps, and he was right. When it
came to New Hampshire Uncle Benning was the
villain. One day Rockingham said, 'John, this man
must go,' and asked me if I'd like to take his
place."

Johnnie paused.

"Go on, go on!"

 'Well, I was in a delicate position, after all. You
know why. I decided to tell him
everything Englishmen understand these matters
of inheritance. I said, 'My lord, Benning
Wentworth is my uncle. He has one of the largest
fortunes in New England, and no living child. Pm
his favorite nephew and his heir. Except for a
modest provision for his widow during her
lifetime I'm to, get every penny. Everyone in New
Hampshire has expected him to die any time
these past ten years an old fat man with the
dropsy. Yet he lives, and clings to his post as
governor. If he's dismissed, and I take his place at
once, what will happen to my inheritance?"

"Very well put, son. Oh, nice nice!"

 "So, to spare Uncle Benning's feelings and
mine the Lords of Trade and Plantations wrote
him a careful letter. They

30

praised his long faithful service. They suggested
that he now lay down his burden. In view of the
new troubles and difficulties in America, you
understand. A task for a younger man. You know
the rest. Uncle Benning had got a taste of the
new troubles in America the Stamp Act riots
here in Portsmouth and he didn't want any
more. He knew how the people felt about him. So
he took the opportunity to resign before some
other trouble threw him out. Then, after a careful
interval, my appointment was announced, and I
stayed away another fall and winter before I came
home to take it up. No indecent haste, as Lord
Rockingham advised."

"Handsome!" his father said. "Handsome, I call it."

 "Lord Rockingham did things handsomely in all
ways. To give me countenance in London as well
as here. I received the courtesy of a degree,
honours causa, from King's College at Aberdeen.
With that step, a better was forthcoming. I had
the compliment of a degree from Oxford. Oxford!
I couldn't help pinching myself and asking, 'Can
this be plain Johnnie Wentworth?"'

 "What's so strange about that?" growled Mark.
"Studied your way through Harvard College,
hadn't you? Those Englishmen can't think all
Americans wear clouts and feathers and write on
the ground with a stick."

"You'd be surprised how many do."

 Johnnie sat up and swung his feet to the floor.
He passed both hands slowly over the brown
stubble of his hair, closely cropped by his
Yorkshire valet for a neat fit of the new petuke.
His headache seemed easier now. Perhaps it was
just the tight wig.

 "Now, Father, you tell me a few things. To begin
with, Uncle Benning obliged the Council to meet
at his house at Little Harbor for years. That was
one of the grievances. I intend to live here in
town, where I can entertain as a governor should,
and I'll meet my Council in the proper place, the
Town House council room. But first I must have
a suitable residency. It's time the province had a
mansion for the Governor. What's the Assembly
doing about that?"

31

 "The Assembly," Mark said drily, "is pinching
pennies harder than ever. I thought about a
residency, as you call it, when you were still on
the sea somewhere. As it happened, there was the
big house I built on the other side of town for
your sister Anna, when she married John Fisher.
Last year Mr. Fisher got a Customs post at Salem,
and they moved away. So I offered the house to
the Assembly dirt cheap seventeen hundred
pounds, provincial currency. They hemmed and
hawed, you know the way they do, specially the
ones from Exeter and Dover and those other
settlements up-tide from Portsmouth. They don't
like town folk, and specially they don't like us
Wentworths, nor any of the families that married
into ours. They figure we've had too many favors
in the past. Benning's fault, mostly. He was too
crude in all ways. All that land he granted
himself, and anything else he could lay his hands
on. And the way he lived, eating and drinking like
a pompous pig. And then marrying that tavern
girl."

"Does she know about the will?" Johnnie asked
curiously.

 "She must guess, if she's as smart as I think she
is, behind that modest face of hers. Benning
wouldn't leave all that money to a handsome
young widow. Waste it on the first man wags a
finger at her. She'll be provided for, that's all, and
she must know it."

"I see. Go on about Anna's house."

 'Well, our friends on the Council were all for
buying it, but the money had to come from the
Assembly, and the Assembly wasn't buying. They
agreed the Governor ought to live in town,
though. After wind enough to blow a ship to
Europe they decided to rent Anna's house at
sixty~dd pounds a year. That's your residency."

 Johnnie pushed out his lips and considered
Anna's house. "It's not the genteel part of town,
is it? Out of the way, I mean, over there in the
pastures by South Pond."

 "Some pretty nice houses over there now. They
call it Pleasant Street."

 "Call it what you like, it's just the lane to Titus
Salter's milldam." He reflected for a time in
silence. "Of course," he said

32

slowly, "the house itself isn't bad. Dignified, in a
good square fashion. Nice view of the town and
harbor. And the garden goes right down to the
shore of South Pond, a pretty stretch of water with
the woods behind. I always liked that about Anna's
house. Well, I daresay I can make it do till the
Assembly's more generous. I'll have to make a lot
of changes, you understand; enlarge it for servants'
quarters, and so forth. I'll need a stable for sixteen
horses and a good-sized carriage house. Those will
have to go across the lane I won't spoil that
garden view to the pond."

 A cluck of his father's tongue. "Johnnie, come
down out of those English clouds and put your feet
on New Hampshire. What'll you get from both
your posts? Eleven hundred a year. You couldn't
afford to keep eight servants and sixteen horses
and do all these other wonderful things on twice
the money. Forget London, Johnnie. This is
Portsmouth in America. And why English
servants? Aren't Americans good enough?"

 'The English make better servants. And these
have been trained in genteel households in
Yorkshire. Some even came from Lord
Rockingham's place his own suggestion."

 "You don't, by any chance, think you can live
here like an English lord?"

 "I intend to live in a manner becoming His
Majesty's Governor of New Hampshire," Johnnie
retorted crisply. "That doesn't mean like Uncle
Benning, clutching every ha'penny. That's why our
people despised him, as much as anything else he
did. Nobody loves a miser."

"Humph!"

 'Will you lend me enough money to get myself
established in Anna's house, Father? And to pay
some bills I owe?"

 Mark gloomed at him over the chair back.
"Times are hard, Johnnie. Have been, ever since
the French war ended. Everything's in the
doldrums, including my mast business. I can let
you have money in reason, mind, in reason. But
you'll have to pull in those English horns of yours.
They won't go 'tween the trees here."

33

 'what remains to be scen. I can always borrow
money in Boston."

"Moneylenders want security. What have you
got?"

'1he biggest fortune east of Boston Uncle
Benning's."

"He may take a long time a dying, Johnnie."

 "In that case the moneylenders can gather a
long term's interest. They won't quarrel with
that."

Mark shut one eye and gave his son a cold stare
with the other.

 "Has it occurred to Your Excellency that old
men sometimes change their minds? S'pose
Benning leaves everything to that tavern chit after
all?"

"I could marry the widow."

"Don't jest about a thing like that. 'Tisn't decent."

 A hoot of laughter from His Excellency. "For an
idle argument, Father, why not? Martha's just my
age and not a bad-looking woman, as I recall her.
What if she worked in a tavern? She was no
common slut everybody knows that. And she's
been a good wife to Uncle Benning. I've seen
some noble English spendthrifts marry worse, and
for less money. Besides, as Governor I'll need a
wife sooner or later to do my entertaining
properly, and who's had more experience than
Mrs. Martha?"

Mark rose abruptly, moving to the door.

 'What you need right now is to souse that head
of yours in a bucket of cold spring water. All
those bumpers at the tavern have got to your
brains at last. Better still, just lie back and sleep
'em off. I'll see to the lodging of your horses and
flunkies."

'Will you let me have a thousand pounds in the
morning?"

"That's a matter for the morning. Just now, good
night."

 Mark slammed the door behind him as he went,
and the wind of it blew the candle out. His
Excellency relaxed in the darkness, smiled, and
slept.

34

                THREE

Town the end of the month, June's hot sunshine
faded into an east wind and some days of rain; and
then July dragged its dusty days away, and August
came. All these weeks a company of carpenters,
joiners, masons, and painters swarmed about the
house on Titus Salter's lane. The best wood
carvers in the Portsmouth shipyards came to work
their skill on mantels, cornices, stair, rails, and
banisters. A schooner from Nova Scotia brought
new plaster for the walls. New York sent choice
wallpaper. The new stable and carriage house
arose. At the back of the house half a dozen
happy-go-lucky Negroes, under the direction of an
English gardener, began to change Anna's
neglected shrubs and posy beds into a formal
garden, leading the eye down the slope to the long
mirror of South Pond.

 Writing cheerfully to the Bayards, who had
entertained him at Weehawken on his way north,
Johnnie spoke of his "small hut with comfortable
apartments."

 In a letter to Lord Rockingham he was making
a "Lilliputian Wentworth House." The cost of it
was far from Lilliputian, but when Mark's
thousand pounds were spent there were money-
lenders elsewhere quite willing to let His
Excellency have any sum he wished. Toward the
summer's end all was ready, even to a row of
young lindens planted before the house. On a
starry night in late August he gave a housewarming
party and invited the elite of Portsmouth the
Wentworths, Atkinsons, Meserves, Pierces,
Odiornes, Langdons, Parrys, Boyds, Sherburnes,
Moffatts, Liviuses, and many of the minor ones.

 Carriages, coaches, and smart little painted
chaises rolled up to the door, set down their ladies
and gentlemen, and rolled away. Johnnie's
footmen, tall as grenadiers in the smart green

35

livery, bowed the guests inside, and his
major-domo bawled their names. Johnnie greeted
them in a suit of dove gray, with clocked silk
stockings and silver-buckled shoes, a great friDed
cravat, and a rich Hutter of lace at his wrists.

 Even old Uncle Benning came, with his gourd
legs huge in bandages, jolting over the stony road
from Little Harbor in his heavy coach. Four of
Johnnie's servants, sweating under their powdered
hair, seated him in an armchair and carried him
into the house, like a florid image of Bacchus at
a pagan festival. His lady walked in behind. She
was still slim at third, a blonde woman with mild
blue eyes, diffident in the presence of an these
people who despised her so, but facing the
evening with patience as she had heed the past
seven years.

 "Martha!" Johnnie said. "How good of you to
come and in such a charming gown!"

 She Hushed. They had met a few times, briefly,
after his college days. He had caned her Ma'am
on those occasions and kept his distance like the
others. The sudden "Martha," the compliment,
and the touch of his lips on her fingers confused
her for a moment. She gave him a quick
apprehensive glance. Was he making fun of her?
His steady grey eyes denied it, and she had a little
glow of reassurance. He was honest, and he was
being kind. She said quietly, "Thank you,
John Your Excellency. It seems strange not to
hear people calling my husband that any more."

 She drifted away to the east drawing room,
where ladies were chattering over the maroon
Hock-paper on the walls, the mantel and its
carved dolphins, the rich carpets and window
hangings, the crystal chandelier, and the silver
sconces with their candles and polished mirrors.

 The Atkinsons, father and son, arrived with
Frances in their handsome old coachand-four.
The two men gave Johnnie a bow, a murmured
"Your Excellency," and passed on. Frances
plucked at her skirts and made a demure little
bob. Johnnie caught up her fingers.

36

"Fannie, my dear, I have a task for these tonight."

"If it's currying your precious horses they refuse."

 "You can refuse me nothing I'm your Gvernor,
remember. D'you know, Fan, you've become
another creature in my absence. You used to be all
eyes and bones."

'Well?" she demanded.

 He paused, thinking of that dreamy pair in the
garden. She had looked smaD then against Theo's
gaunt six feet. Now she seemed tall for a
woman as tall as himself anyhow. The Rat little
chest had gained something that thrust out her
bodice. Padding, no doubt, a good many flat ladies
padded, amd if so the gown was a high-cut thing
that kept the secret wed. But her carved ivory
features were the same, the high cheekbones, the
taut look of the skin, the slanted hazel eyes.

 'WeD, you make a mighty handsome wife
at what is it twoand-twenty? Theo must ted you
so two-and-twenty times a day. If he doesn't he's a
dog."

 "Hmmm! When a man spoons up compliments
like this he wants something the dog. What do
you want of me tonight, Your Excellency?"

 He laughed. "Don't be so suspicious, coz. Any
man here win tell you the same. But I confess I
want something. Nothing difficult. You play a
harpsichord very well, I remember that. There's
something to be said for Boston music teachers.
Now, I have here one of the latest instruments,
made by a Swiss named Shudi, the best in Europe.
And no one to play it."

 "Pooh! If there's one there's a dozen women
here who can thump either spinet or harpsichord.
As you know very wed."

 "Possibly, coz. But I'D have no one thumping my
beautiful Shudi. I have a tender ear for music.
Don't smile. I picked it up in England, the best of
my accomplishments. Indeed I even learned to play
the flute after a fashion. My friend Colonel Went-
worth had a fine skis with the violin surprising in
a soldier  and we formed a little group and
played chamber music on rainy London nights for
our own amusement."

37

 "You astonish me, Your Excellency. I thought
your only interests were trees and horses."

 "You wrong me. Look here, Fan, it's time we
had a musical society here in Portsmouth, and I
intend to make a start. D'you see that footman
over there? He cam play the cello very well.
That's why I brought him out with me. I'm
sending to England for another who can play the
French horn. And Colonel Wentworth is coming
from England to visit me this fall."

"Fiddle and all?"

 "Fiddle and all. So we'll have a little group to
begin with. If you behave yourself nicely you shall
have a part in it. But all that aside, con, I want
some music here tonight. Please try the Shudi for
a few minutes. Then I'll join you with my flute,
and my footman will play the cello."

"So that's what you invited me for!"

 "My dear Fan, I invited you because you're my
very pretty cousin, because your husband's the
Secretary of my Council, and because you're the
daughter-in-law of my Chief Justice. In that order
of importance. And you happen to play the
harpsichord."

 "Very nicely put, my clever sir. Where is your
precious toy in there? I'll see what I can do. But
be warned. I've played nothing for five years but
that old whispering spinet of the Atkinsons."

 The major-domo was bawling again. "Mister and
Missus Woodbury Langdon!" Fannie moved away
to the west drawing room, where she could hear
some idle finger picking at the precious Shudi.

 The house filled. All Portsmouth was curious
about Governor Johrmie's mansion, and now the
privileged ones came to inspect it thoroughly. A
female voice asked leave to explore, and Johnnie
waved a careless hand. From that moment there
was a continual trooping up and down the
staircase and passing from chamber to chamber,
above and below. They even peered into the busy
kitchen, with its new English ovens and a
coppersmith's stock of pots amd pans, polished
like gold, and delicious whiffs and glimpses of the
supper that was to be served late in the evening.
Great kettles of turtle soup; salmon fresh from
the

38

Piscataqua; richly browned chickens and turkeys;
Virginia hams; partridge pasties; wild-pigeon pies;
a confectioner's array of sugar cakes and tarts and
of iced orgeat and capillaire, prepared by Johnnie's
own cook, a man fetched all the way from
fashionable London.

 In the dining room a sideboard held a row of
glass decanters, each slender neck hung with silver
chain and ivory ticket to declare the wine inside. A
table of San Domingo mahogany, polished like a
dark forest pool, gave back the gleams of
candelabra at each end, and in its middle,
surrounded by delicate glasses that blazed in the
light, sat an immense silver bowl of punch.

 Happy and house-proud, Johnnie moved about
enjoying the chatter. Once, finding some ladies
peering into his own bedchamber, he invited them
inside to see his view. The new stable and carriage
house across the lane had been designed long and
low not to spoil it. The house stood on the first
knuckle of the broad green thumb between the
Puddle Creek and South Pond. He swept back
velvet curtains and pointed past the Puddle to the
yellow-lit windows of the town and beyond them to
the masthead lights of shipping at anchor in the
river.

 "On a fine day," he declared, "I can see Mount
Agamonticus over there past Kittery. Forty miles
away think of that!"

 But the ladies had no interest in Agamonticus.
Their eyes with bright feminine curiosity roved
over the dressing table and his silver-mounted
brushes, combs, and powder box; a wardrobe
whose open door gave a glimpse of elegant
London clothes; the rich carpet in which their
painted wooden heels sank as if in snow; the huge
mahogany bed with its tester and valances and
looped curtains.

 Mrs. Langdon and Mrs. Sherburne looked at
each other across the wide counterpane and
giggled. They were lively young wives. Mrs.
Langdon said in a bubbling voice, "If it please
Your Excellency, aren't you afraid of getting lost in
this great bed all by yourself7" A tinkle of laughter
in half a dozen feminine keys.

39

 "I?" Johnnie said gaily. "A qualified surveyor of
His Majesty's Woods?"

 "Oh come, Mr. Wentworth," coaxed Mrs.
Langdon. 'We're all dying to know who's to be
mistress of all this. Some milk-androses English
creature, I suppose. When does she arrive?"

 "Upon my honor, dear Lady, I have nothing of
your sex on the way but a pair of very pretty
English mares and they're to sleep across the
lane."

 "You and your nags!" cried Mrs. Livius. "You
can't wed anything on four legs, Johnnie. Confess
now! You haven't set up this handsome home just
to play the bachelor. There's got to be a lady of
the house, and heaven knows it's time you
married. But who? If she's not English, then it
must be some girl you found on the way from
Carolina. Is that it? One of those horsy
Virginians, I suppose."

 Johnnie smiled and shook his twenty-guinea wig.
"Not even one of those, and they grow mighty
handsome girls and horses in Virginia, I can tell
you. Believe me, ladies, you see a bachelor safely
past the perilous twenties, and satisfied to worship
you heavenly creatures from afar, like an
astronomer."

 "A shocking bad example to the young men of
New Hampshire," Mrs. Langdon chaffed.

 "I'm afraid I can't help that. I must make up for
it in other ways. Just now, if you'll forgive me, I
hear music and I must go below. I can't play the
doting benedick for you, but in a few minutes you
shall hear me play the flute, which is not so
difficult. With a flute you call your own tune. One
can't do that with a wife."

 He left them laughing and made his way down
the busy staircase. Fannie was running her fingers
over the harpsichord keys, and his musical
footman stood there in patience with his cello
tuned and ready.

"D'you like it, con?"

 "It's beautiful, Johnnie. Too good for a dolt like
me, but never mind. What shall we play? We'd
better try simple tunes that

40

everybody knows, else they mayn't guess what
we're doing at all. We should have practiced
together."

"After this we shall, I promise you."

 "Get your flute then. I suggest we begin with
"Early One Morning" or "Drink to Me Only."
Everybody knows those. They may even sing and
drown our mistakes."

 So they began, falling into discords now and
then at which Mrs. Theo shuddered, but the
guests came crowding about them, and first one
voice was raised, then three or four, and soon the
whole company was singing. The gentlemen had
been passing a good judgment on the punch, and
the deft English servants made sure that no lady
was without a glass and no glass without wine.
With these useful accompaniments the musical
part of the evening was a success that even
Johnnie's flat notes could not spoil.

 Then it was time for that tremendous supper,
and after that for the toasts to His Majesty, to the
Ladies, and to our Excellent Host. At last the
carriages rolled away under the weak morning
stars, and Johnnie could retire to that vast and
lonely bed. He was lost in sleep the moment his
head touched the pillow, as if there were no
women in the world.

 Back in the older part of the town, in the
privacy of their own bed curtains, young Mrs.
Langdon recounted the high points of the party to
a husband reflecting drowsily on the evening's
fare.

 "You know do stop yawning, Woody, and
listen to me I think he meant it. About not
marrying, I mean. And then that little speech
after the last toast, saying he wished to devote his
life to New Hampshire, and all that. When he
said he'd live to see this colony the greatest in
New England his voice was, well, passionate."

 "Oh, Johnnie likes to be a little pompous, duck.
He wouldn't be old Benning's nephew if he
wasn't."

 "He's nothing like Benning. I tell you, when
Johnnie said that, he had a look in his eyes like a
monk who's taken the vows. Really! As if women
didn't mean a thing to him and never had. Do you
suppose there's something lacking in the man?"

41

 A male snort from the adjoining pillow. "Stuff!
Johnnie's all man in spite of those dancing-master
ways he picked up in England. He's kissed more
than ladies' hands, depend on it, if half we hear of
London society is true. Johnnie probably had too
much of 'em in those four years he was gone.
Even good cider loses taste if you go too often to
the keg. He'll get over that. He'll marry, you may
be sure, if only to carry on his branch of the
Wentworth dynasty. And when Johnnie takes a
wife, it won't be some little goody pushed at him
by you matchmaking wives of Portsmouth."

"Who, then, if you know so much?"

 "Ah, that's the question. Some girl of a
fashionable society, that's sure, one who can play
the Governor's lady to his own standard. She must
have looks, of course, and money. A lot of money.
That's as plain as Johnnie's debts as plain as the
nose on old Mark's face."

"Then why didn't he marry some English heiress?"

 "Because he wants an American, I suppose.
Under that fancy English wig our Johnnie's still
clear white pine, from heart to bark. Oh, Johnnie
didn't come home by way of the southern colonies
just to look at trees and horses, my dear duck.
Those southern planters all have daughters and
dollars, and they're not afraid to part with 'em
when the right kind of gentleman comes along.
Ha! They don't pinch their money down there.
They're not like our aristocrats. Look at old
Benning, that greedy moneybags. Look at his
brother Mark, for that matter, or brother Hunk.
Look at old Atkinson, the way he clings to his
post as Chief Justice, the way he got son Theo the
post of Secretary to the Council, and the way both
of 'em collect their salaries to the penny, as if the
old man hadn't one of the biggest fortunes in
these parts. Maybe it's the climate. Maybe a rich
man up here gets cold and tight with the winters."

"You sound like one of those noisy Boston
levelers."

 "God forbid. To get back to what I was saying,
one of these days you'll see Johnnie Wentworth
bring home a Virginia

42

fortune all wrapped up in a pretty bundle of
petticoats, and that'll be the end of all this prattle."

"That remains to be seen," said Mrs. Langdon
darkly.

 "Ah, you women you'll never believe a man can
get along without you. If he does, there's
something wrong with him. I tell you Johnnie's just
a man with one idea fixed in his mind. After the
bad record of old Benning Wentworth he wants to
be the best governor we ever had, the Wentworth
who made New Hampshire big and famous. His
noddle's too full of that to leave room for a woman
or anything else just now. This is what he says, and
call it a fantastic dream if you like, but at least it's
better than Governor Benning's lackadaisy ways.
Johnnie swears we must open the back country and
settle it quickly. The New Yorkers are claiming the
whole backwoods clear to Canada, did you know
that? Massachusetts wants a big chunk too. Where
do we come in? Johnnie says we've got to busy
ourselves, or New Hampshire will be left with a
cleared patch on the coast we'll be left sitting
with OUt tails in salt water, like a hungry cat when
the meat's gone into the pickle barrel."

"What's he propose to do about it?"

 "To begin with, he'll cut a road right through the
forest to the mountains. Oh yes! He knows that
back country well. He and Ammi Cutter and some
other bold fellows even ranged out lands for
'emselves at Winnipesaukee years ago, when the
Prench and Indian War was still going on. Johnnie
says he'll clear an estate and build a mansion up
there for his 'country seat,' end he thinks everyone
will scramble to follow his example. He talks of
farms and sawmills and gristmills in the wilderness
as if he could actually see 'em. Even dreams of a
college up that way somewhere a college! a
place where our New Hampshire boys can go for
an education, instead of trapesing off to Harvard
College and wasting their fathers' money in Boston.
Oh, you should hear him! He talks of 'opening new
townships' all over the backwoods as if they were
clams at a penny a bucket. Says new people will
flock into the woods once we get roads cut. People
from every colony north of New York even from
England. Says there's no

43

reason why New Hampshire can't have a hundred
thousand people double what we've got now in
a matter of ten years."

It was Mrs. Langdon's turn to say Stuff, and she
said it.

 "Stuff if you like," her husband said, "but trust
our Johnnie to give it a good try. Of course it's
hopeless. The only land fit to Flow is right down
here in the lower river valleys. I give him five
years less to butt his handsome head against
the granite boulders and pine stumps up there in
the hills. Then you'll see him calm down, take a
wife, and play the little king of Portsmouth like
his uncle and grandfather before him. Now go to
sleep."

 While this conversation was going on, another
crackled in a big white house looking out upon
the salty gleam of Islington Creek at the north
end of the town. Mr. Peter Livius and his wife
also were engaged with the evening's affair. A
well-to-do Englishman with a law degree, he had
met and married a breezy New Hampshire girl
when she was visiting in London, and the bride
had induced him to cross the sea and settle in
Portsmouth. Here they lived in much style,
although Mr. Livius was inclined to look down his
nose at the little colonial pomps and customs of
the place.

 "You can say what you like about the
Wentworths," said his spouse amiably, twisting her
hair for the night. 'What if they do run this
province as if they owned it? Wouldn't you in
their place? Johnnie's going to make a good
governor, you'll see. And if he brings a bit of
London tone to our little society here it'll do the
place some good. You said as much for yourself
when we came and built this house, remember?"

 "That was five years ago. I've got used to your
smug little Portsmouth, my dear, and so will your
precious Johnnie. It won't take him so long.
Behind all his fine manners he's still got the mind
of a backwoodsman. He took some of us over the
lane to see his new stables tonight, and we had to
listen to a long harangue about the value of the
wilderness up there to the north. There may be
something in what he says, mind you. I've a nO-
tion to buy some land in what the deuce is the
name of it? That

44

fanciful township he and some others laid out years
ago. Wolfe something General Wolfe was killed
at Quebec about that time."

'Wolfeborough."

 "Ah! Well, it seems to me Governor Johnnie's
got an eye to the main chance, like all the
Wentworths. If half his plans come true, he and his
friends can make a pretty penny from the lands
they hold up there."

 'What's wrong with that?" cried Mrs. Livius. "Isn't
that honest speculation? They bought the grant
with good money, and they risked their scalps to
run the lines. The Indians didn't make peace till
long after General Wolfe died fighting up in
Canada. My ancestors took chances like that too.
So did Johnnie's. It's not like that fat old Benning,
never risking a hair and taking lands all over the
country for nothing."

"I still say they're birds of a feather the
Wentworth feather."

 "If you're smart, Mr. Livius, youll pay more
respect to His Excellency."

 "His Excellency! Bah! His Excellency's
great-grandfather kept a tavern, you told me that
yourself."

 "Oh, Peter, you dyed-in-the-wool snob, you! For
heaven's sake, bend that stiff English neck of yours
and try to see this country as it is; It's no good
sneering behind your hand at the Wentworths and
their circle. The thing is to be part of it. Wouldn't
you like to be Chief Justice? Old Atkinson can't
live forever."

 "He plans to do just that, my dear. Old men in
fat offices have the knack."

"Benning Wentworth lost his, though."

"It took another Wentworth to ease him out."

 'You play your cards properly, and Johnnie may
ease old Theodore out for you. He must want
younger men about him, with all these fine new
plans of his."

"In that case he'd give the post to his cousin Theo."

 "I doubt it I doubt it very much. Theo's no
lawyer. Anyhow, didn't you notice him tonight? A
living ghost. He's had a cough these past two years.
The Atkinsons keep mum about it, but

45

anyone can see it's consumption the galloping
kind. There he was tonight, coughing blood into
a handkerchief in a corner, while that bold snip
Fannie was giving herself airs at the harpsichord."

"Mrs. Theo? She seemed very nice and modest to
me."

 "Because she wore that high-cut gown, I
suppose, while some other ladies were showing
well nigh all they'd got above the stays. Well, if
you want to know, old Mr. Atkinson rules that
house, and he don't approve women showing.
Fannie modest? Ha! A couple of years ago
Fannie went a-visiting to Boston. She does that
every chance she gets, if you've noticed. She's
Boston born and bred, and she finds life dull in
Portsmouth. Well, while she was there she took a
notion to have that Copley man, the painter, to
do a portrait of her. And she posed in a silk gown
that would have thrown old Justice Atkinson into
a fit. Bodice down to here, and the stays laced
tight below. She daresn't take a good breath the
whole time she was sitting, lest she pop her pretty
dumplings. She told me that herself. The picture
was for young Theo, of course. Pearls in her hair
and beads at her throat, and holding a tame
squirrel on a silver chain. Copley likes to paint
ladies with a fine bare show. He likes to paint
that squirrel on a little table at their hand too.
With his own tongue stuck halfway through his
cheek, the rogue."

'Why?"

"The squirrel's the tame husband on the lady's
chain."

"Meow!"

 "Meow for Fannie too. Only she's a sly Boston
house-puss, and I'm your honest down-East
wildcat, Peter dear. Which do you prefer?"

 "As one of the tame squirrels?" Mr. Livius
snorted. 'What chance has he got?"

46

                FOUR

Co~oNr;I. MICHABE WI3NTWOR~, sailing up
the estuary in a mast-ship at the summer's end,
found himself in a very new world indeed. His
friend Johnnie had talked mostly of the sport to be
had in America with rod and gun, and of long
wonderful rides and marches in a forest where only
yesterday the savages lurked with tomahawk and
scalping knife.

 None of this had prepared the half-pay soldier
for a prosperous town of four or five thousand
people between the forest and the sea. He had
thought of wooden houses vaguely as something
made of logs and of the colonists as a half-wild
folk with a sprinkling of educated Johnnies. But
there was not a log hut in sight. Even the cottages
of the fishermen were neat affairs of frame and
shingles or clapboards, and it astonished him to
see so many tall painted mansions, as handsome as
anything in brick or stone across the sea. Later on,
when he saw the inside of them, he marveled
more, noting the stairways, the spacious chambers
with their wainscots and panels, their carved
mantels, their elegant furnishings.

 The mast trade had given these Portsmouth
gentry a direct and regular connection with
England for generations. They wore the latest
London modes, sat in English furniture, rode
English horses on English saddles or bowled
behind them in English carriages. They ate on
English chinaware, with English silver, and drank
from English glasses. Although they sent their sons
to Harvard College, they lived independent of
bustling Boston, a scant hundred miles down the
coast, as if Boston did not exist.

 At the age of forty Colonel Wentworth carried
the neat figure of a riding man with a military air
that made him look younger

47

by ten years. He was handsome in a florid way
that came partly from the wars and hunting fields
and partly from a taste for good sound port.
Johnnie's town surprised him, and he was even
more surprised to find that this colonial society,
which enjoyed so many things beyond his own
slim purse, regarded him with a great respect.
Why? Because he was not only a Wentworth but
a Wentworth actually related to an English lord!

 In England that had got him nowhere. There
were so many lords and so many connections
better than his own. Yet even his friend Johnnie>
who was always proud to call himself an
American, seemed to have a devout regard for
English nobility. He heard Johnnie dropping great
names like Rockingham into parlor conversations
as a boy might drop stones in a pool, enjoying the
ripple they caused and never mentioning the
titled sharpers, rakes, and scoundrels he had met
in the house in Poland Street. To Colonel
Michael this was nonsense. He was a penniless
younger son, sent into the army as a matter of
necessity. The years of war abroad had given him
a humorous contempt for the idle castes at home.
And now in America he found a liking for these
colonial aristocrats who had got where they were
by their own efforts, who actually boasted that
their own ancestors, two or three generations
back, had been poor fishermen or farmers,
grubbing for a living with one hand and fighting
off savages with the other.

 However he soon found other sides to
Governor Johnnie. Johnnie could hold court in
this little kingdom of his with the ease of a
monarch born. But the same Johnnie, with the
same ease, could set off through the woods in
buckskins and moccasins and live for weeks in the
rude fashion of the forest rangers. Indeed Johnnie
was amazing. He could ride a hundred miles in a
summer day when the roads were fit. In the
forest, where there were no roads at all, he could
stride forty between dawn and dark, pausing only
to glance at his compass now and then. When
night came he would sit in the firelight with
pencil and notebook, jotting details of the
landscape, the timber, the soil, and sketching a
map of the country he had passed

48

all this before he permitted himself to sleep. He
never hesitated on these forest journeys to throw
himself on a few poles or a hollow log to cross the
rivers, although he could not swim. And in hunting
game he could shoot as straight as any of the
mountain rangers, of whom people told such
fabulous tales.

 It was this Johnnie Wentworth, not the polished
Governor of the Portsmouth drawing rooms, who
held the friendship of the hunters, the small
farmers, the tough unruly mast loggers of the
Piscataqua. And the mastmen were one of his chief
problems. He was determined to carry out his
duties as Surveyor General of the King's Woods.
Uncle Benning, well aware that his own forest
dealings could not stand the light of day, had been
lax about the mast law. Many a pine bearing the
King's broad arrow and his own big W. clearly
marked by his deputy surveyors, had been stolen
and floated boldly down to the Portsmouth
shipyards or sold to sawmills at the falls.

 To Johnnie this was a serious matter. Nobody
knew better than he that the demands of a century,
and especially the last French war, had played
havoc with the biggest and best pines. Those that
still stood within short haul of a tidal river or the
coast itself were getting scarce. He kept his
deputies ranging the woods for them and carving
his official JW under the broad arrow. He visited
logging camps large and small, stopping a night or
a day with the men, sipping their raw Medford
rum, capping their rude jokes with witty ones of his
owr, and then in a quiet moment announcing that
the new JW on the King's trees meant a quick
prosecution for anyone who cut one without his
leave.

 'Who'll persecute?" drawled one of them, an old
companion of his own mast-cutting days. "Hey?
Who'll persecute us, Johnnie?"

 "I," said Johnnie frankly. "Myself no matter
who's guilty, no matter how far I have to go to find
him."

 He meant it, and as the months went by he
proved it again and again. Once, traveling through
the snow and biting cold of January weather, he
arrested some mast thieves on a distant river and
brought them to Portsmouth gaol, a round journey
of three

49

hundred miles in sixteen days. On these
expeditions he seldom had more company than a
servant or one of his deputy rangers. He was
afraid of nothing, in the forest or out of it.

 Colonel Wentworth admired all this. He could
see the point of it. But then there was Johnnie's
studious side, which the soldier could only deplore
as a sad waste of time. This was the Johnnie who
pored over books of natural history and science,
who read the classics of ancient Greece and
Rome, who carried on a busy correspondence
with odd fish of every sort from archbishops to
architects, who was always gathering specimens of
New Hampshire minerals, plants, birds, and
animals and sending them off to his friends
abroad. Night after night when the Colonel,
drowsy with negus, had tumbled into bed, the
candles burned on in Johnnie's library.

 This, decided the Colonel, was a freak of
nature, like his own unsoldierly flair for the violin.
He indulged his flair a good deal now, in company
with Johnnie's flute, with the footmen who played
the cello and French horn, and with Mrs. Frances
Atkinson at the harpsichord. There was a musical
evening at least once every summer week in the
Govemor's house when he was at home, and as
often as three times a week when winter set in
and put a curb on His Excellency's restless travels.

 Sometimes young Theo accompanied his wife up
the rough lane past Puddle Dock and sat the
evening through, regarding the musicians with his
white face and haunted eyes like a specter at a
wedding feast. Usually she came alone. On wet
evenings Johnnie sent his coachman in the little
chaise for her. In fine weather she chose to walk,
and Johnnie or Colonel Michael went down to the
Puddle footbridge to meet her, in case some
drunken fisherman wandered across her path.

 Privately, Mrs. Fannie marveled at their
pleasure in the sounds they made about the
harpsichord. Often they kept her late, scraping
and squealing and tootling hour after hour, but
she never gave a sign that she was tired or bored.
Usually it was Colonel Michael who noticed a late
strike of the clock, and then after a nibbled biscuit
and a glass of His Excellency's best Oporto

50

she made her way home, escorted to her door by
one or both of them.

 One night, sauntering back from this little duty
together, the soldier said lightly, "You know,
Johnnie, sometimes these people of yours, specially
the women, seem prudish as a set of parsons'
wives. Yet nobody cocks an eyebrow at a young
married woman visitin' the Governor's house
without her husband, and at night."

 "Fannie?" Johnnie said, surprised. "Everybody
knows about our little musical club. Besides, she's
my cousin."

"And a very charmin' one."

'What d'you mean by that7"

 "Oh nothin' nothin'. Mrs. Theo's the image of
modesty and all that, my dear feller. Still, I can't
help thinkin' sometimes what a dash a gel like that
could cut in London, say, with those eyes tipped in
that tight little face of hers, and that figger, and
the way she walks."

"What way does she walk?"

 "Um, well, as if she had legs. Most of our
English ladies move as if they just had wheels."

"You're very observant," Johnnie said stiffly.

 "Oh, I'm just not blind, my boy. And that
husband of hers don't seem up to snuff, if you
know what I mean. Oh, a nice polite feller, y'know,
but a fish. A nice polite fish, with very little blood,
and that cold."

 "Theo has a touch of the consumption. His
family never mention it, but he's obliged to mind
his health."

 Colonel Michael noticed a chill in His
Excellency's voice and dropped an unimportant
subject. The Johnnie he liked best was the one
who took him shooting in the woods and marshes
up the Piscataqua. He had mastered its crackjaw
name ("Pis-KATa-kwa, Pis-KAT-a-kwa phew!"),
and he had discovered that the "river" was largely
an arm of the sea, curving around the town and
opening a broad wet hand whose tidal fingers
wandered into the country for miles. A few short
streams fell into it, and at their mouths lay salt
meadows and reedy channels where in autumn the
flocks of wild duck had to be seen to be believed.
And there

51

were shoals in the basin behind the town where,
under a boat's keel, the long eel grass could be
seen swaying with the tidal currents like the hair
of a drowned giant. On these shoals in autumn
the south-flying wild geese gathered in thousands,
diving to feed on the roots of the green sea grass,
honking in a chorus that could be heard in the
town itself, and resting together like dark rafts on
the shallow water.

 At home the soldier had often ridden down
from Yorkshire for a few days' fowling in the
Lincoln fens, but he had never dreamed of
anything like this. Lying with Johnnie by the
shore in crude brushwood blinds, on the wet and
windy mornings that were best for gunning, or in
a flatboat hidden in the reeds, he blazed away to
his heart's content. For this sport they sailed on
a flooding tide from Portsmouth aboard one of
the gundalows that carried freight to the up-tide
settlements. The Englishman enjoyed a spell at
the tiller on the way, especially in the tricky
tiderace between Dover and Bloody Point.

 He pronounced the word "gondola," although
the name seemed to him absurd for such stubby
and beamy craft. They were open for the most
part, with a short deck forward and another aft
where the cabin was. In the forward deck stood a
single mast, spreading a big lateen sail. They
reminded him somewhat of Thames barges.
Indeed the whole aspect here reminded him of
the Thames mouth; the broad water, more sea
than river the low green slopes of the fields, the
patches of woodland, the small farmhouses, the
pleasant smell of hay at harvest time, an
occasional windmill spinning its arms in the wind,
the coming and going of gundalows and shallops,
the tall-masted ships from the ocean sailing in to
the heart of the land.

 He remarked this to Johnnie one day, and His
Excellency looked about him.

 "Mmm, yes. Though to me it's more like that
bay around the corner from the Thames, where
you go in to Chatham. All itdacks is the
men-o'-war anchored in Chatham roads. Someday
we'll have those too."

'What the dooce for?"

52

 "Someday the Lords of Admiralty will see the
folly of fetching masts and ship timber across the
Atlantic, when they could build the ships here and
save all that expense. Our shipwrights are as good
as any in England. In fact our people built one or
two fiftygun ships for the Royal Navy in the old
French wars. I keep that in mind. You'll see a time
when our Portsmouth here will be a naval town as
busy as your English one, or Chatham."

 "Nonsense, Johnnie Dockyards must be close to
the enemy, not the woods. Who's there to fight,
this side of the ocean? The French left Canada
four years ago, bag and baggage."

 "And you don't think they'll come back? I say
they will, one of these days when they see their
chance. The Canadians are still French to the
heels, they'll never be anything else, and as soon as
a French fleet comes in sight they'll be rousing the
Indians again. When that day comes we'll want
good American troops we can't expect your
redcoats to defend us forever. That's why I'll insist
on keeping our New Hampshire militia trained and
armed. We're too close to Canada for chances."

 Colonel Michael grinned. "You'll have a job to
convince your Assembly. That costs money."

 "Oh, I have another argument there, and a good
one," Johnnie said. "Just now there's a scramble to
claim the backwoods up Canada way. New York
and Massachusetts want 'em all. And what about
New Hampshire? My uncle Benning issued a good
many land grants up there in the mountains, but he
never prepared to defend the claims. Well, I shall.
I intend to see this province as big as New York,
and I hope I live long enough to see it as rich. Just
now, of course, the other colonies look down their
noses at us. We're too small to count, by their
reckoning. So we've got to show 'em that we do
count. See here, all the lands east of Lake
Champlain belong by right to New Hampshire. Our
woodsmen were the first to explore 'em, and our
rangers under Colonel Rogers drove the French
and Indians out of 'em. We claim everything from
here to Canada on the north, and as we're the only
government this side of Boston we should have
everything to Nova Scotia on the east. Someday we
will."

53

'(How?"

 "Possession nine points of the law. We'll cut
roads into the back country and build towns and
villages. We'll back up our possession with a
swarm of well-armed yeomanry. Don't throw me
that quizzical soldier's look of yours, Michael.
New Hampshire could muster ten thousand armed
men even now. They lack discipline, I grant you,
and their muskets are an odd collection, as you've
seen. But I'll mend all that. I won't be satisfied till
I can turn out eight full regiments of foot, all well
equipped, and I'll raise a regiment of horse
amongst the gentlemen. Then, when I go down to
Boston and New York to talk about the New
Hampshire grants, they'll listen to me with
respect. Nobody's going to tramp roughshod over
New Hampshire men if they're armed and ready
for trouble."

 "Gad, Johnnie, I didn't know you could look so
fierce. Forgive me if I smile. I can't help
wondering what would happen at home if
Yorkshire, say, took a sudden fancy to the Lincoln
fens. Imagine ten thousand fen-men turning out
with their trusty fowling pieces to defend their
bogs and ditches. Ha! What a picture!"

 "That's England," Johnnie snapped. '1hese
colonies aren't tight marriage of small counties,
with one government, like yours. For the most
part they're big and separate and ambitious, each
one jealous of the other and out for all the lands
it can grab. When you're playing whist you want
trumps, and in this game of land-grabbing there's
no trump like armed people on the ground in
question. You can talk turkey then. Have you ever
seen Americans at a turkey shoot?"

 Colonel Michael shrugged and said no more.
He thought, Poor Johnnie's new appointments
have gone to his head. He can't bear to think he's
ruling something small. It's got to be big and
important. And he wants to do it all in twenty
minutes. He'll break his heart of course.

 The seasons passed. Colonel Wentworth,
delighted with the new country, needed no
persuasion to stay on indefinitely as

54

Johnnie's guest. In the late autumn of '68, when
snow clouds began to climb the sky and fill the air
at times with the white shake of a torn pillow,
Johnnie took the soldier in a small sailboat to the
harbor mouth. Black duck were feeding in Witch
Creek and Sagamore Creek and whistlers in the
shelter of the islands by Little Harbor. At the end
of a successful afternoon, when their bellies were
empty and their gun shoulders sore, Johnnie
steered the boat into Little Harbor and cast
himself and his friend on the hospitality of Uncle
Benning.

 As they stepped forth on the old Governor's
stone landing place and moved up the slope to the
front door, Johnnie pointed to the original portion
of the mansion, a plain two-story wooden house of
the salt-box kind, common in an earlier day, and
now merely part of a jumble of walls and gables
and roofs that extended down the slope to the
waterside. Roughly the mansion formed three sides
of a square, open to the water, hidden and
sheltered from the land side by a low hill and the
woods.

 He chuckled. "Uncle Benning had a craze for
adding ells and chambers to the old house, year
after year. Nothing stopped him but the tide, as
you see. This thing must have all of fifty rooms.
Imagine trying to wann even half of 'em in a New
Hampshire winter!"

 "Still, it's interestin' in its way and a dooced
pretty situation," Michael observed, looking about
him.

 "You should see the house when the lilacs are in
bloom. See what a mass they make about it. Uncle
Benning claims they're the oldest lilacs in New
Hampshire, and he's probably right."

 The old man, seated in a great padded armchair
before a blaze of birch logs, greeted them heartily
and commanded them to stay the night. Servants
appeared at his shout, and up from the cellar came
a decanter of Madeira.

 '1mto," he wheezed, "and from south-side
vineyards, gentlemen, I can vouch. I had six pipes
of it shipped from Funchal to Jamaica last winter,
and brought 'em up here in a trading schooner in
the spring. Nothing improves Madeira tinto like a

55

good sea-rocking in warm latitudes you know
that, Johnnie, of course."

 Supper followed a feast of roast beef, potatoes,
onions, and squash, of plum pudding and pumpkin
pie, of coffee, port, and brandy. The younger men,
hungry after their day in the cold air, neglected
nothing, but Benning outdid both. The old man's
appetite for food and drink was prodigious.

 Martha Wentworth gave no protest, no reminder
of his gout. If she had ever tried to curb the
uproarious Falstaff of Little Harbor she had given
it up long ago. She sat in her place at the table's
foot, giving quiet directions to the servants but
taking no main part in the conversation. While
Johnnie and Benning talked lands and timber,
Colonel Michael addressed himself politely to her,
noting the piled fair hair, the soft blue eyes, the
placid face. Amiable and a little stoopid, he
thought, like me. Still, she was clever enough to
catch Old Moneybags. Plays the lady direly enough
in a quiet country fashion much better than he
plays the gentleman. What a great barrel of wind and
fat the man *.

 After supper Johnnie remarked that his friend
would like to see over the mansion, and at
Benning's command Martha led them forth with a
candle. She began in the great cellar with its
vegetable bins, its row of puncheons and smaller
casks, and the stalls where a dozen horses had
been sheltered in the old days of Indian raids.
When they came to the Council Chamber the
colonel found himself in a stately room with
paneled walls, a great fireplace, and a beautiful
mantelpiece. Here for years the councilors had
come to the old Governor's summons, in fine
weather by boat, in bad weather on horseback by
the rough track around the creeks. The hearth was
empty and the chamber cold  a chilly
circumstance, thought Michael, for the ladies
carved in wood on both sides of the fireplace.
Each showed a lot of bare bosom with the
well-turned proportions of Martha herself. A quip
hovered on his lips. Who was the model? But he
let it perish there. Martha was moving on,
shivering a little, to show

56

them the billiard room, with its spinet and long
buffet and punch bowls.

 The rest of the mansion was a maze of chambers
and closets and presses, with staircases narrow and
steep, with erratic little landings, windows of all
sorts and sizes, and doors leading off in odd
directions. From the small-paned windows they had
passing glimpses of Newcastle Island, a dark mass
guarding the entrance to Portsmouth, and the
dance of cold starlight ori the water of Little
Harbor and the main channel beyond.

 When they resumed below their host was still in
his chair by the fire, with his swollen and bandaged
feet on a hassock. A brandy bottle stood at his
elbow and there was a half-empty glass in his hand.
His purple face glistened in the firelight. He had
doffed his wig and covered his baldness with a
common red Hannel nightcap.

 'What d'ye think of my house?" he demanded of
the English man.

"It's it's remarkable, sir!"

 "It's the biggest in New Hampshire, Colonel. The
biggest! Some people up to Portsmouth call it
Benning's Folly. Bah! They're mighty proud of
their mansions, up in town, but they can't get over
me having the biggest house in New Hampshire,
away out here at the barber mouth. Folly!

 "You see those muskets in my Council Chamber?
French, all of 'em. Came from Louisburg after our
New England forces took the place in '45."

 He turned a bloodshot eye on Johnnie. "You
take my advice, Johnnie, and keep a good rack of
muskets in your house."

"But the Indians are quiet now."

 "Injuns! Who's talking about Injuns? You weren't
here, you were over in England when we had those
stamp riots back in '65. Ods my life, what a mob!
All the raggle-taggle of the town and countryside.
Sailors, fishemmen, servants black and white
and a Hock o' those wild mastmen from up the
river. God knows who there wasn't, even some that
went by the name o' gentleman. Ranting through
the streets and shouting insults at the King and

57

Parliament, and at me, Johnnie, me! Their own
Governor! There was even some wild talk of
coming away out here and pulling old Benning's
Folly down about his ears. So I kept all those
guns oiled and loaded, and my servants ready, and
saw to my doors. Even made ready at a pinch to
shift my horses from the stable to those old stalls
under the house. And I took care to let all that be
known in town. Oh, 'twas touch and go in these
parts for a time."

'WeD," Johnnie said, "that's all blown over now."

 Uncle Benning poured himself another glass of
brandy, drank a great swig, and gave Johnnie a
leer.

 "You think so, Johnnie? The ladies say you can
see Mount Agamonticus from your bedchamber.
You'd better lower your gaze a bit. Look down to
the mouth of Puddle Dock, where the mob
planted their 'Liberty Polet in '65. It's still there.
They never took it down. And now. those damned
fools in London are up to their mischief again, my
Johnnie, like puppies in a backwoods pasture that
ain't got sense enough to let a porcupine alone.
This time it's duties on all tea, glass, and paper
coming into America, and the devil knows what
else. What's more, they're out to stop the habit of
smuggling in America, so they say. So now we
have a new swarm of customs officers, and
gaugers, and tidewaiters, along o' His Majesty's
revenue cutters, a lot o' busybodies poking their
noses into every hole and corner of the coast.
They'd find nothing but trouble, mark my words.
And that means trouble for you, Johnnie, you!"

 Colonel Michael wondered humorously how
many of those casks in the cellar had ever seen a
gauger's rod. But the old man was drunk of
course. And it was time for bed. He arose,
tapping polite fingers over a yawn, and Johnnie
arose with him. A pair of servants appeared with
candles and led them to chambers in an upper
part of the house toward the sea.

 In the morning they sailed their boat home, past
Pull-andbe-damned, on a coming tide and a stiff
east wind. Michael blew on his cold hands and
laughed.

"That's a rare old pirate, your uncle. I see now
why he lives

58

so far out of the way, down there at the harbor
mouth. He can smuggle his own wines and spirits
ashore, and nobody in town the wiser."

"A low suspicion," Johnnie said with a grin.

 "Anything in that tipsy talk of his? Trouble over
taxes and all that?"

 "Something, something. Oh, I can keep our
people quiet if Sam Adams and those other hot
men in Boston will let us alone  and if London
will use some common sense. Those purblind
fellows over there in Parliament! They learnt
nothing from the stamp affair. Now they've sent
two regiments of redcoats to Boston to back up
their customs collectors, and all Massachusetts is in
a boil. Sam Adams and his friends have been
scratching off letters and sending 'em to every
Assembly in the colonies, including mine. A pretty
kettle of fish."

"And what's your recipe for the fish, Johnnie?"

 "Time! Parliament's got to give us that. Taxing
the colonies without their consent is damned bad
policy. Taxes have to be raised. The French war's
got to be paid for, and we should pay something
toward the cost of the King's fleet and army, I sup-
pose, if we want their help in the future. But it
should be our own choice, damme. That will take
time and patience. Our Assemblymen hate a tax of
any kind, even for our own neces$ities. And the
choice has got to come from them."

'What are you doing about it?"

 "Using every influence I have with our Council
and Assembly, persuading 'em to set up a proper
system of taxation to raise money for our own
needs first of all. You can't have good government
without that. The rest will come with patience and
a bit of schooling on both sides of the water.
You'll observe I'm not dealing merely with my
Council and Assembly, I move amongst the people,
talking with 'em in their homes and camps and the
cabins of their sloops. They tell me their troubles,
and I give 'em mine, a fair enough exchange. And
we don't mince words. For every man who calls me
Governor or gives me Sir there are ten who know
me as plain Johnnie Wentworth, one

59

of themselves, a surveyor who used to cruise the
woods with the mastmenand knows the country
like a book. Oh, they think I'm a little touched
with my dream of a New Hampshire bigger than
all the rest of New England put together, but they
can see the sense of making roads and suchlike
toward that. If all His Majesty's Governors are
doing what I am, there'll be no serious trouble in
Americ-a. Because I'm not just talking to my own
people. I'm writing Paul Wentworth and Lord
Rockingham and everyone else with influence in
London that I can reach. And I'm saying that
these officious new customs men are rattling at a
hornet's nest look at Boston. And the soldiers
can only make it worse."

'Lou begin to sound like your uncle Benning,"
Michael said.

 'The old man was right. I daresay he thanks
Gad every night that I'm in the Governor's seat,
not he."

 "Did you foresee any of this, Johnnie, when you
came home?"

 "No. When the news came of Townsend's death
last year I thought that was the end of his
harebrained scheme for taxing the Americans. I
still can't believe Parliament will go on with it,
any more than they did with the Stamp Act. If
there's one spoonful of brains in the lot of 'em
they'll drop these new taxes, call their soldiers
home, and give us a chance to work out some
kind of imperial revenue through our own
assemblies."

 The boat was abreast of Four Tree Island now,
and Johnnie put the tiller over and swung in to
the mouth of the Puddle Creek. On one side lay
Point-of-Graves, where the town's first settlers
slept under their cold stones. On the other stood
a tall spar of pine, firmly stuck in the earth and
pointing to the dark sky overhead. Colonel
Michael had never noticed it before. But now,
following Johnnie's somber gaze, he examined the
thing curiously. So this was a Liberty Pole. It did
not look like much.

60

FIVE

tar

HE W=1~R passed with a depth of snow amazing
to Colonel Michael and a cold that seemed to
blow straight from the North Pole. Indoors the
climate was much more genial, however, with an
unfailing blaze of hardwood fires, very cozy with
the harsh wind scraping at the panes outside, and
from house to house an endless round of dining
and wining and cards. He even enjoyed the
American outdoors, well wrapped in furs, dashing
about the frosty town in Johnnie's sleigh, to the
cheerful tune of harness bells and the cold squeak
of runners on the snow. The white road to the
Govemor's mansion was always beaten smooth,
for Johnnie's hospitality was famous even in this
hospitable town, and an endless stream of callers
came on provincial business as well.

 From time to time Johnnie vanished into the
forest upriver, tramping on snowshoes with one of
his lean rangers, and was gone for days. The little
musical circle flourished, however, and the best
soirees of the winter were those in which the
Govemor himself played the flute, bending over
Fannie's shoulder to peer at the music, or pausing
like a music master to beat time while the
company sang. Colonel Michael found himself say-
img aloud at one of these affairs, "So this is
savage America!" He was solemn with wine at the
time, but in the lively company this passed for wit,
and everyone in Portsmouth quoted it as the mot
of the season.

 The New Hampshire spring was a trial, a long
and weary dallying between winter amd summer,
and from Johnnie the soldier reamed a bit of
doggerel, imitating the nasal New England country
tones as best he could:

6

Fust it blew and then it spew, Then i' iriz and
then it them, Then co1ne rain  An' friz again.
Sure as one and one make tew.

 At last the frost and snow and rain were gone.
Each day the sun stood taller in the sky, the
streams ran full, and the silent woods and
pastures came alive with birds alighting from the
south. Johnnie had been itching for this time, and
off he went with Michael to his "estate" in the
backwoods. They left town by the river road,
crossed over by ferry to Dover Point, and rode on
through Dover village and into the woods.
Johnnie had cajoled the various land grantees
along the route to cut their part of the road in
some cases he had canceled the grants, sold the
lands, and used the money to pay axmen and
teamsters working on what he declared a King's
highway. Now it was passable on horseback fifty
miles into the wilderness. Already people were
calling it the Governor's Road. Colonel Michael
had his own opinion of a "road" that was nothing
so far but an ax-cut slit in the forest, cluttered
with stumps and boulders, with dangerous pole
bridges over the streams and quivering causeways
of loose logs and brushwood thrown down in the
boggy places. In the last stretch, where the land
began to lift in hills and ridges, the ground swell
of the mountains, the "road" became a mere trail,
cut no wider than the span of a man's out-
stretched arms, the accepted measure of the
pathfinders.

 After two days of rough travel they reined up
their horses on the crown of a hill, and at last had
a view of something more than trees. Before them
the shaggy mass of pine woods dropped away to
a blue spread of water.

 "Behold!" Johnnie cried, pointing with his riding
crop. "My country seat! The water's called Smith's
Pond, after the hunter who found it years ago.
Most of the land you see along this end of it is
mine."

62

 "Pond? Zounds, we'd call that a lake in England!
Must be all of two miles long."

 "It's nearly four, my friend, and two or three
miles wide. It spills down a short stream into
another lake twenty miles long  like a big horse
trough in the hills and full of islands. We call
that by the Indian name, Winnipesaukee. See that
green hill, the one shaped like a sleeping woman?
That's Copplecrown, and Winnipesaukee lies
beyond."

 The soldier chuckled. "Winny pe-SAW-kee. Gad,
that's nearly as bad as Pis-KAT-a-kwa. What
names! Thank God for Smith, whoever he was.
And where does this Winny-pe-SAWkee flow?"

"Into the Merrimac River, and that way to the
sea."

 They rode on down the slope, following the
ax-cut path. The horses picked their way around
fresh stumps that still bled beads of gum like
beeswax. The woods were chiefly pine, tall of
trunk, with a somber green gloom under their
crowns where nothing grew but moss. Johnnie
pointed out some giants among them. Each bore
a new ax-blaze, white in the rugged brown bark,
with the broad arrow of His Majesty and Johnnie's
own JW carved in the wood by a sharp knife.

 "How the dooce could His Majesty ever get these
things to the sea, Johnnie?"

 "Oh, the mastmen could haul 'em with oxen to
my pond, float 'em down to Winnipesaukee, and
thence by the Merrimac River to the coast."

 Gammon! thought the soldier. Still, it's a
preposterous country, and they do preposterous
things. He thought of the mast roads on the upper
reaches of the Piscataqua, each hacked through
the woods as straight as a sword cut to the river;
the giant logs, up to a hundred feet long and
weighing God-knewwhat, slung by chains to the
axles of great wheels that stood sixteen feet high;
the long procession of oxen, sometimes fifty or
sixty pairs yoked to the load; and the whole thing
groaning slowly but surely down the "road" to the
river. Gad!

After a time they caught a whiff of burning
brushwood and

63

rode into a fiat open space that gave a full view
of the "pond." The whole clearing was dotted with
black stumps, some still smoldering. In its edges
they could see the liash of axes, and heaps of
green brushwood Haming and pouring black
smoke into a breeze that blew it away across the
water. A cluster of small log huts stood in this
charred desert, about a quarter mile from the
shore, and in the midst of them gaped a large
rectangular hole, with a rim of earth and stones
thrown out of it.

'What's that?" Michael said, stabbing a finger.

'1he cellar of my house."

 They rode to the spot, and the Englishman
whistled, measuring the hole with a careful eye. It
was more than a hundred feet long and forty
wide.

 Johnnie pointed eagerly. "My grain barn's to
stand yonder, a big one, the size of the house
itself. And over here I'll have a stable and coach
house one building sixty by forty. Back there,
by that granite boulder, I'll have another barn,
sixty by forty, for my cattle and hay. And of
course there'll be other buildings for the care of
the estate a dairy, a forge, a carpenter's shop,
and so forth."

"And is that all?" The soldier cocked an Conical
brow.

 "For present plans, yes. I'll think of more later,
no doubt. As for the land itself, in two or three
years' time I'll have the whole east side of the
pond cleared, just leaving the biggest of the
hardwood trees for shade oaks and maples and
suchlike. I intend a six-hundred-acre park, with a
herd of deer and a fence they can't jump.
Between the house and the water there'll be forty
acres of garden, with a stone wall on three sides.
And that way you can't see it, but it's less than
a mile from the house I've got a beautiful
savanna."

'What's that?"

 "A big meadow, with a brook flowing through it
from the woods to the pond. I intend to drain and
Flow the savanna and plant it to rye rye grows
well in such places."

 "All these buildin's you talk about how d'you
propose to get buildin' material up here, twenty
leagues from anywhere?"

64

 A sweep of Johnnie's riding crop. "It's growing
all about you. I'll have my foundation beams
ax-hewn out of clear pine logs. I'll have my
shingles split from cedar, which will stand the
weather as long as I live. Clapboards the same.
For the boards and beams I'm putting up a
sawmill in the edge of the woods, where the brook
drops down to the savanna. By-and-by I'll bring in
stones and have a gristmill there, too, in time for
my first crop of rye."

 "But bricks, nails, iron, mortar you can't
conjure stuff like that out of your blessed woods,
Johnnie. And what about furniture and all that?
You can't bring such things over that goat path
you call a road. And it 'ud take a thousand men
workin' for years to make it fit for a wagon,
considerin' all the bridges, and so forth."

 "You don't know America," Johnnie said. "You'll
see it fit for a glass coach in three years, maybe
less and with no more than a hundred men. In
the meantime Ill bring in my materials that way."
He waved a hand toward the green breast of the
sleeping woman.

"How?" It sounded madder and madder.

 "Winnipesaukee. l hat lake, twenty miles long,
which you can't see. There's a track from the old
settlements to Merry Meeting Bay at the foot of it.
Our rangers cut it through the woods in the
French war, and it's passable now for ox wagons.
I'll build a gundalow on Winnipesaukee to float
my stuff up as far as Wolfeborough. From there I
can haul it by sled in winter to my own pond, or in
summer I can drag it up the stream in boats with
track-ropes. And on this pond I'll have another
gundalow to sail everything across to my landing,
down there where I'm pointing now. I've found a
good clay on the shore of Winnipesaukee, and I
can bake all the bricks I want right there. It's a
simple matter to build a kiln, with all the woods
for fuel."

 Colonel Michael ran his gaze over the burnt
stumps, the boulders, the raw hole in the ground,
the green riot of forest

6y

and mountain running on to some invisible
mystery called Canada.

 "Oafs my life, Johnnie, if I didn't know you so
well I'd say you'd got moonstruck sleeping in the
open on your travels. What the dooce put all this
into your head?"

 "Lord Rockingham's estate in Yorkshire. Oh, I
don't aspire to anything so grand of course. After
all, it took a generation and a fortune in his case,
though mind you it wouldn't take so much time
and money here. This is America, my friend,
where we can do things quickly. Someday, not far
off either, this country will be as rich as fifty
Englands, and when that day comes our American
gentlemen will have estates to compare with any
in the old country. You can see some even now in
Virginia and Carolina. I'm setting a small example
to our own gentlemen at Portsmouth. A mansion
in town and another well back in the country. But
that's not my chief object. For a hundred years
the French and Indians harried our settlements so
badly that all our folk kept close to the sea. It
became a habit, and a habit's hard to shake. So
I'm out to prove that the backwood country's not
only safe but good to farm. I'm going to open up
this wilderness and let the daylight in clear to
Canada before I'm through."

 Here he goes again, thought the Englishman.
The phrase had been on Johnnie's lips all through
the winter. He broke in hastily.

"Yes, yes, I know all that but . . ."

 Johnnie was firmly straddled on his hobbyhorse.
"You see those woods beyond my pond? Not
there there! toward the north, where you see
the mountains. That's where the Pequawket
Indians used to live. Nearly all gone now. Colonel
Rogers and his rangers drove 'em off to Canada
during the late war; And even Canada's a British
garrison now. As soon as I've got my seat built
here and the land under cultivation I'll cut a road
through the Pequawket country all the way to
Canada. The New Yorkers can get there by way
of Lake Champlain, swapping trade goods for
furs, a mighty profitable business. So we

66

must have a way from Portsmouth. My Pequawket
road will do it. And that's not all."

"Gad's blood, you lasc~nate me, Johnnie. What
Use?"

 "Yonder" another flourish of the riding crop.
"Less than fifty miles from Winnipesaukee on a
compass line there's the valley of a big river, the
Connecticut. It rises in Canada and flows through
our mountain country, then through Massachusetts,
then through the province of Connecticut. Comes
out in Long Island Sound. The Merrimac's not a
patch on it, and our Piscataqua's just a creek.
Settlers from Connecticut and Massachusetts have
been pushing up that valley for years, and now
they're well into New Hampshire where they come
under my government. Yet there's no way to reach
'em from Portsmouth. All their movement and
trade goes the other way, by the river to
Massachusetts."

 Michael grinned. "So you're goin' to change the
course of the river?

 "Laugh away. When I was a youngster no one in
Portsmouth ever gave a thought to the
Connecticut. I didn't give it a thought myself till I
was in England. I met a lot of Americans over
there. One was Colonel Bob Rogers you've heard
about his rangers in the French and Indian Wars.
They fought through all our backwoods country,
right up into Canada. Rogers knew all about the
Connecticut Valley. So did another man I met over
there, a dissenting parson named
Wheelock Eleazar Wheelock. He and an
educated Indian called Occom were in England to
raise money for a mission school. Wheelock's ideas
were modest. He just wanted a school for Indians
and maybe the back-country settlers on the
Connecticut up in New Hampshire territory. That
caught my interest of course. So I gave him money
and introduced him to Paul Wentworth and Lord
Rockingham and some more of my well-to-do
friends."

"I venture they damned you for that!"

 'They blessed Mr. Wheelock beyond all his
dreams, or mine for that matter. Even the King
gave him money. Last year

67

Wheelock and Occom came back to America with
pledges for ten thousand pounds."

"What? You're jokin'."

 '~Ten thousand pounds. Not even Harvard
College had a start like that and Harvard, mind
you, started as a school for Indians and whites
alike, the very thing that Wheelock had in mind.
So when he talked to me in Portsmouth about a
school far up the Connecticut we both began to
see something more  a college. His ideas
rambled all over the map the Indians were first
in his mind of course but I kept bringing 'em
back to the upper Connecticut, the part that's in
New Hampshire. Finally he decided on a place
called Hanover. Over there!"

 Another flourish of the crop. "So I'll cut a road
across to Hanover."

"From this patch in the woods) Why?"

 "In the first place to join Hanover with my road
to the coast, so our Portsmouth people will have
a direct route to the college. In the second place
to serve the people in these parts. It won't be
many years before there'll be more people living
in the back parts of New Hampshire than on the
coast. Oh, I know they chuckle in Portsmouth
when I talk of that. But you're looking at the start
of it, the trickle that begins the flood. We've got
some settlers already on the shore of
Winnipesaukee, and Mr. Livius and some other
Portsmouth gentlemen are buying lands up here.
We'll soon have a real town at Wolfeborough."

"Livin' on what, Johnnie7"

 "On good growing land by the lake shores, once
we've got the rocks and stumps out of it. Plenty of
fodder for cattle in the wild meadows. The stream
from my pond drops thirty feet to Winnipesaukee,
a smart chance for sawmills, as we say. Mast pines
all around the slopes. What more could a man
want; Apart from all that, my Hanover road will
draw the trade of the upper Connecticut
settlements through here to Portsmouth. One of
these days, when I've got my Pequawket road
through the mountains cut and bridged, we'll have
a trade with Canada as well."

68

 Colonel Michael felt a sudden need for drink.
He drew a leather covered bottle from his belt
and took a long pull at some of Johnnie's choice
brandy, warm from the ride. When the smack of
it began to subside within he took another.
Johnnie was still talking of roads and trade and
peopling the wilderness, turning his grey gaze
from Copplecrown to the distant peaks that
shimmered like illusions in the northward haze.
At last he fell silent, lost in that scrutiny.

 Michael spoke then. After the day's hard
journey the brandy sang very pleasantly in his
ears.

 "Zooks!" he said. "Johnnie, I almost believe you
can do it. Not all of it, mind. Not unless you live
twice the age of Methuselah and keep a good
seat in the saddle to the last."

 Johnnie laughed, with a glance at the bottle. "I
might do that too. ~Ihat's impossible in
America?"

69

                 SIX

  ON A WARM BVI1NINC in August 1769
Johnnie rode into

Portsmouth by the road from the Newington ferry,
a dusty figure astride a tired black horse. Ede had
spent weeks at Wolfeborough, riding in like this at
times when his duties in town became urgent, and
he had left Colonel Michael there, enjoying the
fishing and shooting, and watching the "country
seat" slowly taking shape. There was grumbling in
Portsmouth about the Governor who spent so
much time in the woods, there were people who
sneered that the new Governor was worse than the
old, who at least lived at the harbor mouth, but he
faced this discontent with a sturdy defiance,
declaring that when his mansion was ready he
would move up to Wolfeborough bag and baggage.
Fifty miles what was fifty miles in Americas

 There were more people plainly curious. Already
one or two rude inns had sprung up in farmhouses
along the Governor's Road, and these saw
frequent travelers, riding in twos and threes to see
what he was about. And their tales grew with the
telling. Govemor Johnnie was building a "palace"
in the backwoods. He had cleared five hundred
acres five thousand when the tavern pots were
tossing well. He planned to spend ten thousand,
fifteen thousand, twenty thousand guineas. A
vision of something fabulous in the blue haze
toward the hills arose now in every town and
village by the Piscataqua waters. A people whose
faces for generations had been turned toward the
sea were looking over their shoulders.

 Johnnie smiled at the talk. It was not yet time to
say, "I told you so." That would come when his
estate and his Wolfeborough were visible in frame
and roof, with busy sawmills, with

7o

green fields and grazing cattle, and when the
Governor's Road vitas fit to pass the finest
carnages of the gentry. Five years, say. Seven at the
outside. All to be taken day by day. Meanwhile
work and patience work and patience.

 A groom ran out of his stable and caught the
bridle. He descended stiffly and walked across the
road into the house on "Pleasant Street." In the
office chamber he paused in his roadstained riding
boots to shuffle through a heap of letters, picking
out those with official seals from London first and
then the ones from Boston. They were filled with
troubles, especially the Boston letters folk there
were always troubled nowadays. One of the
beauties of Wolfeborough was that you were miles
and days from all these nagging pens. He sighed
and went upstairs. His valet Grose fetched a tin
hip bath, filled it with warm water and placed
towel and wash ball close at hand. He helped His
Excellency out of his clothes and scrubbed His
Excellency's back with the wash ball vigorously.
The back was tanned to the hue of leather, so were
the chest and arms and face, and the hands bore
the dark stains of balsam. Grose had been trained
in Lord Rockingham's household in Yorkshire. He
did not know what to make of a gentleman who
went off into the woods and spent weeks,
apparently naked to the waist and swinging an an
like a common mastman. But Grose had grown
used to it now. Nothing in America could surprise
him.

 "I can do the rest," Johnnie said at last, rising in
the tub. "Fetch me a decanter of good port, some
of that Lisbon Particular from Captain Langdon's
last voyage."

"You'll want something to eat, sir, won't you?"

"Nothing. I supped at the Dover inn."

 The summer night was hot and still. After the
bath he sat naked in a chair, mending the thirst of
his journey. The port was cool from the cellar, and
as it passed his lips there was a rich tang of good
grapes in the mouth and nostrils and then the
genial lift of blood in the body, creeping like warm
honey through the veins. One touch of port like
that deserved another.

71

He drank several glasses. Suddenly there was a
tinkle of music downstairs. He was indignant,
thinking that some servant dared to amuse
himself at the precious Shudi. Then he recognised
the touch.

 Almost at once canoe a knock and a cough at
the door and his valet's voice. "Beg pardon, sir,
but Mrs. Atkinson has come in for some practice
at the harpsichord, the way she does."

 "Ah! Give Mrs. Atkinson my compliments and
say I'll be down in twenty minutes or so. Then
come back and shave me and help me into fresh
clothes."

 It took half an hour, and the tall mahogany
clock in the lower hall was strilting ten when
Johnnie came down the stairs in white breeches
and silk stockings, a ruffled shirt and a green coat
with china buttons. Above the light cravat his face
was as dark as an Indian's. The port glowed
within him. He was a picture of hard male health
and he felt it, a man alive.

 Mrs. Fannie sat at the instrument with her back
to him. For her short walk in the dark she had
put on a long blue cloak with a capuchin hood,
and she kept it about her. She heard his step, for
her fingers ceased flitting, and she said over her
shoulder, "Good evening, Your Excellency."
Johnnie came to her side, picked up one of the
idle hands, and kissed it.

"Good evening, coz. How did you know I was
back?"

 'What makes you think I did? Theo's in one of
his poorly spells, and I felt dull, so I came up to
console myself at your Shudi. I do this quite often
when you're gone, did you know? It's so much
better than our old spinet."

 "Good! A pity we can't summon our own little
group for a musical party. But I left Michael at
Wolfeborough, my French horn's got the mumps
of all things, and my cello's off courting a girl
down by the fish wharves somewhere. I'll get my
flute, though. Aren't you hot in that cloak? Why
don't you take it off?"

 She stood up, holding the cloak about her, with
a faint smile on her lips.

7Z

 "You've never seen Mr. Copley's portrait of me,
have you Johnnie? What do you think of the
original?"

 She tossed off the cloak with a quick movement.
Johnnie saw a silk gown hanging in rich folds
from her hips but fitting her slim waist as the
bark fits a young birch in the forest. Flounces of
fine lace dripped from the short sleeves and
covered her elbows. A narrow froth of the saune
lace marked the bodice top. Above that frail
border appeared a remarkably well-turned portion
of Mrs. Fannie, swelling and sinking as she
breathed.

"Beautiful," he said.

"Gown or me?"

 "Both. Why haven't I seen this charming thing
before? D'you wear it only for painters?"

"Pshaw! Aren't I wearing it for my Governor
tonight?"

"You thought I was miles back in the woods!"

 'Woods a fiddlestick! My dear Johnnie, there's
a view between the houses by the Puddle. I can
look up from my chamber window and see the
west part of your house, including the room
where you sleep in that enormous bed of yours. I
chanced to see lights go up in your chamber
window tonight, so I knew Governor Wentworth
was back from the wilds. And here I am and
there you are, brown as a jug and much more
handsome. Now get your Hute and we'll play."

 She turned back to the harpsichord quickly,
thinking, If I give him a moment's pause he'll
start talking about his stupid mansion up in the
back of nowhere and go an half the night. And
she began to play again. When he came with his
flute Johnnie joined in the music as he did
everything, absorbed and striving for perfection in
every note. For half an hour he tweeted away
with the energy of a lifer at a parade of His
Majesty's Foot Guards, staring over that pretty
white shoulder at the music on the rack, as if it
were the only thing of importance in the world.

 At last she stopped playing, turned her face up
to him, and sniffed.

"Port?"

73

 "Yes. Oh, I'm sorry 1 forget my manners along
with everything else when I take the flute in my
hands. You'd like a sip of something, wouldn't
you, after all this playing in the heat? I'll ring for
wine." He moved toward the gilded tassels of the
bellpull and gave it a jerk.

 When the butler brought a decanter and glasses
they resumed their music, pausing now and then
to refresh themselves. At last Mrs. Fannie closed
her music sheets with a firm little slap.

 "There! That's all for tonight, my Governor.
Phoo! It's hot! Take me down the garden and
show me your summerhouse."

"The night's as black as pitch, coz."

 "There's always some light by the water. Come!
Hand me my cloak."

 They passed through the rear door and went
down the steps to the garden. The gravel of the
walk flowed in slow curves down the slope like a
dim grey stream. Shrubbery loomed and faded
mysteriously as they passed. A humid smell of
loam and a faint scent of flowers hung in the still
air. The tide was on the 'cow out of the long salt
pond. They could hear the distant rush of water
over Titus Salter's dam. Far beyond, seaward
toward the Isles of Shoals, there was a grumble of
thunder.

 At the foot of the garden, as Fannie had
guessed, there was a ghost of light reflected from
the water.

 The summerhouse was a small thing of gilded
latticework, with a pagoda roof. Thin strips of
glass of various length dangled along the eaves
where in any breeze they clashed and made a
tinkling music. It was all in the Chinese style
made fashionable in Hanover and England by a
whimsey of the royal house, and which Johnnie
had seen on country estates outside London.
Inside was a roomy chaise tongue of Madeira
cane, with a heap of cushions. I lere Johnnie liked
to sprawl and meditate on hot afternoons. The
summerhouse was completely open on the water
side, where there was always a cool air. Just now
the tide lapped at half ebb, and the air had a salty
smell from the wet seaweed exposed along the
shore.

74

 "What's this?" Fannie said, finding the chaise
with her knees. She explored it curiously, spread
the cushions and sat down. "Do you sleep out here
on nights like this, Johnnie? I would. I've often
wished we had something like this in our garden."

 "At my new place up in the hills," he mused,
sitting down beside her, "there's a pond much
bigger than this fresh water of course but I get
a cool breeze off the mountains. What's more. . .
."

 "Oh, a fig for your ponds and mountains!
Johnnie you're here just now, and I like this place
well enough. Move down the chaise, please, I want
so put my feet up. There!"

 It was pleasant there in the night, listening to the
tide's chuckle along the shore. A loon cried in the
darkness across the pond. Another answered,
somewhere on the upper reaches of the pond, at
half a mile; first the long sad notes, then the mad
laughter.

"Johnnie," Mrs. Fannie murmured.

"Yes?"

 "Remember how you used to mimic birds like
that for me long ago when I was small, in Boston?"

"Did I? I'd forgotten."

 "I thought you very smart. Much more than
Theo, who couldn't imitate a crow."

"But Theo was clever in other ways con, eh?"

 "Because he married me later on? That wasn't
clever, not on his part. That was Mama. She was
out to match me from the time I turned fifteen.
And along came Theo, well on in his twenties, heir
to a fortune, and one of the Wentworth blood. He
hadn't a chance. No more than I."

 Johnnie chuckled. "put it that way if you like,
Fan. But I remember the precious pair of lovebirds
I found in your garden that day I came with my
wedding gift. What a picture of bliss!"

 "You mean Theo was pleased with me, and at
seventeen I was pleased with the notion of being a
married woman. I wasn't so pleased at twenty."

"Why?"

75

 "Oh, I don't know. Marriage isn't all cakes and
ale, Johnnie. Sometimes it turns out lo be hasty
pudding and small beer. A tedious diet amyhow.
We had no children. Theo was never a robust
man. And then one day Dr. Jackson discovered
the consumption. There's no cure for that, im
spite of all the medicines. And it's such a catching
thing. It's terrifying. You know the rest."

"No.~'

 "That's strange. Everybody else in Portsmouth
does. Our tattling chambermaids made sure of
that. I haven't slept with Theo in the past two
years."

 Johnnie was silent. The subject was
uncomfortable, and he wondered how to turn it
back to their usual easy banter. The loon's
laughter sounded again far up the water, and now
there was a reply im the high dark, a swift beat of
wings, and then the distant splash of the second
bird dropping down to the first.

 "I'm young," said Fannie's voice. "Seven years
married but still only four-and-twenty. I wonder
sometimes. Am I to go on like this till I'm
withered and dry, like some pious old maid that
never knew the pleasure of a man?"

Still he was silent.

"Answer me!"

"It's too hot for riddles tonight, coz."

'1ryl" She prodded him with her outstretched feet.

"I'd rather talk of something else."

 "Something lilte Winnipesaukee, I suppose. Well
it's too hot for that as well. Talk about London,
then. About Vauxhall Gardens, say, where you
and Colonel Wentworth used to amuse yourselves
on nights like this."

'Who said sop"

 '~The colonel, who else) He likes to talk about
such things whenever he can get a pretty lady in
a corner. Nothing impolite of course. Just a gay
little tale and then a pause to see what you'll say.
A buck's hint, in other words. So now, my good
buck, tell me your little tale."

"I don't know any little tales."

76

 "Oh stuff! You don't have to play the polite
Governor with me, Johnnie. And this isn't the
Council Chamber. I think it must be somewhat like
those bowers in Vauxhall Gardens you know,
where London gentlemen dally with naughty ladies
over wine. Can't you pretend? You could kiss me
for a start. Come!"

 Half amused, half bemused, he arose from the
chaise end and bent over her. Except in parlor
politeness he had not touched a woman since those
lighthearted London days when, not in Vauxhall
bowers, but in discreet chambers elsewhere, pretty
ladies of fashion had spared themselves nothing to
entertain a handsome young man from America.

 All that seemed a hundred years ago. The
adventures of another man. There were memories
of course. Sometimes on lonely nights in the forest
they came back to him in dreams, the faces a little
vague, the names half-forgotten, and yet all clear
enough to stir a longing that surprised him. He had
put all that aside when he came back to America.
There was no room for it in his plans.

 And now, the touch of Fannie's lips and the
quick slip of her hands behind his head set a fire
running in him, like a stand of his own pines
touched off by lightning after a long drought, and
with a high wind blowing. Somewhere in the leap
of the flame a cold voice insisted that he must not
make a fool and a villain of Johnnie Wentworth.
But it died away as his lips went from Fannie's
mouth to her throat. The next voice was Fannie's
close and urgent.

'Wait! I'll unlace."

 The thunder muttered away to seaward, and now
and then a flicker of distant lightning changed for
a moment the hot dark in the summerhouse. But
Johnnie was lost in a sea storm of his own, with
waves that swelled and lifted him up to the sky and
dropped him into warm deeps, with the sound of a
wild surf in his ears, with nothing to save him but
a slim pine log, peeled and white, that he clasped
urgently in the storm. There were times when he
fainted alla drowned in a fatal plunge. And then,

77

after a death whose length he could not measure,
he was alive and alone with the white log again
on the mysterious sea, and with new waves rising.

 A dream. All a dream. He was sure of that
when he woke and heard a patter of rain on the
pagoda roof, and an uneasy little wind tinkling the
glasses along the eaves. Then a yawn beside him,
and Fannie's voice.

"It's late, and I'm cold. I must go, Johnnie.
Move!"

"I'll call a groom to harness the chaise."

"No, don't do that, a fuss at this hour. Just help
me dress."

 He was awkward, still in a daze, and after some
fumbling she threw his hands aside with an
impatient little cluck and went on with it herself.
It did not take her long. He had an odd feeling
that she could see in the dark. In a few moments
she was ready to go, with the cloak about her and
the hood drawn over her head.

"I'll walk down with you," he said.

 "No, you won't. As far as old Mr. Atkinson
knows, you're not in town tonight and I've just
been dawdling over your harpsichord and forgot
the time. It's long after midnight, but he may be
up. How far can you trust your servants?"

"Absolutely. Why7"

"Then we can practice again as often as we like."

"Music}"

 "Of a kind." She giggled. "You play a lady much
more sweetly than you do the flute, coz."

 The fire had gone out of him. He felt
exhausted, while Fannie seemed refreshed by the
past two hours, and the light voice gave him a
sick twinge and set him thinking suddenly of
Theo.

 He heard himself stammering, "Fannie, I . . .
I've got to leave for the woods again in the
morning. And I . . . Ill be gone the rest of the
summer. Yes, and part of the fall."

 "Nonsense! The Council sits next week. You'll
have to be here for that. All this new bother over
tea and Customs men  Theo and his father rant
about it every night. Besides, what about met"

"You don't understand, Fannie. Colonel Michael
will be back

78

here in another day or two. He's staying another
winter in Portsmouth, here with me.'

"fish! Get rid of the man any evening you choose."

 Johnnie blurted it out then. 'What about Theo?"
Fannie was suddenly still. Again he had that
uneasy feeling that she could see in the dark, could
read every expression of his face, even of his mind.

 "Theo's my affair, not yours. Bah! I haven't any
regret about tonight, Johnnie. But run away and
hide in your stupid woods if you want."

She walked away toward the side gate of the
garden.

"Fannie!"

"Yes?"

The cloaked figure had melted into the night.

 "Fannie, I'm not going back to the woods
tomorrow. I don't know why I said that."

Her voice came back mockingly, "I do."

 He ran after her and caught the mysterious
figure from behind, clutching at its shoulders. He
felt them quivering.

"Don't cry, Fannie darling please don't cry. I love
you."

 No answer. He appealed to the back of the
hood. "Fannie, don't leave me like this. Say you'll
come again, sweet, I'll I'll make arrangements.
I'll get rid of any visitors, even Michael, any time
you say. I'll do anything."

 The figure remained silent and shaking.
Desperately he turned it around with his strong
hands and tried to see its face. A peal of laughter
came from the shadow of the hood.

 "How very eager you are, my Governor, of a
sudden! Have you really got your courage back?"

"Yes," he said in a gasp. "When can you come
again?"

'When would you like?"

"Tomorrow night~an you come then?"

"So soon? You flatter me, Excellency."

"Don't tease me, Fannie."

 "Very well. Tomorrow evening, half an hour after
dark. And please don't keep me waiting as you did
tonight."

79

                SEVEN

AND so Governor Johnnie opened a new door in
his busy life, and one that had no part in the plan.
There were times when honesq accused him,
especially when he made his duty calls at the
Atkinson house and inquired with a polite
concern into Cousin Theo's health. On these visits
Mrs. Theo's manner was cool and distant; there
was no meeting of eyes, there was nothing to
interest even the most watchful of women
servants. Whenever he went out he felt that he
had seen another Fannie, the one who belonged
to Theo, nothing like the one who came to him
on the hill.

 When his own Fannie came, there was a careful
order of things for privacy. On certain evenings a
candle and a half-drawn window curtain in her
own bedchamber told him that she would be on
her way across the Puddle bridge by ten of the
clock. Johnnie had only to drop a hint to Colonel
Michael, and that convivial man was glad enough
to ride down into the town for a long session with
friends at cards and wine. When the time came
she went up the lane swiftly, muted in the
capuchin cloak, slipping into the Governor's
garden by the side gate. When the September
nights became too chill for a rendezvous by the
pond she entered the house by the rear door and
passed to the library. There, with curtains drawn
and a fire blazing, the eager lover awaited her.
His English servants, obsequious and
wooden-faced, could be trusted to see and hear
nothing.

 Nothing marred the delicious ease of these
arrangements as the weeks went by. If there was
gossip about Frances it had nothing to do with
Cousin John. All Portsmouth knew that Theo
Atkinson was ill, a feeble prisoner of his bed and
his ruined lungs,

80

and some tongues were sharp about Fannie's
appearance at every party and dancing at every
ball. But there were some to defend her, declaring
that she was young, and that after waiting on the
invalid all day she needed some relief for her
spirits. After all the old Chief Justice was at home
each night, and there was a night nurse to watch at
Theo's bedside. Why shouldn't poor Fannie get out
of that big gloomy house for an hour or two of
pleasant company?

 In the midst of his thronging business affairs
Johnnie looked with delight to her more secret
ventures. The ghost of conscience vanished the
moment she stepped into his firelight. He had
ceased to marvel at falling in love like a romantic
boy at the age of thirty-two, and with a girl who in
many ways still seemed the child he had first seen
in Boston in his student days. And each visit was a
separate adventure. Her moods and caprices made
sure of that.

 There were times when she was dull, when she
wept in his arms, when she came for comfort and
would have nothing more. He consoled her then,
with patient understanding, more like an uncle
than a lover, and the years between them seemed
an immense distance. At other times her spirit
leaped like a bird from a cage, and then she
sparkled, a slender romp of no more than
seventeen. She had a wicked little gift of mimicry.
By turns she could imitate fat old Uncle Benning,
wheezing about the times and manners; or Chief
Justice Atkinson, droning an opinion on the law;
or the town crier, ringing an imaginary bell and
bawling a list of things lost, strayed, or stolen. She
could be breezy Anna Livius, passing a lively
comment on Sheriff Packer's selfimportance; or
Parson Brown, bumbling away at a sermon in
Queen's Chapel; or old Mrs. Odiorne complaining
of her asthma. When she imitated Colonel
Wentworth she was Michael to the life, even to the
English accent, rattling on in his cheerful tones
about a fox hunt in the Yorkshire fields or the
proper way to mix a negus.

 Once, springing up from Johnnie's arms, she
clapped on the very hat he had worn that
afternoon at a public ceremony, with

81

its deep cocks and heavy gold lace, and she played
His Excellency the Governor, the way he got
down from a horse, the way he walked, the way
he carried his shoulders, the way he bowed over
a lady's hand and gave forth in his eager tones a
long description of "my country seat at
Winnipesaukee," while Johnnie lay half amused
and half indignant on the couch.

 His affairs of state and business did not interest
her in the least. When one worry or another
obsessed him she was bored, and if he insisted on
talking about it she listened with the empty ear of
a patient wife or cut him off with the
impertinence of a mistress, as she chose.

 All these whims Johnnie accepted as he did the
sunshine and the rain. Sometimes his mind went
back to the house in Poland Street, and he could
hear Paul Wentworth saying, 'Women, my dear
Johnnie. A necessary and delightful part of life.
Remember always to keep it private. Hold your
public life apart, and you'll have no trouble. All
difficulties arise from letting one mix with the
other."

 And now it seemed that, without any
forethought, his life had fallen into these
convenient compartments. How long it would
continue like this he did not try to think. He had
always intended to marry as part of his life's plan,
and someday he would. But there was still plenty
of time for that. For the present this naive
delightful creature absorbed his flesh and spirit
and left his mind free for his duties. He could not
ask more.

 In his public life it was a crowded year, quite
apart from his frequent journeys and labors at
'Wolfeborough." He was hammering away at the
provincial authorities in New York and
Massachusetts, demanding recognition of the New
Hampshire grants in the mountains, and whenever
he traveled to Boston he went in state, with eight
mounted servants and his carriage and four, to
impress the Bostonians with the importance of his
mission, of himself, and of his province.

 In the early summer he sailed up the Maine
coast in his role as Surveyor General of the King's
Woods, watchful for mast thieves in the river
ports, and went on to Nova Scotia for a quick

82

look at the mast supply up there. For this nautical
journey he traveledin state also, aboard His
Majesty's Ship Beaver, stationed at Portsmouth to
check the smugglers. The merchants of Ports-
mouth, large and small, had noted her appearance
glumly when she came last year, but Johnnie
quickly interviewed her captain, and there had
been no trouble. Indeed Captain Bellew, R.N.
proved a pleasant fellow, a bachelor, an ardent
dancer at every Portsmouth ball. At one of these
last winter he had met the young widow of
Johnnie's brother Tom, whose death had left her
with a modest fortune to support herself and her
children in a stately house by the harbor. The
captain was smitten at once with pretty Mrs. Tom.
He courted gallantly and soon persuaded her to be
Mrs. Harry Bellew, a whirlwind affair that
delighted all Portsmouth. Everyone saw at once
that the likable sailor had become one more part
of the widespread Wentworth clan, with a stake in
the New Hampshire soil, and very much under the
influence of diplomatic Johnnie. When the
Governor took captain and ship away up the coast
for weeks, every smuggler in Portsmouth had his
chance, and drank a toast to Johnnie's sense of
duty. Or was it his sense of humor? Johnnie smiled
and said nothing.

 "My great object," he told Harry Bellew, "is to
steer clear of a mess like the one in Boston, where
you see the Governor being pinched between the
people and the soldiers. What's to come of that I
can't guess, and it's none of my affair. My business
is New Hampshire, and a peaceful government
first. Sometimes I wish Boston to the devil. I'm not
worried about Portsmouth, but you know the
jealousy of Portsmouth on the part of our country
towns like Exeter. Those Exeter men have an easy
road to Boston, and Sam Adams and his Boston
agitators make the most of it. There's a lot of
correspondence back and forth. I don't know
what's going on, though I hear rumors. All I can
do is to make sure our Customs collectors here use
tact. Firmness, of course, but tact. And that's my
own policy. I want our people to look beyond
these squabbles in Boston and see what's good for
them

83

selves. We've got too much to do, building New
Hampshire, to worry our heads about
Massachusetts."

 "Umph," grunted the sailor. "But you can't build
a fence along the Merrimac, my dear sir. You
can't even stop your gentry sending their sons to
Harvard College, where they're exposed to all this
Boston nonsense."

'Well have a college of our own soon, don't
forget."

 'What makes you think this college will teach
respect for His Majesty? Parson Wheelock's a
Dissenter, isn't he? Most of those noisy Boston
people are Dissenters too. They've no loyalty to
the established Church, the King, or anything
else."

 "Most of our New Hampshire people are
Dissenters, come to that. The gentry here are the
only ones who support the Church of England. I
hope to increase the Church's influence of course.
A people loyal to the Church are bound to be
true to His Majesty as Defender of the Faith if
nothing else. That's one reason why I've tried to
get the Bishop of London made one of the
college fund trustees. But Mr. Wheelock would
have none of it. A difficult man. Even threatened
to build the college somewhere else. So I gave in,
though I reminded him most of the money came
from good Church people in England, including
His Majesty himself. And you'll smile at
this now that he's won his point he's offered to
name the institution after me. Wentworth
College."

'Well, why not? You've done more for it than
anybody else."

 "Ah, but consider this. When Mr. Wheelock
sought the money in England he had to have
some noble sponsor. You can't raise a fund in
England, for anything, without that. So one of my
friends, the Earl of Dartmouth, agreed to be head
of the fund trustees. Dartmouth's a Churchman,
but he's deeply interested in the Methodists and
attends their meetings some folk in England call
him the Psalm-Singer."

"Just the man for your psalm-singing collegers!"

 "They don't know Dartmouth from Adam.
Anyhow the actual direction of the college will
come from a board of Americans  and if I have
anything to say about it they'll be New Hampshire

84

men. What I see further is this. The college will
need more money later on, and it'll have to come
from England. Americans praise education, but
they don't spend money on it. The only
schoolmasters we have are drunken wanderers for
the most part, drifting about the countryside with
a bottle of rum, a Latin tome or two, and a
fuddled knowledge of writing, reading, and round
figures. And nine out of ten of our settlements
haven't even a school. That's why we must keep
the noble earl at the head of our college fund."

"And name the college after him?"

"Exactly. Dartmouth College."

 Bellew laughed. '~Your Excellency, you're a
deep 'un, if you don't mind my saying so. Is there
anything you wouldn't do to get money or anything
else for your precious New Hampshire?"

"Nothing."

 On a night in October, changing into a dressing
gown for a late session at his letters, Johnnie
glanced from the chamber window toward Puddle
Dock. It was habit with him now, for he expected
no signal this evening. Theo's illness had taken
another bad turn, and on her last visit Fannie had
warned him not to expect another for some time.
The window gave him a view past his stable and
between the Puddle buildings. He could see the
Atkinson lane and the dark Atkinson garden and
trees and house, or rather part of them, framed as
if in a loophole. And surprisingly there was the
familiar sign, the light in Fannie's chamber, with
the c urtains half drawn.

 He went down and cautioned his servants at
once, and had one of them bring wood to mend
the fire in his library. She was always punctual, and
a few minutes past ten she came, wrapped in the
familiar blue cloak. The night was frosty, and she
kept the thing about her, shivering and holding her
hands to the fire. Johnnie took up the dec enter
and poured wine in the two glasses on the tray. He
came to the fire and put one in her hand.

 "To love," he said, smiling. It was a ritual with
them. She turned.

85

 "To love." She tipped the glass to her lips, but
at the first taste of the wine she shuddered,
walked to the table, put the glass down, and went
again to the fire. Theo, of course, thought
Johnnie. He was tempted to ask, but it was part
of their ritual that Theo must never be mentioned
here. She was in -one of her mournful moods,
that was clear; the lost bewildered child. In-
stinctively he began to talk of something else.

 "You know, Fan, I like that portrait Copley did
of you. He's very good. I'm told he has a
first-rate custom in Boston now. I had a portrait
painted in England, as a gift to Lord
Rockingham. But I've always been doubtful about
it. Was it a likeness or not? I couldn't decide. I
mean the painter posed me just as I was, in a suit
of dark clothes, with a bush of unpowdered hair
and a most ingenuous face the obvious young
Yankee countryman  and with a scroll in my
hand marked New Hampshire, just to be sure.
But I'm not that man now. It's time for a new
portrait. So I wrote to Copley, and today I got his
answer. He's coming in a week or two he has
some other commissions in Portsmouth  and
he'll do me then. Now tell me, con, what shall I
be?"

 "I don't know what you mean," Fannie
murmured, looking at the fire.

 Johnnie poured himself another glass. 'Well, as
a horseman, say? I'd rather like to have one of
me holding Vixen she was sired by Rockingham,
the most famous horse in England, did I ever tell
you that? Or should it be one of me as Surveyor
General, in woods costume, compass in hand, and
one foot on a stump? Or should I be the
Governor in wig and gold lace, all deep thought
and dignity?"

 She was silent, with the cloak still about her
and her face to the fire.

"Well?" he said, sprawling comfortably on the
couch.

"Oh, as Governor, I suppose."

 "That sounds indifferent. What's the matter
with you tonight?"

 She swung about, and in the light of the candles
he saw a face white and drawn. The skin of her
face always seemed to stretch

86

like white silk over the cheekbones. Now in a
momentary illusion of the light and shadow it was
almost like a skull. He was startled.

"Johnnie, I've come to tell you something
frightful!"

"What on earth . . ."

 "I'm in a family way, Johnnie. Yes! I had the sign
weeks and weeks ago. I didn't think much of it at
first. I thought that all the excitement had just put
me out of sorts."

 Johnnie was astounded. He had been so long the
blithe bachelor that the inconveniences of women
never occurred to him.

 "You realize what it means?" Fannie said in a
strange thin voice. "All the town knows I don't
sleep with Theo. Even if they didn't everyone
knows he's been bedfast for the past several
months, racked with the consumption."

 Johnnie heard his voice stammering, "But
everyone knows that some men with the
consumption are quite . . ."

 "Don't be stupid! See the awful position I'm in.
Portsmouth  under the skin of your lively society
here it's a town of oldfashioned Puritans with
hearts as hard as flint. What are they going to say
about this? You know, Johnnie, as well as I do.
Only last year they tried and hanged Ruthie Blay
because she had a bastard child hanged her like
a thief out there on the Little Harbor road, with a
crowd of people watching. They even tore down a
farmer's fences, so they could get a good look, and
buried the poor thing in a hole at the end of the
field. And who sentenced her to death? My own
father-in-law!"

 "Oh, but they hanged Ruth Blay because she
concealed the birth of her child," Johnnie cried.
"And the child died. Her crime was murder."

 "Fiddlesticks! They hanged her because she'd
committed adultery you know that perfectly well.
And here am I, the daughter-in-law of the Chief
Justice, in exactly the same position. Theo will
know it's not his child. He's never been jealous of
my pleasures, but he won't forgive that. How could
he?"

"Fannie, you're overwrought. Do take this glass of
wine and

87

calm yourself, for God's sake. Nobody's going to
hang you. That's absurd. Nobody's even going to
accuse you, least of all Theo. He's too fond of
you."

 "Not that much," said Fannie, refusing the wine
with an impatient gesture. "There'd be a horrid
scene, with him and his father. Apart from that,
think of the scandal. You know what everybody's
going to say. They've always considered me a
flighty thing, too bent on my own pleasure.
They'll be going over names every man I've ever
talked or danced with, you amongst them."

"Let them!" Johnnie's jaw was stubborn now.

"Oh, Johnnie, why did this have to happen to us?"

 A rush of skirts and she was in his arms,
weeping and shivering like a frightened little girl.
All her pert assurance had gone. He drew her to
the familiar couch, and they sat together, her
head on his breast and her arms about his neck.

 He kissed her wet cheek gently from time to
time. At last she sprang up and pulled the hood
of the capuchin over her hair.

"I must go. I told Mr. Atkinson I'd just be gone a
few minutes."

"Does he suspect anything?"

 "I don't think so, no. He's always busy in the
evenings with his law reports, and so on.
Whenever I go out after dark he just smiles in his
absent-minded way and tells me not to stay too
late. He's always been like a father to me."

"What about your maidservant, and Theo's
nurse?"

 "Senants always make a mouth at my gadding
off to parties and routs and suppers while my
husband's sick, but so do a lot of other people,
and it's no more than that. As for you, I've come
up here so often for music parties that no one
would suspect if they chanced to see me in the
lane. What about your Own house? The secants
know of course. Does Colonel Michael?"

 "I've never told him, naturally. But he must
know I receive a woman on the nights I ask him
to go out. He's a man of the world."

"Is he a man of honor where a friend's amour is
concerned?"

"I'd trust Michael with my life."

88

 She seemed a little reassured, but only a little;
and suddenly she was gone, flitting away through
the back door like a harried ghost.

 A few days later Mr. Copley came, a thin darting
man of Johnnie's own age, with the marks of
smallpox on his face. A pair of deep-set eyes
peered shrewdly from under the bushy eyebrows as
he set up his easel and laid out his palette and
paints and brushes. He was Boston born, of Irish
parents, and spoke with a trace of brogue. There
was no doubt in his mind about the subject or the
pose.

 "I must paint you as Governor of course. And I
recommend pastel. I can do a handsome pastel of
a gentleman with your looks and manner, sir. Now
what about clothes?" He made a careful inspection
of Johnnie's wardrobe and chose a red velvet coat
with rich gold braid, a waistcoat of scarlet satin, a
white silk stock and a frilled shirt. "You'll wear one
of these neat little perukes, of course, sir. The
newest thing. Fits like your own hair. Those
old-fashioned wigs made every man look a spaniel,
begob, or a carpenter's brat after a dive in the
shavings."

 And when it came to the pose, "Sit erect, sir, if
you please, facing a little that way. Now turn the
eyes to me. Just the eyes. There! Not so stiff,
please. You're a handsome man, Your Excellency,
I suppose you know that. Now adopt a natural
expression, as you would in your Council, say.
You're listening to some other's opinion, and
you're about to give your own. Common sense,
dignity, and so forth. There! Something like that.
Though you look just a morsel, what shall I say,
somber? Somber and a bit ah defiant."

"It's a natural expression, however it looks,"
Johnnie said.

 "I'd prefer it a bit more easy but you know
what's natural. Just now, if you'll take my opinion,
you look a bit like a man that sees a storm in the
offing and the wind his way."

"That may be right."

 "These new taxes on tea, and so forth?" Copley
held out his brush, squinted an eye, and measured
the Governor's face.

'Why do you ask that?"

89

 "They're making a great souse about the new
taxes where I live. Next Guy Fawkes Night they'll
be toting a dummy of King George about the
streets instead of the Pope you know what our
Boston mobs are like--and hanging him along with
the devil in tar and feathers. Sooner or later
they'll be at fists and cudgels with the sogers."

'What makes you think so?"

 "I'm a painter, and I mind my own affairs, but
I'm Irish enough to scent a fight. Those Boston
street gangs are a wild lot, and you'd think the
town belonged to 'em, ever since the Stamp
trouble. This time it's not just a matter of beating
the town watch and breaking the windows of their
betters. They'll tangle with the
redcoats lobsterbacks, they call 'em and the
lobsterbacks'll take 'em down a peg, depend on't."

"And will that settle the souse, think you?"

 "Governor, one rattle of musketstll send every
blackguard in Boston running for cover. As for
the gentlemen like Sam Adams, who talk so much
about liberty, they'll take the liberty to be
somewhere else when the bullets Hy, you may be
sure."

'Well, we haven't anything like that here, thank
Gd."

 "Then what storm would you be
facing perhaps?" The painter's small eyes peered
at him around the canvas edge.

"I told you it's my natural expression."

 "Um. Well, you may rest a little now, sir, if you
wish. How long a sitting can you give me? I'd like
at least five hours a day  two in the morning,
three in the afternoon."

 But Johnnie could give him no more than two
hours a day; There were so many other things to
be done; and always he posed with the same
half-turned face and steady sidelong gaze, which
by chance took his eyes toward the Atkinson
house, down there across the creek. When would
the storm break? Undoubtedly when poor
Fannie's figure gave the awkward secret away.
Another four months, say. Five at most. The end
of tl.e winter, just when he would be riding out to
start the season's work at Wolfeborough. He
pictured himself returning to find Portsmouth
agog. And what would l annie say? Would she
conceal the

go

guilty lover's name? Or would she cry it out at
some family inquisition, with the Chief Justice
standing over her and Theo's hot sick eyes burning
up at her from the bed? Or could she persuade
Fheo, by some desperate appeal, to declare himself
father of the child to save scandal? Not likely.

 Well, you can't see Fannie suffer alone. Speak
up like a man, and devil take the consequences.
Have to go away, of course, both of us. the farther
the better. England? Paul Wentworth would find
roam in his house for us, and maybe look out for
something for me to do. I'll send Paul the first
copy of this portrait. Keep up my friendship there,
whatever else-I do. Couldn't appeal to Lord
Rockingham in these circumstances. His lofty
moral principles.

 And then, in the midst of these resolves, he
thought of New Hampshire and his hopes and
plans, and a cold night fell on his mind. Whenever
this happened Copley said in a discontented tone,
"Gvernor, I'm afraid you had a bad session with
the Council today, or maybe you got up the wrong
side of the bed. That's all for now, sir. I'll see you
tomorrow. And will you, for the love of heaven,
come to the chair fresh and in a jolly turn of
mind?"

 A week later, with the portrait almost finished,
there was another interruption of a very different
kind. It came after a sharp night and an early
snow, a light fall that whitened the streets and
roofs of Portsmouth. The Atkinson maidservant
muffled in of all things Fannie's blue cloak and
hood, lent to her for the errand, came breathing
noisily up the slope and into Johnnie's presence.
At the first side glimpse of the cloak he was
startled. Copley paused, brush in air, annoyed at
the intrusion.

 "If you please, sir," the woman said, teeth
chattering, "Mrs. Atkinson sends you her respects
and compliments."

 She paused, and Johnnie snapped, "Yes, yes.
What is it? Out with it." Whatever it was, it did not
matter if Copley heard. If Fannie's secret was out
so soon, all Portsmouth would know in half an
hour.

 "Please sir, it's bad news, terrible." She was
blubbering now. 'Poor Mister Atkinson young
Mister Theo, sir a convulsion in

91

the night blood poured out his mouth something
awful." She broke into sobs.

 Johnnie held back an impulse to shout at the
wretched creature. He sat with a deceptive calm,
with the whimsical side gaze of the painter's pose,
a habit now. At last the woman blurted, "Please
sir, poor young Mister Theo died an hour ago."

'What!"

 "Missus Frances felt you ought to know first,
being his cousin and fond of him as you are."

 For a moment Johnnie remained a graven
image in the chair. Then, unconsciously, he
relaxed, and the held breath escaped his lips in a
long sigh. There, Copley thought, that's a better
expression, but it's too late now of course. I've done
the head.

92

                EIGHT

LITHE PROCESSION was a long one, tramping
the frozen ruts and puddles to Chapel Street and
then winding up the steep knoll to the church. As
was customary at winter funerals no women came.
They could only peer from windows as the cortege
passed, rubbing little bulls'-eyes in the frosty panes.
Frances herself was prostrate, with a watch of
solicitous females at her bedside.

 A dozen sturdy wharf-porters adorned with black
hat ribbons and scarves took turns at carrying the
coffin on a bier, and four cloaked gentlemen held
the black velvet pall over it, struggling with the
thin staffs in the wind. Old Justice Atkinson took
Johnnie's arm and insisted on walking at the head
of the mourners. All had black bands about their
hats and on the sleeves of their greatcoats. It was
the first day of November, with a whipping wind,
and snowflakes wandering down from a pewter sky.

 His Excellency had sent a note to Captain
Bellew, and a party of militia to the empty fort on
Newcastle Island. As the mourners walked two and
two behind the bier they could hear the smart
crack of minute guns from the Beaver and a more
irregular thudding from the island battery. In the
bleak air the chapel bell tolled dismally. As they
gained the crest of the knoll the men could look
down Strawberry Bank to the harbor. The wharves
and warehouse roofs were white with snow. The
fishing sloops and most of the trading vessels lay
tied up for the winter, with canvas unbent and
stowed away in the sail lofts. Only His Majesty's
sloop Beaver, moored off the Bank, showed a sign
of life. There was no warmth inside the church. It
was like an ice cave in the mountains. Winter
worshippers usually had their servants

93

bring little charcoal foot warmers or hot bricks
wrapped in cloth, but such comfort was unseemly
at a funeral. Cold or not, Parson Brown droned
a long funeral sermon to the rows of pinched
male faces. Then the prayers. At last the coffin,
draped in black 'cloth, was borne outside. The
Atkinson vault gaped for a few moments in the
flank of the hill, like the dark entry of a tunnel to
the thronged and dreadful world of the dead. The
porters trundled the coffin inside and emerged
hastily with the bier. The heavy iron door clanged
shut, a sound that sent a final shiver through the
watching men. Old Mr. Atkinson tottered on the
arm of a manservant to his big coach and drove
away. Johnnie's groom waited nearby with his
carriage black ribbons on the horses' heads and
a fold of black cloth draped over his painted
cipher on the doors. He stepped in and went
away quickly, head bent against the wind,
commanding a roundabout route to avoid the
Atkinson lane.

 In his own sitting room he flung himself into a
deep chair before the fire. Colonel Michael found
him there staring into the flames and shivering,
and sent a servant for rum and hot water.

"Sad business, eh, Johnnie?"

"Yes."

"Gold too."

"Yes."

 "Good duck-huntin' weather, though. Out by
Little Harbor, say. We could ride out there, spend
the night with old Blubbergut, and be off the
islands in one of his boats by daybreak."

"Sorry, Michael, I'm not up to that now."

"Mind if I god"

 "Not at all. Take one of the servants to handle
the oars and load the guns Skidby's best. And
stay as long as you like. Uncle Benning loves
company it's lonely out there."

 In a few minutes the colonel and servant were
off, with a pair of Johnnie's horses and a brace of
his fine London fowling pieces. Apparently the
duck hunting was as good as Benning's hospi-
tality, for Michael stayed several days. Meanwhile
Johnnie brooded in the house on Pleasant Street.
He refused to see any

94

body, turning visitors away with polite excuses
through his major-domo. He thought with longing
of Wolfeborough, far in the woods, and of
"Wentworth House" he had decided to cat] it
that. The mansion now stood in frame, sheathed
and clapboarded, with the roof shingled, two
chimneys built, and the doors and windows in
place. There was no floor yet in the ballroom or
the guest chambers, no plaster on walls or ceilings,
no wainscoting anywhere, but the living quarters
were habitable for a man who didn't mind things
a little rough. It would be good to ride up there
now, before the snow got too deep, and spend
some days alone, tending his fire, cooking his own
food, reading a book or two, watching from the
windows the white peaks of the hills and the wind
whirling ghosts of snow across the icy skin of the
lake. A chance to sort out his mind's cards before
fate opened the next play. Impossible of course.

 Each evening he gazed for a sign from the
all-important window on the other side of Puddle
Dock, but not a chink of light escaped the curtains
there. Poor Fannie! A prisoner, with all those
doleful women for warders, and tortured with her
thoughts! What a fix to be in! Whose fault was it?
If she hadn't come to my house that night but
tut! none of that! A lonely girl, wife-and-no-wife'
too full of spirit to know what she was doing and
there I was, a man of the world. Should have
boxed her ears and sent her home. And yet how
very sweet it was with her, there in the dark by the
water; and what a wonderful madness, all of it,
ever since. Part of my life now, something I can't
do without. I'm only half a man when she can't
come to me. What's to be done? Go to her and
face it out with Theo's father? That's the
honorable thing and so far you haven't shown
much honor in this affair, Your Excellency.

 While the moody man was wrestling thus with his
demons on the hill, poor Fannie lived with hers
amid an endless succession of women who came in
the custom to sit with the bereaved wife. For three
days after the funeral she did not leave her room
lying silent in the bed while the women whispered
and tiptoed in and out. Then she dressed and came
lice a ghost to the parlor

95

fire, where she busied her fingers with
crewelwork. Her mirror showed a stranger with a
face like a mask of plaster, with eyes shadowed
and sullen. When she spoke at all her voice was
hoarse and dull.

 To the women she was the picture of a
distraught widow, with no interest left in life.
When they kept saying, 'Nou mustn't grieve so,
Fannie dear, you can't bring poor Theo back," she
had a hysterical urge to scream. She wanted to
jump up and cry, "I don't want Theo back. You
might as well know I want His Excellency the
Governor, whose child I'm carrying. Oh yes! I'm
two months gone. And what do you think of
that?" Each day was a new ordeal, beginning with
the morning spasms of nausea, which she had to
hide. It was a boon when at last the ladies grew
tired of their glum vigils and departed, feeling
their duty done.

 On the fifth day after the funeral, as she sat
alone in the parlor, there was a stuttering knock
of the hinged brass lion at the front door. The
hour was well on in the afternoon, and the old
judge away at some law business in the Town
House. A maidservant went to the door, and at
once Fannie heard Johnnie's voice. She sprang up
as he entered the room. He began solemnly,
"Fannie, I've come . . ." But Fannie put a finger
to her lips, watching the slowly closing parlor
door. The woman might listen there.

 "It's very kind of you to come, Cousin," she said,
in the cold dead voice she had used to all her
visitors in the past four days. Inside she was
furious. Why hadn't he come before? Because
he'd lost his courage, of course, as he had that
first evening, fearful of consequences. Sulking up
there in the big house, wishing he could undo the
whole affair, wishing her to the devil for tempting
him, thinking of his career. Men were such selfish
creatures. They wanted only one thing of a
woman, and the moment that was satisfied they
were frantic to get out of her hands. Johnnie was
murmuring some solemn platitude, mindful of the
warning finger.

"Did you walk?" she asked. He wore a heavy
cloak with three

96

capes at the shoulders, still clasped, and stood hat
in hand, as if he intended staying only a minute.

"No, I came in th' coach. Brand's holding the
horses outside." She said in a diffident tone, "I
wonder would you mind driving me over to see
Mrs. I.ivius? The change and a breath of fresh air
might do me good."

"Of course! You'd better wrap up well, my dear.
It's cold." She went upstairs and came down in a
warm old-fashioned cloak that had belonged to
Theo's mother. She wound a black cashmere shawl
about her head and led the way to the door. As
soon as they were inside the coach, with Brand on
the box, she said quickly, "This W.15 our only
chance to talk alone. And there's little time it
isn't far. Why haven't you come to me before?"

"I didn't think you'd want to see me so soon
after . . ."

 "You know perfectly well that you were the one
person I did want to see. Were you afraid I'd say
something embarrassing?"

"Not at all."

"Would you mind an embarrassing question now?"

"No."

"Then what are you going to do about me?"

 Brand was driving slowly, mindful of the ruts and
holes. They were passing people in the narrow
street, who touched their hats or bowed politely,
recognising the Governor's coach; and Johnnie was
touching his hat and Fannie giving now and then
a small nod of her shawled head. To appearance
through the door glass she was the sad widow out
for air and talking of nothing but her loved one
gone.

"Marry you of course," he said. "That's what I
came to say." She was relieved at once, but she
gave him no sign of that. "Because you feel it's
your duty?"

"Because it's my duty and I love you."

"Both barrels! What a poor little partridge I am."

"Because I love you. then. Because I want you."

"How much do you want me?"

 "More than I could tell you in a short drive
through the town, Fannie. I've been in torment up
there, all these days and nights,

97

not seeing you, not knowing what you thought,
wondering if you hated me for what's happened,
wondering if you'd repulse me when we met...."

"Pooh!"

 She bowed to old Colonel Boyd, standing with
his hat off gallantly in the chill air as they passed.

'When do you propose to make an honest woman
of me?"

"As soon as I can we must wait a decent time, of
course."

"I'm afraid your child won't wait a decent time."

"What do you mean?" he asked uneasily.

 "The child will be born in less than seven
months, so the sooner we're wed, the better.
Tongues are bound to wag, whatever we do. Let
them wag about me taking a new husband right
after Theo's death. I'd rather that than have them
clucking about a child too soon after the new
husband took me to bed. Marry me now, and
when the baby comes we can say it's premature.
They may suspect, but they can't prove anything.
But if we wait your decent time we'll hear a fine
clamor when the truth is out. One look at the
child and any old wife in town would know the
difference."

 Johnnie was silent. Her shrewdness surprised
him. This was not the madcap girl who cast her
shoe over the moon and forbade him to be
serious. The coach rattled on toward Islington
Creek and the Livius house.

'Well?" she said at last, staring straight ahead.

"I'll do whatever you say, my dear."

 "Ah! Then I suggest this. For the next four
afternoons you'll call and be the good kind cousin
that's come to comfort me. On the fourth evening
you'll take old Mr. Atkinson aside and say how it
grieves you to see poor Fannie in such a decline.
You'll say you've always had a deep affection for
her, that you want to comfort her now in every
way you can, that you're a lonely man
yourself you'll know how to put it much better
than this, you're so clever, Johnnie. And finally
you'll announce that you intend to marry me at
once.'

"I'm afraid he'll be shocked at that," Johnnie said.

98

"Let him! It's better for him to be shocked than
for me to be ruined, isn't it?" And then, with a
glance at his troubled face and in a melting tone,
"Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, if you knew how I've
starved to be yours, really yours, all this time. No
more of those sly journeys over the creek, like a
fish girl stealing away to some sailor in an alley.
But to be there with you, in your own house, at
your table, on your pillow and to have the right
to be there. And now, you see, now I have, I have!
I can't wait to be in your arms. Oh, Johnnie, I'll
give you such love as you've never even dreamed.
How can you wait, how can you even hesitate
when a chance like this has come like a gift to
both of us?"

 The caressing voice, the dark flash of her eyes,
coming suddenly from the frigid image in the cloak
and shawl, brought back in a rush the memory of
that first rapture in the summerhouse. And as on
that night of nights he found himself stammering,
"When? When shall it be?"

 Fannie thought for a moment, but only a
moment. "On the eleventh of this month. That will
be ten days after the funeral  all we can afford.
As soon as you've told Mr. Atkinson you can pass
the word outside. And we'll be married quietly at
your house, with just a friend or two for witnesses."

 He was silent. She saw that jaw of his setting
stubbornly. And then he surprised her.

 "No, Fannie. I'll have no more hole-and corner
business. My marriage shall be public, as public as
I can make it, with every bit of form and show that
goes with being Governor. I'm not ashamed of
marrying you, damme! Let 'em say what they
like  I'm proud to make you my wife, and they
shall know it."

 "Oh, Johnnie!" She wanted to throw her arms
about his neck, to dab his face with kisses. How
wonderful he is! And what a fool I was ever to
doubt him! But they were drawing up to the Livius
house, and she composed herself.

"Tomorrow afternoon," she reminded him. "At
four."

"At four."

"Good-by, Johnnie, my darling. Six more long
nights before

99

I'm in your arms I can't bear it, but I must.
Hand me down please. There!" And with a glance
at the Livius windows, where a vague face peered,
"Thank you very much, Cousin John. Mr.
Liviuswill see me home in his carriage."

 On the eleventh of November, 1769, just ten
days after Theo Atkinson's funeral, a very
different procession trampled the thin snow of
early winter to Chapel Hill: a long cavalcade of
horses and carriages, glass coaches, curricles, and
chaises, laden with Portsmouth gentlefolk, well
mumed against the cold but wearing their best
finery underneath. Once more cannon thundered
from H.M.S. Beaver and the island fort. Every
bell in the town clanged in the frosty air. Seamen
went down to the idle shipping at the wharves and
hoisted every scrap of bunting to be found.
People thronged the route and crowded about the
chapel. Everyone was delighted to see Governor
Johnnie casting off his bachelorhood at last.
Sentimental ladies, married and single sighed at
the notion of him, handsome and impatient and
determined as every lover should be, carrying off
the pretty widow to his lonely house and heart.

 To be sure some declared he was too good for
that shallow creature from Boston. But he'd be
master, depend on it. He'd soon cure those
flibbertigibbet ways of hers. That flighty craft 'ud
find herself well-manned at last. And if many
female heads were shaken over this leap to a
warmer bed so soon after her husband's death,
there were Fannie's friends to defend the affair
with spirit, declaring how dreadful it had been for
her, married  a mere child to a man slowly
dying almost from the wedding day, and how nice
it was that goodhearted Johnnie had gone to
comfort her on Theo's death, and found himself
head over heels in love. How romantic it all was,
just like a Boston play, and in their very midst!

 Fannie made an appealing figure even to her
enemies, wearing a simple black bonnet and a
cloak that gave peeps at a severe snuff-colored
gown beneath. She was pale, timid, clinging to old
Mr. Atkinson's arm as they entered the church.
The Chief

100

Justice had been starded at first by Johnnie's
demand, but he was fond of them bodh, and like a
good many odhers he dhought it high time Johnnie
married. A charming wife like Fannie would settle
the Governor here in town, where he ought to be
most of dhe time, instead of chasing phantoms in
dhe woods and hills. The good old gentleman not
only gave his consent but agreed to give the bride
away.

 Only one dining marred the wedding. Just at its
close, as dhey made their way out of the church,
the bride on Johnnie's arm and managing a brave
lithe smile, dhere was a small flurry behind dhem.
They did not look back, and in anodher minute
dhey were driving away briskly in the Governor's
carriage, widh white ribbons fluttering in the
breeze and the people cheering and waving as they
passed. At dhe church some of dhe gentlemen
were picking up poor Parson Brown, who had
tumbled down the steps. One arm hung at an odd
angle. It was broken. An old wife from dhe docks
vowed it a bad omen for dhe marriage. But some
said Pish, the parson had taken a drop too much
port to ward off dhe cold of dhe morning, and
odhers that all dhe excitement had been too much
for the pious old gentleman, first dhe big funeral
and then the big wedding, bodh inside a fortnight.

 Meanwhile the newlyweds drove on in blissful
ignorance to dhe Governor's residency. Fannie's
baggage had gone dhere by wagon dhe evening
before, and she found it set out for her in the
Governor's bedchamber. Johnnie's secretary,
Thomas Macdonogh, had met him widh important
letters in dhe doorway below, and they had gone to
dhe library to examine dhem. The servants were
bushing about, preparing a reception for the after-
noon, when a long list of invited guests would
come to dine and to pledge dhe master and dhe
new mistress of the house.

 Alone in the bedroom Fannie unpacked her
bandboxes and portmanteaus and drew fordh her
best gown, dhe creation of a Boston mantuamaker
in dhe summer past. It was made on dhe pattern of
dhe one she had worn for Copley, full at dhe hips,
snug at the waist, and frank at the bodice. She had
worn it once

101

or twice in Boston but never here, not with Theo
ill and people so ready to disapprove. She slipped
it on and moved to the long looking glass. The
figure there gazed at her mysteriously, smiled, and
dipped in a curtsy that spread the skirts in a wide
and perfect circle on the floor, the feminine
movement known in society as "making a cheese."
They nodded to each other and arose.

 There was a step and a knock at the door, and
she swept a dressing gown about her. Another
knock, and Johnnie appeared, closing the door
and catching her into his arms.

 "I've work to do, my dear. Letters to answer,
and then the final arrangements for the
reception I want things to go without a hitch.
But I had to have a kiss of my bride first."

"Johnnie," she said.

"Yes, love?"

"The Colonel where's he?"

 "Michael? At Little Harbor. He's gone to stay
with Uncle Benning two or three days, to leave us
alone for a small honeymoon.

 "Better two or three years," Fannie said. "Or
forever!" And seeing Johnnie's surprise, "I
couldn't bear to be under the same roof with the
man you surely realize that. I mean, he knows
about us, and I couldn't abide that smile and look
every time I met him in the house. I want to live
alone with you. The servants don't matter, but he
does. Do get rid of him."

 He hesitated. His friendship with Michael
rebelled at such a discharge, even for Fannie's
sake. He saw she meant exactly what she said.
Women were strange. He shrugged and said,
"Very well."

 She smiled deliciously. "You can put it down to
jealousy if you like. I won't share you with
anyone, even another man. Johnnie, you've
married the most selfish, the most greedy creature
in the world."

"And the loveliest."

 She made a cheese. "Thank you, Your
Excellency. Now run away to whatever you have
to do."

As soon as he was gone she threw off the dressing
gown and

coo

admired once more the fashionable woman in the
glass, twisting this way and that and turning to
look over her shoulder. A fetching dress too
fetching for Portsmouth, really. All the flat
women, old and young, would drip vinegar at
such a show. But just the thing for Boston,
especially now, with the British officers and their
ladies setting the pace. Johnnie must resume his
formal visits there next summer, after the baby
was born, and her fisgu~e back at its best. She
saw herself with him in the dark green carriage
with the interlaced JW cipher on the doors, with
the green coachman and outriders, and the
soldiers and people running out of the Boston
shops and taverns to see what great folk came to
town.

 She saw herself in the gown at one of those
fashionable Boston routs, sweeping into the
ballroom on Johnnie's arm while a voice behind
cried, "Their Excellencies, Governor Wentworth
and lady!" There were other delightful pictures.
And then, with a sigh, she took off the delectable
thing and chose a more sober costume for the
reception downstairs. The figure in the glass
made a mouth at it.

103

                NINE

ON A WARM AUTUMN DAY of the year 1770
Mr. Woodbury

Langdon found himself traveling the "Governor's
Road" with his wife. He was not so eager to visit
Wentworth House as was Mrs. Langdon, for he
had busy concerns in Portsmouth, but he went
dutifully and with some curiosity. They crossed
over the Newington ferry to Dover Point with their
carriageand pair and were able to cover much of
the way on wheels, although there were places
where Mr. Langdon wondered which would
founder first, the carriage or the pair. At a place
called Plummer's Ridge the road finally became
impassable for wheels. The rest of the "Governor's
Road" was a mere bridle path winding up the
forest slopes. They borrowed riding horses from
Plummer, a substantial man, and went on.

"I hope it's worth all this," Mr. Langdon said.

 "Of course it is. Thank heaven we brought my
sidesaddle. I'm dying to see the place--and Fannie
of course. She's been up here with Johnnie ever
since their baby died. They were both upset over
that. A seven months' child, poor thing, it hadn't
a chance in the summer heat and vapors, but such
a fine looking boy. Remember how proud Johnnie
was, there at the baptism, with the baby in his
arms. 'Another John Wentworth,' he said to me.
'My son and heir and image!"'

"Oh well, there'll be others. We found that out,
you and I."

 "If there are, I do hope Fannie has an easier
time. She's small at the hips, you know; she had a
terrible labor. And she was still quite peaked when
they came up here. I don't think it was right of
Johnnie to drag her off through these woods in her
condition."

"Pshaw! Women with a delicate look and a sailor's
hips are

4

the ones who live the longest. You couldn't kill
Mrs. Fannie with an ax."

"You don't like her, do you?" Mrs. Langdon said
straitly.

 "Let's not go into that, my duck. I like Johnnie
well enough, or I wouldn't be traveling this
damned track to see him."

 The damned track took them at last over the
shoulder of Moose Mountain. Here in the hills the
red maples and sumacs were in full color, there
was a deepening tinge of fall on the rock maples,
the mountain ash, the birches and beeches, and at
the horses' feet the ferns already had gone to rust.
The afternoon waned. The sun was getting low and
the forest shadows lay in the narrow trail with a
hint of frost when at last the horses whickered and
there was an answer just ahead. They rode into an
open space, and both reined up for a moment.

 Wentworth House was no larger than some of
the mansions in Portsmouth, but here, standing up
on the broad cleared shelf at the foot of the hills,
and silhouetted by the red Hare of sunset on the
lake beyond, it looked immense. A pair of tall
chimneys smoked above the gambrel roof. Around
it stood the log huts of the Governor's carpenters
and laborers, with a log lean-to for the work oxen,
another for the Governor's horses. There was no
sign yet of barn or stable or coach house. The land
gangs were just quitting work. They had been
pulling up stumps with chains and oxen, and their
days' work, a rough tangle of butts and roots,
dragged together at the lower end in the clearing,
was burning now with the hot red Hame and
greasy smoke of pine.

 "Gad!" Mr. Langdon said, staring about him.
"He's really doing it!" He was astonished, in spite
of all he had heard. The place had to be seen to be
believed.

 The young Negro stable boy, Remus, ran out to
take the horses, and Fannie herself appeared in the
great doorway, calling out to them. She took Mrs.
Langdon in her arms and kissed her ardently.

 "Oh, my dear, my dear, how wonderful to see
you! If you knew how I ache for company all the
time. I scarcely see my

105

Governor the day long, except at meals. He's off
now somewhere, riding like the Wild Huntsman
in the German tale, down to the falls, I suppose.
The more he gets done, the more he wants to
do never satisfied. Come in come into
Wentworth House!"

 Fannie was dressed, as if she were in town, in a
well-measured blue gown, white silk stockings,
and blue silk shoes, with a gold locket at her
throat. She looked remarkably well. Her clear
complexion even had a hint of brown, as if on
some reckless afternoons she had gone in the sun
without hat or parasol. If her childbed illness in
early June had done nothing else it had left her
as slim as a wand. She took them at once on a
tour of the house, Mrs. Langdon exclaiming at
every step, and her husband measuring right and
left with a shrewd eye and a strong temptation to
whistle. The mansion faced east toward the road
approach, and west toward the lake, with a
central hall running through from the front door
to the back. These main doors were tall and
massive with locks to match. Langdon slipped out
one of the keys and hefted it in his hand. It
weighed well over a pound. The windows, of
many small panes, were each six feet wide and
ran up almost to the tall ceilings.

 From the main hall a corridor led them to the
left, where they inspected the parlor, dining room,
billiard room, and library. A door from the dining
room opened into a one-story ell on the south
end of the house, the kitchen, in charge of
Remus's mother, a big cheerful black woman
named Hagar. Parlor and library looked toward
the lake; and in the library, where already
Governor Johnnie had a few choice leatherbound
volumes, a fire in a black marble fireplace
warmed the tiled hearth and the room.

 Returning to the central hall, Fannie threw
open a door on the other side of the house, and
they peered into the ballroom, which occupied
half the lower story. It was empty of all furniture,
indeed the walls and floor were unfinished, and in
this state, as Langdon said, it looked as big as a
barn.

They passed up the maple staircase, a straight
flight with the

balusters unfinished, and found themselves in
another hall. Fannie waved a hand. "All that space
on the north side, over the dancing room, will
remain as it is for a time even my ambitious
Governor can't do everything at once but I want
you to look at our chambers on this side.
See!" throwing open a door and revealing a large
room, unfurnished, with tall paneling only partly
done and a coved niche left on each side of a grey
marble fireplace.

 "This will be for official guests visiting governors
from other provinces, and the like. One of those
niches will hold a bust of His Majesty, the other a
bust of the Queen the Governor's ordered them
from England and of course we'll call it our King
and Queen Room."

 Passing through another door into another
unfinished chamber, "This is for our special
friends we've put a bed and carpet in it for you,
my dears. Of course everything's rough as you
see  the house is still swanning with joiners and
masons every livelong day, but I hope you won't
mind."

 Mrs. Langdon noted with satisfaction a brisk fire
in the white marble fireplace. The nights now were
distinctly cold.

 "The Governor's sent to France for a landscape
paper for this room, East Indian scenes elephants
and temples and palm trees and rajahs walking with
their ladies in gardens most extravagant, but he
would have it. So of course we call this the East
India Room."

 "Now over here," crossing the corridor, "is the
Governor's own bedchamber rough just like yours
at the present, as you see. This will be the Green
Room: walls, carpets, window hang-
ings everything. He's mad about woods and fields,
and so forth, so green's his color that's why he
chose it for his carriage and his servants' livery.
People will call him The Green Man if he doesn't
look out like a tavern sign. And this," opening
another door, ']eads to my chamber, which will be
done in shades of blue. My Governor can have his
wood greens. I like the sea, where the towns are,
and the blue sky over them."

107

 "But you enjoy the summers up here?" Mrs.
Langdon said. Her husband had wandered away.

 Fannie laughed and wrinkled her nose. "Do you
want the truth? I put up with Johnnie's notions as
a good wife must but between you and me and
the bedpost, my dear, I wouldn't give a bent
sixpence for all the groves and lakes and bogs
from Dover Point to Canada. (give me the
town the town and lively people about me, and
some music and dancing or a good hand of whist
in the evenings."

 Mr. Langdon gazed from a window to the east,
where the Governor's Road emerged from the
woods. Already the shadows under the pines were
as black as night. The clearing on this side
opened to the house in a deep inverted V, pitted
like a smallpocked face, where stumps and
boulders had been dragged out of the earth. A
long carriageway from the edge of the woods to
the house had been marked out apparently with
saplings or switches, ready for levering. The ladies
found him staring at these objects, and he pointed
them out.

'What are those?"

 Fannie smiled. "Those saplings along the
carriageway? Elms  fetched all the way from
Portsmouth, with the roots wrapped in wet moss,
if you please. My Governor calls it The Mall. The
Mall! I tell you, Mr. Langdon, he talks as if he
planned to live a hundred years as if he might
drive along there some day in his coach-and-four
with trees and branches arching overhead. What
a dreamer the man is."

 The sunset glow had faded from the western
windows, and the brief autumn twilight had
begun. Already servants were moving about with
tapers, lighting candles in the lower rooms.
Langdon noted that they wore their livery, with
freshly powdered hair, as if they were in town;
and that the candles were not tallow but of the
finest spermaceti.

 And now the dreamer arrived, in muddy and
scratched riding boots, in stained leather breeches
and hunting shirt, swinging down from a tired
horse and tossing the reins to the boy Remus. He
came into the house with his quick stride and
greeted

108

the visitors heartily, at the same time beckoning a
servant. "Madeira," he called to the man, throwing
out the word without turning his head.

 When the wine came Woodbury Langdon offered
a toast. 'ho the lord of Wolfeborough."

 "And his lady of course," added his wife
promptly, detecting the sardonic note in Woody's
voice and covering it with wifely skill.

 "I'll give you a better," Johnnie smiled. "Our own
New Hampshire, the one that is to be, from the
Isles of Shoals to Lake Champlain and all the way
east to Nova Scotia. A bumper, if you please."

 He tossed off the wine and disappeared upstairs,
calling for his valet. When he came down he was in
full town fig, from tiewig to silk stockings and
pumps. When they went into the dining room they
found a white cloth laid, with some of the
Governor's best silver and chinaware gleaming
under an elaborate candelabra. A servant in livery
stood behind each of their four chairs. The meal
itself was "plain country fare," as Johnnie said;
soup, trout, roast venison, and plum pudding, with
a very good claret and brandy.

 Thus comfortably fed the ladies withdrew to
gossip in the parlor, and the Governor amd
Langdon in the billiard room amused themselves at
a game, with a servant to mark the score. They
chatted idly between strokes. Mr. Langdon was too
polite to ask, but he was curious about the cost of
this baronial establishment in the wilds. It must
have swallowed at least five thousand guineas
already. The house was still half-finished, and
Johnnie talked cheerfully of barns and stables, of
tons of furnishings still to come, of his proposed
deer park and his gristmill and other matters
farther afield. His visitor began to suspect that the
wildest guess of the Portsmouth gossips was none
too large. Johnnie's ordinary living expenses alone
must be taking every penny of his salary from the
provincial government and from his post as
Surveyor General. He had urged the Assembly to
increase the salary, and they had refused. Where

109

was Johnnie getting the money? From his father?
Mark Wentworth was well to do, but much of
what he owned was in timberlands and suchlike
property. He was tight with money, especially now
that he had to sell his masts to shrewd local ship-
builders instead of the Royal Navy. Governor
Johnnie must be borrowing, and he must be over
his ears already. A few more years of this lordly
expense at Wolfeborough would send him
fathoms deep.

 Of course, with Johnnie's wide holdings here, he
might sell land for good sums and pay off his
debts when the tide of settlement came in. And it
had begun. Already a hundred and fifty people
were living in the Wolfeborough township. Mr.
Livius was making a country estate in imitation of
the Governor, but on a much more modest scale.
David Sewall and that college friend of Johnnie's,
Dr. Cutter, had built a sawmill on the stream
from Wentworth's lake, and frame houses and
barns were going up in the settlement. But all
these were being sustained from Portsmouth by
the wagon road to the foot of Winnipesaukee,
with water transport up the lake to the village.
Wentworth House lay miles in woods beyond,
with a tedious approach either Way. Who would
want land there? And would Johnnie sell an inch
if he could? Interesting questions!

 In the course of their visit the Langdons were
blessed with the warm lazy sunshine of a benign
autumn. By day the hills swam in a blue haze like
wood smoke, and the hardwood leaves about the
lake shores fluttered like the gaudy tatters of a
Joseph's coat, especially at sundown when the
ruddy light brought out the warm color of the
maples. Each night the sky was brilliant with
stars, with frost sparkling on the torn earth of the
clearing, and the lake rejecting all above like a
patch of fallen sky.

 Each day Mr. Langdon rode with Johnnie over
the estate, watching the various gangs of men at
work. Once they rode seven miles around the lake
to the settlement of Wolfeborough, where the
clearings were growing by the hour, and small but
snug farmhouses already dotted the slope looking
out on the

waters of Winnipesaukee. They called on Mr.
Livius, and found him overseeing his work gangs
from a rude seat perched on a pine snag, twenty
feet above the ground. He resembled a dark
watchful statue on a monument, with his wife a
symbolic figure at the foot. Mrs. Livius enjoyed
these wild scenes and frequently went over to
Wentworth House by horseback or canoe. She
preferred the canoe, paddled by a pair of
woodsmen, even when the Gvernor's lake was
lashed by autumn gales that threatened to swamp
the bark in a moment.

 Mr. Livius did not visit there so often. He was
busy with his own estate. As they rode away
Langdon said, "D'you trust that man?"

"Of course, why?"

 Langdon hesitated. Johnnie's liking for
Englishmen was a byword, and he was especially
friendly with Livius and Colonel Michael
Wentworth a': Portsmouth, and another half-pay
officer, Colonel Fenton, newly settled with his
Boston wife at one of the up-tide settlements.

"He's ambitious, Johnnie."

"Pshaw! Who isn't?"

 Woodbury Langdon said no more. His own
brother John, an up-and-coming sea captain and
merchant, was one of those who despised the
whole Wentworth clan and made no bones about
it. Lately there were whispers that Livius was
secretly another, that indeed he had consulted the
rest and was plotting some sort of mischief for
Johnnie in particular. But there were all sorts of
rumors nowadays.

 Fannie and Mrs. Langdon spent most of their
time in the house, amusing themselves at
crewelwork and billiards, while the din of hammer
and saw, of adz and chisel and plane, rang through
the building from cellar to garret.

 "I'm an indoor creature," Fannie confessed. "I
never feel well in summer as I do in winter. I'm at
my best when the fires are lit and the doors and
windows closed. My Governor thrives on outdoor
air but all men do."

The noise of the workmen drove the ladies out of
doors, willy

lll

nilly, from time to time. Once, sheltering her
complexion under a broad straw hat, Fannie led
the way to see "My Governor's" sawmill on the
Rye Field brook, but she went astray near the
swampy meadow with its confusing fringe of
cedars and hackmatacks, and by the time they
found their way back to Wentworth House she
had lost her silk shoes in the muck.

 A more comfortable venture with the gentlemen
took them on horseback to a ridge overlooking
the lake. Here the view was wide and beautiful. A
painter's panorama of hills and slopes, green and
shaggy with pines and hemlocks; of wild meadows
which they called savannas, a lusher green in the
folds; the blue lake with its little fleet of islands;
the hint of bigger Winnipesaukee in the hill folds
to the west; the pointed breast of Copplecrown;
and there on the broad terrace at their feet the
solitary grandeur of Wentworth House, a toy from
this height. They dined on the ground, with food
and wine brought in panniers by a servant riding
behind. Above their heads towered an enormous
pine, one of the finest Mr. Langdon had seen in
a lifetime on the Piscataqua.

 "I don't see the King's mark," he observed,
measuring the trunk with his eye.

 "This one's mine," Johnnie said crisply. "And it
shall stand as long as I live, mark that. We call
this place Mount Delight  Fannie's notion the
view of course. By-and-by I'll have a good bridle
path up here, and we'll entertain all our visitors in
this fashion. And next year I'll have a sloop on
the lake. She's e-building now, down by the outlet
to Winnipesaukee. Her name's to be
Roc7~'ngha~n, in compliment to my good friend
and patron in England. If you come early enough
in the spring, Mrs. Langdon, you shall christen
her. We'll even take you for a sail."

 At last the time came for the Langdons to
return. As they mounted for their journey a blown
horse came out of the woods with a rider in
livery, one of the grooms at the Governor's stable
in Portsmouth. He fished a letter from the saddle
pouch. Johnnie frowned. He had told his secretary
not to bother him with anything but the most
urgent matters here, and the folded and wax

1~2

sealed slip had a superscription in Macdonogh's
hand. He did not open it, but stood waving good-by
to the Langdons with the thing in his hand until
the forest swallowed them.

'What's that?" Fannie said.

 Johnnie took a small penknife from his waistcoat,
sliced away the seal, and unfolded the sheet. She
saw a startled look and then one she could not
fathom.

'Well," she cried, "what does it say?"

"Uncle Benning died two days ago at Little
Harbor."

 Up flew Fannie's brows. Suddenly she smiled.
She laughed aloud. She seized Johnnie's hands and
whirled him about, dancing on her dainty toes in
the mud of the carriageway.

 "Dance with me, Jolmnie, dance! Why so glum?
Nobody loved that fat old nincompoop. And think
of all that money!"

 But her Governor would not dance. He seemed
thunderstruck. Fannie ceased her capers and
demanded, 'What's the matter?"

 "His will was opened yesterday. A new one,
drawn up by Mr. Atkinson a few weeks ago."

"Oh?"

"Everything, to the last hatpenny, goes to the
widow."

"Martha? I don't believe it. Let me see."

 She snatched the sheet from his hand and read
Macdonogh's fine looped handwriting at a glance.
For a moment or two she was rigid, staring at the
paper as if it were Martha Wentworth herself. She
twisted it into a ball and stamped it into the mud.
Then, seeing Johnnie's countenance, she stepped
close and slipped her arms about his neck.

 "Never mind, darling. There's other money in the
world, and you shall find it. I'll bring you fortune
yet I vow I will."

 He remained absorbed, staring over her shoulder
into the forest, as if all his creditors were there
disguised as trees. She withdrew her arms and
turned her back, crying petulantly, "I suppose you
think I've ruined you. I suppose you think Benning
Wentworth cut you off because of me those
whispers about our marriage. And of course I
didn't bring you sixpence, when you might have

1 1 3

married a fortune. That was what you always
planned to do, wasn't it?"

 He made no answer but turned abruptly and
strode into the house. Fannie paused long enough
to shrivel the gaping workmen with a queenly
stare and followed him. He had gone into his
library, and when she tried the handle she found
the door locked. He did not emerge for supper.
Late in the evening she sent the servants off to
their quarters, went upstairs, undressed, and put
on the most charming of bedgowns. In this and a
Howered wrapper, and with a candle in her hand,
she came down to the library door and scratched
lightly on the panel, an intimate little sound, a
trick of hers in the early weeks of their marriage
when Johnnie was working late and she came to
offer herself for love-making. There had been very
little of that since the baby's death.

"Johnnie?"

'\es." His voice was dull, as if he had been
drinking.

"Let me in, love."

"I wish to be alone."

"Johnnie, let me in this instant!"

No answer.

 Her mind moved nimbly. "Johnnie, if you don't,
I'll do something you'll be sorry for. I'll I'll
throw myself down the well."

No answer.

 The well was at the south end of the house, just
around the corner from the window where
Johnnie undoubtedly sat, staring out at the
starlight on the lake. She ran along the hall and
slammed the great front door behind her. A swift
rush in her slippers carried her to the well with its
waist-high stone curb. A chunk of poplar lay
there, fallen from the woodpile. It was a good
three feet long, dry and light from the past
summer's heat, but big enough to make a hearty
splash. The front door was opening, and she
heard Johnnie's shout.

 "Fannie? Where are you? Fannie, don't be a
fool. D'you hear me?"

She tipped the log into the well and fled like a
deer, around the

4

other corner to the west door, and thence along
the hall and up the stairs. One of her chamber
windows looked upon the well, and in a moment
she swung it open. Johnnie, a dark frantic figure
under the stars, was at the well's windlass running
the bucket down to the full length of the rope. Iri
another moment he was astride the curb and
about to descend. In that moment Fannie's voice
startled him, floating from above, not below. She
was laughing.

"Fannie you devil!"

"Disappointed, Your Excellency?"

 He ran for the door and came up the stairs two
at a time. When he dashed into the Blue Room
there she was, with a puckish smile, Iying fin the
bed, arms back and hands tucked under the
pillow ends. And now she pouted her lips and
began to whistle the air of "Why Should We
Quarrel for Riches."

Johnnie himself had to laugh then.

"I ought to spank you soundly, ma'am."

She turned her head and blew the candle out.

 "If it please, m'lord," the voice floated up in the
dark, "the prisoner submits to whatever infliction
Your Lordship may desire."

115

                 [EN

IT THrz END of October they were back in
Portsmouth, amid the thronging roofs and
chimneys, the clatter of shoes and hoofs and
wheels, the mingled voices, the atmosphere of life
in close company that Fannie loved. Once more
His Excellency threw himself into the routine
business of being a govemor. Once more Mrs.
Fannie dictated little social notes to Thomas
Macdonogh, as if the Govemor's demands were
not enough, and watched his busy quill fuming out
elegant trifles such as:

    THs GOVEnnOu AnD LADY InV17u

TO TEA ON THURSDAY NsxT,
Mu. AND MnS. rANorloN
MA AT LIVE 0 CLOCK P.M.
PORTSMOUTH, FRIDAY livening,
Nov~Msr~R 23, 1770

 Once more they entertained Portsmouth
gentlefolk with dinners and balls and concerts,
although Colonel Michael's face was missing from
the musical affairs and an imported footman
played the violin. Since his dismissal from Fannie's
domain the soldier had quartered himself in a
room at Stavers's inn. The stables of his friends
were open to him whenever he wished to ride, and
he remained a welcome visitor in and outside the
town. When they met at routs and dinners he and
Johnnie chatted amicably enough, although the
old camaraderie was gone, and the colonel had
only a silent bow for Johnnie's lady. On her own
part, with the occult knack of ladies meeting
someone they dislike, Fannie always gazed
through Michael Wentworth as if he were not
there.

One rainy day in late autumn, riding in Buck
Street, Johnnie

6

met his old friend on a fine gelding coming from
the tavern. He touched his wet hat in salute and
was passing on when the soldier called, "One
moment, Johnnie."

'~es, Michael?"

The colonel rode in knee to knee and regarded
him earnestly.

 "I urn there's somethin' I feel you should
know, before anybody else. A matter of passin'
interest, o' course, but these are dull days, eh? I
owe you thanks, Johnnie."

"Not at all."

 "This is somethin' particular. I want to thank you
for the day you introdooced me to old Uncle
Blubbergut. I've had many's the good time out
there at Little Harbor since, shootin', fishin', en' so
on and many a jolly bout with the old feller at the
bowl. A tippler after my own taste. And I liked the
place from the time I saw it first. Suited me to a T.
even that Jack Straw's Castle of a house. Nothin'
like England, o' course, but maybe that was why.
I'd had a bellyful of England. Well, to get on with
it, I was sorry when the old man died, if nobody
else was, eh?"

 Johnnie gave him a shrewd glance. It was early in
the day for drinking, even for Michael's drinking,
but he could catch no sober drift to this casual
discourse in the rain. The horses stamped and
sidled impatiently.

 "Johnnie, after your uncle's funeral I got to
thinkin'. Here I was, with scarcely one guinea to
chink against another cadgin' from friends
between one half-pay and the next. After all my
years in His Majesty's service, fightin' the French,
an' those wild Scotchmen o' Prince Charlie's, an' so
on. An' all the time my brother Peregrine sittin'
snug on the estate at home with nothin' but a few
pheasant guns to bang about his ears. So, as I say,
I got to thinkin' somethin' I've never done much,
not havin' the head for it. And 'twas all quite
simple when I came to the point. Here I was,
damme, a man that deserved a roof of his own an'
some ease an' pleasure under it, specially now in
his prime years while he could relish a hearty
constitution. And out there, d'ye see, was Mrs.
Martha, fine rigger of a woman, sunny side o'
five-an'-thirty,

117

left all alone with a heap o' guineas an' half the
timber in New Hampshire."

'What the devil are you driving at?" Johnnie
snapped.

 "Eh? I mean to say, damme, one ant one makes
two, don't it? Why, Johnnie, even I can do a sum
like that! It means I rode out yesterday an'
popped the question. Popped it like a man. An'
got my answer too. She's agreed to
surrender hand heart, bag an' baggage. See
now? The old stallion's come to clover. Ain't you
pleased?"

 Johnnie's face was nakedly incredulous. The
soldier was tipsy, surely. He seemed quite
debonair, but Michael always held his wine well,
even in the saddle.

"May I ask when the marriage takes place?"

 "Oh, as soon as may be the day must be the
lady's choice I mean to say, hey? But the pretty
creature assures me it'll be well this side o' the
month's end. So Johnnie, congratulate the hap-
piest man in America barrin' yourself o' course."

'Avery well. My congratulations, Michael."

 Johnnie put out a gloved hand, and the soldier
shook it fervently.

"An' give my compliments to your lady, Johnnie,
eh?"

 His Excellency's eyes went winter cold, but
there was no subtlety in the soldier's. Michael's
ruddy features had only the pleased look of a boy
who has found a sugarplum in an old coat pocket.

 Abruptly Johnnie gripped his reins and spurred
away. He felt as if he were dreaming after mulled
wine and mince pie. The neatness the devilish
neatness of the thing! All that land and money,
the fortune that was his by right, dropping into
the fingers of that cheerful wastrel the guest
he'd invited out from England and then turned
out of his house! Incredible! What the deuce was
Portsmouth coming to?

 In a few days the curious little world of
Portsmouth was coming in a body to the wedding
of Colonel and Martha Wentworth. The interest
was scarcely less than that of Johnnie's own mar-
riage, only a year before. And there was much
chaff afterward

118

in tavern and drawing room about these
widow-couplings so soon after funerals. Was it a
fashion now?

 The Governor and his lady stayed at home.
Fannie had received Johnnie's news in silence. Her
comment to her friends was, "Well, a pretty match,
my dears. A penniless English rake and a
jumped-up tavern wench. Old Benning must be
groaning in his tomb to see his fortune in such
hands. But he deserted it, after all. And heaven
knows that precious pair deserve each other."

 His Excellency made his own comment in
another way and quite another place. At the next
meeting of his Council he laid before them a
proposal of his own as Surveyor General. His voice
was impersonal and precise.

 "Gentlemen, now that our late Governor, Mr.
Benning Wentworth, is gone to his last account,
and now that his property has um passed to
other hands, I think we may consider without
prejudice the lands involved. As you know, over a
period of many years the old Governor kept a
portion of the best woodland for himself whenever
he made a township grant. He gathered more than
a hundred thousand acres in that way. I have long
considered the matter, and now I give you a
decision. I find the whole of it unlawful."

He paused significantly. A lone voice broke the
silence.

 "I beg to differ, if your Excellency will forgive
me," Peter Livius said. He had the air of a whist
player who sees at last an opening for his trump.

 "I speak, gentlemen, as a lawyer of some training
in England, and I may say of some observation
over here. The fact is, under the loose terms of his
office our late Governor was quite within the law
in granting himself these lands. We can't upset
that, whatever our sentiments now."

 He sat back with a tight mouth, repressing a
smile, although he could not hide the malice in his
glance at Johnnie's face. At once a lively clamor
broke out around the Council board, protesting
that His Excellency was right. It amused Mr.
Livius, gazing from face to face. Barring himself,
every one was of the Went

119

worth clan by blood or marriage. A flock of
Wentworth eagles hungry to pick at a nice fat
Wentworth corpse! What a spectacle!

Finally His Excellencv spoke again.

 "Whatever the terms of the late Governor's
office, there was a term in the grants that applied
to everyone, including him. The land must be
improved, at a definite expense, within a definite
time, or the grant became void. I'm no
lawyer" an ironical bow to Mr. LivIus "but
that's beyond dispute. And what do we find when
we examine the lands in question? You know as
well as I do. Hardly a single tract in the
woodlands held by the late Governor's estate has
been improved a pennyworth. They should have
been escheated long ago. And I say to you now
that the province must take steps, first to place
them back in the public domain, and second to
grant them to such of His Majesty's subjects as
will settle and cultivate them."

 Johnnie paused. And then, 'Will one of you
gentlemen make a motion to that effect?"

 The motion was made and passed in a minute.
Mr. Livius uttered the only Nay.

 "I ask that my objection go on the record," he
announced in his dry Middle Temple voice. "For
the clerk I shall put it in writing later, but I'll give
it to you now."

 A hubbub of protest. He held up a hand.
Governor Johnnie sat watching him, calm, proud,
a little contemptuous, sensing venom to come but
not afraid of it.

 "Patience, gentlemen," said Peter Livius, turning
his dark set face from one to another. "It won't
take a minute of your time  though it'll take
more later on, that I promise you. I object to this
motion on the ground that His Excellency John
Wentworth, in proposing to escheat these lands,
does so with the intent and purpose of securing
them, through other parties, to his own use."

A gasp from eight mouths.

 "Does that astonish you? I declare further that
Mr. John Wentworth has been guilty of gross
maladministration im his offices as Governor and
as Surveyor General of His Majesty's Woods, as
his uncle the late Benning Wentworth was before
him. I shall

1~0

give detail of these malpractices in due time. The
matter is painful to me, of course, but I believe in
duty, and my duty is quite clear. For the present
that is all."

 He sat down, with a saturnine smile at the stir
and at the looks on all their faces, as if he had
blasphemed and was soon to be struck by
lightning. But the god of this little Olympus
remained calm. He made no protest. It was a
matter for the Council to deal with, and they dealt
with it. The verbal remarks of Mr. Livius would
not be entered in the Council's journal. His
written objection would be placed on the clerk's
file, and that was all. And with that the meeting
dissolved.

 Johnnie told the tale to an astonished Fannie
over the supper table that night.

 "But why?" she Died. "They've always been such
friends of ours, Anna and Peter!"

 "Anna, yes. There's nothing two-faced about
Anna. But this is Peter's other face, which seems
to be ambitious. Woodbury Langdon told me so at
Wolfeborough, and I said Pooh. Well, here's
proof."

"You don't mean he wants to be Governor?"

 "Only God and Peter Livius know what he wants
to be. He's acquired a sour jealousy of me and all
my kin, that's clear, though he chose to conceal it
until now."

'What can he do?"

 "Oh, the man's rich and clever, but I've nothing
to fear from a bilious English lawmonger. He has
no standing with our New Hampshire folk, and I
doubt if his vaporings would mean a thing in
London, if they got so far."

 "But of course you do intend to get Uncle
Benning's lands? After all they're yours by right.
All that property should have come to you if artful
Martha hadn't twisted the old sot round her finger
at the last."

 Johnnie shifted irritably in his chair. "My dear
Fannie, all that's water over the milldam. Forget
it. I intend to put those grants in the hands of able
men with a bit of money at their backs. Men
who'll carry out the terms. And why should I hunt

121

about New Hampshire for men who don't happen
to be connected with the Wenhvorths? My
family's been here on this soil for generations,
marrying right and left. A boy couldn't blow peas
at any town meeting in the province without
hitting someone linked with me one way or
another."

"That's what Livius knew," she said.

 "Oafs fish, who cares what he knows? I want
those backwoods opened fast, and I know the
men who'll do it. What else matters?"

"Must you be quite such a Jackin-a-hurry?"

 "My dear Fan, Uncle Benning kept his grants
idle for years, in some cases half a lifetime. I can't
see one more season wasted. Time won't wait for
us, nor will the New Yorkers. D'you realize. ..."

"Oh dear yes, Johnnie. yes. Don't go into that."

 The spring of 1771 came up from the south,
with warm rains and a hot political smell from the
Boston pot still boiling merrily. Just a year ago a
mob of Boston street roughs had clashed with
some redcoats and come off second best, as that
painter man Copley had foretold. Johnnie's old
friend and Harvard classmate John Adams had
defended the soldiers in the courts, but Sam
Adams and others were still calling it a massacre
of peaceable American townsmen.

 Johnnie went on vigorously with the training of
the New Hampshire militia; he had formed them
in twelve battalions and in making officers he
placed ability first, regardless of family or money.
His regular force, to be raised in the province,
was still no more than a dream. The Assembly
had allowed him no more than one officer and
five men, hired on an annual basis, and these only
because there had to be some trained caretakers
for the old fort on Newcastle Island and the store
of cannon there.

 In other matters he had more success. He got
money and built a lighthouse at the river
entrance, something the Portsmouth merchants
and fishermen had wanted time out of mind. He
took the King's quitrent money, taxed on all
grantlands, and boldly spent it on new roads.
Belore long he could point to more than

122

two hundred miles of such roads opened in the
back country. And now, after long urging, he had
I.ondon's permission to mark off the province in
five counties, each with its local justices and seat
officials. Under Uncle Benning's regime the
outlying settlements had growled incessantly
because their people had to come to Portsmouth
for the simplest of legal matters.

 As Surveyor Gneral his sore problem remained
in the King's mast trees. The timber owners chafed
more and more at the sight of their best pines
marked and reserved for some fanciful war in the
future. Portsmouth shipbuilders wanted the trees,
and the boisterous crews of mastmen were eager
for the work. Johnnie held firmly to the law, while
he sought a decent way out of it. One had
appeared to him, and he was pressing it by letter
upon the Lords of Trade and Plantations. Why not
reserve whole tracts of timber for the Navy far up
the coast in Nova Scotia, where the population
lived almost entirely on the fishery? He had seen
good stands of pine up there, every stick handy to
the sea, when he visited Nova Scotia in the Bearer.
The change would be no hardship to the Nova
Scotians, who had no interest in timber, and it
would relieve this pressure in New Hampshire,
where God knew he had pressures enough. So far
the Lords of Trade were silent.

 They were silent, too, on the hotter subject of
import taxes and the methods of His Majesty's
collectors. Like other Americans Johnnie was
protesting both. So far he could still persuade the
collectors in Portsmouth to move cautiously, but
they were under the orders of His Majesty's
commissioners in Boston, and sooner or later they
must seize right and left and be damned.

 Every fisherman smuggled when he had a chance.
So did the lumber and fish traders on their home
voyages from the West Indies and other foreign
parts. Indeed most of the Portsmouth merchants
were involved in smuggling, directly or indirectly.
In America free trade was a custom so old that in
every mind it had the respectability of law. Of
course a good many solid men who smuggled had
no sympathy with the common mob, having seen it
in action during the Stamp Act riots. They wanted
order. But

123

how many of them would support the Gvernor
when His Majesty's shoe began to pinch them
too?

 So far the belief in order had stood well at
Johnnie's back. Everyone remembered an affair in
his first winter as Governor, when one midnight
the Sheriff roused him out of bed.

 "Governor! That man in the jail, the one
condemned to hang tomorrow there's a great
crowd gathering in Water Street to rescue
him fishermen and wharf porters, and the like."

 Johnnie thought swiftly as he dressed. The
water-front mob  the same mob that had set all
Portsmouth by the ears in '65. But no Stamp Act
now for an excuse. A criminal who chanced to be
popular about the wharves.

 Away went his grooms at a gallop to summon
the Council and a squad of his best drilled militia.
Half an hour later he was standing before the jail
with a group of militiamen, hastily dressed and
armed. Such of the councilors as had arrived were
huddling in the jail doorway. They could hear the
mob approaching, a roar like the sea on the Rye
shore after a hurricane, something that prickled
the scalps of them all. The jail was a small
wooden thing, old and shaky. As Johnnie
remarked, an old woman could knock it down.

 And now the mob came in sight like a Fundy
tide bore rushing up the street, many carrying
torches, all brave with rum and hot for mischief.
At sight of the resolute Johnnie and his group
they yelled and doubled their pace, hoping no
doubt to frighten this small guard away. But when
they came within musket shot they paused and
milled about, for in that moment Johnnie called
to his men, "See to your flints and priming!" And
then the order, "Present firelocks! Ready! Aim!"

 He drew his sword, a bright flash in the
torchlight. "Mr. Atkinson, read aloud the Riot
Act, if you please."

 The Chief Justice held a paper to the light of
the jail-door lantern, and his voice sounded
sharply in the hush. When he finished Johnnie
snapped to the crowd, "Disperse! Disperse, or
take the consequence!" And without turning his
head to the militia, and in the same voice, "When
I give the order Fire, you'll

124

shoot to kill, understand? You'll then reload
quickly and present once more. It may not be
necessary to fire again, but in any case you'll await
the word from me."

 And to the silent crowd, "Away home with you,
men, and put those torches out as you go. If we
have to shoot we will make no mistake. In that
case I'll arrest the men who roused you to this
folly and see 'em hanged along with that villain in
the jail. Now go!"

 The crowd muttered, and there were some
defiant shouts, but these came from the rear. The
men in front were silent. In ones and twos, then in
groups, they began to slip away, dousing the
torches in puddles as they went. Then they were
gone.

"Ah!" said the Sheriff. '~Those fools thought you
meant it, sir."

"So I did."

"Eh? I mean to say shooting?"

"And hanging."

"Phew!"

 Johnnie addressed the militia crisply. "Thank you,
my lads. I must ask you to keep guard here until
moming. Meanwhile you've stood to your duty as
your oath demanded, and every honest man and
woman in town will give you thanks. If those tipsy
rascals had got their man away there'd have been
no law but theirs in Portsmouth, and more than
the jail in flames to mark it."

 And to the Councilors, shivering half-dressed in
the dank spring night, "Well, gentlemen, let us go
back to our beds. We can sleep the better for
what's just passed, I think." He had ridden away,
an image of confidence, passing out of the light of
the door lantern into the dark toward Pleasant
Street.

 In the Portsmouth mansions, in the taverns, in
the hovels by the harborside, people still talked of
that midnight encounter and drew a clear
deduction from it. Johnnie's own philosophy, writ-
ten to his friend Dr. Belham after the affair,
remained his guiding principle:

 "The grand secret of peace and safety is to cause
them to think before they act, the longer the better;
and to be steady, open, and

1~5

resolute, without any mystery or intrigue. In this way
there will ver be any great tumults. It is
impracticable to raise a great dangerous mob if all
the business is understood."

 In May 1771 he and Frances traveled up to the
hills for the summer and fall. As usual his work
gangs had been busy for weeks, and a big crew of
backwoodsmen, paid from the Quitrent Fund,
were hacking what he called his College Road
through the forest across to Hanover. The
"college" was still only a small wooden school with
a dozen students in residence. President
Wheelock was nursing his fund with care for the
future. Indeed he was even supporting himself by
running a mill and a ferry on the Connecticut
River close by.

 In the last week of August the college would
hold its first commencement, a midget affair, for
there were just four graduates, but Gvernor
Johnnie determined to make it an occasion. It
was time for the gentlemen of Portsmouth to give
their countenance to the college and see what was
going on in the back country. He invited the
leading men of the town to set forth on horseback
well beforehand, so they could tarry at Wentworth
House and inspect the spreading farms of
Wolfeborough on the way. They made a lively
troop winding through the woods and hills in the
fine summer weather, and if they found Johnnie's
new roads rough there was no complaint. Even
those who had seen it before were impressed with
his growing miracle at Wolfeborough; and when,
after leisurely and merry days, the cavalcade
arrived in sight of Hanover, they were amazed to
see the extent of settlement that was moving into
the backwoods of New Hampshire from the
south. For the first time they realized what
Johnnie had been telling them for many months,
that here was a rich field for Portsmouth business,
to be tapped by his new roads instead of going
away down the river to Massachusetts.

 If they thought his "college" a pitiful affair they
put a good face on it; and Johnnie at his own
expense made the commencement a backwoods
feast, with an ox roasted whole, and plenty to
drink for everyone. Altogether it was a famous
event, something to be talked about not only in
Portsmouth but in every village of the

~26

province. And lest the reverend president forget,
he received an excellent memento from that jolly
company. Johnnie had the hat passed on their
return, and they sent back to Hanover a silver
punch bowl, suitably engraved.

 In the following summer, leaving Frances to
entertain their visitors at Wentworth House,
Johnnie went off to explore the White Mountains.
There was not much time, there were so many
things to do elsewhere, and he came back filled
with plans for a survey all the w ayto Canada next
year. In these he was joined by a new guest at
Wolfeborough, a promising young man named
Benjamin Thompson, eager to see the mountains
and to map them. The New Yorkers were stir;
pushing their claim to the New Hampshire grants
up there; and despite the growls of Johnnie's
friends Ethan Allen and the other rough mountain
men, the New Yorkers had the ear of the Board of
Trade and Plantations across the sea. Meanwhile
Johnnie engaged another visitor to make a careful
and detailed map of his province between the
foothills and the sea. Captain Samuel Holland was
an English surveyor with a wide experience in
America, and Johnnie urged the Assembly to
provide the captain's modest fee, a matter of thirty
potmds. They refused, of course, as they refused so
many of his requests. What good was a new map of
New Hampshire, even at thirty pounds? They could
find their way about their own parts well enough.
So Governor Johnnie found the money himself,
and Mr. Holland was hard at work.

 Fannie had news for "my wandering Gvernor."
Peter Livius had sailed for England. What did that
mean?

 Johnnie frowned and shrugged. "He tells his
friends my enemies naturally that he has
powerful influence over there, and I suppose he's
gone to prove it. Pah! Let him sail away. I have
influence there myself."

"Who, besides Lord Rockingham?"

 "Oh, various people. Paul Wentworth. And, well,
for am example of the others there's Sir Thomas
Wentworth, a kinsman of Rockingham's, who lives
at Bretton Woods in Yorkshire. I met him when I
was over there and found him mighty interested in

1~7

America. We've corresponded ever since, the way
I correspond with a dozen other gentlemen in
England. From time to time I've sent little
notions a pair of squirrels, a Newfoundland
water dog, a hamper of Madeira matured on a
West India voyage, a package of prime cured
codfish, something like forty American trees and
shrubs for Sir Tom's park at Bretton Woods. That
kind of thing."

Fannie wrinkled her nose. "Squirrels and dogs and
codfish!"

 'Well, I'm giving Sir Thomas something else, a
most tangible interest in New Hampshire, and in
the very part the New Yorkers aim to take from
us. I've just laid off a new township up in the
mountains. I've called it Bretton Woods after Sir
Tom's place in England. I've made him a
proprietor. It's what Peter Livius would consider
one of my malpractices.But you see my point. A
friend at court for New Hampshire and myself."

"It sounds more sensible than shrubs and
stockfish, anyhow."

 "Here's something else. I fancy Livius is
counting on some influence with Lord
Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the
Colonies. He isn't aware that the noble lord's
giving up his post. And I happen to know it will
go to the Earl of Dartmouth next year. You see?
Dartmouth my friend and the patron of our
college in the wilds. According to Livius I had no
right to spend His Majesty's quitrent money on
the College Road. That's one of my malpractices.
You can guess what Dartmouth will say to that."

"Then Livius hasn't a chance?"

 "None, as far as I can see. Of course I'll make
sure the Lords of Trade have my side of it. I'll
send Tom Macdonogh over there with all the
necessary documents. I've nothing to hide. He
shall go this fall and spend the winter in London."

 Fannie nodded and dismissed the subject. "Well,
now that you've had your ramble in the
mountains I hope you'll condescend to spend
some time with me."

 "I um well, the fact is, Fan, summer's a busy
time for me. I mean I can't move about much in
the winter."

"Go on," she said coldly.

~8

 "Well, as Surveyor General I must earn my
salary. That means, just now, that I've got to make
another sea cruise along the coast of Maine, to
keep an eye on the mast thieves up that way."

"And leave me here in the woods!"

 "Oh, come now, Fan. This isn't the woods any
more. You've got neighbors all about you within
a few miles, anyhow and a good staff to wait on
you hand and foot. Besides, there's all our
summer visitors tt, entertain you know you like
that."

 "All very well," said Fannie with petulance and
an edge. "But am I to have the pleasure of my
lord and master only in the wintertime? There's
no need of all this tramping and riding and sailing.
You have rangers and deputies to take care of
that. And look at you! Rough and sunburnt, like
any of those wild mastmen on the river the
Governor of New Hampshire. What would your
noble friends in England say if they could see you
now?"

'they'd envy me to the ground."

 An impatient click of her tongue. "They would
a fig's end! They'd never know the fine gentleman
that left them for America five years ago. They
wouldn't speak to you on the street, my precious
Johnnie. Even in Portsmouth the nice people
shake their heads sometimes their Governor,
who's always over the hills and far away, like Tom,
Tom the Piper's Son."

 'they'll be whistling another tune ten years from
now. A great many New Hampshire folk
appreciate what I'm doing, Fannie. As for the rest,
let 'em shake. I can suffer that if you can, love."

"Humph!"

 "Someday, when I'm too old to tramp and ride
and sail, I'll sit in Portsmouth twelve months in
the year, and I'll want nothing but whist and wine
and conversation. Will you be proud of me then?"

"I'll be a lot more satisfied," said Fannie.

1~9

               ELEVEN

IN ORB I8AR[Y SUMMER of 1773 Johnnie began
his seventh

year as Governor, with all the jaunty optimism of
that first day in the Portsmouth square. He was
thirty-seven, with the same spring in his step, the
same cheerful gaze, the same easy courtesy, the
same ambition. He could look backward with some
satisfaction. In what most American governors had
found a very difficult time, he had kept his
province peaceful and bustling, with a sound
currency and a swiftly growing population. And
now the troubles elsewhere were on the wane.
London had abolished the detested Townsend
import taxes, all but a small duty on tea. At
Boston the redcoats had withdrawn to an island in
the harbor, where there was no further chance of
a clash with the street toughs. Indeed Sam Adams
and his fellow rousers of the Boston mob were at
their wits' end to find trouble. Their only weapon
now was tea; and everyone knew tea sold cheaper
in Boston, threepenny tax and all, than in London
itself. Sam was arguing the tax as a principle, of
course, and so were many others, even in New
Hampshire, but the people seemed tired of tumult
and agitation. To Governor Johnnie the prospect
was a long domestic peace.

 Portsmouth's only worry in this pleasant summer
had nothing to do with politics. It was a sudden
fear of smallpox, the scourge that swept every port
in America from time to time. Some folk were so
afraid that they were willing to suffer "inoculation,"
which as everyone knew was something disgusting
and dangerous, a process found in Turkey years
ago and carried to the polite world by an English
gentlewoman. And now two Portsmouth doctors
decided to practice this pagan art on their own
wives and families, and others were going to them
for the purpose. In

130

dignant voices declared them dangerous fanatics,
bringing a deadly malady into the town by way of
their own flesh, and they must be stopped. The
fanatics declared their right as free men to do
whatever they liked with their flesh. In a short time
the town was in an uproar. With his usual decision
Governor Johnnie stepped in, summoned his
Council, and laid down the rule. Physicians and
patients who wanted inoculation must first get a
license from the Council and then remove
themselves to Pest House Island, down the harbor.
After that, under a distant but sharp watch of town
selectmen, they must stay on the island till the last
trace of the pox had disappeared. It was quite
simple after all, and to Johnnie an example of so
many of these foolish human storms. One calm
voice and a firm hand were enough to stop the
winds and leave everyone wondering what the fuss
had been about.

 Fannie, regarding her own clear skin in the
looking glass, shuddered at the notion of smallpox
in the town, where so many pretty faces had been
pitted in time past. For the first time, when
Johnnie moved her out to Wolfeborough for the
summer, she went with actual relief. She even
began to enjoy the country life. The stream of
visitors had much to do with it. Gay parties of
ladies and gentlemen rattled and jingled through
the woods from Portsmouth to spend a weekend or
a fortnight in the hospitality of Wentworth House.
The living quarters were finished now, and it was
possible to dance in the ballroom, where the
carpenters had laid a smooth floor at last.

 The Mall was ditched and graveled, with the
young elms well rooted and in leaf on either hand.
The great barn, the coach house, the stable for
thirty horses, the workshop, the smokehouse, and
dairy were all up ire frame, amd some complete.
The park was nearly cleared of thickets and
undergrowth, so that Johnnie's guests could stroll
over acres of brown carpet, in the shade of
immense old maples amd beeches and oaks, and
watch the moose and deer that his hunters trapped
m the outer forest amd turned loose mside the
park fences. The forty-acre garden had been
cleared and Flowed from the house to the lake
shore, and already

13~

some flower beds and a patch of vegetables made
a little show of what it was to be. So it was with
the savanna, twenty minutes' walk northward,
where the wild grass had been burned and the
roots Flowed under. In that moist soil and under
the summer sun Johnnie's shoots of rye now
made a delicate green, where only a little while
back the moose had wandered out of the woods
to drink and to roll in the rank marsh grass. For
the sportsmen there was fishing and shooting of
many kinds, an in easy reach. Not content with
the native game, Johnnie had imported pheasants
from England and freed them in the lakeside
woods, dreaming of a day when he could
entertain house parties of gunners like the landed
gentry of the old country. Alas, the bewildered
creatures were promptly devoured by owls and
hawks and wildcats. He was more successful with
cusk, which he fetched from the sea in tubs of ice
and water and poured into the lake. A mad idea
to the Portsmouth fishermen and to his
woodsmen alike and yet the fish were thriving in
fresh water.

 Guests of both sexes made easy jaunts by
saddDe along his paths cut through the woods,
and enjoyed outdoor feasts under the giant lone
pine on the crest of Mount Delight. When the
heat was oppressive, or mosquitoes and black flies
troublesome, they skimmed about the lake in
Johnnie's sloop; and his cook put up hampers of
food to be eaten on favorite islands, which they
called whimsically Turtle, Stamp Tax, and Tea
Rock.

 Dr. Ammi Cutter was often there, talking of old
Harvard days, acting as physician to the
household, and keeping a shrewd eye on his
sawmill interests at Wolfeborough. Another
frequent guest was clever young Benjamin
Thompson, newly married to a widow of property.
He was able now to absorb himself in
mathematics astronomy, chemical and mechanical
experiments, the art of engraving and a dozen
other things that fined his ingenious mind.

 Each Sunday the balbroom became a chapel,
with service by a Church of England parson
invited there for the purpose; and at Johnnie's
further invitation the settlers rode in from all the
country round to join his household at worship.
He stiD hoped to see New Hampshire a province
of the Church as weD as the

132

King, with Dartmouth College a Church institution.
His devo tion was sincere, although his zeal was
something more than religious. Going over in his
mind the past. American disturbances, especially
the fiery talk of the Boston levelers, he saw danger
in anything that drew gentry and common folk into
separate groups. If, by degrees, the people could be
inclined to join the gentry in one Church, at least
one of those dangers would be gone. He still
worked quietly in that direction, although so far
with no success. Early this year he had invited
young Ripley, a graduate of Dartmouth College in
that lively first commencement, to leave the
Presbyterian sect and become a Church of England
parson. But Ripley's adviser, the watchful President
Wheelock, had defeated that. Johnnie showed no
resentment indeed he had none, accustomed as he
was to obstacles. And when, to keep his patron
happy, Mr. Wheelock offered an honorary degree
from Dartmouth College, Johnnie accepted it with
grace.

 Now, as usual, leaving Fannie to play chatelaine
at Wentworth House, Johnnie went off on his
summer concems. First the routine cruise up the
coast, this time as far as Machias, to check the
timber cutters there. Then the backwoods journey
he had planned last year. It took him and his
rangers through the White Mountains by a
remarkable notch, where a giant stone face, carved
by nature, looked forth from the mountainside.
They went on through the rugged hills and woods
to what his quadrant showed him to be the
forty-fifth parallel of latitude, the assumed border
of Canada, and resumed through the wilderness by
another route down to the coast. He came back to
Portsmouth in a coasting schooner, a ratty little
thing that stank of fish, and paused at his town
house to read the accumulated letters and to
change his worn and tattered buckskins for some
decent clothes. There was a fat letter from Tom
Macdonogh in London, and he opened it in easy
expectation. Livius had set forth his accusations for
the Council clerk's file, and in the packet that Tom
Macdonogh carried to London the Govemor had
refuted them care

133

fully one by one, backing his defense with
affidavits and letters from leading gentlemen of
New Hampshire.

 And now Tom described the outcome. A small
subcommittee of the Lords of Trade had sat upon
the matter in May, and they had given Mr. Livius
a careful hearin& for he too had letters and
affidavits from New Hampshire. In putting the
charges he had gone all the way back to old
Governor Benning Wentworth's regime and
Benning's greed and favoritism had been proved
long ago. From that pot of authentic tar shrewd
Peter had swept his brush to Benning's nephew
and successor.

 When Tom Macdonogh put to them the
Governor's defense the committee gave it the
same hearing, and examined Johnnie's documents
with care. Apart from these they had information
from independent sources, and plainly they were
puzzled. In their report to the Board they
declared and here Tom quoted them at length:

 ". . . the reports which we have received through
different channels, of the situation of affairs
within your Majesty's government of New
Hampshire, do all concur in representing the
colony to have been, ever since Mr. Wentworth's
appointment, in a state of peace and prosperity;
that its commerce has been enlarged and
extended, the number of its inhabitants increased.
And every attempt made to excite the people to
disorder and disobedience has been, by the firm
and temperate conduct of Mr. Wentworth,
suppressed and restrained."

 This naturally made handsome reading; but the
report, like many a handsome creation of nature,
had its sting im the tail. Despite Mr. Wentworth's
good works the committee found him guilty of
manipulating public lands for the benefit of his
friends, of dismissing Mr. Livius without cause
from a post as justice, and of failing to send
reports of his Council to the Board in London.
And in view of all this they doubted if he was "a
fit person to be entrusted with your Majesty's
interest in the important station he now holds."

 Johnnie sank into a chair, stunned. His valet,
coming into the room to announce his bath and
fresh clothing ready, saw the

134

blood gone from under the tan of his master's face,
and stammered, "Are you are you all right, sir?"
Johnniewaved him away, sitting in the torn and
greasy buckskins, wigless, with his own dark hair
grown long and tangled from weeks in the back-
woods, gripping the chair arms with hands
calloused and stained with balsam, a very different
picture for Mr. Copley if that deft man could have
been there with his paints and brushes.

 He sat long without moving, with the letter
tossed on the floor at his feet. At last he picked it
up and read Tom's postscript.

 "'Tis evident, sir, that Mr. Livius has influential
friends here, and you have more enemies in New
Hampshire than we thought. The gentlemen of the
Committee plainly did not know what to think, but
in view of the late troubles in America they are
anxious to allay all complaints, and therefore chose
his side. I have consulted Mr. Paul Wentworth and
Lord Rockingham, and they agree 'tis monstrous.
So the battle is not over yet, depend on it. We
shall go to the Council for Plantation Affairs, and
if necessary to the Privy Council itself."

 Johnnie went upstairs, letter in hand. The
afternoon was far gone, and he had intended
staying the night, but now he could not rest in
Portsmouth not in this sudden atmosphere of
hidden enemies. He was shaken, and his whole
thought turned to Fannie. Suddenly he craved her
as a man craves warmth and light in the midst of
a polar night. Whatever worries harried him he
had always found ease in her arms, the lover
slipping out of the Governor's coat. Changing into
riding clothes, he swung into the saddle and
headed for the Dover ferry. He rode hard and
stopped at nightfall in a wayside inn at Rochester,
kept by one of his poorer kinsmen, lame Stephen
Wentworth.

 The next evening he reached Wentworth House,
completing the long ellipse of weeks and leagues
that began when he set off so blithely for the edge
of Canada. A party was in swing. A fiddle scraped
merrily in the ballroom and Fannie was in the
midst of a lively country dance when he appeared
in the doorway, dusty from the road. He put on his
best smile and manner clapping hands at the
dancers, refusing to join them, pointing

735

to his boots and spurs. Fannie, in one of her
impudent gowns, came over, still prancing to the
tune and holding the arm of a young naval officer.
He was from the current warship on the
Portsmouth station, about Fannie's own age and
taller than Johnnie. They looked remarkably well
together.

 "So ho!" she cried. "Here's the creature who
calls himself my husband, though I vow,
Lieutenant, I've not seen the man to touch him
since the snow went off the ground. Johnnie, this
is Lieutenant Halford." The men shook hands.

 "What brmgs you to these parts, Your
Excellency?" Fannie said. "Have you paused to
light and bait on your way to anywhere, or is this
a formal call?"

 Her face was alight with the warmth and glee of
the dance. Her eyes were impatient, as if Johnnie
were a servant intruding on some unimportant
errand. She kept her hand tucked in the sailor's
arm, but for some reason the young man felt
uncomfortable under the Governor's gaze, and in
a moment he excused himself and returned to the
dance.

 Fannie glanced back at him. Then, with a
careful look at Johnnie, she led the way across the
hall into the library and shut the door.

 "You look as if you'd come upon the devil in
the woods. What is it? Not my nice Lieutenant
Halford, surely?"

 Wordless, he put the letter in her hand. She
read it through swiftly, and again with care. Her
face was still flushed, but the giddy pleasure faded
out of it. It was like that other time when
Macdonogh sent the word of Uncle Benning's
will. That man's news is always bad, she thought.
She looked up from the offending sheets amd
stared past Johnnie at the wall.

 "This explains a lot of things," she said in a
nipped voice. "You don't care for gossip, and I
didn't bother to tell you, but last winter and
spring there was a lot of malicious talk in
Portsmouth. Mostly about the way you favored
your friends and relatives. And not forgetting the
handsome horns you favored Theo with on his
dying bed oh, don't stop me Johnnie you might
as well know what's being said."

,36

"I don't care a damn what's being said."

 "Well, it isn't the talk, it's the talkers. Not just the
enemies we knew, and not those Portsmouth tavern
louts who shout abuse at our servants because
they're English, but people of family people that
we thought were friends. I daresay they've sneered
at us right along behind their hands. Last spring
they dropped the pretence. Oh yes, and quite bold
about it, Johnnie, some of them. They reckoned it
safe, you see. Because Peter Livius sent word that
he had your scalp at last, and you'd be out of office
by the summer's end. That that skunk! After all
you'd done for him! And the great joke amongst
them was that Peter Sly nobody likes the man
really was doing to Governor Johnnie exactly
what you'd done yourself to Uncle Benning. Old
Benning's barmaid and her precious colonel must
be laughing up their sleeve at that. How I hate that
pair! They look down their noses at me of course.
They feel so virtuous with that brat of theirs, born
a nice respectable two years after the
wedding while I'm little better than a whore."

"Don't say that!"

 "Other people do. That and a good many other
things you wouldn't care to hear. Well, there's this
about it. We begin to see where our true friends
are, and where they're not. Can that sneaking
Livius really put you out?"

 Johnnie shrugged. "Lord Rockingham's out of
favor at the moment. In London that can be fatal.
And it seems Livius has friends that sit in the right
quarter of the wind. Sir Tom Wentworth sits there
too, of course, but I think my best hope lies with
Paul. His influence goes to Whigs and Tories alike,
in all their factions, right up to the palace gate.
And after all he's got a good case. What's in these
complaints even if they were true that isn't done
by men in office in every parish of England
America, for that matter? Besides, I've given
myself mighty little fever when you think of my
opportunities. I could have been like Uncle
Benning, squeezing out a fortune for myself and
doing nothing in return. As it is I've slaved body
and mind for the province and sunk myself in
debt."

137

"Then what's your crime?"

 "It seems I've been loyal to my friends as well as
my King. Some men here are jealous of one and
some the other. Livius was clever enough to bring
'em together."

'Well, what are you going to do now?"

"Make love to my wife."

A vexed look. "Oh, be serious."

"I was never more serious in my life."

 He put a convincing arm about her waist.
Fannie gave him a quizzical stare and sniffed, as
if she suspected a brandy bottle along the road.
Then, with a sharp little laugh, 'Well, you've
managed to wait all summer, my jockey, and you
shall wait a bit longer now. We've guests and
there's dancing to be done. When the news gets
abroad I want everyone to know the Governor's
lady doesn't care a fig. Now go and wash, and
change those boots and breeches, do! You stink
of horses."

 She plucked his arm from her waist, crammed
the letter contemptuously into the V of his
waistcoat, and stepped away quickly to the music
and laughter across the hall.

 When they returned to Portsmouth and the sea
there was no further word from England of
Johnnie's fate. The town was openly divided now
between those who hoped for his downfall and
those who admired him still. And the feeling had
spread through the countryside. The old
resentment against the Wentworth clan, gathering
fire slowly through two generations of their rule,
was now smoking merrily. Johnnie was debited
not only with his own family favors but those of
his uncle and grandfather. Even the settlers who
had flocked into New Hampshire since he came to
office felt the heat of these old coals. His friends
the woodsmen, much as they liked him in person,
saw his mark on the King's trees now as a
personal theft of their rights. The fishermen of
Portsmouth and the outer islands and creeks,
smugglers to a man, observed the intimacy of His
Majesty's customs and naval officers with the
mansion on Pleasant Street. Merchants outside
the magic circle of Johnnie's friends were

138

openly hostile, like John Langdon, and some inside
it had become cautiously neutral, like John's
brother Woodbury.

 Even old Mark was critical. "Truth is, you've let
your common sense go a-dozing, Johnnie, here and
there. Take that Colonel Fenton, up in Grafton
County. There's men up there, settled for years on
no morein a grant of a hundred acres. But this
Englishman comes along, and you give him three
thousand, first chop, and no questions."

 "My dear father, Colonel Fenton's a half-pay
officer who fought in America during the late
French war. Under our law he was entitled to land
according to his rank and he got it. Besides, his
wife's an American woman of money, he knows
how to farm, and he's built a mansion and cleared
a plantation at Plymouth as good as my own at
Wolfeborough. I wish I knew more men like John
Fenton. I'd find 'em lands, and the deuce with what
anybody said."

 "And would you make every one of 'em a colonel
of the militia, and clerk of the Court of Common
Pleas, and judge of probate for his county?"

 "That depends on the man's education and
experience. John Fenton has those, and I can use
'em."

 "Humph! Well, getting back to Livius, 'twas a
mistake to make an enemy of that man."

 "Oh, come now! I did the best I could for Livius.
He hankered to be Chief Justice, but of course that
appointment comes from London, and the Lords of
Trade and Plantations look to me for advice. He
knew I'd support old Mr. Atkinson in the post. So
he asked for a seat on the bench, and I made him
a justice of Common Pleas. He's the lofty sort of
Englishman, and I suppose he considered that
barely worth his attention. Anyhow he was careless
with his accounts, and I had complaints. Last year
I had to give the office to someone else. That's
what set him off against me. Still, what does he
expect to get with all this hullabaloo? I know he'd
like to be Chief Justice. I suspect he'd like to be
Governor. But he can guess what our people would
say to that.

139

Even the men who signed their names to his
complaints would cry murder at the notion."

 Mark Wentworth shifted himself on his bony
haunches in the chair, swaying from side to side
like a pendulum upside down, a repeated motion
that came upon him whenever his mind was busy
with a problem.

 "Johnnie, I don't know what to say, really. I've
got a queer notion that this Livius affair's just a
beginning of something. Livius himself doesn't
count. He just happened to touch it off, like a boy
playing with a tinderbox in a hay mow. Down in
my countinghouse and around the mast booms in
the river I hear a lot o' things you don't get in
your drawing room up there on Pleasant Street.
New Hampshire's not what it used to be when
you went off to London, Johnnie. There's boxes
inside o' boxes, inside o' more boxes, like one o'
those little wooden tricks the sailors make."

 Mark stuck up a hand and counted off the long
fingers, one by one.

 "There's the smugglers and their friends, which
means pretty nigh everyone within the smell o'
salt water. There's the mastmen on the rivers.
There's the farmers specially the new settlers
that have flocked in from Massachusetts in the
past ten years, chock full o' those Boston levelers'
notions that 'ud like to pull all the gentry down.
There's some o' the gentry like Livius, that reckon
'emselves above common folk and 'ud just like to
pull down Governor Johnnie and his friends.
Finally there's this."

 Mark closed his fingers and stuck up the thumb.
"There's a lot o' people, common and gentle folk
alike, that have no particular quarrel with Johnnie
Wentworth but see things wider. I mean this
feeling that the Assembly shouldn't be under the
Governor and Council that it ought to be the
other way round."

 "Pooh!" Johnnie said. "The Assembly's mighty
independent as it is. Look at the way they've
refused to increase my salary, again and again. Or
look at the way they refused a penny for Captain
Holland's land survey, and a dozen other things
I've asked 'em for, things that were for their own
good, not mine."

140

 "Petty funds! Petty funds!" growled Mark. "That's
all they control, so they make a point of it, like a
pauper with his dog. What they really Carat is the
final say in everything that has to do with New
Hampshire. Which includes the King's woods and
the tax on tea. A long reach, that, eh? All the way
to London. Well, they believe in it, and a lot o' the
others are drifting to their way o' thinking. Some
that might surprise you, Johnnie. My own brother
Hunk, f'rinstance. My brother John.
Gntlemen and Wentworths at that! Well, all
this d'you see what I mean? Five groups o'
people, each with their own ax to grind. And
they've all got a foot on the treadle. The makings
of a damned fine squabble. They could tread you
down while they're at it."

 Johnnie put up his chin. "I'm not so sure. A
grindstone's got four legs and a wheel, besides
the.treadle, but how far can it travel? Where can it
get? Pshaw! People are always at odds with
someone or something. It's human nature. In
another year or two they'll have other brainstorms,
and all this fuss, including Livius, will be forgotten."

"Then you think you've nothing to fear?" Mark
said.

 "Not here. I'm afraid of those gentlemen in
London, though. God knows what they'll do over
this Livius affair. I can only trust in my record and
my friends."

 The news came toward the middle of December,
and Tom Macdonogh's letter was triumphant.
There had been a further hearing, and this time
the Lords of Trade and Plantation had found quite
another verdict. He quoted their report to His
Majesty in Council: "There is no foundation for any
censure upon the said John Wentworth, Esq., Your
Majesty's Governor of New Hampshire, for any of
the charges contained in Mr. Livius's complaint
against him."

 A great crowd at the hearings, said Tom,
including many American gentlemen from various
colonies and even some visitors from the West
Indies. The affair had made a sensation. Still, he
added, there was a fly in the salve. To satisfy Mr.
Livius's friends, and to hold things even in the
province, Lord

141

Dartmouth had decided to make him Chief
Justice of New Hampshire.

 "Your friends here urge you to make the
strongest representations against it, knowing what
troubles this will cause. Mr. Livius remains here,
thinking h, sail for America in the spring with the
appointment in his portmanteau."

 Johnnie pulled his nose over that. There would
be time to cook that goose of Peter's too. Just
now there was the pleasure of serving up his first
bird. Away went Johnnie's grooms, well mounted,
with notes to pass among his friends. The news
would bum his enemies" ears mighty soon after
that.

 Arid so the word of Johlmie's triumph flew
about the province. In Portsmouth his friends
arranged a grand dinner and ball at the Earl of
Halifax tavern, and nine days before Christmas a
crowd of the town's elite gathered to enjoy
Stavers's food and wmes. When the long room
was cleared for dancing the fun went on for half
the night. Stavers's fires and the energy of the
dancers defeated the chill of a dark rainy night so
utterly that windows had to be opened for air, and
common fold standing in the mud outside could
peer over each other's shoulders and watch as
fine a show of happy gentility as could be seen
anywhere in the colonies. What music, what
laughter, what swishing and prancing of silks and
satins and paduasoys, of ruffles and flounces and
clocked silk stockings and nimble silver-buckled
shoes! What a constant buzz about the great
punch bowl, kept filled like the basin of an
inexhaustible fountain, and what a continual
raising of glasses to the Govemor and his lady!

 Fannie was in her element; now playing queen
of Portsmouth with ease and dignity, now flirting
with the best-looking gentlemen, now appeasing
their wives with deft and sprightly compliments.
Even those who disapproved her had to admit her
looks and charm.

 There were other goodlooking women in
Portsmouth, and many in this room, but none had
the exotic note of Mrs. Fannie's slanting eyes, the
tilted nose, the pouting red lips with their strange
little half-smile when she danced, the clean white
flash

142

of teeth whenever she laughed. Who could match
that figure, supple as a willow switch and shapely
as a nymph's? And where could anyone find such
a delicious feminine wit? No wonder the gentlemen
clustered to her like wild bees to meadowsweet.
Four years as the Governor's lady had developed
Mrs. Fannie in all ways, everyone agreed. It was as
if she had been made for Johnnie'swife as if
Johnnie had found some sort of Sleeping Beauty
beside Theo Atkinson's coffin and wakened her
with a kiss.

 Rolling home in the glass coach, wrapped in her
warmest cloak and snuggling against "my
Governor," she had never been so utterly delighted
with herself or with life. And dear, good,
handsome Johnnie! When they went to bed she
was in his arms in a moment.

 They slept late, and when Johnnie arose Fannie
remained in bed, with a drowsy smile, watching
him dress. He was gone about his affairs for the
day when she arose at noon. The bedchamber fire
had been lit long before and now warmed the
room. She went to the glow of it, pulled off her
chemise and threw it on the floor. Her maid was
bustling to gather clothes and stockings and shoes
for the day's wear, chattering about last night's
affair, and how "right lovely" my lady had looked.

 'What's your gossip?" Fannie yawned, turning her
bottom to the fire. "You always have some."

 "Oh nothing much, ma'am. I guess there was
something a-doing in Boston last night another of
those rows they're always having. Some fellow
brought the tale today from Exeter  they get
Boston news there mighty prompt, it seems."

 Another yawn from Fannie. 'What was it this
time? Broken heads or broken panes?"

 "Oh, nothing like that. A crowd of men got
'emselves up as Indians and threw some merchant's
tea in the harbor. Will you sit, ma'am, so I can slip
your stockings on? I've warmed the chair. A
sinful waste, and there's the lor besides. They'll
smart for that, we may be sure."

143

 "And serve them right," said Fannie, sinking into
the chair and putting out a white leg for the
stocking.

 Johnnie came home with a face of thunder at
four o'clock in the afternoon, and she heard him
swear at the groom for some fumble with the
horse, a very strange thing for him. She greeted
him with a wagging finger and a cry of "Temper!
Temper!"

 Her Governor snorted and threw his hat and
cloak at the footman.

 "D'you know what was going on in Boston last
night at the very time we were all so merry at
the dance? Those rascals of Sam Adams went to
the wharves and pitched three whole cargoes of
tea in the harbor! Tea that belonged to the East
India Company, lately out from England. I'm told
there was a tide-rim of it this morning all along
the shore from Griffin's Wharf to Dorchester."

"Another of those foolish Boston pranks."

 "There'll be a piper to pay for this one, mark
my words. In London the East India Company's
well-nigh sacred. Gad, it's like setting fire to the
Funds. I'm afraid the government's going to take
a damned hot view of this prank, as you call it."

'Well, why not?"

 "Hot men do rash things. And a rash move from
London now is just what Sam Adams and his crew
want badly. That's why they threw the tea
overboard. Like throwing gunpowder at a candle.
We used to play that game when I was a boy we
called it 'making lightning' and I got my hide
tanned for it more than once. There'll be a pretty
tanning over this affair. Sam Adams is so sure of
it that he's sent off messengers to warn the other
colonies amongst others, I'm told, that
mischievous tinker of a Paul Revere is heading
for New York and Philadelphia. And of course
they sent word here by way of Exeter."

 "Fiddle! What mischief can they do here, with
you as Governor? You've kept New Hampshire
out of trouble the past seven years."

 "I wish I could say that of the next seven
months." Johnnie's face was cloudy. "You don't
understand politics, but I may as well

144

tell you that in some ways we've been living in a
fool's paradise. Ever since the Stamp Act there's
been something itching the colonies. I don't know
how else to describe it. A feeling that Americans
are a different set of men from those in England.
A separate tribe. Another creation somehow. As if
they spoke a different language and had a different
God and everything else. Something in the mind so
far, you understand. I've even had the same feeling
myself at times, and it's troubled me."

 Fannie was only half listening. Her own mind was
going over delightful memories of the ball.

 "Those impudent rascals in Boston don't amount
to much," Johnnie mused aloud. "Sam Adams
himself failed in every business he ever tried and
stole money as a tax collector. But suppose
something should happen that set Americans in
arms against the King. Even a few. With that
feeling in the back of every other mind?"

"You're always dreaming nonsense," Fannie said.

 For once he was angry with her. "Listen to me!
Those men, those Sons of Liberty in Boston,
they've arranged Committees of Correspondence
all over the colonies, including every town and
village of New Hampshire. Ours hold their
meetings on the sly, but I hear about 'em. In
Portsmouth they meet at the Bell, at the
Freemasons' rooms, and half a dozen other places.
The Assembly itself is one big Committee of
Correspondence if rumor's even half true. A lot of
these people are my friends  even two of my own
uncles so it's nothing against me as a person. The
odd thing is, I'm a Whig myself by every
instinct most of my English friends are Whigs,
from Lord Rockingham down. They're all against
these pigheaded actions of Lord North and his
Tory cabinet. And mark you, I was made Gvernor
in the days when the Rockinghams and the other
great Whig families had the power in London. Now
they're out but I'm still Governor, sworn to serve
the King. You see? I'm a limb of a Tory King and
a Tory government. So I must be abused, like a
thief in the stocks, with every rotten thing that
comes to hand. What do they want me to do?
Resign my post? Under fire? They know me better

145

than that. Besides, if I went, London would put
Peter Livius in my place as sure as lightning in a
thunderstorm and what would follow then? A
worse mess than Boston by a damned sight!"

 "Stop shouting!" Fannie snapped. "Raise your
voice to the servants as much as you like, Your
Excellency, but spare me, if you please. You're
making a tempest over nothing. All those silly
men whispering and scratching letters, like boys at
mischief, what can they do? Good heavens, you're
the Governor, and you've got your militia. If the
riffraff here start any real trouble you can call out
your men and threaten to shoot. You did that
once, years ago, remember? And you've had no
trouble since."

 Johnnie lowered his voice, but it had a sharp
edge still. "I'm afraid you don't understand our
situation, ma'am,and it's time you did. This is no
matter of a drunken mob and a thief. It involves
a lot of respectable people, including many of the
militia  the militia that I've trained so carefully.
A good many of the officers, the really able ones,
are in the thick of these secret committees. Men
like Colonel Nat Folsom and Major John Sulli-
van."

"But you've got officers like Colonel Fenton too."

 'their own companies would knock 'em down if
it came to the pinch."

'What pinch?"

"An order to shoot at their friends."

"pooh!"

 "God's blood, Fan, try to get this in your pretty
head. If it comes to pointing weapons here, they'll
be turned our way, make no mistake. New
Hampshire men don't flare up at a touch like
those Boston townsmen of yours, that's why we've
had quiet here so far. But I tell you if they ever
decide to move against anyone or anything the
King included they'll outdo all the rest. I've
tramped and hunted and worked with 'em all my
life, and I know. They can outmarch, outsuffer,
outshoot, yes, and outwit any troops that could be
brought against 'em. Mind you that's true of a
great many other Americans, specially the back-
woods men. Don't look 50 incredulous. You're
thinking of those

146

well-drilled redcoats in Boston. They'd be fine on
a battlefield in Europe. Here, too, if the fighting
was just about the towns. But the fighting
wouldn't be just about the towns. Americans
would choose to fight in the country, and the
King's troops would have to carry the war there
God knows where or how it would end, but one
thing's sure it'd tear our own people apart. Men
like John Sullivan in a civil war against men like
me, and blood such as we've never seen before,
not in all the French and Indian Wars put
together. So, my dear girl, pray the pinch won't
ever come. If it does, we're ruined, all of us."

 Fannie sniffed. What a lot of gloomy nonsense!
And so unlike Johnnie, always so cheerful and
calm about everything.

"What you need just now isn't prayer," she said
tartly.

"What, then?"

The familiar roguish smile.

"A spoonful of sulphur and molasses."

147

              'rWEL VE

FOR MRS NANNY the winter and spring flew
away in the social

round. She was truly a creature of the indoors.
Her spirit bloomed best in the season of fires and
candles, when the easygoing gentry of Portsmouth
drew together to pass the winter like a troop of
lords and ladies in some old tale, storm-stayed at
a wayside inn. Compared with that lively season
Fannie found the summers dull and tiresome. The
company scattered then and went visiting abroad,
or riding or sailing or merely vegetating in their
own shady gardens. There would be country
parties at Wolfeborough, of course, but there were
always gaps between, and then the days and nights
were long, without even Johnnie's restless
company half the time. Nothing to do but write
long aimless letters to her friends, complaining of
migraines and fevers and vague summer ills of
other kinds, and never failing to mention the heat
and mosquitoes and the tedium of the country life.

 In May, with all this before her again, she
discovered something else in store. When she was
sure she counted off the months and uttered a cry
of vexation. Pregnant pregnant and swollen past
all public shape by fall, in childbed the middle of
January, and with a puling infant on her hands
after that! All in the best time of the year! When
she told Johnnie she tried to be arch about
it 'Well, my jockey, here's news, and I trust
you're proud of yourself' but her face and voice
held nothing but complaint. To make injury worse
he met the news with a smile and an
absent-minded kiss, and went off again, calling for
groom and horse. He was always busy nowadays,
too busy even to make his cherished spring
journey to Wolfeborough. She rarely saw him
except at meals, when he ate his food quickly and
disappeared. There were long closed4,or sessions
with his secretary in the

I48

library, and others late at night, when she had gone
to bed. Mysterious visitors came after dark, and she
could recognise only Colonel Fenton's voice, and
that of Bartholomew Stavers, the tavern man, who
operated the Hying-coach service on the King's
Highway from Portsmouth to Boston.

 She had been indifferent to Johnnie's official
concerns for so long that all of this gave her
nothing but a vague feeling of annoyance. On a day
in June, when even the house dogs were listless,
when the harbor and the Kittery shore were
quivering in the heat, her Governor flung himself
off a horse in the lane. He came running into the
house in his riding boots and calling for Tom
Macdonogh. In a moment they were in the library.
Fannie put aside her book, glanced right and left to
make sure that none of the servants were in sight,
and stole.in her silk shoes to the library door. It
was ajar.

 "Take this down," Johnnie was saying, "and fair
copy it. When I've signed the fair copy you'll take
it at once to the Assembly and present it to the
Speaker." He began to dictate, and she heard
Tom's quill scratching rapidly. Mr. Speaker and
Gentlemen of the Assembly:

 As I look upon the measures entered upon by the
House of Assembly to be inconsistent with H*
Majesty's service and the good of th* Government, it
* my duty, as far as in me lies, to prevent any
detriment that might ar*e from such proceedings. I
do, therefore, hereby dissolve the General Assembly of
this Province, and it * dissolved accordingly.

                  Portsmouth, June 8, ~774.
More scratching, while Johnnie's spurs chinked up
and down the floor. Then, '~one? The pen if you
please." And then, "Clap my seal on the wax and be
off with you. My horse is saddled in the lane."

 She moved away a few steps as the young
Irishman darted out, document in hand. In a wink
she was inside the study and shutting the door at
her back.

"Johnnie, what are you up to;"

"Hello, my dear. Eh? Oh, business just business."

149

 'What business? What's the meaning of all this
rushing and fussing, and midnight callers, and
heaven knows what, the past six weeks?"

Johnnie cocked an ironical brow. 'Why this
sudden interest?"

 "If I were any other wife in my condition I'd say
you and your friends were up to no good, and
women in it somewhere."

 He stared at her for a moment. Then a smile
melted the set lines of his face. He broke into a
long shout of laughter, leaning back against his
desk and grasping the edge with his hands. And
then, as suddenly as it came, the humor vanished.

 "I'm up to no good for certain people, but
they're all men, so far as I can see. D'you really
want to know?"

"Of course I do."

 'Well, sit down. It's a story that'll tire you,
standing up. God knows it's tired me. You'll
remember back in May I was about to set off for
Wolfeborough. Then something changed my mind.
I learnt that the Sons of Liberq, or Sons of
Freedom as some call themselves, were up to
something new. There's to be a gathering of
delegates from all the American colonies, a
congress as they call it, at Philadelphia next fall."

'What for?"

 "To get the whole country into Sam Adams's
stew at Boston. You don't follow these things, but
last March the British Government passed a bill
to punish those Bostonians of yours for their tea
party. They took away from Boston the courts of
justice, the customs, in fact all government offices,
and removed 'em to Salem. In fact they've closed
the port of Boston for good measure. And those
gentlemen in London are determined to enforce
their Act. Theire sending troops and warships,
and they've recalled Governor Hutchinson and
put a soldier, General Gage, in his place. In short
they've done everything that Sam Adams and his
Liberty boys could have wished for. The whole
damned thing went into effect the first of this
month. All Boston's in a roar, of course, and this
so-called congress is to make sure the roar is
heard clear down to Florida."

150

'What's that got to do with dismissing our
Assembly?"

 Again that ironical brow. "Eavesdropping,
Fannie? Tut! Well, you might as well know. Our
Assembly, including the Speaker  my own
namesake, Colonel John Wentworth of Salmon
Falls, more's the pity appear to be Sons of
Freedom almost to a man. Today, if you please,
they were going to choose delegates for
Philadelphia, which is certainly not the business of
His Majesty's Assembly. So I dismissed the
session."

'Well! What next!"

 "My dear, I can tell you exactly. They'll call a
meeting in the Town House as private
individuals, you understand for the same
purpose. Tomorrow or the next day perhaps. And
I shall go in person, as Governor, to tell 'em, as
amiably as I can, that they can't hold such a
meeting in a government building."

"And what then?"

 Johnnie's strong lips had a whimsical twist.
"They'll hold their meeting in a tavern, where I
can't say a word. And there they'll pick their
delegates."

"Then why bother about them doing it in the
Assembly?"

"My duty just my duty."

"You mean to say you can't really stop them?"

 "No more than I could stop the tide with a
finger. What's to prevent a peaceful traveler going
to Philadelphia?"

 Fannie inspected his face. Something's changed,
she thought. I can't read his mind any more.

'When shall we be leaving for Wolfeborough?"

 "Not for some time yet. I've another little
problem in the offing. A mast-ship called the
Grosvenor. She's due from England any day."

'What problem is that? Anyone can load mass."

 "She hardens to have aboard some chests of
East India Company tea, consigned to Mr. Parry.
He's somewhat rash, I think. There'll be a tea
party at Spring Market Wharf if I can't find a way
to avoid it. Some clerk in Parry's countinghouse
has let his tongue wag, and everyone's watching
for the ship."

15

 As it chanced, the Grosvenor was delayed by
weather, and the Portsmouth watch was long, but
she turned up toward the end of June and
anchored below the town. In a few minutes the
word ran through the streets. Men gathered in
groups outside the taverns, and a mingled scent of
rum and mischief hung in the air. Some went off
to watch the movements of the Governor, sure
that he would try to muster a guard when the tea
was to be landed.

 One of his movements they missed. Edward
Parry's mansion lay only a short way along
Pleasant Street from the Governor's, and both
gardens went down the back slope to South Pond.
It was an easy matter for Johnnie to stroll along
the pond shore in the screen of trees and confer
with the merchant in his garden.

 He found Parry cold and stubborn. "I'm a
merchant engaged in legal importation, and no
mob is going to frighten me out of it, Johnnie.
You're Governor and you must secure order."

 "How? Call out the militia? They'd only help the
mob throw your tea in the harbor. The first thing
is to get the stuff safely ashore and locked up in
the Customs house. And peaceably, my friend."

"How d'you propose to do that?"

 "By an innocent little ruse. They're all watching
me. So tomorrow I'D ride up the river for a
sociable call in Dover. That night you'll bring in
your ship and whisk your tea ashore. Colonel
Fenton and a few other gentlemen that we can
trust will stand guard over the Customs house,
and I'll come in from Dover in the morning."

'What happens after that?"

'We'll see."

 The ruse worked very well indeed, but when
Johnnie rode into the Parade next day he found
it buzzing with men. He moved among them in his
genial way, calling out greetings and pausing to
chat in the saddle. They were mostly workmen
and tradesmen of all kinds, but he was quick to
notice among them a good many of the
merchants, with their clerks and warehousemen.
Whenever he asked, smiling, "And what are you
doing here

t52

on a busy day?" the answer was a chorus. They
wouldn't see the tea tax paid in Portsmouth, not
they, no more than the Boston folk. The voices
were civil, but there was no mistaking the under-
tone.

 To the chief group he said at last, "gentlemen,
let's have no disorder here. The tea's under guard
at the Customs house, and I intend to keep it so.
I promise you not an ounce shall be removed for
sale without my permission. I'm on my way to
consult with Mr. Parry now."

 And off he went. When he entered Parry's
countinghouse he wasted no words.

 "Ned, you'll have to give up any notion of selling
that tea. You've seen the crowd in the Parade?
Well, I've talked to 'em and you haven't got a
chance. One move to put the tea on sale and
they'll storm the Customs house and burn your
warehouse into the bargain. Any attempt to stop
'em would just mean bloodshed to no
purpose and the end of everything I've worked
for, the past seven years."

 "Then what am I to do with the tea? Ship it back
to the East India Company? If so I'll have to tell
'em why, and you know what'll follow. D'you want
a Port Bill here, the same as Boston?"

 "Not at all. So you'll ship the tea away up the
coast to Nova Scotia our troubles don't seem to
reach that far ship it on consignment to some
merchant in Halifax, say. I must have your promise
to do it in the next four-and-twenty hours, so I can
tell the people."

 Parry was indignant, but Johnnie was not to be
moved. Nor was he moved by Colonel Fenton at
the Customs house. That lively and peppery
Englishman was all for a fight, both for Parry's tea
and His Majesty's law. He had ridden in from his
country place, scenting trouble and armed with
sword and pistols, the moment he got Johnnie's
note to "pass a lively day or two with me in town."

 When Fenton rode home, still snorting, the tea
chests had been loaded into a schooner for Halifax
and were on the way out of the harbor. And now
the Governor could set off with his

153

lady for Wolfeborough at last. They made a
familiar procession on the Governor's Road:
Johnnie riding ahead, then Fannie and her maid
in a light carriage with strong pig-yoke springs,
and then a pair of mounted grooms, each leading
a horse with a lady's sidesaddle for the final
rough stretch over Moose Mountain. Fannie rode
a good seat a-horseback. She had mastered that
since her marriage, chiefly because it enabled her
to show forth the fashionable riding habits in
which her slim figure looked so well. But she
dreaded the lonely mountain trail with its
mudholes and boulders and its shaky poles over
the streams, which hard-riding Johnnie took as a
matter of course. She was always thankful when
the track came down the farther slope and the
pine woods opened into the Mall, with the
civilized comforts of the big house before her and
the servants and dogs running out to welcome
them.

 Once settled, she faced the summer with
resignation. This year at least she had her
Govemor close at hand. No sailing up the coast,
no feckless ventures into the mountains. He
busied himself about the estate from mom to
night, working fiercely with his hands when he
was not in the saddle, as if an excess of energy
and sweat could dissolve some nagging shadow in
his mind. A succession of riders from Portsmouth
carried the postbag, and whenever it came he sat
late by candlelight, poring over letters and
newspapers.

 He said little to Fannie of their contents. Late
in July he remarked that the Sons of Liberty had
set up a sort of provincial congress at Exeter, and
had chosen Colonel Folsom and Major Sullivan,
that country lawyer, to speak for New Hampshire
at Philadelphia. He offered no comment. The
parties of guests who came out from Portsmouth
were not so many now, nor were they so gay and
talkative as in the past. A strange new tension of
the times was pulling the gentry apart, and the
more cautious ones a surprising number to
Fannie seemed to avoid Wentworth House as if
too close an acquaintance there were dangerous.
Some old close friends like Woodbury Langdon
were actually hostile. And now Peter Livius was
back in New

154

Hampshire, without the post of Chief Justice,
hobnobbing with John and Woodbury Langdon and
working his mischief as busily as ever.

 At the summer's end persistent Mr. Parry tried
again with East India Company tea. This time
there were thirty chests of it aboard the mast-ship
Fox. Johnnie rode in from Wolfeborough to find
the town in another uproar and a crowd stoning
not only the panes of Parry's countinghousebut
those of his mansion, a bare musket shot from
Johnnie's own. It was strange and disturbing to
find a shouting rabble from the docks up here
among the quiet trees and mansions of Pleasant
Street. Again Johnnie obtained order, this time by
a frank appeal at a town meeting, and again the
offensive tea went off to Nova Scotia.

 When Johnnie got back to Wolfeborough, Fannie
asked, "If things did get really bad, how many men
could you count on?"

Johnnie called a roll in his head. It took some
time.

"Less than a hundred."

"In all New Hampshire, I mean."

 "So do I. Does that surprise you? I'm no
Messiah, but I've got my betrayer Judas
Livius and most of my disciples will deny me
when the pinch comes."

"Don't say that! It's not true and it's it's
blasphemous."

 "Well, I'll put it a longer way. This coming
congress at Philadelphia means a warm feeling in
all the colonies for Boston. You can see why. If the
King's ministers can close up the port of Boston
they could close any port in America. Meanwhile
they're pouring soldiers into Boston by the
thousand an army, not just a garrison. You know
what happened in Boston when the troops were
there before. Blood on the cobbles. This time, if
there's a clash, the blood'll be on the moon.
Because this time the Boston men won't be alone.
And that's when the pinch will come, for me and
every other governor in America. What's to
support me here? My regular force is a
Portsmouth joke Captain Cochrane and four or
five uneasy men in the old harbor fort. The
militia? You can see the mind of the militia when
they send their own officers to the congress. These
fellows,

155

these Sons of Liberty, they're a minority in New
Hampshire but a strong one. On the other hand,
the men that'll stand by the King we're mighty
few. Most of our people are in the middle, rich
and poor alike. They don't know what to think.
When they see the pinch coming they'll stand
aside a lot are doing it already till they see
what's to come out of all this. My own kin with
the rest. Oh yes! And I don't blame 'em, really.
Maybe I'd do the same in their place, specially if
I was a merchant like Father, say, with a lot to
lose."

"Heavens, Johnnie, you talk as if you stood to lose
nothing."

 "Ah, but there's something more important than
property in my case. I gave my oath to serve the
King and the people of New Hampshire. If the
people do reject me there's still the other half of
the bond. My word's involved. My honor, if you
like." Johnnie glanced at her and smiled. "Do I
sound like a play actor? Maybe I could make a
trade of it if the worst came to the worst."

 An impatient cluck from his spouse. "Sometimes
I don't know what to make of you, Johnnie. Do
you really believe all this?"

 "I only tell you what [ fear. I hope for the best
of course! Maybe it'll all blow over a tempest in
Sam Adams's teapot. Who knows?"

 Frequently the postbag contained heavily sealed
letters from General Gage. For the most part they
were routine things that went to all the governors,
telling them of affairs in Boston and the measures
he was taking, but usually there was a postscript
in the general's own hand, inquiring the health of
Johnnie and his lady, and hoping to see them
again over a good dinner when all this bother was
past. Johnnie knew Gage fairly well and had some
hope in him. A middle-aged soldier, long
stationed in America and married to a Boston
woman. He had fought against the French and
Indians and was well liked by Americans. A bit
old-fashioned in the military art perhaps, but an
affable

156

man who didn't like his present job at all and was
anxious to have peace.

 In September he wrote to Johnnie with a casual
request. He'd been obliged to quarter many of his
troops on the townspeople, a bad situation. He was
anxious to get proper barracks up in time for
winter, but there was a lack of carpenters  Boston
carpenters seemed unwilling or afraid to work for
him. Could Johnnie provide a few? He was asking
other governors to do the same.

 Johnnie sat long over the letter. It was an order,
of course, couched in Gage's polite way. Something
he could not refuse. But where to get the men? He
thought of the tea crowd in the Portsmouth square.
Most of the carpenters had been there. They had
swarmed up in their aprons straight from the ship-
yards. The same would have been true in any of
the up-tide towns. Inland, then. Exeter? A hotbed
of the Liberty men. Rochester? Maybe Rochester.
He sent for Nicholas Austin of that town, a capable
man. Austin had recruited good workmen for him
in the past, building the house at Wolfeborough.

 But when Austin came he was dubious. 'We've
got a Committee of Correspondence in Rochester
now, and among 'em some pretty feverish men.
They talk of those sogers in Boston as a preacher
talks of the devil."

 Johnnie pinched his nose and considered.
Rochester was halfway up the road to
Wolfeborough. This thing was spreading like a
fever too. Still, it hadn't reached through the woods
to Wolfeborough. Not yet, anyhow.

 'Well, Nicholas, what about our settlers here?
They're all handy men with carpenters' tools they
have to be. General Gage is offering good wages,
and money's hard to come by, here in the
backwoods."

 '~That's true, sir, God knows. Well, why not?
The settlers hereabouts have their crops in now,
and their winter's wood. A couple o' months' wages
in Boston'd suit 'em handsome. I'll see what I can
do. How many d'ye want?"

157

 "Not many. The general's getting men from
other directions too. Say fifteen."

"Right, sir. I can get fifteen easy."

 And easy it was. The Wolfeborough men
departed happily for Boston, and for three weeks
Johnnie worked away in peace and solitude. Then
one day, as he rode to look at the little mill on
the Rye Brook, a lean figure in buckskins stepped
out of the cedar thickets. An old man with a long
straggle of white hair, one of Johnnie's guides in
the mountains, and a veteran of Rogers's Rangers
in the old war.

 "Hello, Cephas," Johnnie said. "It's odd to see
you without the long rifle in your hands and the
tomahawk in your belt. You look naked."

"Just come from Portsmouth. Bin to see my
marrit daughter."

"She's well, I take it?"

 "Never mind her, Gvernor. Ye've got trouble
back there." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"How?"

 "Over them carpenters ye sent to Gage.
Portsmouth's crawlin' like a nest o' rattlesnakes.
Ways an' Means Committee held a meetin' your
own Uncle Hunk was chairman an' passed some
mighty hot resolutions agin ye. Resolved ye were
'an enemy to the community.' Resolved your
conduct was 'cruel an' unmanly.' Lot more like
that. Every time they resolved somethin'the hull
crowd screeched like Abenaki at a war dance.
Every man an' boy in town, seemed like. Watch
your scalp."

"I think I can keep my hair up here," Johnnie
smiled.

 "Not so sure. Come through Rochester last
night. Crowd there. Had Nick Austin down on his
knees in the middle, beggin' fer his life. Made
him 'pologize fer gittin' ye the carpenters. Made
him promise to tell 'em to come home. They
better too."

"Why?"

 "Some talk o' comin' out to Wolfeborough an'
puttin' fire to their houses. Teach 'em to
carpenter closer home. Yours too."

"If they try that game they'll meet another kind of
fire,

58

I promise you. I've got a good eye for a rifle
myself." The old man was moving off. "Hold a
moment, Cephas. You mountain men what d'you
think of all this business?"

 The old man spat on the grass and stirred the
spittle with his moccasin.

 "Dunno what to make of it. Liberty? Gut that
naow. Anybody tries to interfere with us York
men, King's men, no matter who 'tis we'll make
'em sony."

 "Um. Well, give my respects to Ethan Allen when
you see him. Brother Ira, too, and Seth Warner. I
hope to have another good crack with 'em over a
bottle the next time I'm in the mountains."

"I'll do thet, Gvemor."

And he was gone like a shadow in the woods.

 It was October now, and the frosts had made the
usual gaudy splatter on the landscape about
Johnnie's lake. As always the scarlet was most
prominent. One morning, sitting his horse under
the monarch pine on Mount Delight, Johnnie had
a queer twinge of thought. The clumps of maple
and sumac on the slopes, the wide patches of
huckleberry by the shore, all shone with a night's
dew and the morning sun. And they shone like
pools of blood. As he funned slowly in the saddle
all the hills were smeared with it, as if the whole
countryside were bleeding from mysterious wounds.
At that moment the horse shuddered, perhaps
from the nip of some belated fly, and the shudder
ran through the rider's knees and thighs. On a
sudden impulse he spurred away down the path to
Wentworth House.

 Until this moment he had resolved to stay until
mid-November, despite Fannie's protest that the
trail over Moose Mountain would be slippery with
the first snow and every brook a torrent. He had a
deep reluctance to retune to Portsmouth. It was
not fear for himself but a foreboding that his
appearance might be the signal for an explosion of
some kind. While he remained in the country there
was no way of discharge for this wild hate in so
many of the people, which he still could not
understand. What had he done in seven years that
was not for their good?

159

He had slaved for them the whole of that time.
And now what was his offence? to allow unlawful
business in the Assembly? Everybody knew the
law. Everybody knew he was bound to uphold it.
Finding some work for a few poor carpenters?
What was wrong with that?

 It all seemed like a dreary nightmare, from
which he still hoped to awake. Meanwhile in the
fantastic manner of nightmares the ordinary
things of life went along side by side with the
grotesque. The courts of justice, the routine of the
militia drills, the work on the roads, the grants of
land, the thousand and one details of his
administration went on just the same. The
postbags brought him the usual stream of reports
to be read, the documents to be signed or
rejected. Regularly he wrote his dispatches to the
Lords of Trade and his official letters to General
Gage. Regularly he kept up his correspondence
with Lord Rockingham, Sir Tom Wentworth, Paul
Wentworth, and other friends of America in
England. And the other things. He had urged the
Reverend Jeremy Belknap to begin a history of
New Hampshire, and now the manuscript of
Belknap's first volume came to him for reading
and suggestions. So it was, too, with Captain Sam
Holland, still working on his map of the province,
indeed settled in the province and consulting the
Governor on this point and that.

 Like a shadow of this outward and visible
government, functioning in all its detail, lay the
new provincial body at Exeter, with a committee
in every parish. As with Uncle Hunk's committee
at Portsmouth they were fuming now from mere
"Correspondence" to the more ominous 'Ways and
Means." In a letter to Lord Rockingham Johnnie
excused his uncle as a "superannuated weak old
squire, already forgiven," and blamed the
carpenter fuss on a combination of Peter Livius
and Woodbury Langdon.

 But when he rode into Portsmouth at the end of
October with the streets deep in mud and a sea
wind blowing the last leaves from the elms and
maples and birches, he could see a change in the
people beyond any mischief of two men. Only a

160

few workmen touched their hats to him, and these
quickly and furtively, with a glance up and down
the street. Most gave him a stare and made no
answer when he spoke. Some knots of idlers sent
catcalls after Fannie in the carriage behind.

 In the house on Pleasant Street his major-domo
greeted him nervously. The servants were uneasy.
Some had gone. For months past they had been
afraid to go into the town, where the mere sight
of Joh~mie's livery brought threats and
sometimes blows from the street roughs.
Meanwhile Fannie's young brother Benning had
come from Boston and was staying in the house.
She greeted him with an ecstatic cry "My darling
little brother!" although the boy was seventeen
and tall. He had her own features, indeed he
looked like Fannie at that age, as if the naive
bride of Theo Atkinson had turned up as a ghost
in breeches.

 The boy had bad news, startling news.
Well-to-do Tory families were fleeing into Boston
from the Massachusetts countryside with tales of
persecution by roving gangs of Liberty boys. Only
the out-and-out Whig gentry were safe. There
seemed to be no law or order or even common
humanity for a Tory anywhere in Massachusetts
outside the ring of Gage's bayonets; and even
inside the town there was doubt, with the sullen
mass of townsmen out of work and ripe for
trouble. Some of the Boston Tories were sailing
away to visit England until matters eased  the
painter man Copley was one of them. Indeed a
tour of England and the continent was suddenly
popular, and Johnnie learned now that some of
Portsmouth's own Tories, like old Colonel Boyd,
who had made a fortune in shipbuilding, were
taking passage overseas. Yet things were not bad
in Portsmouth. No Tory house had been pillaged,
no Tory hurt. Whatever their politics, the gentry
and the middle-class folk wanted no such antics
here, and their influence was strong. They've got
to back me, Johnnie thought. They can't risk a
whirlwind that may blow 'em all away.

16

              HEIR [KEN

ON A DBCIlMBEr! AIlTB~NoON of 1774
Fannie lay on a couch before her sitting-room
fire, hating the sight of herself, bloated and
hideous, with still more than a month to go. And
now in addition to the lassitude and discomfort
she was afraid. She had put that other childbed
nightmare out of mind long ago, as she had put
aside the memory of Theo and everything else
that was dull or unpleasant, but now it crept back
with all its terrors and set her shuddering. And it
was small comfort that her Governor gave her
much more attention now that her time drew
near.

 The first delicate snowfalls had relieved his
other concerns. Most of the shipping was laid up
for the winter, the roads would soon be
snowbound, and the quarrels of Boston and the
intrigues of the Liberty boys in New Hampshire
must bow down to the weather like everything
else. On this dark chill day, with ice tinkling on
the reeds about the edges of South Pond and a
clean cloth of snow on the slopes, the world had
closed in comfortably about the house on Pleasant
Street.

Johnnie came out of his library and bent over her
with a kiss. "How are you, love?"

'Wretched."

"It'll be all over soon."

'1hat's easy for you to say."

 "I know," he said humbly. And infected
somehow by her inward panic he fell on his knees
and took her cold hands in his.

 "Oh, darling Fan, I love you so." His eyes
drowned in sudden tears. He was actually
trembling. He wanted to cry out, "Don't die, Fan,
don't leave me, ever!" But he shut the cry away in
his mind, where it went on, echo after echo, like
a cry on a still night in the mountains. Fannie
gave him a faint smile, tolerant, a

16~

little contemptuous, as if he were a guilty boy
afraid of punishment for his crime. She felt the
child stir in her belly. For something to say she
asked without interest, "What do you want, a boy
or a girl?"

"I want you."

'~You have me. What else do you want?"

"A boy, I suppose. Yes a boy."

 Fannie turned her eyes to the ceiling. He had
never said a word of that first child, not since he
saw it buried in a small white box on Chapel Hill.
But he dreamed of another son of course. A son to
carry on his name and some day to be Governor of
the greater New Hampshire he was making. As if
the Wentworth dynasty must go on forever, along
with all his other wonderful dreams.

"And if it's a girl?" she said.

"She'll be clever and beautiful, like you."

 She was a little mollified. "She'll probably be a
minx like me. But never mind. I'm only
twenty-eight. There'll be time for a son too." She
did not feel half as brave as that. The notion of
going through all this again revolted her. And yet,
seeing "my Governor" on his knees, with this frantic
emotion in his eyes, she felt pity for him. Poor
Johnnie, he does love me, in spite of all that stupid
mania for his work. Whatever would he do without
me? He'd never find another woman like me. He
wouldn't even try. He's so loyal in everything. One
king, one province, one woman. If he ever has a
coat of arms, that should be on it.

 Johnnie's head was bowed over her hands,
touching them with his lips, and she was still
looking upon him with that almost maternal gaze,
when there was a sharp rat-tat-tat from the street
door knocker and a rasping of snowy boots on the
foot scraper outside. Several men came into the
hall, and Johnnie arose hastily and went out to
them. Through the sitting-room doorway Fannie
could see grim old Mark Wentworth and the Chief
Justice, well muffled against the cold, and she
could hear the voices of Bart Stavers, the postrider,
and others.harder to define. They wasted no time
about their business. Old Mark

163

burst out, "Johnnie, why the devil did you send to
Gage for troops?"

'droops?" Johnnie snapped. 'What are you talking
about?"

 "All hell's to pay! Paul Revere's at Sam Cutts's
house  must have ridden like the wind sixty
miles over these winter roads."

'Well? Well?"

 "He's come from the Boston committee. They
say you sent to Gage for soldiers, and he's about
to ship two regiments."

 "Pooh! They lie. Soldiers? the last thing I'd
want on my hands here. That fellow Revere's had
his gallop for nothing but a sore backside, I give
you my word."

The Chief Justice spoke. "I'm afraid it's not as
simple as that."

"Eh?"

 "Sam Gutts has called his Committee of Ways
and Means. Sullivan's rousing Durham and
Exeter. In fact messengers are off to all the
up-tide villages, and to the fishermen at Newcastle
and Rye. There's mischief brewing."

'What7"

 "I hear a crowd's to be drummed up to go to
the Castle, and they aim to remove all the powder
in the magazine before the King's troops get
here."

"Ha! I'll send a warning to Captain Cochrane at
once."

 "D'you think five men and a boy in that crazy
ruin can hold off a mob of fanatics?" This in the
voice of practical George Meserve, the
shipbuilder.

 'Why not?" Johnnie said. "The fort's got walls
and a gate, and Cochrane's cannon and muskets
are in good condition I've seen to that."

 He stepped away to his desk to scrawl the note
to Cochrane. Fannie lay ignored and indignant
while the men muttered together in the hall. In
another minute they had passed outside, and
Johnnie was clapping on hat and cloak to follow
them. Through the doorway he gave her a glance,
an unspoken message of apology, and was gone.

His mind was back to business now. The "troops"
were

64

another of those Boston canards of course.
Anything to stir up trouble in the countryside. And
possibly they wanted the Portsmouth powder for
their own concerns. Well, Cochrane could take
care of that. He crossed over the lane to the
stables and sent off a groom with the message.

 The next day was bright but sharply cold, even at
high noon. And about that time a group of men
appeared in the town parade, one beating a militia
drum. They marched on through the thin snow of
the streets, shouting at doors and windows, and
gathering a long tail ol men as they went, all armed
with guns or cutlasses or clubs.

 Mark Wentworth brought word of this, and
Johnnie promptly sent across the Puddle bridge for
Mr. Atkinson.

 "You must go and read the Riot Act," he said
crisply. "I'll come with you Grimes, bring my
sword and saddle cloak. We must stop this
nonsense before it gets out of hand."

 "You keep your face out o' this, Johnnie," his
father growled. "Those people believe the redcoats
are coming and that you're the man who sent for
'em, that you're the man who'll quarter the soldiers
on 'em and all the rest of it. They're as mad as
hornets, and the sight o' you can only provoke 'em
to something we'd all be sorry for. No, Johnnie, let
Mr. Atkinson go alone. He's the Chief Justice, and
they know he's fair. They won't molest him,
whatever else they do. Go on, Thode, go on down
there! Read the Act from the Town House steps,
and then appeal to their common sense. No
redcoats are coming. You can give 'em Johnnie's
word for that. But if they persist in this folly and
take the powder, we'll have Gage on our necks in
no time, just like Boston. Tell tem that."

 Johnnie was doubtful, but Mr. Atkinson said in
his thin mild voice, "It's the wisest course, Your
Excellency," and away he went. Half an hour later
the old man was back in his coach, defeated and
pinched with the cold.

"They wouldn't listen to me. Not a word."

 So Johnnie set forth himself, sworded and booted
and spurred, with a pair of horse pistols in the
saddle holsters. He found

165

the streets empty. The crowd had vanished toward
the docks. Furiously he rode from home to home
of his own provincial officials, and of the customs
officers and the other King's men who had drawn
their pay so long and comfortably. He would raise
at least one resolute platoon among them, armed
with their own swords and pistols, to confront the
mob before this mischief went further. But they
shrank away from him at the mere suggestion,
their minds filled with that sight of the angry
crowd pouring through the streets. At the end
exactly nine, including Tom Macdonogh and the
eager boy Benning, were gathered at his house.
So small a company was worthless, and he
dismissed them. Mark had already gone home,
and so had Mr. Atkinson.

 From the upper windows he and Macdonogh
peered with a spyglass toward the grey harbor and
the long bulk of Newcastle Island. There seemed
to be much activity on the water with boats and
gundalows. About midafternoon they heard three
cannon shots from the east, where the old fort
stood invisible at the far tip of the island.

 It was dark before they knew what had
happened. Captain Cochrane himself appeared at
the back door, a stout man with eyes still popping
from the afternoon's adventure, and very short of
breath. He had shed his blue uniform coat and
silverbraided hat for the rough dress of a
fisherman.

 "Cochrane!" snapped Johnnie. "How did you get
here? A brandy, there, quickly!"

 The captain drank the brandy at a gulp and
wiped his mouth. "Slipped across by boat to Little
Harbor and borrowed a horse from Mr.
Wentworth there. Left the horse in a field beyond
your pond had to cross over the stream by Titus
Salter's dam and he's a hot Liberty man."

'Well, what's happened?"

 "Could I have another brandy, sir? 'Twas a long
way around the creeks, and mortal cold."

"Another brandy, there! Go on, man, go on!"

 "Well, sir, I got your note, and we stood guard
at once, all six of us. About three o'clock in the
afternoon they came along

166

the island road from the direction of Newcastle
village. A mad lot, I tell you, about four hundred
as near as we could judge. Yelled at us to open the
gate. Said they'd come for the powder, and they'd
have it with or without our blood, we could take
our choice. We fired off three of the cannon,
warning-like. But they just slipped aside amongst
all those wild rocks and ledges out there you
know what it's like and crept forward on all sides,
even amongst the boulders on the shore. Well, the
Castle's a poor thing never built against an attack
by land, as you know. The embrasures all aim to
the harbor channel, and besides the walls are low
and old and ready to fall down."

"You had muskets," Johnnie said accusingly.

 "Ah! Well, sir, we fired a few musket shots over
the gate, but we didn't hit a soul. By that time they
were at the other walls, climbing on each others'
shoulders, and in a moment the whole crowd was
inside and upon us."

'Well?"

 The captain looked glum. 'What could we
do six men against four hundred? They were all
screaming like Indians and armed with all kinds of
weapons. So we well, sir, we just dropped our
guns. Someone took away my sword. They put a
guard over us, and some fellows hauled down the
flag and threw it on the ground the King's color,
sir! as if it were an old rag that they'd finished
with. I'd locked the magazine. They demanded the
key, but I swore I didn't know where 'twas. Well,
sir, they'd come prepared for that. They had axes
and crowbars, and it didn't take 'em long to break
through the door. Next minute they were rolling
powder casks out through the gate and down to
the shore."

"How much did they take?"

 "All there was, sir. Pretty nigh a hundred casks.
I watched 'em transfer the stuff to a pair of
gundalows they brought down the channel.
Altogether they were at it about an hour and a
half. By that time the tide had turned, and they
sailed the gundalows up the harbor on the flow.
They'd picked their time very neat."

"You weren't hurt, it seems. Were any of your
men?"

167

 "No, sir, they~didn't molest us, though some
threatened us and gave us some pretty nasty
names afore they left. But Mr. John Langdon he
seemed to be one of the leaders, him and Tom
Pickering and Pierce Long Mr. Langdon said
they'd no quarrel with us. Said the powder
belonged to the province, and they were just
making sure those bloody-backed soldiers of Gage
didn't get it."

"What have they done with it, d'you suppose?"

 "I heard 'em talkie' amongst 'emselves. The
powder's going to one of the up tide towns. They
plan to keep it safe and dry under a meetinghouse
somewhere, Squamscot, probably. That's handy to
Exeter, and there were some Exeter men amongst
'em that seemed to have a lot of say."

 "I thought as much," Johnnie said. "Did they
take any cannon?"

 "No, sir. They didn't even touch the
muskets sixty stand of arms. All they seemed to
have in their minds was the powder  that and
the tide. They kept watching to seaward for the
King's ships. Seemed in a great hurry at the last."

'Where are your men now?"

"Still in the fort."

 "Umph. Well, Cochrane, you'd better sup and
stay the night here. Tomorrow you must get back
to your post."

 Supper was a silent affair, with Johnnie
brooding at the head of the table, Fannie
watching him from the foot, and Macdonogh,
Cochrane, and young Benning busy with food. At
the end of it Johnnie called Macdonogh into the
library.

 "Tom, I fear I must ask some kind of force from
Boston after all. Without that I've no power here
whatever."

 The secretary's Irish humor sprang to his lips at
once. "One regiment or two, sir? Better make it
two, or Paul Revere's a liar."

 Johnnie was in no mood for quips. "No, no! I'll
have no soldiers in the town they'd be into the
taverns and brawling with our own tosspots in no
time, just like Boston. What I want is a warship or
two, with say a hundred marines aboard, so
everyone can see I've got force at hand if I need
it. I'll keep 'em anchored

~68

in the harbor not a man allowed ashore except
the officers. These hotheads of ours will cool fast
enough when they see I'm not helpless any more,
and by the same view I should be able to rouse a
better spirit in our gentlemen. The great thing is to
keep order with our own hands, while the sailors
and marines do nothing more than consume their
beef and biscuit in the river. Take your pen and
ink. I want a letter to Gage first, and then one to
Admiral Graves."

 With the letters signed and sealed, Johnnie sent
for Bart Stavers, and that alert brown man set off
at once, riding through the night to Boston. The
next day, in boots, breeches, and scarlet coat, and
with a warm green riding coat over all, Governor
Johnnie rode slowly and alone through the streets.
The loungers at the street corners and outside the
taverns hushed their voices, as he passed, and
offered not a single insult at his back. There was a
look of uneasiness in every face. They were
expecting the redcoat regiments any hour
now and so apparently was he.

 Near the old North Church he came upon a
smart new coach, with Michael Wentworth's coat
of arms on the doors, and Mrs. Michael stepping
out of it wrapped in a fur-trimmed cloak of
London cloth that must have cost a pretty sum.
She was turning toward a shop when he rode up
and flourished his hat.

 "A good day to you, Martha. We haven't met in
a long time. You're well, I see."

She flushed. 'fiery well, thank you, Johnnie."

"And the little daughter?"

 Martha smiled with the instant pleasure of a
doting mama. 'fiat and beautiful."

"And where's my old friend Michael?"

 Her eyes went toward the Bell tavern and flicked
back again. "I'm not sure, but he's to meet me at
the coach in a few minutes." She nodded in her shy
way and went on, picking her way through the
snow on a pair of small iron patters, strapped to
her shoes.

169

 Johnnie swung his horse toward the Bell and
met Colonel Michael coming out of the door.
Michael nodded and moved on toward the town
pump where the coachman was busy with bucket
and trough. Johnnie dismounted and walked along
with him, leading the horse by the reins.

"Thanks, Michael, for getting Cochrane to me."

 "Nothin', Johnnie, nothin' at all." The soldier,
with two or three quick drams of the Bell's rum
under his skin, seemed to be in cheerful trim.

 "Michael, there's a matter I want to talk to you
about. You know what happened at the Castle
yesterday. These are warm times. I expect one or
two of His Majesty's ships here shortly with a
company of marines, but I don't intend to use 'em
except as a warning. After all, most of our people
want order, whatever their politics, and we should
be able to keep it ourselves, eh?"

"What's in your mind, Johnnie?"

 "I can't depend on the militia too many of 'em
had a connection with that Castle affair. What I
want is a troop of mounted gentlemen who can
muster quickly if there's need, each providing his
own horse and weapons. I think I can raise fifty or
sixty here in Portsmouth. And I must have a
commander with military experience and one who
knows the country roundabout."

'What about Fenton?"

 "Fenton lives too far outside. Besides, I prefer
to have him where he is. He's loyal and
outspoken, afraid of nothing, and up Plymouth
way he's exerting himself to keep the country
people on the side of law and order. No, Michael,
the man I want is you."

 Colonel Michael's ruddy face betrayed a deeper
fiush. He halted before speaking, and then turned
his gaze past Johnnie, as if he saw something of
interest far away.

 "If it comes to the point you'll fight, eh, you and
these gentlemen-riders?"

"If we're pushed to it, yes," Johnnie said.

"You don't really think you could stop all these
Whiggish fel

70

lers I mean if they took a warlike turn of mind?
I'm not thinkin' of those wild clowns at the Castle
yesterday town idlers an' fishermen an' such. I
mean all the able fellers of a Whiggish turn
upcountry, the mastmen and the backwoods
farmers ant rangers. 'Cause they'd all be in it, at
the first snap of a flint, with active an' darin'
fellers like Jack Sullivan or Ethan Allen to
lead'em. You must know that yourself."

"This is no time to be guessing odds," Johnnie said
stiffly.

 "Johnnie, I'll be frank with you. I served His
Majesty in my time and got beggarly thanks. And
now by chance, by no grace of His Majesty or
anyone else, I'm nicely set up in America. I've got
my cake, and I can eat it too. Now, dead men
have poor appetite. Why should I risk either cake
or appetite for some notion that don't concern
me? Hey? I don't care a fig's end how this
business goes, or who's top dog at the finish, so
long as I'm out of it."

 Johnnie swallowed a sharp reply. It occurred to
him that Michael might be sulky over that
business of Old Benning's woodlands Martha's
by inheritance.

 "My dear Michael," he said evenly. "This isn't
merely a matter of property. It's a matter of
principle. What property will be safe what cake
if you like if these levelers have their way? It's a
question of who's to rule, the King and his
governor or some noisy rabble that takes its
orders from Sam Adams in Boston. You're an
English gentleman and a soldier. You can't put
that aside."

 The gentleman soldier looked him straight in
the eye. "Oh yes I can. I'll make it clear. Johnnie,
the King can go to the devil for all I care, and the
rabble with him. All that matters to me is Michael
Wentworth, Esquire, a man of independent means
and mind. And he intends to keep 'em both. So a
good day to you, my friend. You may govern away
and good luck to you. You have my interest, I
might even say my sympathy, but no more,
Johnnie, no more."

 And off he went, reeling slightly, toward the
waiting coach and the wife coming out of the
shop.

17

 Soon afterward, as Johnnie was about to rein
away home, he noticed a column of men coming
up the King's Highway with a drum and a
horseman at their head. He paused where the
highway opened into the Parade. Their leader
proved to be lawyer John Sullivan of Durham, in
the blue coat and silverbraided hat of a militia
officer, and his followers Johnnie soon recognised
as militiamen from Exeter and Durham and the
country round about. Farmers and woodsmen in
every sort of winter dress, including a good many
in buckskins and fur caps, and shouldering a
queer armory that ranged all the way from
well-oiled long rifles to rusty old fowling guns and
even a blunderbuss or two. When they recognized
the Governor they uttered a yell, broke their
ranks, and rushed up and surrounded him. He
made no attempt to ride away. They seemed a
little puzzled, standing about him, some with guns
pointed at his breast. Sullivan rode into this
menacing circle and snapped, "Order firelocks!"
They obeyed at once, dropping the butts on the
snow. Clearly he had them well trained and in
hand.

'Well, Captain," Johnnie said, "what's all this?"

 Sullivan was not unlike the Governor, an active
man in the middle thirties with an air of smiling
resolution. His Irish father had settled as a
schoolmaster years ago in one of the upcountry
towns, and Captain John spoke with a famt
brogue.

 'Why, sir," he said blandly, "we heard there's
some excitement here in town, a foreign invasion
or something of the kind."

 "I'm sorry you've had your journey for nothing,"
Johnnie said. 'There's no imvasion, and no danger
of one either."

 "No danger," Sullivan said, "because you've got
two regiments of the King's troops on the way
from Boston, is that it?"

"I've sent for no regiments."

 The lawyer gave Johnnie a searching look.
"You're a man of your word, Governor," he said.
'Would um would General Gage send troops
here without your asking?"

 "In winter? You must know two regiments can't
be transferred in winter without arrangements for
their food and fuel and quarters. There's this,
though. You know about yesterday's

172

powder theft. I believe the powder's been stowed
up your way somewhere. What General Gage may
do about that I can't answer."

 A buzz of comment broke out in the ring of men.
They were being joined now by townsmen slipping
out of the houses and taverns to see what was
afoot, and there was soon a roar of talk, with
fingers pointing now toward the invisible Castle
and now toward the villages upriver.

 "You reckon Gage may come after the powder?"
Captain Sullivan said shrewdly.

 "It's possible. I'm not a soldier, but if I were I'd
certainly do that. And I'd punish the men who
stole it, Captain Sullivan."

 Sullivan drew aside to confer with his men in the
general hubbub. They seemed at odds. Johnnie sat
his horse quietly in the cold. A delegation of
townsmen emerged from the crowd and came up to
him. Most of them were tradesmen of the solid
sort. Their spokesman said, "Governor, if uh if
the powder was put back, or say handed over to
you, what then? Would you promise not to
prosecute the men that took it?"

 "I promise nothing. I'd consider it an alleviation
of the offence, though. Especially as none of my
men were hurt."

 Back went the delegation to the crowd. The
hubbub arose again, with obvious disagreement
between the cool heads and the hot ones. Captain
Sullivan seemed to be listening but taking no part
in the debate. At last he spurred his horse over to
Johnnie.

 "Governor," he said with a straight face, "since
there's nothing in this tale of two regiments coming
here, why, I'll see if I can persuade the boys to go
back home."

"And what about the powder?"

 "Powder, Governor? What would I know about
that? I was in Durham yesterday from morn to
night."

 "I'll take your word for it, Captain. Well, tell
these people to disperse and go about their proper
business."

 Off came his hat. Off came Sullivan's. Johnnie
rode away stiff and chilled, but satisfied. That night
he retailed the en

173

counter to his supper guests, Meserve, Parry, and
the merchant brothers Thomas and Archibald
Auchincloss, stout Tories all.

 "So you see," he said, "it changes an odd
position. As things stood, I'd plenty of cannon but
nothing to fire in 'em, while those misguided
rascals had powder but no cannon. Now it looks
as if I'll have the powder back by morning. I
shouldn't wonder if the stuff was on its way here
at this moment."

 He went to bed with an easy mind and slept
well. In the morning he enjoyed a hearty
breakfast, and when Edward Parry came in about
ten of the clock he called out cheerfully "Well,
Ned, what's ado at the docks? But don't tell
me I know. The powder's back."

 "Bah! The powder's still under a meetinghouse
up the river by all accounts." Parry put his fists on
his hips. "I've news for you, Johnnie. Sullivan
didn't take his men home yesterday. They stayed
out of sight, in various houses with friends, till
dark. Right here in town. Truth is, Jack Sullivan
fooled you nicely. So did they all."

"Pshaw! Because they didn't disperse at once?"

 "Because they went off to the island again with
Sullivan last night! Oh yes! Busy as beavers they
were, too, the whole of the night. My dear
Johnnie, they've robbed the Castle of sixteen
cannon, five dozen muskets, and every ounce of
shot to be found in the place."

 Johnnie could not find a word to say. He sat
confounded, not so much by Sullivan's guilt as his
own blind confidence.

 "It was a heavy job," PaJry went on in his ironic
voice. "They barely got the gundalows up to town
before the turn of tide this morning." Johnnie
sprang up. "Ah! Then they'll have to await
another tide to get 'em away up the river!"

 "Sit down, my friend. There's nothing you can
do. True, the gundalows are Iying at a wharf just
below mine, with the cannon plain to be seen;
and those fellows who worked all night have gone
off to sleep, including Sullivan. But the whole
thing was neatly planned, I assure you. Right now
a fresh force of Exeter men under Colonel Nat
Folsom are standing guard over

174

the cannon, and all armed with good muskets from
the fort. The town's in their hands .md you might
as well admit the fact." He paused. "I'll tell you
something else, Johnnie. This is no crowd of tavern
louts. They're sober countrymen, and well trained.
They obey Sullivan and Folsom on the instant.
They've molested no one in the town. They've
offered no insult to anyone not even a Tory like
me, standing there watching 'em. You couldn't find
much better discipline in the King's own troops. If
they're any sample of what's drilling up the river
you've got a bigger problem than you thought."

"If only those warships would come!"

 'What if they did? They couldn't sail in past
Pull-and-bedamned till the evening tide. By the
time they got up to the town your guns will have
gone up the river by that same tide."

 And having delivered this, Parry went out with
his savage Itold-you-so air. He had never forgiven
what he considered Johnnie's weakness over the
tea.

 It was not until the following day that His
Majesty's ships appeared. Both anchored inside
Newcastle Island. Captain Barkley of the
Scarborough and Lieutenant Mowat of the smaller
Canceanoc came ashore. Barkley had dispatches
from Gage and Admiral Graves, which Johnnie
read with a gloomy satisfaction. His request had
been filled to the letter. The ships had a hundred
marines on board, and they would remain in the
anchorage as long as Gvernor Wentworth wished.

 Mowat was a polite young man, Barkley a gruff
old salt. Johnnie invited them to dinner on
Christmas Day; and over the port and brandy,
when the dishes and cloth had been removed and
Fannie had gone to bed, the captain spoke his
mind. He did not like his orders at all. It was all
very well for his officers; they could wine and dine
ashore whenever they wished. But how long must
his seamen and leather-necks remain cooped
aboard, like a lot of convicts in a hulk? This thing
might go on for months. Why not pass up the river,
land the marines, and search the up-tide villages
for the stolen guns and powder?

175

 "That would bring on a quarrel of arms,"
Johnnie objected. "Just what I want to avoid."

'when what d'ye propose to do, sir?"

 "Now that you're here I shall send out a
proclamation to all the magistrates, commanding
'em to find the guns and powder, arrest the men
involved, and bring 'em to punishment. I want
this matter settled by our own law and our own
people."

"And you think they will?"

Johnnie gave him stare for stare.

 When the officers departed in his coach for the
docks he called Tom Macdonogh, and in a
dispatch to Lord I;)artmouth he described the
theft of the guns and powder and admitted, 'With
regard to bringing any of them to punishment, the
very transaction shows that there is not strength
in the government to effect it in its present state.
No gaol would hold them long, and no jury would
find them guild."

 As the days went by he knew the truth of what
he wrote. Not a single arrest was made or even
attempted. The guns and powder remained
hidden up the river. And now even the weather
fumed Whiggish. The winter proved one of the
mildest ever known in New England, especially
east of the mountains, where every snowfall was
light and vanished in rain. The Piscataqua never
froze of course its tides were too strong for
that but this year the smaller rivers of New
England remained open the whole winter. So it
was with the roads. Men and their notions could
move freely about the countryside instead of
being snowbound until spring. Folsom, Sullivan,
and the other leaders of the Castle affair were
often seen about the town, fearless and at ease.
Johnnie had revoked their militia commissions, an
empty gesture as he knew. The shadow
government at Exeter seemed to be the real
power now, and his had become a formal show,
going through its accustomed motions like the
painted wooden figures of a Gemman clock at
each strike of the hour.

176

              FO URTEEN

FANNIE'S mother came by a packet schooner
from Boston to attend her daughter's Iying-in, with
a welter of baggage and bundles of baby clothes
and a beautiful canopied cradle of mahogany. And
on the twentieth day of January poor Fannie's or-
deal began. Johnnie sent hastily for the best doctor
in Portsmouth and, for that matter, in all New
Hampshire. He disliked Hall Jackson's politics; the
man was an outspoken Son of Liberty, a confidant
of Sullivan and the Langdon brothers and the rest;
and Jackson had never concealed his contempt for
Johnnie and all his caste. Still, the man was highly
skilled in his profession. He had begun as a youth
under the teaching of his father, old Dr. Clement
Jackson, and followed that with several years' study
abroad in the best surgical school and hospitals of
London.

 And so Jackson came, a hale witty man, with his
case of phials and his leather bag of instruments.
He went straight up to the bedroom, spent about
half an hour, and came down to the anxious
Johnnie in the parlor, leaving the nurse and
Fannie's mother in charge.

 "This is going to be a long labor," he said.
"Narrow pelvis. Always difficult. Matter of
time and strength in the woman of course."

"My wife is frail," Johnny said painfully.

Jackson's eyes twinkled. "Frail ladies are deceiving,
Governor."

"In what way?"

 The doctor regarded him shrewdly. 'Well, for
one, they complain a lot of their health it's
fashionable to be delicate, eh? And they take no
exercise and suffer from migraines and vapors and
so on as a consequence. You never see a serving
girl so afflicted.. The chief mark of a lady, if you
don't mind my putting it plainly,

177

is a costive bowel. Ha! Well, enough of that. Your
wife has more strength than you think--and she'll
need it all, with those hips. Meantime I'll remain
below here. There's nothing I can do in the
bedroom for hours. Have you a late Boston
newspaper?"

 Johnnie was amazed at the man's easy air, but
he was too afraid for Fannie to be angry. Her
groans sounded down the stair well, and he
shuddered. Between her spasms there were long
silences, and somehow the silences were worse.
The doctor read the newspaper and then walked
out to the kitchen and struck up a lively
conversation there. Most of the English servants
had gone, and in their place were young men and
women from poor homes down by the fish
wharves. The doctor amused them. Their chatter
and laughter came to the distraught Johnnie as
clearly as the sounds from the chamber upstairs.

 All through the day Fannie's torture went on,
and Johnnie's with it. From time to time Dr.
Jackson emerged, spent a few minutes upstairs,
same down with a shrug to Johnnie, and disap-
peared vice more into the servants' quarters.

 Bits of his hearty conversation Boated through
the door at the end of the hall; obstetrical tales
and surgical oddities told with a comical twist,
military history and theory he was much inter-
ested in the militia and a good deal about
Liberty.

 Meanwhile Fannie's shrieks rang down the
stairs, together with the hoarse comments of the
midwife and the soothing Boston tones of old
Mrs. Wentworth. Johnnie paced the Boor in
anguish, drenched with sweat, and alternately
threw himself face down on a couch and covered
his ears.

 It was after midnight when the end came. The
doctor had been upstairs the past half hour, the
servants' chatter had ceased, and the wretched
Johnnie heard only a succession of harsh deep
shouts and snarls, not the voice of Fannie at all.
Then a long drawn-out yell, more frightful than
any whoop of the savages in his early days in the
forest, and a silence, a quick murmur of voices,
and the first thin cry of the child. Johnnie arose
then and went out into the snowy garden and was
sick.

About two o'clock in the morning Jackson came
down the

78

stairs with his case and bag. Johnnie sprang into
the hall at his step. The man looked tired.

"You have a son, Governor."

"But my wife Fannie?"

 "Your wife's had a very severe labor seventeen
hours and she's exhausted. I've given her
opium she'll sleep now. You need have no fear.
I never saw so much strength in a slender body.
She'll recover quickly, and she'll be able to give
suck to the child herself. As line a pair of breasts
as one could wish."

"Thank you thank you, Jackson."

 "You may thank Gild, Governor. My fee will be
ten guineas at your convenience no, not now."
Jackson paused to put on his greatcoat and hat. "I
should mention one more thing. Your wife
required some quite delicate surgical attention.
She'll mend well, and as I've told her, she need
never fear another ordeal of this kind."

"Oh?"

 "She will never conceive again. A blessing to a
woman of that frame. She'll remain a normal
healthy female in every other respect naturally.
Good night, Governor."

 One touch of nature, in Portsmouth as in
Johnnie's own wellthumbed Shakespeare, made the
whole world kin. For a time the people, Whig and
Tory, forgot the nag of politics and trooped to
congratulate the Governor and his lady on the
birth of an heir. It was like his inaugural, like his
wedding, like old days indeed; and he rejoiced, not
only as a father, but as the plain Johnnie
Wentworth of those days when he had not a single
enemy between the mountains and the sea.

 Fannie's delighted mother took pen and paper
and addressed a letter to Boston:

My dear sister,

 Mrs. Wentworth * safe abed with a line hearty boy.
I need not attempt to tell you the pleasure th* child
has brought to all its connections. The Governor's
happiness seems to be complete; and had a young
prince been born there could not have been more

179

rejoicing. The ships fired their guns. All the
gentlemen of the town and from the King's ships
came the next day to pay their compliments. The
ladies followed, and for one week there were cake,
candle, wine ~c. passing. This house has been full
ever

since.

 Fannie was recovering beautifully, as the doctor
had promised, and Johnnie's cup was truly full.
He was dashing off letters in all directions: "A
hearty boy he'll do to pull up stumps at Went-
worth House."

 But as the days went by the other concerns
came back with a vengeance. The provincial
Whigs, meeting again at Exeter, chose Sullivan
and John Langdon to speak for New Hampshire
at another "Continental Congress." The stolen
guns were distributed among the towns up the
river and men were training for their use. From
time to time companies of armed countrymen
came down the tide in gundalows and marched
behind their drums about the Portsmouth streets,
a challenge to Johnnie's authority and to every
indignant Tory in the town. Even small boys were
thumbing their noses at the silent warships in the
stream.

 Parry and other angry Tories now were pressing
Johnnie hard. The two small warships and their
handful of marines were worthless. He must send
for troops, and a lot of troops, enough to march
and scatter the unlawful assembly at Exeter;
enough to search and find the stolen guns and
powder; enough to arrest and bring to trial the
leaders of the whole affair. They accused Johnnie
of weakness, of shutting his eyes and ears to what
was going on, like a frightened old woman under
a bed. It was time for him to assert himself or
resign his post to a man who would.

 And so, in the last days of January 1775,
Johnnie did what his instinct had fought against
all along, and in his letter to Gage he specified
two regiments-exactly the strength of that Boston
canard.

 While he awaited a reply he heard more
accounts from Exeter. John Sullivan had
recommended a direct challenge to the Gover-
nor a demand that Johnnie recognize the Exeter
assembly as

180

the true Assembly of the province, and a body
whose proceedings he could neither question nor
dissolve. Some of the more moderate men had
spoken against forcing Johnnie's hand, but they
were shouted down. And it was no coincidence that
Paul Revere had come to Exeter on another of his
mysterious rides. The New Hampshire Whigs were
moving in complete agreement with those of
Massachusetts, where every village was now arming
and drilling for war.

 Johnnie mentioned Revere's visit in a gloomy
note to his friend Waldron in the country.

 "It portends a storm rather than peace. Peace, my
dear friend, has by unwise men been driven out.
They shut the door against its return. Gad forgive
them, they know not what they do. Our hemisphere
threatens a hurricane. If I can bring out of it, at
last, safety to my country and honour to our
Sovereign, my labor will be joyful." He paused,
twirling the quill just above the paper. And then,
bravely, "I yet think I shall. My heart is devoted to
it."

 A British army captain arrived from Boston to
confer with Johnnie, and his name had an ironic
sound. It was Gamble. Johnnie rode with him
about the town and examined various buildings
that might be converted into barracks without
much work or material. Gamble, a brisk man,
departed at once for Boston. He was noncommittal
about the troops. His visit had been well observed
by the Portsmouth Whigs, and the street gangs
again had an ugly tone. The final irony came to
Johnnie with a letter from Gage himself. The
general was polite but firm. He could not spare a
single soldier from Boston in his present situation.
Johnnie must do the best he could with what he
had.

 Everyone now could see the weatherglass and
sense the coming storm. For Johnnie there
remained a pleasant interlude toward the end of
February, when he and Fannie and their friends
drove to Queens Chapel for the christening of the
baby. They had chosen the name, Charles-Mary, in
compliment to Lord and Lady Rockingham, and as
soon as he got home from the chapel Johnnie
dashed off a happy letter to tell them of their
godchild.

Fannie's mother packed up her trunk and boxes
and returned

181

to Boston by the packet schooner. She wept with
her daughter at parting, and Fannie, shivering in
the cold wind on the wharf, wished nervously that
she and the baby were going too. Portsmouth was
no more the little social playroom in which she
had danced and flirted and played the queen.
Only the Whig gentry now could visit each other
without insult in the streets. The small group of
outspoken Tories held a dance or dinner at their
peril. The sight of a few coaches drawing up
outside a Tory house attracted a noisy crowd at
once. Even Peter Livius was in the crowd's
contempt. Everyone knew that he had tried to un-
seat Governor Johnnie for his own ends, and to
the common mind his boasted influence in
London made him another limb of the King, like
Johnnie himself. The more cautious gentry held
themselves apart from all this, and their policy
commended itself even to old Mark. Indeed the
Wentworth clan was now either neutral or
out-and-out Whig, while Johnnie stood alone for
the King.

 As the schooner vanished down the harbor
Fannie returned with Johnnie to the house on
Pleasant Street, which had become a prison with
locked and bolted doors, almost as lonely as
Wentworth House, far away in the hills. Even
Wentworth House was not safe now. The popular
fever had spread into the very mountains, and at
Wolfeborough there were threats to burn down
Johnnie's backwood nest. When he sent off
wagonloads of supplies and furniture, preparing
for another summer there, his friends thought him
mad, but he answered them crisply, "If one goes,
all goes. It may as well burn there as here."

 He set off for Wolfeborough in April with one
of his staff, John Fernald, leaving Tom
Macdonogh and the boy Benning to guard Fannie
and her baby in the Portsmouth house. He had
been there only a few days when a hasty note
from Tom informed him of an outright fight
between the King's troops and the Massachusetts
rebels at Lexington. The paper in his tense fingers
seemed to crackle like flames. He packed up the
silverware, locked the house, and turned over the
great keys to his caretaker. Before leaving he
rode with Fernald to the crest of

182

Mount Delight, and sat his horse under the mighty
pine for a long gaze at his beloved lake and the
hills.

 There lay the house, the outbuildings, the fields,
the park, the mill. The islands where the herons
nested. The long green breast of Copplecrown. The
thin blue smokes of Wolfeborough above the
distant woods, where two hundred people lived
now. The air was calm in the sunshine, the lake a
looking glass. Stamp Tax, Turtle, and the other
islands swam on it like water birds absorbed in
their reflections. The bushes and hardwood trees
were still winter-bare masses of black trunks and
brown twigs but the pines, the cedars, the
hemlocks, and firs had their imperishable green.
There were patches of snow in their shade, but
Mayllowers were blooming on the sunny banks,
and down by the Rye Field he knew the alders
dangled their yellow catkins. The first song
sparrows and robins were back from the south, and
so were the loons. As he sat there a loon uttered
its crazy laughter, passing overhead, and back to
his mind came that mad wonderful night in the
Portsmouth summerhouse, when the loons laughed
on the pond. Darling Fannie! And now a breath of
wind from the mountains sent a cats-paw along the
lake and stirred the big pine overhead.

 '1his sylvan abode," he said. He liked that phrase
from one of his books and often repeated it aloud
up here. At last he turned the horse down the
bridle path toward the Mall. "These contentions
will cease, Fernald. Sooner than we think, perhaps.
I'll come back." With the chests of silver strapped
to a pair of led horses, they rode over Moose
Mountain and on through the flat lands to the
Dover ferry.

 In the parlor he found an agitated Fannie, and
soon afterward Edward Parry arrived with a group
of Tory gentlemen. They had made their way
through an excited crowd in the streets, and they
looked grim.

 "This," said one, "is what comes of trifling with
rebellion  mark that, Johnnie. Gage ought to be
kicked. Sending a few troops like that to seize the
rebel powder at Lexington a boy on a man's
errand what did he expect?"

183

 'Well," Parry said fiercely, "I think it a good
thing. Gage must act now, with his whole army.
Boston and the country round about are the heart
of all our troubles in America, and one good
trashing in open battle will perish the whole
damned treason!"

 "I wonder," Johnnie said quietly. "My reports say
the whole of New England's up in arms, in fact
our own New Hampshiremen have begun to
march for Cambridge. I'm told over a thousand
are on the road at this moment."

 "Then now's your time," cried Parry. "Send those
warships up the river on the next tide, Johnnie,
and land the marines and search every village
from Salmon Falls to Squamscot! Get back those
cannon and the powder while you have the
chance."

Johnnie put his chin up. "No."

"In God's name, why?"

 "I'll have no senseless bloodshed here. What if
a thousand of our men have marched for Boston?
There are ten thousand more at home. Those
poor devils of marines would be slaughtered just
like Gage's redcoats on the road from
Lexington worse!"

"Bah! Shooting's a game that two can play."

 "I well know that. And if the marines shot a few
rebels in the fight what then? You know what
happened at Lexington  the whole countryside
swarmed to attack. One clash of arms here and
you'd have 'em all on your necks, even those wild
men from the mountains."

'when what d'you propose to do?"

 "I propose to carry on government with my
appointed Council and with the support of our
proper Assembly, so far as I can get it. I'll
continue to do so whatever insult I may have to
endure  and from whatever quarter."

"A hopeless policy!"

 "On the contrary. I have a letter from Lord
Rockingham. He stamds with Lord Chatham and
other powerful men opposing all the present
measures in America. He says the government are
now inclined to abate their taxes on the colonies,
the cause of all our troubles. With that gone we
can appeal to all reasonable

184

men to bury the quanel and go back to their work.
Gentlemen, here in America we have in our hands
a golden future, something that can only be worked
out in peace. I keep my heart and soul on New
Hampshire's part in it. Is that a hopeless policy?"

They went away grumbling. Johnnie and his
dreams!

 May came, with its bright days after the bleak
April rains, and Johnnie rode over to the Town
House to open the new session of his Assembly. In
his address he urged them to approve the con-
ciliations offered by the British government. But it
was wasted breath. The members refused to
consider anything from London at all, fearing the
wrath of the people. Patiently Johnnie adjourned
the session until midlune, hoping for a change in
the American weather in a course of weeks.

 But toward the end of May there was another
cloud; and it arose from the anchorage where the
King's ships had lain so long idle at his bidding.
Provisions were scarce in Portsmouth, as always in
these months between the end of the winter stocks
and the harvesting of a new summer's crops. To fill
the gap the Portsmouth merchants had ordered
supplies outside, and two vessels arrived from Long
Island loaded with salt pork, Hour, corn, and rye.
They were promptly boarded and seized by Captain
Barkley's men from H.M.S. Scarborough. The
merchants came to Johnnie in dismay, and he went
off in a boat to settle the matter.

 The Scarborough's boatswains piped the
Governor over the side with all formality. The
captain greeted him in full fig, including a
square-cut blue coat with enormous cuffs and silver
buttons, in the fashion of twenty years before, and
a vast threetailed wig of much the same vintage.

 The old salt was in no mood for questioning. A
pair of hard blue eyes stared forth in challenge
above his pitted purple nose, like those of an old
peevish seahawk who has a fish in his talons at last.
He had chafed at anchor ever since Christmas with
his glum sailors and marines, and no doubt Pany
and the other hot Tories in the town had given him
their opinion of Johnnie's policy ashore.

185

 He listened with half-shut eyes and a mouth like
a crack in granite while Johnnie explained the
need of these cargoes to the town. But when
Johnnie demanded their release the mouth
opened, and there came a shocking broadside.

 "God's blood, I was sent here to your assistance,
as I thought! I was ready to do my part against
those swabs ashore, any time you called upon me.
And what have you done? Eh? You've kept me
here rotting my cables these five months five
solid months sitting here in your damned river,
sir! A joke to every grinning jackanapes in
Portsmouth!"

"Do you question my orders?" Johnnie snapped.

 "I take my orders from Admiral Graves at
Boston, not from you, sir. My orders are to
remain here, so here I stay. But now I have orders
additional, and damme I'm putting 'em into effect.
The army is short of provisions, and I've word
from the Admiral to seize all vittles, of whatever
sort, that come in here, and send 'em off to
Boston. I've made a beginning, as you see."

 "Of whatever sort?" repeated Johnnie,
thunderstruck. "Why, that could mean anything in
the way of food. It could even mean the daily
catch of the fishermen."

"So it does. And the salt they use, for that
matter."

 "D'you realize what you're saying? Half our
people here depend on the fishery for a living, not
to mention our merchants in the salt-fish trade."

"I can't help that."

"Why, it's infamous! Our people would starve!"

 '1hat's their lookout, not mine. And here's
something else you may not like. I have orders to
secure my position here, in view of possible
reprisals. There's that fort at the harbor mouth
you call the Gastle Castle William and Mary,
ecod! It commands the channel, yet you don't
maintain a proper garrison. In fact you let those
rebels of yours run off with the powder and take
their pick o' cannon. I'm told there's dozens of
other guns Iying about the place that only need
new carriages. What's to stop the rebels taking
possession and mounting those guns? Eh?
Nothing! And there we'd be, caught up here like
a pair o' flies in a bottle."

186

 "In that case, why not land your marines and
man the Castle? I thought of that before, but
there's a big fishing population on the island, and
I chose not to risk a quarrel. If it's a necessity, put
your men in the fort."

 Captain Barkley favored Johnnie with a fierce
grin. 'Who'd vittle 'em there? You?"

 "Not while you're seizing every scrap of
provisions hereabouts. How could I?"

 "Ah! So I'd have to vittle 'em from my ships, up
here in the anchorage. Nunno, I've a better plan.
Tomorrow I drop down to the island, land my men
with handspikes and powder and such, tear down
the walls as much as I can, and sling off those
other cannon. Then I can sit here safe, and with
the town under my guns, according to my orders."

 Johnnie swallowed his wrath and turned to the
gangway and the boat. "Your orders must be
changed. I shall write Boston at once."

The sailor merely twisted his mouth and closed one
eye

 The next day, true to Barkley's word, a strong
party of seamen and marines from the
Scarborough landed on Newcastle Island and
pulled the last rotten teeth of the fort, while the
Canceaux sailed with the captured provision ships
for Boston. And now, as Johnnie foresaw, the fat
was in the fire. At the news of Barkley's actions
the townsmen seized whatever weapons came to
hand and poured into the streets. Companies of
armed men arrived every hour by road or by boat
and gundalow from the up-tide towns. The Whigs'
Committee of Safety sought hurriedly to take
charge, but in the excitement they could do
nothing. Bands of men broke into Tory houses and
stores in search of weapons and food. From time
to time Johnnie himself was besieged behind
locked doors on Pleasant Street, with groups of
ragged fellows, the scum of Portsmouth, gathering
outside and demanding admittance.

 It was June and hot weather. The lindens outside
the house were in leaf, the grass was lush at the
wayside, in the garden the lilacs bloomed, and
already the apple blossoms were beginning

187

to shed on every stir of the air. About the shores
of South Pond the- wild flag made a running blue
flame. Strawberry Bank was speckled with white
blossoms below the little chapel, violets were
blooming among the fish flakes at the mouth of
the Puddle Creek, and in the edge of the woods
behind the town the blueberry and huckleberry
bushes were all in flower. The loveliest month,
except October when the leaves changed, but a
black one now for Johnnie and worse for Fannie,
cringing at every hullabaloo at the big street
door, starting whenever a June bug smote the
windowpanes after candlelight.

 On the thirteenth day of June the official
Assembly of New Hampshire met again in the
Town House, and Johnnie set forth to open the
session, riding with Tom Macdonogh through the
streets in a hubbub of hoots and jeers. The
Parade was a human swarm, many of the men
armed with musket, bullet pouch, and powder
horn; and he noted these with a pang his own
militia, his care and pride in the days before the
trouble, and now being mustered for war against
the King. Inside the old shabby assembly room
sat the official representatives from town and
country, much aware of the throng outside. There
was a new face among them. Colonel John
Fenton represented Plymouth one fearless Tory
in the gathering. Governor Johnnie opened the
session with all its ancient form, read his address,
and departed. The crowd set up a great roar
when he emerged with Tom Macdonogh. A
trotting swarm of men and boys escorted them all
the way to Pleasant Street, whooping like Indians
and flapping their hats to make the horses rear.
But not a single stone was thrown until they
disappeared into the house. It struck the door
just as the boy Benning shot the bolts home. An
echo boomed through the hall and up the
staircase.

 From her chamber window Fannie peered at
the crowd in mingled fear and contempt and saw
them finally drift away toward the town. She
glanced at the cradle. The baby had slept through
the tumult. She could hear the murmur of
Johnnie's and Macdonogh's voices in the library
with young Benning. There was a strange stillness
in the rest of the house. She ran down

~88

the narrow and winding back stairs that Johnnie
had installed at her demand it had affronted her
to see the servants using the main stairs at her
receptions. It led into the kitchen. No one was
there. She ran to the servants' quarters. No one
there, either. She saw signs of a hasty gathering of
their belongings, and the back door stood open.
They had slipped away unnoticed in the noise from
the street.

When she came to Johnnie with this discovery he
sighed.

 "I suppose we should have expected that. I'm not
safe to work for, any more. In the Assembly today
I couldn't see one friendly face, except John
Fenton's, and I daresay by this time they've
dismissed Fenton from his seat. They dislike that
man even more than me. And then the crowd in
the street like a Boston mob on Guy Fawkes
Night-with me the Guy. I never thought to see that
in Portsmouth. I was tempted to draw my sword
and teach a few of 'em better manners, but of
course there'd have been one end to that they'd
have pulled Tom and me off the horses and
bludgeoned us to a pudding."

 He plucked off his wig, tossed it on a chair, and
ran a hand over his cropped head. It came away
wet with sweat. "Fan, d'you realize what day this is;
Eight years ago, to the hour, I rode into
Portsmouth and took my oath as Governor. And
the people cheered, remember? Every man,
woman, and youngster. I can still hear that gang of
mastmen yelling, 'That's him, that's Johnnie!' And
the ladies curtsying and gentlemen making a polite
leg to me people that won't admit they know me
now, except in a distant way, as if I were
Agamonticus or one of the Isles of Shoals. Even
my own family. Father and mother afraid to show
their faces here. Father's brothers amongst my
worst enemies. And Peter LivIus Livius of all
people lumped with me as a King's man! My
God, is it real, all this?"

 "You're always asking that," Fannie said straitly.
"It's time you saw these people as they are." Her
mind was murmuring I never liked any of your
precious Portsmouth folk, not really, from the time
Theo brought me here. Things like this couldn't
happen in Boston.

189

 Johnnie went on in that dazed voice, "I can't
believe that people hate me, not really. I still
think I could have held them to me somehow if
we'd been let alone. All this trouble came from
outside. And that oaf of a sailor that was the
final straw."

"He was obeying his orders you said that
yourself."

 "Graves then and Gage. They must have
known they were cutting away my last position
when they sent such orders here. As if I'd ceased
to matter. As if New Hampshire could go to the
devil and me with it."

 A silence, and then Fannie said, 'Well, you
might as well admit our situation. We can't go on
living here without servants  without even food
in a few more days, for the butcher and the
market women will be afraid to come to the door.
Those rude gangs will be back again, you may be
sure, howling for you to throw out your guns and
pistols. Sooner or later they'll be breaking in and
taking them and swilling your wines and spirits,
and God knows what will happen. Think of me
and the baby."

'What do you want to do?"

"Leave! Leave now in the Scarborough and go to
Boston."

 Johnnie put his folded arms on the table before
him and rested his head on them. After a time he
said in a muffled voice, "I can't do that, even for
you, love. How could I show my face in Boston?
The governor who ran away from his post because
some noisy fellows cried Boo! And what would
they say here in New Hampshire my own
people?"

 "Those! You heard them. They were calling you
and me every foul name they could lay tongue
to!"

 "Bar one." He brought his head up now and sat
very straight in the chair, as he had sat his horse
that morning. "No one's ever called me a coward."

 Fannie uttered a cluck of impatience. "You're
worse than a coward. I could forgive a
coward I'm one myself. But you're a fool,
Johnnie. A fool! And if you don't take me away
tomorrow I won't forgive you never!" She
flounced away upstairs and threw herself on the
bed in her chamber.

The afternoon dragged on. From time to time a
cluster of men

190

and boys came up the street, yelled outside the
house for a time, and then went on to pay their
respects to Edward Parry. Toward sundown there
was a knock at the back of the house. Johnnie
went there and looked from a window. He threw
open the door at once.

"Father! How did you get here?"

 "By the shore of the pond." Mark's old wise face
regarded him intently. "I've come at some risk, as
you can guess, and I can't stay but a moment.
Johnnie, you must get out. Take Fannie and the
child and go off to the Scarborough while there's
time. Your boat's at the foot of the garden. All
you've got to do is to row down the pond, lift the
boat past Titus Salter's milldam the thing's light
and a fe,w hands can do it and make off to the
anchorage. There's not a house to pass but
Salter's, and you can stand him off with a pistol if
need be. At present the mob's hunting Colonel
Fenton he's in the town somewhere."

"Father, I'll not run away."

 "Listen, Johnnie! You can do nothing here
now nothing. I'm not asking you to go just for
your own sake or Fannie's. I'm asking you to go
for the sake of every peaceable man and woman in
Portsmouth Whig or Tory or whatever. The only
government in New Hampshire at this moment is
the rebel one, with able men at the head of it.
Make no mistake about that. With you out of the
way the Committee of Safety can take a firm hand
and establish order. While you remain the mob's
got an excuse to run wild. So go, in God's
name don't waste another minute. Don't argue.
Good-by!'' He seized Johnnie's hand in his bony
fingers and gave them a crushing grip.

 "Your mother's love and mine, Johnnie." Mark
turned and trotted down the garden, with his old
man's bent-kneed gait, and vanished in the
shrubbery.

 Toward dusk young Benning's sharp ears caught
a murmur in the distance. He calls d, "They're
coming back." In another minute the sound was
unmistakable. A crowd, and a large one, was
coming up Pleasant Street at speed. Macdonogh
and the boy armed themselves with guns from the
rack in the library, and

191

Johnnie fetched his horse pistols and loaded
them. From the windows, as the uproar drew
near, they saw Colonel Fenton coming at a run,
with the crowd a few yards behind. He was
hatless and wigless, and a flung stone had cut his
head. His sword was in his hand. As he came to
the door some of the more daring youths pattered
up at his back, and he turned and drove them off
with a quick sweep of the blade. Johnnie himself
threw open the door, and Fenton stumbled inside
and leaned against the wall, panting like a
hard-run dog.

 The crowd made a rush for the doorway but
stopped at the sight of Johnnie with a pistol in
each hand. In the sudden stillness he said clearly,
"I'll shoot the first to touch my doorstep."

 "We don't want you, Governor. We want
Fenton," one of them said.

 "He's my guest," Johnnie said. "Now be gone,
you villains, or you'll be the worse for it." Some
of them were stooping, and Tom Macdonogh
shouldered Johnnie aside and slammed the door
just as the first stones 1lew. He shot the bolts.
The mob was roaring again. The flung stones
made a drum tattoo on the door. Then came a
crash of glass, and another.

 "Banning," Johnnie called. "Run upstairs and
move Fannie and the baby to the back of the
house the kitchen." He turned to Fenton. The
Englishman mopped the blood from his head with
a handkerchief. He was dusty and drenched with
sweat, and there were bits of straw on his clothes,
as if he had hidden in a stable somewhere
through the day. Some minutes passed before he
could speak, and then he gasped, "Sorry to bring
this damned rout upon you, Johnnie. Thought I'd
get off to the Scarborough. No chance through the
town. Waited for sundown and came this way.
Got some distance too. Then a yell and the whole
pack on my heels. Bounds! There go more of
your windows."

 They were standing in the hall, where the big
door gave its protection. Stones were crashing
through all the street panes, upstairs and down.

"Why do they want your" Johnnie asked.

Fenton shrugged, with his familiar reckless grin.
"I talked too

192

much, I suppose. I'm not a diplomat like you,
Johnnie. I told those fellows in the Assembly what
I've been telling the people up my way that
according to scripture the devil was the first rebel,
and hell was the right punishment."

 "Umph. Well, you're safe for a time, at any rate.
Those fellows know we're armed. When there's no
more glass to smash they'll go away."

"I think not," Fenton said.

 And he was right. The mob remained and grew.
It was dark now, and crude torches appeared,
bunches of tow soaked in whale oil and fastened in
cleft sticks. When all the front and side panes of
the house had gone the patter of stones ceased. So
did the yelling, although the crowd's wild talk was
a roar in itself. The house itself was dark and
silent. Benning watched the garden while Fannie
crouched with her baby on the floor nearby. Soon
after nightfall three of Johnnie's faithful grooms,
the last of his servants, slipped out of the stables
across the road and made their way by the
roundabout route of the South Pond to the back
door of the house. Benning let them in, and
Macdonogh put loaded fowling guns in their hands.
Johnnie, Macdonogh, and Fenton watched the
street. Now and then some bold fellow ventured
toward the battered front door, thought better of
it, and skipped back, amid shouts of derision from
the others.

 Toward midnight came a new uproar, a sound of
cheers along the street. A dray pulled by two
horses drew up outside the stables across the way.

 "Cooks!" Fenton muttered, peering. "They've
fashioned 'emselves a field gun." Johnnie looked
and saw a four-pounder cannon, fastened with
blocks and tackles to the heavy dray, and busy
hands loading it. The muzzle pointed straight at his
door. And now a party of militiamen made their
way through the crowd, marked by their muskets
and the slung powder horns and bullet pouches.
One of these stepped forward, a lean farmer in
breeches and hunting shirt and a shabby round hat.

"Governor!"

"Yes," Johnnie called.

193

 "I have a warrant from the Committee of Safety
for John Fenton's arrest. Send him out, and we'll
warrant him safe conduct to the jail at Exeter. if
he stays in there I won't answer for the
consequences."

 Johnnie was about to answer No. The word was
on his lips when Fenton seized his arm. They
could hear the baby wailing at the back of the
house.

 Fenton called out loudly, "Very well, Joel, I'm
your man. I'll be out in a minute."

 "You can't go out there," Johnnie snapped.
"They'd tear you to pieces."

 "I know that man," Fenton answered coolly,
"he's a decent fellow, a sergeant in the Exeter
militia. He and his men will see me safe to the jail
up there, never fear."

"But I do fear. What'll they do to you at Exeter?"

 "Exhibit me behind the bars a Tory locked up
like a common thief. That's all. Johnnie, listen to
me. I'm going out there whether you like it or not.
You're the one in danger you and your wife and
child. When the militiamen march me off you'll be
at the mercy of that crowd. You've seen 'em. You
know what they are. The lowest ruffians in
Portsmouth with a cannon in their hands. You
haven't got a chance unless you do what I say."

'Well?"

 'there'll be a rumpus when I step outside the
door, you may depend. The militiamen will have
a lively scuffle to get me away, with all that scum
howling for my blood. And that's your chance.
Slip out the back door and go to Parry's
place go anywhere  but go! Now, here I go
myself. Bolt the door at my back and be off with
you."

 As Fenton stepped, bareheaded and
empty-handed, into the torch glare the crowd
uttered a mighty "Ahhhh!"

194

               FIFTEEN

7H-Er~n goes a brave man, if I ever saw one, and
an Englishman begod," said Tom Macdonogh,
slamming the door and bolting it. "Come, sir,
quickly, or he's bet his life for nothing."

 Johnnie, reluctant, still clutching his pistols and
principles, had a last glimpse of the street. The
militiamen were leaping to surround Fenton and
already warding off a torrent of cudgel blows with
their muskets. Macdonogh caught Johnnie's wrist
and half dragged him to the back door. The three
grooms followed. Fannie was there with a cloak
swept about the child and herself and at her feet a
portmanteau crammed with clothes. Young
Benning opened the back door cautiously and
crept forth, gun in hand. The garden was pitch
dark, and as they ran down the winding path to the
little summerhouse Johnnie had a queer Hick of
memory of that other night with Fannie, the night
that changed his life.

 Fannie herself had no room for romantics. She
had heard all that Fenton said and was thankful
that someone had his wits about him. The long
pond gleamed before her now. Macdonogh threw
the portmanteau into the boat, and Johnnie gave
her his arm as she stepped in with the baby. When
they were all in, the gunwales came perilously close
to the water; the boat had been built for four
people at most. The men rowed cautiously for that
reason and to avoid a creaking of oarlocks. It was
not far to the seaward end of the pond. The
gardens of the scattered mansions on this side of
Pleasant Street all came down to the pond,
separated by strips of pasture and wild shrubs. On
the opposite shore there was nothing but a rim of
pasture and the brooding dark shadow of woods.
Fannie had always disliked the loneliness of the
house that the Assembly had rented for the

195

Governor, but she blessed it now. The tide was on
the ebb, and at Titus Salter's milldam the sound
of the sluice was loud. There was still a clamor
beyond the dark trees and pastures. Then a
shocking blast of the Cameron, that seemed to
tear the night apart, and a hubbub of muffled
yells. The rag, tag, and bobtail of Portsmouth
were storming the Governor's "residency" at last.
Fannie thought of her elegant furniture, her
silver, her chinaware, her presses of linen, and her
wardrobes filled with clothes. A rush of hot and
angry tears stung her eyes.

 The small wooden house of Titus Salter stood
on the dark slope just above the dam, where the
road led off toward Little Harbor. The lower
windows were lit, and as the six men lifted the
boat over the dam the baby stirred in Fannie's
arms, with a hungry cry. The men froze. Fannie
tore open her gown and gave the child her breast.
It seemed an age before the men had the boat in
the harbor water below the dam, and Fannie
walked down, feeling carefully for footing on the
wet stones, and stepped into it. The portmanteau
was there, she made sure of that. Then they were
rowing again. The baby sucked contentedly.
Johnnie clutched the tiller, with a watchful gaze
on the yellow-lit panes of Salter's house.

 It was a warm night, full of stars, and calm a
blessing, for with a sea swell running against the
outgoing tide the overburdened boat must have
swamped. Even as it was, Johnnie realized at
once, there was no hope of reaching the
Scarborough at her anchorage between Langdon's
Island and the town. The tide was ebbing too
strongly.

 We must go with the tide, he thought. But
where? Down to Little Harbor and put ourselves
in the hands of Michael and Martha? The
memory of that talk with Michael in the Parade
still burned him wrathfully. Anything but that!
Where, then? Newcastle? The island was
thronged with fishermen, rabid Whigs all. But the
fort the fort at the tip? Cochrane was still there
with his faithful few. A long way to go, two miles
or so, but the tide stream went that way.

'Where are you going?" Fannie demanded. She
could see the

6

lights of the town, very peaceful, as if nothing had
marred the night, and over Johmlie's shoulder the
masthead lantern of the Scarborough, half a mile
upstream.

"To the fort."

"Why?"

 "Because we can't row against the tide, and I
must have safe shelter for you and the baby
tonight. We can go up to the ship in Cochrane's
big shallow on the flood tomorrow."

 It was a long cramped journey, and frightening in
the tide lops as the boat rode down past
Pull-and-be damned. Toward the black loom of
Newcastle Island they met a dank air drifting low
over the sea's face from the east, and they were all
shivering before they made the shore near the
Castle. The lighthouse, that useful creation of
Johnnie's, marked the point with a solitary yellow
gleam. A lone sentry challenged them as they
stumbled to the gate. Then they were mside, with
a tousled Cochrane, aroused from sleep, coming
out of his quarters to greet them.

 Castle William and Mary, never more than a
small work of earth and rock and timber, built in
the olden time, was now a sorry place indeed. The
Assembly had refused to spend a penny on it since
the end of the French wars, and Barkleis sailors
had removed the last of the ancient cannon and
torn down much of the walls. Inside remained a
small wooden guardhouse and a smaller cottage for
the commandant. The poorest fisherman on the
island had better shelter. Both buildings were
rotten, the roofs leaked in every rain, and every sea
wind whistled through the walls. Cochrane turned
over his hovel to the Governor and went to share
the crafty guardhouse with the men. Fannie crept
shivering into Cochrane's bed with the baby, but
Johnnie sat long by the driftwood fire. He could
not sleep. The dais affairs returned to mind in a
dismal cycle with DO end.

 He was still there in the morning, nodding over
the ashes in a crude half-barrel chair, when one of
Cochrane's men came with breakfast, a pot of pale
tea flavored with molasses, a half loaf of stale
bread, and a dish of fried herrings. Fannie arose,
looked at the baby, sleeping peacefully, dressed
herself, and

197

came mto the outer room. She was hungry. She
had always despised herrings, the bread of the
poor, but this morning she took her place at the
rough pine table amd ate with appetite.

 Cochrane joined them, and as they finished
Johnnie said, "Captain, step the mast in your
shallop as soon as the tide makes. I'll give you a
note for Captain Barkley."

 "But aren't we going to the Scarborough
ourselves?" Fannie cried.

  "Fan, I've changed my mmd." - 'Whatl"

 'We stay here, at the fort. I must ask you to put
up with these inconveniences for a time. After all,
it's summer weather, more pleasamt here than in
the heat of the town."

'What's in your mind now?" she said in a withering
tone.

 "ram, I remam the legal head of the government
so long as I stay somewhere on New Hampshire
soil, and no grant of land or money, no openmg or
closing of courts or assembly nothing is valid
without my signature. That's the constituted law of
the province. Those noisy villains in the town
streets can't change that, let 'em ramt as much as
they like. I'll have the Scarborough come down to
amchor near the fort and cover us with her guns,
so we'll be safe enough. Tomorrow Tom
Macdonogh goes up to town disguised as a
fisherman. He'll carry my instructions to the Chief
Justice and others. By now the gentlemen of the
town will have restored order, im their own interest
if not mine. And keeping order means the regular
operation of courts and so on, usmg my law
officials, because any law's better than none at all.
They're m a pickle, amd they know it."

 "Indeed! And how long must I stay with my poor
mite m this pigsty?"

 "Not long, I hope. The rebels have gathered
some sort of army outside Boston, with very little
powder amd no discipline at all. Gage has
thousands of British regulars, with everything an
army needs. Any day now he'll march out. If the
rebels stand they'll be slaughtered, and they'll be
laughed out of all countenance if they run.
Whichever it is, the whole seditious

198

movement will collapse, there and everywhere in
the colonies. Then we can move back to the town
and pick up our old peaceful life again. A matter
of a week, or at most a month."

"You're sure?"

 He hesitated, thinking of his words to Parry. And
then, "I'd wager my life on it."

 "And mine, it seems, and my poor baby's," she
said bitterly. 'every well. But if these wonderful
things don't come to pass in a month I won't stay
here, I vow. I'll go to Boston if I have to beg
passage in a fishing sloop, and on my knees."

 Captain Barkley received Johnnie's note with a
snort. He had heard of the riots ashore and that
the Governor had Hed. The whole town seemed to
have gone over to rebellion. He did not like
Yankees, Governor Wentworth included, and the
tall wooden warehouses along the foot of
Strawberry Bank were a tempting target for his
guns. However, his sense of duty compelled him to
hoist anchor and drop down to cover the Castle, as
Johnnie requested. It was not a good anchorage,
he would have to run up the harbor again at every
easterly blow, but it had a certain advantage.
There he could stop and search not only the craft
bound up tide for Portsmouth, but those that
slipped in and out of Kittery as well.

 Five days after Johnnie's flight from Portsmouth
a furtive man appeared at the fort gate, delivered
a note for Mr. Wentworth, and vanished. Johnnie
opened it curiously. The handwriting was Colonel
Michael's, but it was not signed.

 "A great battle outside Boston yesterday. The
British army drove the rebels off and killed many,
including Dr. Warren, one of their leaders."

 He showed it to Fannie and Captain Cochrane.
"So it's happened," he said somberly. "I venture
Sam Adams was safe somewhere else, but this
ends the machinations of Adams and those other
wicked men." The rolling slopes and woods of the
island shut the town from his sight, but he turned
his face that way. "Now we shall see."

Next day Tom Macdonogh sailed down from the
town in a

I99

small shallop. His face was long. "You've heard,
sir? The battle?"

"Yes. It's all over, Tom, the whole mad business."

 Tom frowned. "I wouldn't go that far, sir. I mean
to say, the British troops drove the rebels off a hill
at Charlestown, but the rebels shot the British
regiments to pieces in the business. They killed or
wounded well over a thousand redcoats. Two of
the New Hampshire rebel regiments were in the
fight, and some of the lightly hurt men have come
home. Gage has crawled back into Boston, so they
say, like a wounded bear. And the rebels are still
outside the town, stronger than ever."

 Johnnie stared. "But that's impossible! Aside
from anything else the rebel army was so short of
powder that...."

 "Ah! D'you know what saved 'em, sir? The
powder from here. Yes! The hundred kegs they
stole from this fort! That's what Paul Revere was
after from the first. Our rebels hid the stuff
upriver, and I guess there was some squabble
before they agreed to part with it. But after the
New Hampshire militia marched for Cambridge
there was no more quibbling. They sent off the
kegs in ox carts a few days ago, and the powder
was just arriving at Charlestown when the shooting
started. Old John Demeritt's cart got up Bunker's
Hill with the first load just as the rebels were
shaking the last grains from their powder horns.
Oh, I tell you, our Portsmouth Whigs are crowing
over that  even some that frowned on stealing the
powder in the first place."

 "Umph! To change an ill subject what are my
Council doing?"

 "Going on with ordinary business of the province.
The Sons of Liberty won't molest 'em so long as
they keep to that. Old Mr. Atkinson remains in
charge, as senior member and Secretary, and he
has all the public records stowed away at his
house. Priceless, those. Without 'em nobody in the
province can prove they own a property or
anything else. How long things will continue like
this no one knows. The out-and-out Tory
gentlemen have lost heart since the later news
from Charlestown. They can't do any
business they can't even get servants any more.
Mr. Parry and

zoo

the rest are taking passage to Boston in one of
Parry's ships, with all their furniture and
household goods. It's an exodus."

"And Peter Livius7"

 "He's off, too, but the other way, a sloop to
Quebec. Thinks he can get a post with the
government of Canada. Says his friends in London
will see to that, and he never did like Portsmouth
anyway."

 "The fox and the grapes. He may find sweeter
ones in Canada at that. What news of Colonel
Fenton?"

 "Safe and cheerful in the jail at Exeter. Everyone
thinks they'll let him go before long. The rebels
feel sure of 'emselves."

"And my house in towns"

 Tom shook his head. "Ah, that's a sorry tale,
sir I was wondering when you'd ask me. When
those ignorant spalpeens found us gone they made
for the wine cellar, and after that there wasn't
much they didn't do. They stole everything they
could carry, smashed the mirrors, the chinaware,
the chandeliers, tore down the hangings, even
battered the parlor mantel carvings and the keys
of the harpsichord with their clubs and gunbutts.
Finally some drunken fools went to the stables,
fetched all the horses across the road and turned
'em loose in the lower rooms. A sight the next
day dung everywhere, and the floors all
splintered and scored by the horseshoes. Well, all
that. Even the most ardent Whig gentlemen were
shocked. Your father came and gathered up your
private papers and letter books, amd he'll send
'em off to the fort here at the first chance. The
Committee of Safety's taken charge of the house
and what's left of the furniture, amd that's about
all I know."

 The hot-weather days went by slowly. Johnnie
occupied himself with letters, Fannie with her
baby and her tambour frame. Several pine chests
of the Governor's private papers were put ashore
at the landing place one night, by some silent men
in a gundalow. Food came to the little garrison in
the same way as if they were lepers whose very
friends were fearful of their touch.

It was a strange existence. Over the water on the
Kittery shore

201

stood the big house of the Pepperells, the home
of old Sir William, dead for years but a living
legend in the province, where old men still talked
of Louisburg. As a small boy Johnnie had seen
the ships and men of New Hampshire set forth on
that famous expedition and heard the tales when
they came back, listening eagerly on the wharves
and at the tavern doors when he should have
been at his schoolbooks. Everyone in those days
was proud to call himself a soldier of the King.
What a transformation now!

 And yet the scene remained the same. Each day
he climbed the steps of the squat wooden
lighthouse and gazed as if it were something he
must fix in his mind, like that other view below
the pine on Mount Delight. The broad shining
mouth of the Piscataqua, the tides sweeping in
and out, the cluster of islands great and small, the
green pastures and dark woods, the small cottages
of the fishermen, the stony shores, the acres of
fish flakes and the split cod drying in the summer
air. At low tide the outer rocks emerged, like the
heads of drowned men, streaming with their
swarthy tangled locks; and gravel shoals where the
mussel beds shone blue in the sunshine; and long
muddy flats where the eel grass *looped pale
green masses like an uncut hayfield after a
country flood. And there was the summer sky
Fannie's favorite blue and the landscape
shimmering in the distance with the heat, and
everywhere the white flicker of gulls. In the
seaward mirage the Isles of Shoals loomed like
mountains and shrank to dots. Like this mirage of
politics, Johnnie thought, an illusion of the eye,
something that must pass with a change of wind
or another hour's march of the sun.

 The garrison of the fort consisted of Cochrane
and his five men, Johnnie and his three servants,
Tom Macdonogh, and young Benning. They
divided themselves into watches and stood guard
day and night, for most of the fishermen on
Newcastle Island were Sons of Liberty, and
frequently an armed party of them hovered
among the rocks, watching the fort and the Scar-
borough offshore..

 News came fitfully, by letter, often by unsigned
notes, carried down the harbor in small fishing
boats for a price. Early in July

202

a sorry tale came al] the way from Wolfeborough.
A party of backwoodsmen had pillaged Wentworth
House, and only the stout will of two
Wolfeborough Whigs had kept them from burning
it down. A few days later a note from the Chief
Justice said that the provincial records were no
longer in his hands. An armed group had come to
his house, polite but determined, and removed
every book and document to Exeter.

 The news from Boston was no better. Gage's
army remained idle inside the defences. Food and
fuel could be had only at outrageous prices.
Fourteen thousand people had quitted the town for
the country. Whole streets were empty. Less than
seven thousand people remained, even including
the hundreds of Tory refugees from the rebel
districts outside.

 'We're better off here, Fan," Johnnie observed.
She made no reply

 Toward the end of July he described his affairs in
a letter to Tristram Dalton, and added in the
stately prose that Dowed from his pen in solemn
moments, the mingled product of a Harvard
education and much reading of Addison and
Steele, '1his at present is our case, confined on the
ocean's edge and experiencing the inconveniences
resulting from the misguided zeal of those upon
whose gratitude and affection I rejoice to have the
justest demand. I will not complain, because it
would be a poignant censure on a people I love
and forgive. For truly I can say with the poet in his
Lear, 'I am a man more sinned against than
sinning."'

 So far Captain Barkley had agreed to let the
fishing vessels alone, on a shrewd condition that
the town butchers must sell him fresh beef, and
this Johnnie had arranged by notes to the leading
merchants. But in August the sailor broke the
agreement and seized a vessel laden with fish. The
next time he sent a boat ashore for supplies it was
greeted with-musket shots. He was furious. Indeed
he was preparing to bombard the town, when
Johnnie put off in a boat and talked him out of it.

'~Very well," the captain grunted. "But since I
can't get vittles

203

in this nest of treason any more I must go to
Boston for my supplies."

"How soon?"

"Some days aforethe month's end."

 'You realise, of course, that the rebels will
overrun the fort as soon as you're gone) I
couldn't hold it with my few men, the place is not
defensible."

"I've seen to that, sir," with a dour smile.

 "Then you leave me a poor choice. We must go
with you  my men and my family or resign
ourselves to capture and insult by another armed
mob."

 Captain Barkley was in no sympathetic mood.
"If you'd had any thought for your child and lady
you'd ha' left here long ago and saved me a fool's
errand all these months. I don't understand you,
sir, damme if I do. They kick you out of your
home like a dog, yet you beg me not to loose off
a few cannon at their warehouses. This is war, sir,
war, and the sooner you recognise that the
better." A pause, and then with a stiff politeness,
"I'll prepare accommodation for you and your
party, if that's your wish, and I'll let you know
when I'm to sail."

 The day of departure came on the twenty-third
of August. Fannie boarded the Scarborough with
relief, even a smile, the first sign of happiness she
had shown in months. Johnnie went gloomily. As
the ship spread her canvas and drew away he
stood aft, with a borrowed spyglass, and saw tiny
figures swarming about the fort. The Liberty boys
of Newcastle had not lost a moment. Then a last
look at Kittery, and on the other hand, between
the islands, a fleeting glimpse of Colonel
Michael's house at Little Harbor. The town was
hidden. Long after they passed the Isles of Shoals,
with their flash of breakers, Mount Agamonticus
stood blue in the distance.

 To Fannie, the view of Boston, whether from
one of its hills or from the sea, was dhe finest on
earth. And it seemed like Heaven now. The tall
hump of Casde Island, dhe long fringe of
wharves, dhe familiar town draped over its low
hills like a patchwork quilt

~o4

over three or four stools, the steeples rising out of
it, the thin blue wisps from hundreds of chimneys
blowing away on the breeze. His Majesty's warships
lay in the anchorage, a picture of sea power with
their rows of gunports, their heavy masts and
yards, their British ensigns fluttering in the breeze.
There seemed to be a good many merchant ships
at the wharves, too, in spite of Johnnie's talk about
the end of Boston's trade.

 She and Johnnie were still wearing the clothes in
which they had escaped from the house on
Pleasant Street. Fortunately she had stuffed the
baby's things and a supply of underliner in the
portmanteau before they left, but washing facilities
at the fort were poor, like everything else there.
Her gown was shabby and stained, and so were
Johnnie's coat and waistcoat and breeches.

 'When we land," she said to him, "you must get
a hire-coach and take us off to Mama's house right
away. I won't have any of our Boston friends see
us looking like this."

 She was impatient to get into the familiar Boston
shops, that catered to moneyed folk, and to her
own mantuamaker in Middle Street. What fun,
after all, to be choosing a whole new wardrobe,
and all at once, like a bride! Johnnie, too, must set
the tailors to work. It would be a fortnight at the
very least before they could appear in public.

 The captain's gig landed them at the Long Wharf
and after some searching by Johnnie's grooms they
found a hire-coach, a rickety thing with a
wheezimg rack-o'-bones in the shafts. When they
reached Sarah Wentworth's house Fannie flew up
the steps while Benning picked up the baby and
Johnnie paid the coachman an astounding fee that
took most of the coins in his pocket. The widow
greeted them with an outburst of exclamations,
smiles, and tears. So it had come to this at last!
Fannie's letters from the island refuge had told her
a good deal of the tale, and their present attire and
meager baggage told the rest.

 Away went a servant with a note, and before
long a carriage brought Fannie's sister Mary
Brinley with her husband. From childhood Fannie
and Mary had been much attached to each

205

other, perhaps because they were nearly alike in
face and figure and in their attitude to life, a
sprightly pair. They fell into each other's arms
with a happy squall of feminine cries. Gorge
Brinley, a prosperous merchant when the Boston
troubles began, shook Johnnie's hand solemnly
and drew him aside to the smaller sitting room.

"So New Hampshire's now in the rebel camp?"

 "Say in rebel hands," Johnnie said. "Most of our
people don't know what to make of these affairs.
I was driven out by the lower orders, you
understand the lower orders. The Whig
gentlemen had nothing to do with it."

"You could go back then?"

 "I'm afraid that depends on what happens here,
Brinley. When the British army has broken the
rebels a lot of us will be able to go back to our
proper places."

 "That may take a long time," Brinley grunted.
"You've come from frying pan to fire. We're in a
state of siege, Mr. Wentworth, just as you were in
your little fort at Portsmouth. The rebel army
bars all the roads outside. There's no trade with
the country. There's not much by sea, for that
matter. The whole coast of America is pretty
much in rebel hands, as far as I can judge, and
their 'privateers' call them pirates, for that's
what they are  infest all the waters north of New
York. Any Tory merchant who tries to send
supplies to Boston takes a risk of ship and cargo
and probably his life. The vessels you see here at
the wharves are mostly English storeships for the
army and Beet. My business is ruined, like every
other in Boston, except of course the shops and
taverns that cater to the army people  they seem
to get all the supplies they want. There's little to
eat for the townspeople and less fuel. And here
it is fall, with winter just around the comer."

'What does Gneral Gage intend to do?"

 "General Howe commands the army now. A
better soldier than Gage, his officers tell me. That
bloody business at Bunker's Hill gave 'em all a
shock and cost Gage his command. So Howe
won't risk another bowling match of that kind.
He's thrown up o6

defences on the Neck and wants the rebels to be
the ninepinsin the next game. They won't, of
course. They've mustered about tweets thousand
fellows, of all sorts and all ages, from greybeards
to boys not as tall as their muskets, but they've got
no artillery to speak of. The position seems to be
that the rebels can't break in, and Howe's not
inclined to break out."

"How are things ir, the town?"

 "Bad. Three quarters of the people have gone
away into the country. The rest, including most of
the refugee loyalists from outside, are slowly
starving. All that keeps 'em alive is a supply of fish
caught in the bay and at the wharves. In another
two months the fishing will be at an end, and
they'll start to freeze as well."

"How do you manage yourself?" Johnnie asked.

 "Oh, I do some business for the army
commissaries picking up odd lots of meat and
vegetables from the more venturesome coasters."
He paused and stared out of the open window into
the street, where in the hot summer air a mingled
throng of shabby civilians and smart redcoated and
black-gaitered soldiers wandered aimlessly up and
down.

 "Something tells me this war's going to last a
long time, Mr. Wentworth. Possibly for years. And
no chance for a loyalist im private business till it's
over. I don't know what influence you may have,
but if you could put a word into the right quarter
I might get an oflficer's post on the Army
commissary stall- for the duration of the war. I
could do good service there, and frankly I need the
pay. It would have to be arranged through London
naturally."

 "Um. I don't know anybody at the War Oflfice.
But there are other means of approach I'll see
what I can do, Brinley."

 Johnnie said this airily, as if his connections were
on the right side of London's politics. He was
beginning to wonder about his own finances. He
owed thousands of pounds to his father and others.
The property at Wolfeborough, his only asset,
which had swallowed so much money, lay at the
mercy of any wandering lout with a tinderbox. His
salary from the Assembly was Cut

207

off. No chance of collecting a penny there until
the end of the rebellion which might take years,
as Brinley said. His sole income now was the �800
a year from London as Surveyor General of His
Majesty's Woods. And how long would that be
paid, when he could not set foot in the woods and
no deputies would dare to serve him?

'What do you think of the rebellion?" he
murmured.

 George Brinley sucked his lips in between his
teeth. He was a brisk and capable Bostonian with
a wide trading acquaintance in the colonies.

 "As a loyalist I detest it, if that's what you
mean. I signed the farewell address to Governor
Hutchinson; I signed the address of welcome to
Gage in his place; and everyone who signed those
papers is a marked man to the rebels now. It's no
use blinking at facts, in business or war. This
rebellion's no longer 8 scattered eruption of town
and village mobs, my friend. That congress in
Philadelphia seems to have got capable men
together, from all the colonies, and they've taken
charge. Oh they're smart smart! See how they
chose a Whig gentleman from Virginia to come
here and command the rebel army. He's set up
his headquarters at Cambridge, just over the river.
Name of Washington. Nobody in these parts ever
heard of him before, but he seems to be a soldier
of some experience, and he's taking a stiff hand.
Our Yankee rebels don't like that. I'm told John
Hancock nearly had a fit. But you see the point?
A man from the south in command gives this
rabble outside Boston something of a continental
flavor. It means the southern colonies won't mind
sending troops this way. In fact some companies
of riflemen have arrived already from Virginia.
They'll be {locking up here if Howe doesn't do
something decisive soon."

"What if Howe attacked them now?"

 "I don't know I'm no soldier. I didn't think the
rebels had a chance at Charlestown and look
what happened! His Majesty's generals don't seem
very smart to me. What I see is this swarm of
men the rebels have got now and Mr. Washington
busy making soldiers of 'em. If Howe sits here
much longer he'll find the

208

rebel army too big to lick, as my father found
when he tried to thrash me at seventeen. And
here's something else for what it may be
worth something a tipsy naval officer pointed out
to me. Howe hasn't got a single post on the
Dorchester ridge, just across the harbor from the
town, because, forsooth, it's at long range and the
rebels have no siege artillery. Suppose the rebels
occupied those heights? Suppose they conjured up
from somewhere a battery of heavy guns?
According to this man a few long twenty-fours
would serve the turn. They could force the fleet
out of the anchorage, whether their gunnery was
good or bad, just by being there. And mark this: if
the fleet has to leave, the army will have to leave,
and so, my friend, will we. I wouldn't care to be
the loyalist left in Boston man or woman if the
rebels got in here."

 The next day Johnnie went to a banker in
Cornhill, with whom he had done some business in
the past. The man greeted him effusively but with
a shrewd glance at his shabby attire. His mouth
was pursed to refuse a loan. The story of Governor
Wentworth's flight was all over Boston. But he was
quite agreeable when Johnnie mentioned his post
as Surveyor General and asked him to cash a draft
on the Treasury in London. He drew Woo which
went almost entirely to tailors and shoemakers and
milliners and mantuamakers in the course of the
next fortnight.

 Now he and Fannie could venture forth to look
up their friends and join in the whirl of card
parties, dinners, dances, and conversuziones that
circulated about General Howe and his staff.
People in this enchanted Boston circle addressed
Johnnie as Your Excellency or Governor, as if he
were merely on a social visit from Portsmouth with
no unpleasantness involved, and Fannie basked in
their attentions as his lady.

 They were all of the old colonial upper class,
which was now split so widely between Whig and
Tory, and to them the Whigs were now "those
rebel miscreants," while they were a strange new
word, "loyalists." Many of them were spending
their last guineas, determined to keep up the old
appearances and trusting in Howe's army to put
things right again.

209

 Johnnie himself was determined to return to
Portsmouth, with a warship or two, and to
re-establish himself in the fort as soon as possible.
He urged it on Admiral Graves, declaring his
absolute need of a foothold in New Hampshire,
however small. The admiral was unimpressed. He
did not mention Captain Barkley's report, but he
had no intention of sending ships back to that
precarious anchorage in the Piscataqua, and he
said so. He added, "Besides here's the autumn,
and time for most of my fleet to make for the
West Indies for the winter. I'm keeping three
ships at Boston, and that's all. The rest won't be
back till next May or June."

 "Then," said Johnnie desperately, "at least order
an armed vessel, however small, to take me to the
Isles of Shoals. The New Hampshire Assembly
will be meeting in late September unless I
prorogue it beforehand, and I can do that from,
say, Gosport on the Isles."

 The admiral squinted a sardonic eye. 'What
good will that do? Your Assembly's under the
thumb of the rebel group, by all accounts. They'll
meet, with or without your permission, and no
doubt they accede to all the rebels' demands."

 "But without my knowledge or consent! I must
keep clear before them the fact that I'm their
Governor, supported by His Majesty's law, and
that someday I shall be able to demand an
account of all their proceedings."

 At last Graves provided a small armed
schooner. Appropriately her name was Hope, and
she carried Johnnie and Tom Macdonogh to
Gosport on September 25. From the rocky hump
of Star Island they could see with a spyglass the
lighthouse and the ruined fort very clearly in the
golden autumn sunshine and the white dots of
Kittery, the rolling woods and fields of Newcastle,
and the far blue smoke of Portsmouth itself. In a
fisherman's cottage Johnnie dictated the
document of prorogation to Tom Macdonogh,
addressed it tO old Judge Atkinson as Secretary
of the Council, and sent it off by fishing boat in
the darkness of night to Little Harbor. The next
night the boat went ashore again for the reply, but
none came. None ever came. At the end

210

of the month the Hope carried them back to
Boston. As soon as she had gone a force of armed
rebels descended on the Isles of Shoals in sloops
and gundalows, gathered up hundreds of fisher-
men with their families and small belongings, and
carried them off to the mainland, never to retum.
The Isles were not to be a base for Governor
Johlmie, that was clear.

 By the time the first snow whitened the Boston
streets Fannie was absorbed in a new delightful
life, where there was always wit and music and
good food and wine, where sprigs of British
nobility in handsome 1miforms, like the gay Lord
Percy, kissed the hands of pretty loyalist ladies and
demanded their company whenever the dancing
began where, in fact, every day was a holiday and
every night a feast.

 She slept every morning until noon.
Gramdmother Wentworth was delighted to look
after the baby. The child had been weaned, and
there was no more need of those sleepy
awakenings and suckings. Fannie could admire her
figure again. Indeed her looking glass told her it
was better than ever, and so did the eyes of the
gentlemen at routs and balls, following her about
the room. Whenever some jealous miss at the
dance (and there were not a few) remarked aloud,
'thirty, if she's a day," the gentlemen did not care
a rap. Johnnie himself, proud of her popularity,
had a pang now and then. Time and trouble
seemed to pass Fannie by. She retained the clear
eyes and skin and the vivacity of nineteen, flitting
about the drawing rooms and ballrooms of Boston
with her mysterious little smile, as if she had the
secret of youth and proposed to keep it to herself,
and Johnnie could not help thinking with a queer
dismay that next year he would be forty.

 He met Gneral Howe at many of these affairs,
a swarthy man with a heavy lip and the eyes of a
codfish. The commanderinchief could be convivial
when he wished, and in conversation Johnnie
found him intelligent despite his looks. Some
refugees, chafing over his inaction, called him a
fool and a rake. It was notorious that a pretty
American woman, Mrs. Loring, the wife of one of
his commissaries, served as his mistress; indeed he
flaunted the fact, or she Daunted him, at many a
dinner and ball,

211

and any hostess who wanted the General's
presence at her party was wise to invite Mrs.
Loring first. The general was not alone in such
amiable diversions. Military gentlemen were not
subject to the moral rules of other folk, it
appeared; an indulgence went with their
profession, posted hither and yon about the world,
with hardship and death always in the offing
somewhere. One had to keep a broad mind,
Fannie laughed; the officers were pleasant fellows
with such elegant ballroom manners, whatever
they did outside.

 The giddy round did not appeal to Johnnie as it
did to his wife, however. There was a monotony
about these affairs in which the same people were
always doing the same things and passing the
same idle talk. He was too anxious about the
loyalist cause, perhaps. He wondered sometimes
if there were any truth in what some dour
loyalists were saying; that under General Howe's
red coat and powdered wig lived a political knave;
that he was a Whig himself, with all the cutthroat
attitude of English Whig-and-Tory politics; that
he despised his own government at home and had
no intention of fighting hard for a Tory cause in
America.

 When the winter deepened Johnnie began to
see another side to Boston life, the plight of the
poorer townsfolk and refugees. As cold and
hunger increased there was a sharp increase of
crime, in spite of Howe's street patrols; indeed
soldiers and sailors were involved in nightly
robbery along with the desperate civilians. They
broke into the houses left empty by people fleeing
the city, and stole silverware, clothing, bedding,
pots, teacups, anything that could be sold for food
or drink. Then they were back again in a quest for
fuel, breaking up furniture, tearing down
cupboards and wainscots and panels. The time
soon came when hardly one of the hundreds of
abandoned houses remained-intact. In many cases
the very houses disappeared, board by board and
post by post, until there was nothing but a cellar
and a scatter of rubbish.

 By Christmas people were eating the meat of
starved horses that fell down in the streets. Dogs
and cats mysteriously van

212

ished, as if some Pied Piper had called them away.
And the smallpox appeared, as a final misery, and
worked its way with ease among humans huddling
together for warmth behind the frosty panes.
Death carts made their rounds and took the daily
harvest to the graveyards. The funeral tolling of
church bells became so frequent that it seemed a
continuous sound of doom, and at last General
Howe forbade it. The town, with its mass of misery
and its thin crust of pleasure, seemed to Johnnie
like nothing so much as a gilded chamber pot.

 The British soldiers and sailors, unused to the
cold and snow, weary of idleness all these months,
an ocean away from home, loudly cursed the
climate, the country and the people. Americans!
Johnnie stirred unhappily whenever he heard these
objurgations; and sometimes there was another
feeling, the one he had confessed to Fannie long
before and put away as if it were the voice of
treason. We're not the same people. We Americans
are another race, with another destiny. We know it
and so do they. And again he put it away.

 The new year came, the first stormy day of 1776,
with drifts in the streets too deep for visiting by
coach or even afoot. Fannie, hoisting her skirts to
warm her legs by the stove in her mother's parlor,
cried a murrain on the weather. There was to have
been a grand ball tonight, with the General and
most of his of fleers there. Johnnie was busy
dictating letters to Tom Macdonogh in the next
room. He seemed to do nothing else. As if, now
that he couldn't be dashing about the woods of
New Hampshire, he must send at least some part
of himself hither and yon, if only a scrawled
signature.

 He came out to the stove and warmed his hands,
while Fannie, with gown and petticoats high,
exposed to the glow the full length of her flimsy
cambric drawers. Johnnie wondered if she knew
that Tom Macdonogh, pausing now and then to
blow on his cold fingers, could see her plainly
through the open doorway.

"You should wear flannels in this weather," he
remarked.

"flannels!" as if he had said bearskins.

~13

 He wondered how to begin. After some
moments he said, "Fan, I've been considering our
position here."

"Oh?"

 "I've drawn my London salary almost to the
limit, and we can't keep staying here on your
mother's hospitality she has little enough money
herself, the way things are. D'you realise that
small leg of mutton yesterday cost a guinea?"

 She gave him the look of blank unconcern
about money matters that made him wonder
sometimes if she would ever grow up. In this new
glittering substitute for the old Portsmouth winter
pleasure she had no room in her mind for
anything so dull.

 "It isn't just pennies or guineas," he said, almost
with apology, as if he had uttered something
obscene. "I'm alarmed at the look of things here
in Boston. I've been talking to . . ."

 "Gorge Brinley, I suppose poor gloomy man.
Mary tries to laugh away his vapors, but it does
no good whatever."

 "I've been talking to George, yes, and some
other sensible loyalist gentlemen," he replied
deliberately. "And some of Howe's officers, the
kind who spend most of their time at their posts
and don't have much leisure for dancing."

 Fannie gave him a dark under-glance. There
was an irritated edge to his voice. She turned her
back, shifting her hands and flipping up her skirts
behind.

 "A man came through the lines last night with
a rumor that could be true. The rebels have
begun to haul siege cannon here from
Ticonderoga, away up on Lake Champlain, now
that there's snow on the backwoods roads. That's
what they've been waiting for good sledding. It's
a long way, but they can cover it in the next
month or two while the frost holds. I've seen our
mastmen hauling spars heavier than any cannon
through the woods in just this kind of weather."

"And what of it?"

 'When they're ready they'll knock the fleet out
of this harbor, and the army will have to go with
the ships. The troops can't live a week without
stores that come by sea."

214

 "Now you're at your fancies again; I wish you
wouldn't, Johnnie, you only upset yourself."

 There was something contemptuous in her voice
and in the attitude of that exposed cambric
bottom.

 "I'm fully awake to a lot of things," Johnnie
snapped. "And I intend to act upon them now. In
fact I've arranged passage for you and the baby to
England in the Julius Caesar, which sails in two or
three weeks' time. No don't argue. You must go.
You'll have nothing to worry about over there I
had letters from Lady Rockingham and from Paul
Wentworth, by the storeship that came in
yesterday. They're much concerned with my last to
them from the old fort at Portsmouth, and both
urge that you come and stay with them until this
trouble's over."

 "And may I ask what do you intend to do
yourself?" she said. She had dropped her gown and
petticoats in the shock of this explosion, but she
remained with her back to the stove and him.

"My duty's here, and I must remain."

 She folded her arms and turned around. His jaw
was set and so was his gaze, with no more hint of
compromise than Wolfeborough granite.

"Johnnie, you stupid thing, are you jealous?"

"Of whom?"

 "Oh, of Captain Beaumont and Colonel Ward
and those other silly men who like to dance and
flirt with Mary and me. I suppose you've
overheard some of those spiteful she-cats at the
parties. Is that it?"

 Fannie's eyes met his boldly. Johnnie's tongue
coiled on an angry outburst. It was some time
before he spoke. "All I have to say is what I've
told you already, Fannie. I'm writing to Lady
Rockingham and to Paul, accepting their
hospitality on your behalf. Paul will advance any
money you need, and you can live very comfortably
in Yorkshire as a guest with the Rockinghams until
all this trouble's over."

 She tapped a foot. She had always been able to
twist him round her finger, and she wondered
which approach was best now. An angry storm? Or
tears and outraged innocence? Or just

215

her coaxing mood, teasing him into laughter with
some pert bit of wit at the right moment? At the
present moment approach of any kind seemed
difficult. He was staring across the room like that
Great Stone Face he had told her about, up in
the mountains.

 England? She turned this astonishing new
prospect in her mind. At Johnnie's urging she had
penned long letters from the summer idleness of
Wentworth House, prattling to Lady Rockingham
of the woods, the lake, the horses and cattle and
dogs, like a true countrywoman. Naive letters,
reflecting her own awe at the notion of
addressing nobility, even at a distance of three
thousand miles. And now a chance to meet
nobility in the flesh, to mingle with their
well-bred visitors, of whom Johnnie had talked so
much in days gone by, and actually to live for a
time in that great Yorkshire palace with all the
fabulous luxury of the wealthy English! It would
be something to talk about when she returned to
Portsmouth with Johnnie at the war's end. She
could hear herself mentioning famous names,
with an elaborate casualness, while the
Portsmouth ladies sat agog.

 "Well," she said, after a long silence. "If you say
I must go, I must." Her voice was so meek that
Johnnie was taken by surprise. He had expected
a tempest.

z16

               SIXTEEN

ON ~ choking cold morning of the nineteenth of
January, 1776 the storeshipJulius Caesar cast off
her lines, set her big fore-topsail, and moved away
from the Long Wharf. Fannie's mother had taken
a tearful farewell at the house, but Johnnie, young
Benning, Tom Macdonogh, and the Brinleys made
a little group huddling in the lee of a shed and
waving handkerchiefs from the wharf's end.

 The snow on the town's roofs and the harbor
slopes glittered in thin sunshine. Wisps of vapor
writhed upward from the harbor in the bitter air
and hung a canopy just above the mastheads of the
shipping. Ice had formed about the shores in the
night and broken away with the lift of the morning
tide, and the big bluffbowed transport moved in a
broken trash of it, tinkling and crackling along her
sides. At first Fannie could look up the short
length of King Street to the Province House and
King's Chapel. Then the ship veered, and that view
was lost. lthe Julius Caesar fired a departure gun,
and in reply there was a white puff and a bang
from the South Battery below Fort Hill. For some
minutes Fannie remained on the deck, shapeless in
a fur-trimmed cloak and hood and with the icy
breeze blowing up her legs. Her eyes wept, partly
from emotion, partly from the cold, but still she
gazed glassily toward the town and the small
human knot at the wharf's end.

 Sailors aloft were edging along slippery
footropes, like chickadees in the bare branches of
a winter maple, casting off the gaskets of sails that
sparkled with frost. The canvas was so stiff that it
would not fall from the yards until the men below
began to yo-ho and heave away on tacks and
sheets, and as each sail finally caught the wind and
filled, it did so with cracklings and

'17

squealings as if in protest at such work in such
weather. The sailors made their own protest, out
of the master's hearing, as they came with
pinched faces down the ratlines. But once on deck
they were cheerful enough, skipping about at their
tasks, bawling jokes in their English accents and
heaving away, with their hands wrapped in old
wool stockings for want of mittens. They were
glad to be leaving this dull, starving, and
frostbitten town; and who cared about the perils
and hardships of the North Atlantic passage when
good roast beef and English ale and the sluts of
London lay at the end of it; One of them, coiling
a rope on a belaying pin near Fannie, turned for
a look at the town, a stocky figure in
linsey-woolsey trousers so wide and so short that
they might have been a petticoat, a striped
woolen jersey, and a thin grey surtout bought or
purloined in Boston. He had a broad red Devon
face and a clubbed pigtail as thick and black as a
junk of oakum. With an impudent wink at the
lady passenger he put a thumb on his broad nose
and waggled the fingers at the shore.

 "That for 'ee, Boston ay, and all Ameriky. Let
the rebels have 'ee and be damned." And off he
skipped to another task. Johnnie would have been
outraged. Fannie, in spite of the cold, in spite of
everything, felt the imp in her awake. She had a
whim to thumb her own nose at Ameriky,
thinking especially of Portsmouth, of those
Portsmouth ladies who considered her no better
than a whore, and of the rabble in the streets who
had cried the word aloud. I don't care if I never
see the place again, never! And Johnnie? A
twiddle of fingers for Johnnie. Packing me off like
a kitchen maid caught with a coachman in the
hay, because forsooth he couldn't bear the sight
of me having pleasure in the midst of other men.
Dreaming all sorts of things, no doubt, with that
fanciful mind of his. Well! We shall see.

 And she went below, shivering but strangely
exultant, as if she too had slipped a mooring, like
the ship.

 At some prodigious price Johnnie had engaged
for her the great cabin at the stern, the captain's
own quarters; and he had secured as traveling
maid a young loyalist woman, penniless and

z18

anxious to find a refuge in England. And because
passengers had to supply their own provisions
Johnnie had obtained only God and George
Brinley knew how boxes and hampers of bread,
butter, sugar, cheese, salt, and smoked meats of
half a dozen kinds (no fish, thank heaven!), jars of
fruit preserves from Mama's own cellar cupboards,
cold roast turkeys and chickens, pickled beef
tongues, potatoes, turnips, a keg of salt cabbage,
dried beans and peas, white flour, corn
meal enough, it seemed, to feed the whole crew
on a three months' voyage, instead of two women
and a very small baby for surely not more than
three weeks.

 And there were several bottles of cordials, a case
of port wine a casket of medicines, a vast bundle
of sheets, blankets and quilts, a basket crib for the
baby, a set of Mama's silver knives, forks and
spoons, a teakettle, and some pans. All this besides
two portmanteaus, half a dozen bandboxes, and six
cowhide trunks full of clothes. Most of this had to
be stowed below somewhere, but even so the big
cabin and its lockers were so crammed that she
and Prudence Latham had barely room to move.
Over all loomed the captain's stove, a tall foreign
thing, sheathed in white porcelain and looking like
a headless heathen god.

 All these signs of Johnnie's care mollified her a
little. The stove glowed with a fire of Nova Scotia
coals, from the army's fuel bins undoubtedly. The
cabin was warm, heaving a little but not
uncomfortably in the seaway. The baby, well
wrapped, lay in the crib, with Prudence crooning
him to sleep. And Fannie thought now of those
last moments at the wharf end, when Johnnie took
her in his arms. The strange brusque manner of
the past few weeks had fallen from him like a
mask unfastened. He was the lover again, holding
her fiercely, kissing her lips as if he could never
get enough of them in the time that was left. She
had stood limp and indifferent, to punish him as
she had punished him ever since he announced his
intention of sending her away. Not once m these
weeks had she allowed him an intimacy, even
though they shared one bed; at his slightest at

,19

tempt she had turned a rigid back as if to say, If
I can't have my pretty gentlemen Your Excellency
shan't have me.

 Silly, she thought now. But he'll be all the more
eager when we meet again. A good sauce, hunger.
Whenever he came back from those long journeys
in the woods he could never get me to bed quick
enough, nor love me enough when he got me
there. As for me, there's England and enough
wonderful new things and people to occupy me a
twelvemonth.

 As the voyage went on, day after day, she found
this blithe outlook hard to hold. For some days
there was fairly smooth sailing, as if the sea itself
were numbed by the frigid air drifting off the
continent. Then came a storm for three whole
days and nights, then a lull and another gale. And
another. She came to know why seamen spoke of
a winter passage of the North Atlantic as if it
were a passage through hell. There were many
days and nights when all the hatches had to be
battened down. A heavy deadlight had been
closed over the stern window long ago. There was
no light in the cabin but that of a single whaleoil
lantern swinging and reeking in gimbals overhead.
The air became dead and foul. The ship leaped
and swayed and swooped like a runaway gig on a
mountain road. The sea smote its decks and hull
prodigious blows, as if in that progress from time
to time it fell right in the path of a moving cliff.
The space below decks was filled with the boom
and shock of these collisions, with the squeaks
and cracks and deep groanings of timber, under
stresses that were never two minutes the same,
and the thudding of sea boots and the shouts of
seamen overhead.

 The captain knocked and looked in from time
to time to assure his passengers that all was safe
"in spite o' this an' that." He was a lean man of
dark aspect with a long red nose, from whose end
a gleaming drop continually hung. Johnnie had
paid him well for his accommodation and his
services, and he made these appearances as part
of the bargain. "This and that," he did not explain,
included various sails that carried away, a
fore-topmast that snapped, sundry ropes and stays
that chafed and broke. In addition a longboat on
mid-deck was swept away in a boarding

220

sea, together with three live pigs and a sheep that
had been kept in it. The hen coop vanished. So
did a seaman one bad night. And another slipped
from the main topmast crosstrees in broad
daylight and perished in one single horrid thud on
the deck.

 The "westerlies," as the captain called these
howling winds, were "fair for England but a mite
too boisterous." He frequently spoke of "running
under bare poles," whatever those were. Fortu-
nately the cold eased as the Julius Caesar
thrashed its way toward mid-ocean, but the ship
was never comfortable; there were whole days
when no seaman appeared with a bucket of coal
for the cabin stove, when no food could be cooked
or even warmed; and in every storm there were
thin trickles of water through the planking
overhead. Through it all the baby lay content,
rocked in this almighty cradle, with the crib
wedged between a bulkhead and a pair of lashed
trunks. If omens mean anything, Fannie thought,
the child should be an admiral.

 There were times when the wind swung ahead,
with a storm of snow, and the ship lay hove to, the
bow slowly cording up toward the blast and falling
off again. Sometimes a helmsman let the bow fall
off too far, and the hull tipped to a frightful angle,
with everything below sliding and banging and
huge seas pouring over the decks one after
another.

 There were days when the fickle weather
calmed, when Fannie and Prudence took turns on
deck, when even Fannie sucked in the cold fresh
air as if it were some delicious and half-forgotten
perfume. Sometimes there was a sun in the sky,
when the sea was no longer the evil grey of a
witch's hair but a deep blue smooth and gleaming,
like the steel of Johnnie's dress sword, stolen by
the Portsmouth mob.

 But these halcyon days were few and wide apart.
In the rough weather the girl Prudence suffered
wretchedly from seasickness, and Fannie, putting
aside her own qualms, took care of her and the
baby as well. Whenever nausea came she clenched
her teeth and fought it back, as she had fought it
in those mornings of her first pregnancy, with
Theo dying and then dead and with the watchful
women all about her. And all this in the cramped
prison

2ZI

of the cabin, with its queer mingled smells of
urine and boxed cheese and rank butter and
unwashed female flesh and the stink of the
whale-oil lamp.

 More than four weeks of this purgatory crept
past; and then one afternoon, toward sunset, the
captain sent a hand to present his compliments
and call Mrs. Wentworth to the deck. The sky
was overcast except where the sun peered
through at sea level, far astern. The air was mild,
and here and there a fine drizzle of rain drifted
across the sea's face. The captain pointed an un-
clean finger at a dim shadow on the horizon to
the east.

"The Scillies, ma'am.Land's End is just beyond."

 He was pleased with his navigation and his luck
and expected a compliment, but the names meant
nothing to Fannie. Sillies? Land's End? Her
knowledge of English geography was confined to
a few vague memories from a Boston dame
school and Johnnie's talk of Yorkshire and
London and Bath. What I-want is the Sensibles
and a Sea's End, she thought; we've gone far
enough to fall over the edge of the world.

"What are they?" she said.

 The captain snuffled.. I le was a patient man.
"Tip o' Cornwall. Falmouth just around the
corner, like. I'm gain' to hold her off for the
night nasty place, the Scillies an' tomorrow I'll
put into Falmouth for fresh water an' provisions.
May be a long haul up the Channel an' round to
the Thames if we git a spell o' weather from the
east. I've see a fleet o' ships held in the Downs a
fortnight or three weeks, awaitin' a fair shift."

 "Then I shall leave the ship at Falmouth," said
Fannie promptly.

 "On t'other hand," said the captain, with the air
of a man who does not trust the land very far,
"it's a mortal long haul by coach from Falmouth
to Lunnon, ma'am. Matter o' two hunnerd an'
fifty, mebbe three hunnerd mile, en' the roads at
their wust after the winter rains. Rough gain',
that, fer two women en' a Gabby."

"Falmouth," said Fannie resolutely.

 "I mean to say, your husband paid your passage
to Lunnon if ye want to keep on wi' the ship."

222

 "No, we'll go by road," she said, and thought, If
we have to crawl to Lunnon on hands and knees.

 She was too excited to sleep, with this
tremendous knowledge in her mind. She roused
Prudence, and they spent most of the night packing
the trunks and portmanteaus in the cabin, as if
they would set foot on good solid earth by morning
light. But it was far into the next afternoon before
the Julius Caesar approached the Falmouth
entrance. The wild rocky shore and the wooded
slopes above looked utterly familiar. Why, it's like
home, she thought; it's like New England after all;
all it wants is pine and spruce and hemlock instead
of all those bare hardwood trees.

 And the town lay on a peninsula, somewhat like
Portsmouth, with shipping at anchor in the roads.
The streets were narrow and higgledy-piggledy,
too, although nothing else was the same. Not a
wooden house to be seen. Everything of brick or
cut stone and looking as if it had stood there, with
the rain pelting on its dark slate roofs, since
Noah's time.

 Fannie put up at an inn for the night. She
wondered what to do next. Send a letter to Paul
Wentworth and let him arrange to fetch her to
London? Johnnie had given her a purse of guineas
and London bank notes amounting to �1~0, all he
could scrape together in Boston at the time of
sailing. Pshaw! Why wait?

 And so the next day she bargained with a
wagoner to bring on the mass of heavy baggage to
Paul's address in London, a fortnight's journey and
a fat fee. She then set off in the Falmouth
stagecoach with Prudence, the baby, and the
portmanteaus. It was early March, with a grey wet
sky and the trees bare, like late April at home. As
the coach clirribed up the cobbled slope out of
Falmouth town they had a last glimpse of the
Julius Caesar, seaworn and shabby, Iying off the
quay.

 "Thank God that's over," Fannie cried. "I tell
you, Prue, I'll not cross that ocean again in a year
of Sundays, not while I keep my right mind. If my
husband wants to see me again he shall make the
voyage himself."

 The road wound along a tidal river that ran far
into the land and crossed the head of it at Truro,
where at low tide the small

2~3

ships lay heeled on the mud. The grass in the
fields was a softer green than Fannie had ever
seen in New England, and the farmhouses all had
a solid ancient look that was charming even in the
rain, but the Comish countryside seemed stark
and drear. She had thought of England as a land
of milk and honey, and it was a surprise to see
yokels at the wayside farms looking poorer than
any but the poorest of backwoods folk or
fishermen in America.

 The roads were another. The coach bumped
and swayed dangerously, on what seemed more
like a stream bed than a highway, and often
became mired in a slough-hole as bad as any on
the road to Wolfeborough. At each posting inn,
where the horses were changed, the hostler had a
long list of warnings about the road ahead, and
everything he said was true.

 At Tavistock the coachman put his head in the
door and jerked his head toward the east.

 'We're coomin' to a bead bit nao. Twenty moil
o' stwuns an' bogs. Dartmoor, we call 'un." And in
a few minutes they were reeling and plunging in
a wilderness as wild as a fire barren in the New
Hampshire hills, a brown waste of barren rock
and swamp, with patches of scrub oak here and
there, all watched by rugged granite tors that
stood over the dreary landscape like brooding
giants.

 At last they came to Exeter, a name with
ominous memories for any New Hampshire
loyalist, but a town very different from the one at
home. Again the solid houses and shops, the
cobbled streets, and here a tall and ancient
cathedral, like nothing in America, and her first
sight of a castle, dim in the rain.

 Here they changed to another stagecoach, a
ponderous thing with six powerful horses. It was
like changing from a schooner to a frigate in
mid-sea, for the road ahead was as deep in mud
as the road behind. As the miles and the days
went by, the journey became a blur of fields and
villages and towns, all drenched in rains that
paused at times but never ceased. And the nights
were a succession of inns with hearty food but
chambers as cold as charity, where the two
women wrapped the baby

~4

carefully in its basket and then crept into one bed,
clasping each other for warmth. Accustomed to
the fires and stoves of New England, rarely
extinguished before June, they found the damp of
an English March as raw as a winter wind. The
towns were merely names, shouted in talk at the
inns, each a succession of narrow streets, muddy,
or cobbled and merely wet, with the grim houses
and slate roofs sliding by like cliffs on either hand.
Salisbury, Andover, Basingstoke, Bagshot, Stanes,
Brentford, all meant nothing.

 It seemed to Fannie that she had been shaken
and bruised for an eternity, first in the ship and
then in these lumbering coaches, with no great
difference. She had lost all knowledge of time,
except that it was drawing on toward mid-March.

 Then came Hammersmith and not far ahead,
someone said, London. Magic name! She came out
of the daze of the journey, peering eagerly through
the door glass. The melancholy sky had cleared at
last. The sun appeared miraculously, as if to prove
that England had such a thing. And now in this
warm light she saw dairy farms, and small clusters
of houses, and great mansions, standing aloof in
bare trees beyond acres of sheep-cropped lawns;
and then the houses coming closer together, with
gardens instead of fields, and taverns at frequent
intervals; and then houses continual, and cobbled
streets and ftagstoned walks that went on without
end. And now, in the fine weather, the sight of
people in fine clothes, going in and out of shops or
carriages, or pausing to chat with each other in a
passing throng of common folk.

 Johnnie had spoken of London as something
fabulous in size alone, as big as all the cities and
towns of America put together, and now she saw
that it was true. The stagecoach, spattered with
mud to the roof, seemed lost in a tide of carriages,
chaises, hackney coaches, drays, carts, and
gentlemen riding a-horseback. Somewhere in this
maze the stagecoach stopped and discharged them,
and they changed with their baggage to a hackney
coach. They rode past Hyde Park and at last
turned off Oxford Street into a small side street
and stopped a few houses down.

"Poland Street, lady," the hackney coachman said.
"And this

225

'ere is Mr. Paul Wentworth's 'Ouse. Five shillin',
ma'am, if you please."

 For a moment, as he drove away, Fannie felt
lost and faint. Prudence had the baby in her arms,
and there at their feet were the portmanteaus and
the baby's basket. The house was like any other in
the row, a tall and narrow thing of grey cut stone,
with large curtained windows and a short llight of
steps to a massive door. A forbidding house,
somehow. Nevertheless she went up the steps and
jerked a white china bellpull. After some
moments the door opened, and a stout footman
in yellow plush breeches and a brown livery coat
looked her up and down. She realized how worn
and tired and bedraggled she was. His eyes went
to Prudence and the baby.

"I've come to see Mr. Paul Wentworth," Fannie
said timidly.

 "Now, look 'ere," said the man. He had a cynical
face, as if all this had happened before and he
knew just how to deal with it. "Mr. Wentworth
don't see gals that come to the door, ever.
Besides he's out. So get along with you."

"But . . ."

"No tales, if you please. I've 'card 'em all before."

 The door slammed in her face. She was so
nervous and weary that she felt she must drop to
the step and weep. But now a smart brown
carriage and pair clattered down the street, with
a brown coachman in a cockaded hat on the box
and a brown cockaded footman standing on the
step at the rear. It pulled up outside the house.
The footman sprang down and opened the door,
and out came a short brisk pink-faced gentleman
in a blue suit, a tiewig, and a cocked hat with
heavy gold braid. He had a cane in his hand, and
he indicated the portmanteaus, the basket, the
women, and the baby in a single nourish.

'Whoever these creatures are, Jackson, get 'em
away."

 The footman approached them at a trot, and
Fannie pulled herself together. Her back was one
indignant line, as straight as a musket.

 "Jackson, if that's your name, stay where you
are. As for you, Mr. Wentworth, is this the way
you receive a woman in distress?"

226

 Up went Mr. Wentworth's brows. The American
voice was unmistakable. So was the manner of a
lady accustomed to freezing a servant with a word.

 "Eh I beg your pardon, madam there seems to
be some mistake. May I ask your name?"

 "My husband's name," said Fannie coldly, "is
John Wentworth, His Majesty's (governor of New
Hampshire."

 "Good God! I Jackson, what the devil are you
standing there for? Ping, man, and lo t us get
inside." He trotted up the steps, stick under arm,
and took Fannie's hands in his own. "Madam
Frances, isn't it? Johnnie's written so much about
you that I should have recognized you of course."

 The door opened, and the hall footman, very
obsequious now, bowed deeply as Paul swept the
women inside.

 "Get the ladies' things in here, quickly! Now my
dear is this your maid? and your child of
course. Well, bless my soul come in here and sit
down, my dear, sit down."

 Fannie found herself in a long parlor furnished
with giltlegged and brocaded chairs, a pair of
elegant sofas, side tables, a handsome Persian
carpet, and rich velvet window hangings. Portraits
of three or four elegant gentlemen looked down
from the walls. And among them was Johnnie, the
first copy of that Copley painting Johnnie of the
handsome head and the whimsical sidelong glance.
Suddenly she found tears in her eyes and wished
with all her heart that her good kind darling could
step down from the frame and take her in his
arms. A coal fire glowed under a white
mantelpiece with elaborate carvings. The air had a
faint mingled scent of elegant people who had sat
in that room, and Fannie noted at once the scent
of women. She had heard Johnnie's tales of Paul.

 Wine came and some delicious sweet biscuits,
and while Prudence followed a portly major-domo
toward the servants' quarters Fannie gave Paul an
account of her adventures since the revolt began in
Portsmouth As she talked she regarded her host
carefully, seeing under the smart tiewig a short
blond man of fresh complexion, with twinkling blue
eyes, in the middle or

2~7

late forties. He had an air of activity about him,
even when sitting like this in a parlor chair.
Johnnie had described his mind as brilliant and
no doubt it was. He spoke with an intonation in
which she could detect only a faint trace of the
Yankee he once was. Years in the West Indies, in
England, and on the continent, learning to speak
Frendh and Dutdh and probably other tongues
useful in his cosmopolitan trade, had given him
an English speech that defied analysis. His
questions were shrewd and pointed. He seemed
to know a great deal about matters in America,
induding the present condition of Boston and
Howe's army. She had a feeling that Johnnie was
only one of many correspondents who kept him
informed, but she knew, too, that he had a
particular regard for Johnnie, begun all those
years ago when Paul was a young merchant in
Portsmouth and Johnnie a student home from
Harvard. During those after years in England
Johnnie had made his home here in Poland
Street, and it was Paul's money and Paul's
influence that had got him so many useful friends.

 After a time he said kindly, "You're tired, my
dear, after your long journey. Go to your
chamber now one of the servants will show your
maid where it is and rest yourself. I must dine
out tonight, I regret to say, but I'll see you in the
morning. Remember, this house is yours dear
me, it seems only yesterday I was telling Johnnie
that, and it must be a good ten years and more."

 "I must write to Lord and Lady Rockingham,"
Fannie said faintly.

 "All in good time, dear lady, all in good time.
Indeed I'll drop a line to Rockingham myself and
save you the trouble. You must recover from your
journey before you even thmk of setting out for
Yorkshire. Roads abominable, abominable, and
York's as far from here as Falmouth. Gad, you
won't want to face that in a hurry, eh? Nunno!
Besides, you must see our London which can't
be done in less than a week and I want you to
meet my friends. It isn't often our London society
sees a pretty American woman. I only wish
Johnnie could be here to show you off."

And so began a very pleasant week that
stretHhed into three

zz8

with surprising ease. After a few days the
Falmouth wagon came with the baggage and for
the first time since leaving Boston she could feel
properly dressed. Nevertheless she was piqued to
find that all her clothes, so smart in Boston, were
at least a season behind the London mode.

 Among the many gay and fashionable people she
met at Paul's dinners and soirees was a Mrs. Phyllis
Barradale, who had a house in Wardour Street not
far away. She was a beautiful creature, about
Fannie's own age, with smiling blue eyes and a tall
figure. There seemed to be no Mr. Barradale, but
the lady was well endowed, for she dressed
expensively and kept a phaeton with four dashing
grey ponies. She was never absent from Paul's
parties and frequently came alone. On first
introduction her manner to Fannie was cold, even
hostile, but after that she seemed reassured about
the pretty American in Paul's house and took her
out a good deal.

 It was Paul's own suggestion that Fannie add to
her wardrobe in London before going on to
Yorkshire, and for the wherewithal he took out a
morocco Icather pocketbook and slipped some
bank notes into her hand. It was done with the
finesse of a conjuring trick and the even flow of
the conjurer's voice to cover the transfer.

 "When that's gone, my dear, merely mention the
word. I played Johnnie's banker in those old happy
days, and it's like a new measure of life to play the
part again. Tut! No questions. I promised Johnnie
to look after you. Mrs. Phyl will be happy to show
you where to shop and if you like what to buy.
She moves with the best people and knows the
mode sometimes I think she sets the mode."

"But I can't . . ."

 "Pooh! Johnnie'll wish you to dress well, meeting
all these fashionable people, and don't forget you'll
be staying with the Rockinghams in Yorkshire.
They'll expect the best appearance of Governor
Wentworth's wife. It's your duty to Johnnie, and
you owe it to yourself."

When he had gone she looked at the notes in her
hand. The

229

few slips of crisp paper amounted to �300. Well!
Why not? The man was as rich as Croesus. She
set off with Mrs. Barradale the very next day, in
the phaeton with its spanking grey four and her
coachman in a livery to match, and there followed
a whirl of shops and milliners and mantuamakers
beyond anything she had dreamed. For a week
she lived in a haze of velvets and fiffaniesand
Cantons and Florentines, of moreens and crepes
and satins and lutestrings, of buttons and ribbons
and silver lace and gauze, of silken shoes and
morocco shoes, of clocked silk stockings, of hats
and bonnets and caps and plumes and bows and
fichus and bandeaux.

 Mrs. Barradale seemed well and favorably
known. The mere sight of her ponies pulling up
outside brought shopmen and milliners to their
doors with smiles and bows, as if she were royalty.
When she bought things herself and she was
fond of expensive trifles, especially in jewelers'
shops no money passed at all. She merely
nodded, the shopmen smiled and scraped, a
servant carried her lightest purchase out to the
phaeton, and that was that. Once, in connection
with a diamond brooch, there seemed to be a
faint hesitation on a shopman's part, but in an
instant a neat suave super-shopman appeared
from nowhere, there was a whisper in which
Fannie caught only Paul Wentworth's name, and
all hesitation vanished.

 At Paul's soirees, where he moved about like a
busy pink cherub in the garb of a London dandy,
Mrs. Barradale usually appeared as one of the
guests, and he gave her the polite and cheerful at-
tention that he gave them all. They were
fastidiously dressed people and included women
of all ages, from hatchet-faced dowagers to lovely
creatures like Phyllis Barradale, and the
gentlemen too were all ages, not a few with titles,
and as elegant in dress and manner as the
women.

 They talked almost entirely of the ton, which
meant themselves, it seemed. The word was
constantly on their lips, as if nothing else existed
in the world. Their speech was flavored with
startling words and phrases never used in
Portsmouth drawing rooms, although Fannie had
overheard them in the army circle

230

in Boston, and in their easy languid voices the
most exquisite ladies and gentlemen exchanged
gossip and jests that might have come straight from
a barracks, Some of the prettiest ladies smoked
thin little segars with all the nonchalance and the
exact whiffs and gestures of the gentlemen.
Sporting was a favorite word, and the sport of the
ton seemed to include dogfights, cockfights, prize
fights, horse racing, gambling for fantastic sums at
fare or hazard at White's and Brooks's and a
dozen other clubs or private houses whose names
Fannie could not catch or remember, and the
"heater, the opera, dances, dinners, masquerades,
the afternoon parade by horseback or in carriages
in Hyde Park, and fine evenings strolling and
flirting and sipping in the gardens at Vauxhall, in
the Pantheon, or under the rotunda at Ranelagh.
If she could believe her ears in these casual
conversations, the most popular sport was that of
hopping into bed with members of the other sex at
every opportunity, and the most amusing part was
the game of seducing one another's wives or
mistresses. In this talk the ton made much use of
nicknames, so that they talked in a kind of cipher,
and it did not dawn on her for some time that a
dashing female known as The Filly was in fact Mrs.
Phyllis Barradale.

 When addressing themselves politely to Paul's
guest, they drawled one question about America;
it always had to do with forests and Mohawks. It
irritated Fannie sometimes. In spite of her London
gowns and a new powdered coiffure as tall and
majestic as one of the White Mountains, she felt
awkward and provincial. She had none of the small
talk of the ton, and she resented their
condescension. When she said that she had never
seen a Mohawk in her life and spoke of a genteel
life in Portsmouth and Boston, they gave her a
vague look as if she were talking of Gulliver's
Travels or some other fantastical book of which
they had heard but had not read, or they laughed
very pleasantly, as if the notion of an American
ton were a very witty one indeed.

 Occasionally Paul gathered a much different
company. The guests were entirely male, and they
talked of business or art or politics or poetry with
none of the languid foppishness of the

231

ton. Fannie was introduced to some of them.
Their names meant nothing to her, and on the
whole their conversation was no more
comprehensible than that of the others, but
sometimes Paul would relate to her, the next day,
a few things about them, and she realized that she
had been for a time under one roof with some of
the most famous men in London. A few remained
in her mind. David Garrick as a short man,
getting fat and closing sixty, with an easy jovial
manner and a pair of bright clear eyes that
seemed to see into the back of her head. Richard
Sheridan in contrast was in the middle twenties,
a lively nenous young man with a long nose in a
sheep's face.

 Paul said of them, "Garrick's about at the end
of his stage career. Ready to sell out and retire.
Remarkable fellow, best actor England's ever had.
Dick Sheridan had him off in a corner most of
the evening. Wants to buy Garrick's half of the
Drury Lane Theatre, a matter of five-and-thirty
thousand pounds. Preposterous on the face of it.
I mean Sheridan has a little money through his
wife, and they've set 'emselves up in great style in
Portman Square, but all he's got really is his
brains. Brought out a play called The Rivals last
year, and then The Scheming Lieutenant, and all
this winter he's been doing a comic opera kind of
thing called The Lluenna the rage of London.
He'll find Garrick's price, I think. Borrow most of
it on mortgage probably I don't think he could
raise a thousand pounds himself. A hot Whig and
a friend of Rockingham's. Very eloquent against
the present measures in America. Make a very
good parliament man if he turned his mind that
way."

 And again, '~id you mark the man with big
eyes and the nose like a bowsprit and the touch
of Paddy in his speech} That's Burke, Edmund
Burke. Best mind the Whigs have got, and a great
friend of America. Made a remarkable speech on
conciliation last year everyone still talking about
it. Bold gambler at the tables. Poor Burke can't
keep away from 'em worse than drink by a long
shot and the fella should. No luck, no luck at
all. Rockingham's lent him thousands of pounds.
Of course Lord Rockingham's got an interest in
Burke apart from friendship.

232

Rockingham's an amiable well-meaning fella, head
of the Whig party or one faction of it I should
say and very anxious to unite 'em against North
and the E(ing. But, truth to tell, he's much too
amiable for his own good. Weak, I mean to say,
weak. Burke looks like the one man who could
pull 'em together if he set his mind to it, and
Rockingham knows it."

 For a time it seemed to Fannie that Paul
entertained nobody but idle fops and busy Whigs
and a very odd collection of both. But one evening
there was still another group, with another
conversation, full of harsh words for the Whigs,
both in England and America. Fannie was
presented to them, but when she retired to her
chamber to write a letter to Johnnie she could not
remember a single name except the most
important one, Lord North. He was a set-looking
man in the forties, with a broad face, a great pug
nose, an absurd little pointed chin; a very ordinary
creature to be head of the government.

 Apparently Paul played the political game from
both sides. Or was it simply that he played no
politics at all and marked his neutral position with
these separate entertainments? It was all very
puzzling, and she gave it up. It was much easier to
write about the marvels of London, of her visits
with Mrs. Barradale to Vauxhall Gardens and
Ranelagh, of her rides through Hyde Park in the
daily throng of the ton, an evening at the play, an
excursion in a handsome eight-oared barge to
Windsor in the bright spring weather, stopping for
refreshments in charming little inn gardens at the
Thames-side. Paul had been very kind. She had all
the money she wished, and the baby was thriving.
She'd had a very gracious letter from Lady
Rockingham, and she was leaving in Paul's
coach-and-four for Yorkshire in another week.
Your affectionate wife, Frances.

 Now that the move to Yorkshire was before her
Fannie had a queer little dread of it. She
remembered Johnnie's talk; his discovery that
England and the empire were ruled, not so much
by the King or Parliament as by the great Whig
families, most of them immensely rich, who lived
like kings in the countryside, and of his own
astonishment and awe on visiting the Rocking

233

hams and setting foot in fabulous Wentworth
Woodhouse. She felt ignorant and gauche, afraid
that in any word or step she might betray a lack
of breeding in the English sense, so different
from the little colonial aristocracy she had known.

 She had got used to Paul's easygoing household
in the heart of London and the blithe
companionship of The Filly. Never a dull day, not
even a dull hour, and still so much to explore in
this exciting city where pleasure was the rule. But
of course she must go, for Johnnie's sake. The
horsy gentlemen who came to Paul's house were
always saying that if North's government came a
cropper in this American affair, or even faltered
at a fence, damme, the Whigs would come into
their own and take both saddle and reins again.
As Paul explained to her, that could mean
Rockingham as Prime Minister, with all the
favors he might cast Johnnie's way and God
knew Johnnie needed favors now, with his
position thrown down by the rebels and his whole
future in doubt, eh my dear?

234

              .9EVE~EEN

FOR JOHNNIE the winter passed slowly, in pangs
of cold and doubt. As gale followed gale in the
weeks after Fannie left he fretted about her and
the baby, haunted by visions of the old transport
foundering in the winter sea. He regretted sending
her now. A frightful risk. But when March came
with its warmer sun it brought some inner cheer.
With God's grace she must be safe by now,
enjoying that lovely countryside in the soft English
spring. She would write at once, of course, but in
the bluster of the March westerlies the mails from
England would find heavy weather. A passage of
six weeks at best, and probably more. He could not
expect to hear from her before mid-April, and he
resigned himself to that.

 Meanwhile, what with smallpox and slow
starvation and cold, Boston had become a
combined pesthouse and almshouse, much of it
ruined. Scores of empty houses had been pulled
down and burned for fuel. So had old wharves and
stables, even the old North meetinghouse. Every
old boat and wagon, every empty cask in the fish
sheds, every fence had vanished. So had most of
the trees that once shaded the Boston streets, the
notorious Liberty Tree first and then the others.
Even the row of handsome sycamores by the
church on Brattle Street had gone up in chimney
smoke.

 The ships in the harbor swung at their icy
moorings with the tides and winds. The troops
huddled in their barracks and billets or behind the
defences at the Neck. The giddy whirligig of parties
and balls in the army circle faltered sadly, as if its
clockwork ran down.

 George Brinley had got a posting to the regular
army commissariat. Mrs. Loring's complaisant
husband was at the head of

235

it, wearing his golden horns. Every day Brinley
grumbled at the work thrust upon him and the
other junior officers, but he clearly enjoyed work,
throwing himself into it with all the astute energy
he had used in his own business before the siege.
On the side he was able to see that Sarah
Wentworth's household, as well as his own, had
food and fuel enough. And from time to time he
brought news.

 Boston seemed to be the only place still flying
the King's colors in all the colonies. Even Canada
was mostly in rebel hands. Benedict Arnold and
an army of daring Yankees had crossed the
wilderness to besiege Quebec, another rebel army
had captured Montreal and swept down the St.
Lawrence to join Arnold, and there the last
British garrison was merely hanging on by its
teeth, like Howe in Boston.

 One frosty evening in early March George
Brinley came with a solemn face, drawing Johnnie
aside and shutting the door.

"Well, it's happened!"

"The rebels are in Quebec?"

 "Quebec! The rebels are up on Dorchester
Heights, right here across the harbor! In force!
Howe can't attack 'em now it'd be ten times
worse than Bunker's Hill. He wouldn't bother
about the Heights all winter. Said nobody could
dig earthworks with hard frost in the ground and
snow on top of it. But there the rebels are, and
they're not digging earthworks. They're piling up
ramparts of baled hay, soaking 'em with water
and letting 'em freeze hard enough to stop a
round shot. And now they've got dozens of oxen
at work, sledding siege cannon up to the crest
guns brought all the way from Ticonderoga, just
as we suspected. In a few days they'll be tossing
shot down into the anchorage like hatpence into
a hat."

"Can't the fleet shoot back?"

 "Bah! Most of 'em are transports and storeships.
Only three are proper men o'-war, and they can't
elevate their guns enough to reach the Heights.
They'll try, no doubt. But once they've had a shot
or two about their ears you know what those
Navy men will do. Howe may be high cockalorum
ashore here, but the

236

admiral's his own master, and he won't risk his
ships for this blundering army d'you blame him?
So, Johnnie, look out for a chance to get yourself
and Tom and young Benning away when the time
comes. God knows where Howe will go, but all the
refugees will have to follow him, that's sure.
There's no safety for 'em here."

'What about you and your family?"

 "The Commissary Department will look after us,
and old Mrs. Wentworth and her servant if they
want to go with us." He paused. "If you want to
join Fannie in England there's a dispatch brig
leaving for London in a day or two. That young
friend of yours, Ben Thompson, is going in her to
seek a position in England."

 "I'd sacrifice my posts by running over there,"
Johnnie said. "I'm staying in America, whatever
comes." He considered a moment. "I'll write a
dispatch to Lord Dartmouth, explaining this new
predicament, that's all."

 When the dispatch was written he put it in the
hands of Benjamin Thompson.

 "I wish you to deliver this to Lord Dartmouth in
person, Ben. And here's a letter of introduction.
I've recommended you as a most capable young
man and asked him to find you a secretarial post
in the government offices in London. He'll do what
he can, and I know you'll make the most of amy
opportunity he may put your way. You're bound to
do well, with your brains and energy. Good-by, my
friend. I hope someday we can meet again at
Wolfeborough and make that survey of the
mountains with the proper instruments."

 On the fifth day of March the first rebel gun
fired from Dorchester Heights, a sharp crack that
sent echoes booming through the town and along
the snowy slopes. It fired at irregular internals
throughout the day, all ranging shots, all short, and
the warships hastily manned their frosty guns amd
thundered back, with no better effect. On the next
day the rebel cannon fired slowly from first light
until dark, and there were one or two ominous
splashes in the anchorage. According to Tory spies
the rebels

Z37

would need another fortnight to get all their
heavy guns in place and fully ready.

 Now Gneral Howe came out of his snug
hibernation in a rush. There was furious activity
in his headquarters and in the streets, and the
word sped quickly through the populace. The
Beet must leave the anchorage within ten days, no
later, and the army would go with it. Johnnie
made straight for the whanes, looking over the
moored merchant ships, the fishing vessels and
coasters of all sizes and rigs that lay along the
water front. He was not alone. Other refugees
were there, seeking passage. At last, after some
hopeless bargainimg the skipper named a stiff
price and stuck to it he chartered a small
coasting schooner for himself, Benning, Tom
Macdonogh, old Dr. Caner the rector of King's
Chapel, and various other loyalist friends of his
too destitute to pay a penny. She was a grubby
thing, with badly worn rigging and sails, but her
name was Resource, a good enough omen. For
the next ten days and nights the army marched,
regiment by regiment, down to the Long Wharf to
embark. The Light Dragoons, with their white
death's-head badge, made an especially fine sight,
although their horses showed the effect of many
months on meager forage. Toward the end the
town became a madhouse. The loyalists of Boston
itself joined with the refugees from outside im a
rush to the waterside, like frightened animals
fleeing a forest fire, demanding, asking, finally
begging and praying for passage in anything that
had a deck and sails and would float. Many of
them brought all their belongings, by cart, by sled,
even by handbarrows. The rich and quick found
room in a ship for all they had; others had to
settle for a few choice pieces, or found no room
at all. Toward the end the whole harborside from
Windmill Point to the Charles River ferry was an
amazing sight, piled with tables, chairs, beds and
bedding, sofas, mirrors, pictures, carpets, and
hangings rolled up and corded for a journey they
would never make. At the very last, on the night
before departure, groups of soldiers, seamen and
refugee men went about with axes, smash ing the
abandoned furniture, setting it afire, and hurling
the

238

rest of the litter into the flames. Nothing must be
left to the rebels.

 The nocturnal looting of houses, which had gone
on all winter, changed boldly to daylight in the last
week. Thieves were inside and busy as soon as
each family of refugees quitted a home for a ship.
Long before the last of Howe's soldiers withdrew
from the Neck defences under cover of night most
of the town had been thoroughly pillaged. Only
those Whig citizens who had stayed during the
siege and still remained were able to keep some
part of their properties intact.

 On the day of departure the warships sent a final
futile roll of thunder along the harbor hills, and
the great flock of shipping drifted on a light wind
down the bay, just as Washington's army entered
the town by the road along the Neck.

 When the flagship reached safe anchorage in
Nantasket Roads, eight miles from Boston, she
fired a gun for attention and hoisted a flag signal.
The whole queer assemblage came to anchor, one
after another, until the Roads were a floating city
of hulls and spars. More than one hundred and
fifty craft of all kinds, from a three-decker to the
little fishing pinkies, lay sweep ing their masts back
and forth under the hard March sky. The
transports held more than thirteen thousand army
people  soldiers, wives, children, and camp
followers. The smaller craft had something like two
thousand civilian refugees, male and female, old
and young. Some of the refugees, like Johnnie, had
been well-to-do before the war, but many more
were of the middle class and the poor. They were
exiles not so much because they loved the King as
because they disliked the mobs and had been bold
enough to say so. Their only hope now was in the
King's army and a victorious return, and it seemed
a faint one as they floated away.

 If the past ten days had been bad, the next ten
were worse, for during the whole of that time the
ships wallowed idly in Nantasket Roads with their
crowded and seasick freight. General Howe
seemed unsure where to go. Rumor crept about
the ships. New York was the favored
destination a loyalist town by

239

and large. Some thought the West Indies, where
most of the North American squadron had gone
for the winter. Some declared England. On March
17 the flagship fired a gun, hoisted sailing signals
at last, and led the way to sea. The course was
eastward. England? It was some time before the
refugees knew, They were bound for Nova Scotia,
that far wild outpost of New England, the only
American colony that had not sent an agent to
the Congress.

 To troops and refugees alike it seemed a
journey to the Pole, four hundred miles at the
very least, and at the end of it, according to all
report, a bleak peninsula of rock and forest, ten-
anted by Indians and a few thousand fishermen.
Johnnie himself had only seen the town of Halifax
and a few river mouths along the south shore,
where he had cruised with Captain Harry
Bellewin the Beaver years ago. The inhabitants
seemed to be mostly seafaring New Englanders,
who had moved there after the last French war to
be nearer the cod banks. The country was said to
be so cold in winter and so muffled in fog the rest
of the time that the humorous Cape Codders
called their downEast cousins Blue Noses.

 The voyage was rough, and Johnnie thought
often of Fannie and the baby, tossed on this cold
grey waste for God knew how long on the way to
England. The Heet was a fortnight merely getting
from Nantasket Roads to Halifax, overcrowded
and poorly provisioned, and most of the refugees
were starving by the journey's end. The Resource
proved herself a fair sea boat in spite of her
decrepit hull and gear, and she sailed into Halifax
harbor with the first division of the fleet on
March 30. The rest straggled in two days later.

 The harbor itself was magnificent, a deep fiord
running between low wooded hills for miles and
opening far beyond the town in a broad salt basin,
like the Piscataqua at home. There was even a big
island sitting in the harbor mouth, as Newcastle
Island sat below Portsmouth. But there the
resemblance ended. The town was a small
wooden huddle on the flank of a sugarloaf hill,
with a fringe of rickety wharves and warehouses
at the

240

foot. A few officials and merchants had mansions
of two stories, ornamented and painted in the
Portsmouth style. The rest were more like the
simple hovels of the Isles of Shoals fishermen,
shingled or clapboarded, sharp-roofed to shed the
winter snows, all weathered to the tint of the rainy
sky. Rude batteries of logs and earth pointed a few
guns over the anchorage, and some distance
farther up the harbor lay a small naval dockyard.

 As soon as the Resource dropped anchor Johnnie
hurried ashore to seek lodgings for the refugee
families who had come with him and for Tom
Macdonogh, young Benning, and himself. The
choice was poor, he found at once, but he wasted
no time in renting rooms. The price of everything
would leap to the sky as soon as that homeless
multitude began to pour ashore.

 With this done he called on the Governor in his
painted wooden residence at the corner of George
and Hollis streets. His name was Legge, a fat
scowling personage, a former major in the British
Army who had got the post through his relative
Lord Dartmouth. This worthy gave Johnnie a few
minutes. He was overwhelmed with the sudden
descent of the army and all the demands that went
with it, and he could offer no accommodation for
the vagrant governor of New Hampshire. Johnnie
mentioned casually his own friendship with Lord
Dartmouth, but it made no difference. General E
lowe, it seemed, had sent one of his brigadiers in
a swift vessel ahead of the Heet, and the best
available housing in the town had been reserved
for the General, his staff, and their numerous
appendages, including his own pretty appendage
Mrs. Loring.

 As he tramped away through the stained slush
and a vvinter's accumulation of flung slops from
the houses Johnnie reflected dourly on his
position. It began to dawn on him that a mere civil
governor, in flight from his own province, had no
claims at all in the train of an army at war.

 All through the dismal April rains he chafed at
doing nothing, at the absence of any word from
Fannie. Some of the leading merchants, finding
that the Governor of New Hampshire was in their
midst, politely invited him to wine and dine. They
regretted

24I

that they could not offer him a bed every spare
chamber in their homes was given over to officers
of the army and they seemed chiefly concerned
with his post as Surveyor Gneral of the King's
Woods. Now that the mast supply of New
England was in rebel hands, His Majesty's Navy
must look to Nova Scotia, eh? A chance for some
business in that line! Johnnie confessed himself
too preoccupied with other matters to give much
thought to masts, or to the Nova Scotia forest at
all. It gave him a qualm to think that this wild
corner of the coast was the only part of His
Majesty's Woods still under his authority. He
changed the subject, insisting that present
conditions could not last.

 Meanwhile the great migration had settled in
and about the town. The army had marched up
the steep narrow streets, a long red snake winding
around the flank of the sugar-loaf hill, and across
a swamp to what was called Camp Hill; and that
low rise in the pastures behind the town was now
covered with their tents. Every house in the town
was crammed with officers and camp followers,
male and female. Refugees with enough money
had been able to bribe their way into lodgings; the
rest huddled miserably in deckhouses removed
from the ships and set up in empty spaces along
the streets, in torn and discarded army tents, in
mere wigwams of poles and brushwood in the
fields.

 Dispatches had arrived from England, but the
General and his staff kept remarkably mum.
Johnnie's only source of military information had
vanished. In fact, George Brinley, that shrewd
Yankee merchant in army scarlet, was now in his
element, scouring the countryside for supplies.
Weeks passed before he turned up on a galled
cavalry horse and rejoined Mary and her children
in their small rented cottage at the edge of the
town. Johnnie went there to dine on the following
evening, walking the whole way in the muddy
lanes.

. After dinner, over a bottle of excellent brandy
("some of Howe's own, I assure you, but don't
mention it") the commissary captain lit a segar
and held forth.

 "Nothing to be had but timber anywhere on the
seaward side of Nova Scotia, and we don't want
that. The army's under can

242

vas, and I'm assured there's no need of barracks.
No winter quarters, d'you see? Mark that. Well,
the land over on the Fundy side is quite another
matter. Good red soil, fat grass in the marshlands,
all kinds of cattle, hogs, sheep, and fowls. Scrubby
breed of horses on the whole, but some good
enough for cavalry mounts. Forage of the finest
kind in the marsh meadows the Light Dragoons
have gone across to Windsor to make the most of
it. These merchants here, a sharp lot, all at
loggerheads with Governor Legge. Best of 'em's a
man named Francklyn, Michael Francklyn. Mows
everyone in the province and knows how to get
things done. We're putting a lot of business his
way hence a few favors, like this house."

None of this interested Johnnie in the least.

"The army," he said impatiently. 'What's the army
to do here?"

 Gorge Brinley leaned back and blew smoke rings
at a cracked and soiled ceiling that twelve months
ago he would have scorned to sit beneath. He had
the air of a man who knows something tremendous
and intends to enjoy the possession for some time
before parting with it.

 "At the moment," he said cheerfully, "the army's
presence is all that keeps the Nova Scotia Whigs
from open rebellion. This Governor Legge a fat
noisy fool has managed to quarrel with everybody
in the province, as far as I can see, Whig and Tory,
high and low. Most of the people are transplanted
Yankees that came up here after the French war.
Their friends and relatives are all in
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and
you know what the sentiment is there. At the head
of Minas Basin there's a busy colony of
Scotch-Irish. Levelers to a man. As these people
see it, all Canada's nova in the hands of an
American army, except for Quebec town. When
Quebec falls some of the rebel forces will be free
to come this way. Meanwhile Massachusetts is
promising arms and reinforcements if the Nova
Scotia Whigs rise, and Mr. Washington's sent
agents to sound 'em out. A pretty picture, eh?
Rebel armies marching from Boston and Quebec,
the provincial Whigs up in arms, and Howe caught
again between the devil and the deep sea, just the
way he was in Boston. Observe,

243

he's been here a month and hasn't even put a
cannon on that sugar-loaf hill, which looks right
down the Halifax chimneys. Dorchester Heights
all over again. So he'd have to sail away
again his last foothold gone and the whole
continental seaboard in the rebels' hands. If you
think that's purely fanciful, ask Governor Legge.
He keeps an armed guard about Government
House, day and night, there in the heart of the
town, for fear the Halifax Whigs will cut his
throat."

 Johnnie thrust his fists into his breeches pockets
and leaned back patiently. He did not care a rap
about Nova Scotia or the people in it, Whig or
Tory. And George Brinley was obviously enjoying
himself with these fancies.

 "On the face of it the rebels have a mighty fine
applecart in North America at this moment,
haven't they, Johnnie? The whole continent within
their grasp. Ha!" Brinley took the segar from his
teeth and pointed it at Johnnie like a fuming
pistol. "Now, my friend, let me tell you what's
going to upset it. It's something to be a
commissary captain. If you can provide certain
people on the staff with a nice tender round of
beef, a prime shoulder of mutton, or say a case of
fine old Oporto got nomatter-where, you hear the
most interesting things. Johnnie, those gentlemen
in the War Office haven't been asleep, it seems.
They've been moving heaven and earth England
amd half Europe anyhow. To be exact they're
pouring British troops across the sea. Horse, foot,
and artillery. A list of famous regiments as long
as your arm. Even His Majesty's own Foot
Guards, can you imagine that? And that's not all.
They're hiring German soldiers by whole brigades
in Hesse and Hamover and Waldeck and
Brunswick. Theire even trying to hire Queen
Catherine's wild Russians by the thousand."

 He paused, to let Johnnie saver this before
going on. Johnnie was incredulous. "These
informants of yours I trust they were sober after
all that old Oporto?"

 "Cold sober, Johnnie. Cold and sober as these
damned Nova Scotia rains."

"And who's to command these armies, and
where?"

244

 George Brinley took another whiff at the segar.
Mary was upstairs putting the children to bed, and
there was no one else in the house, but he
dropped his voice to a tone just above a whisper.

 "In the first place Gneral John Burgoyne has
sailed with an army of British and foreign troops
for Quebec they'll be there as soon as the ice is
gone. They're to destroy Arnold's rebel army or
chase it out of Canada. In either case they'll press
on and take Ticonderoga. You know what that
means. At Ticonderoga a British army, with a
swarm of Canadians and Indians, can threaten the
back doors of all New England or the Hudson
Valley the road to New York. In the second
place Howe's to move his army by sea to New
York, and another strong force from England will
join him there, with a fleet commanded by his
brother. By the end of June at the latest he'll be
standing at the mouth of the Hudson with the
biggest army ever seen in America."

 He chuckled. "You know, Howe wasn't quite the
fool we thought. Nor was Lord Dartmouth, over
there in England. The trouble was, we couldn't see
anything but Boston. They were looking at the
whole map. Boston had no military value, except
as winter quarters for the army, and once the
spring sun began to shine it wasn't worth a rap.
The proper place for the British army was New
York, where they could strike at Philadelphia and
send the Congress scampering. The plan was to
move there this summer. When the rebels set up
their cannon on Dorchester Heights they bustled
Howe out of Boston before he was ready, that's
all. There had to be time for those reinforcements
and supplies to get across the sea. So he came up
here to wait. By the first of June he'll be on his
way to carry out the plan."

 Johnnie shifted uneasily. His mind still clung to
New Hampshire. If half this fantasy were true the
army of Burgoyne might strike at Boston from
Lake Champlain. In that case New Hampshire
would be right in the war path. He traced the path
in his mind, seeing a swarm of British and
foreigners and Indians fighting the New Hampshire
men in the familiar woods and farms. He could
not help thinking of that autumn day under

245

the pine on Mount Delight, when the whole scene
had a bloody look.

 He said in a hushed voice, "An invasion like
that it's monstrous. Every American, whatever
his politics, would turn out to fight."

 Gorge Brinley smiled and tamped the stub of
his segar into the bowl of a battered pewter
candlestick on the table. "My dear Johnnie, don't
you see the point? It means that once these Brit-
ish armies are in position the rebels will be
offered a choice. They can have war at very bad
odds, or they can climb down their Liberty poles
and talk sense. Howe will offer 'em some sort of
compromise. It's common knowledge in the staff
that he doesn't want a war. And the Whigs in
England, not least your friend Rockingham, are
pushing the government for conciliation and all
that. Well, there must be some peacable heads in
the Congress too. I'll lay you ten guineas to five
that the whole thing will be patched up by fall.
The King's governors back again, on a guarantee
of no reprisals. Take it?"

"Done! I'll be happy to pay you the money."

 From this time Johnnie could bear idleness no
more. It seemed to him that he must do
something to earn his salary as Surveyor General,
and there was the hint of the Halifax timber
merchants about masts for the Navy. If George
Brinley was right there would be a huge fleet in
North American waters all summer. A gale or
two, with masts and yards cracking right and left,
and where were the new spars to come from?

 He engaged a fishing sloop and set off along
the Nova Scotia coast, looking into the rivers he
had seen before, and then around to the Bay of
Fundy. What he saw confirmed all his old impres-
sionS and added important new ones. There was
a supply of firstrate spars to be had in a dozen
places, and for good measure he had marked off
whole blocks of timber at two points within easy
reach of tidewater. It was refreshing to tramp the
woods again  almost like going home. There
seemed to be no cedar, but otherwise the trees
were those of New Hampshire, and the forest had
the same good smell of spruce and fir and pine.
It was satisfying

246

to watch his axmen blazing big pines again and
carving in the clean white wood the King's broad
arrow and his own JW. He returned to Halifax,
examined the mast pond at the dockyard, and
began a long report to the Lords of Trade and
Plantations. He was busy at this one day with
Macdonogh when Tom paused and looked up.

 "I forgot to mention it, sir, but a dispatch brig
came in from England yesterday with mails."

"Ha!"

 "You'll have a chance to write by return, sir.
She's leaving on the twelfth with Governor
Legge he's been recalled to England."

"Oh? What for?"

 "Well, you know what these Nova Scotians think
of him, sir. The merchants have been asking
London to take him away before he goads the
province into revolt he's been trying hard enough.
I venture General Howe's had a word to say too.
Anyhow, Legge's going." Tom's Irish grin spread
over his broad face. "A chance for you, sir. I hear
the post is worth a cool thousand a year.'

 Johnnie smiled himself "Nova Scotia? Tom, I
wouldn't take it on a wager. D'you know what our
refugees call this province? -Nova Scarcity, and a
damned good name for it. The only town of any
size is Halifax and look at it! The rest is a scatter
of halfstarved villages about the coast. Remind me
to pay a call on Governor Legge on the morning of
the twelfth I must say Good-by to him if only for
politeness' sake. And now, Tom, trot down to the
post office and see if there's a letter from my wife.
If there isn't I'll go melancholy mad."

 When Tom came back he had a whole packet;
letters from Paul Wentworth, from Lord
Rockingham, from Lord Dartmouth, and two from
Fannie twof He opened hers at once, breaking
the seals with such eager fingers that he tore the
letter paper. The first was the simple note she had
written soon after reaching Paul's house. He
lingered happily at the foot of it Your affectionate
wife, Frances. Ah, my darling! The second letter
was written two weeks later. She was settled and
enjoying London.

247

She gave a list of places seen, of parties at Paul's
house, of charming people she had met. She was
going about a great deal with a Mrs. Barradale, a
very well-bred woman and one of the ton. (What
the deuce was the ton?) And she was leaving for
Yorkshire soon Give her love to Mama and Mary
and dear Benning. What news from New
Hampshire? Your affectionate Frances.

 The other letters now. F'aul's was one of his
usual brief scrawls. He affirmed that Mrs. Frances
and the baby were well and happy and
comfortable in Poland Street. Johnnie could be
sure that their every want was attended. Lord
Rockingham's letter said what Johnnie already
knew, that the government was sending strong
forces to America. He offered no particulars. He
and the other Whigs were still pressing hard for
a peaceable solution. He understood that General
Howe was to offer the olive branch rather than
the sword, but he feared too small a branch con-
sidering the size of the sword. He could only hope
for Wisdom and Temperance on both sides.
Meanwhile he and his lady had received a note
from Mrs. Frances in London, and they expected
her at Wentworth Woodhouse in a week or two.

 The letter from Lord Dartmouth, busy man, was
really from one of his secretaries. It referred
briefly to the government's military measures. It
hoped that the American troubles might be solved
in the coming summer and Mr. Wentworth
restored to his post and his provincial
emoluments. In the meantime my Lord
Dartmouth was sensible of Mr. Wentworth's
difficulties, and he had arranged that the Pensions
Fund should pay him, until further notice, �600
sterling per annum in place of the �700 provincial
currency which Mr. Wentworth had formerly re-
ceived from the Assembly in New Hampshire.

 Johnnie put it down with a glow of relief. The
money problem was solved, at any rate. He read
the letters from Fannie again and again and
rubbed his eyes and found them wet.

 On the twelfth morning of May he put on his
best silk breeches and scarlet coat and set out to
pay his farewell call on Gvernor Legge. It was a
bright warm day, with a few clouds drifting

248

across the blue. The streets were muddy, stinking
now with the winter's refuse, and churned to an
evil mess by the wandering crowds of refugees and
off-duty soldiers and sailors. Along the way,
between the poorly stocked shops and roaring
taverns, stood booths of boards and canvas and
brushwood, like a sorry sort of fair, where hungry
refugees offered their watches and trinkets, table
silver, and other such objects for sale. The little
town was glutted with such stuff, and a passer-by
could have anything for a small amount in coin.
Most of the refugees' customers seemed to be
countrymen, up to town for the market with their
oxcarts and driving hard bargains for their hams
and potatoes and fresh beef.

 Some of the trinket vendors Johnnie recognised
as people once well to do in Boston and the
outside towns. When their looks met, both were
embarrassed; they that he should see them in this
position, he that he could not spare them a
shilling. In his offhand way he had been giving
money all winter to friends in need, and now, even
with the heartening promise from Lord Dartmouth,
he knew the burden of his debts. In his pocket at
the moment he had barely enough money to hire
a vehicle at the coach stand by the Parade.

 It was only a minute's walk from the Parade to
the Governor's house, but he determined to call in
proper dignity, as one governor upon another. The
choice at the Parade stand was indifferent. The
town afforded only two or three ramshackle
coaches drawn by the poorest screws, and after a
brief inspection he chose a newly painted sedan
chair instead. In this, swaying over the mud of
George Street in the hands of a pair of stout
porters, he came to the residency. As he stepped
out the grenadiers on guard said stiffly that the
Governor had left, that, in fact, he was now at the
King's Wharf about to embark. They pointed to
the water front a short distance away.

 At the King's Wharf he found a large crowd to
see the Governor off. Most of them were poorly
dressed townsmen, and Johnnie was surprised.
Legge seemed to be more popular with

249

the people than he had supposed. He paid off his
chairmen in a hurry and began to make his way in
the throng. When he reached the waterside he
was too late. The Governor, a short fat figure in
scarlet, with a black cloak and a high cocked hat,
was sitting on a thwart near the stern of a man
o'-war's barge, and the boat was pulling slowly
away from the stone steps of the landing place.

 There was a strange silence. The people stood
without a word, watching the departure. The
white-wigged young officer in charge of a squad
of redcoats at the head of the landing steps
seemed uneasy, glancing now at the boat and now
at the people. Suddenly a voice cried from the
crowd, "Good-by, Governor  and good
riddance!" At once the whole throng broke into
cry. "Yahhhh!" "Booo!" and then a chorus of
profane taunts and execrations. Someone threw a
clod of mud. It made a bright splash in the water.
In a moment others were stooping, and the boat's
coxswain urged his crew to greater efforts. The
young army officer did not seem to know what to
do, except to murmur to his men repeatedly,
"Steady! Steady!" They were standing at attention,
with their musket butts on the ground and their
bayonets sheathed. No doubt the memory of that
old Boston affair slid haunted the army's mind.
None of Howe's staff seemed to have come down
to honor the Gvernor with their presence. Indeed
Johnnie could not see a single gentleman in the
crowd except himself. The seamen in the boat
were pulling heartily at their oars amd grinning.
As the boat drew out of clod range the squat
figure of the Governor arose and turned about.
He cried out something, lost in the uproar. His
harsh jowled face was purple. He stood there,
swaying at every jerk of the oars and shaking a fat
fist at an Halifax.

 Johnnie turned away. All the way back to his
lodgings he mused on the crowd and that angry
futile creature in the boat. The shouting reminded
him of the Portsmouth affair, and he thought,
WeD, at least I didn't make a damned fool of
myself. He slept uneasily that night, dreaming he
was back in Pleasant

250

Street, with that uproar outside and poor Fannie
cringing with her baby on the kitchen floor.

 In the next few days Macdonogh fair copied the
report for the Lords of Trade, and Johnnie wrote
with a Hourish at its foot,

Your Ob't Serv't
John Wentworth
Surveyor General of His Majesty's Woods

 He regarded the title with satisfaction. This, at
least, was left to him. And now that he reflected on
it he found that he was better off financially than
before. With most of His Majesty's Woods in rebel
hands there were no deputy surveyors to pay. The
whole �800 a year was his, less the expenses of a
simple cruise in a fishing sloop along the Nova
Scotia shore. And there was the �600 in lieu of his
salary as Governor of New Hampshire. If the
rebels had deprived him of the post, they'd also cut
off the drain of Wentworth House and the
expenses of the Portsmouth house and servants
and stables. And Fannie and the baby were in the
care of Lord Rockingham. He would repay Paul
for any money she required during her stay in
England, but that wouldn't be much, after all. For
the first time in his life he was in a position to save
money. Who'd have thought it?

 The next afternoon an orderly came to his
lodging, a lank man in scarlet coat and breeches,
long black gaiters and stiffly pipe-clayed crossbelts.
A grenadier's cap stood up a good twelve inches
like the miser of a bishop from his greased and
powdered hair. He had a note from Gneral Howe,
requesting the honor of a call from Mr.
Wentworth, at ten of the clock tomorrow morning,
at his headquarters.

 In the morning Johlmie went there, meticulously
dressed, and in the same sedan chair with its gleam
of fresh paint. Howe had made his quarters with
the Governor since he came ashore, and now that
Legge had gone away the whole residency was
turned over to the business of his staff and clerks.
The Gneral greeted Johnnie with his soldier's grip,
his cold eyes, a polite murmured

251

compliment. And then, "Mr. Wentworth, I may tell
you in confidence that I'm removing shortly with
my army to the vicinity of New York. Just what
will happen there I cannot say; I believe Mr.
Washington will march there with his army, if he
hasn't done so already. So he and I shall face each
other again, in a much more important scene. My
brother, Admiral Howe, has authority to make a
peace offering to the rebel Congress. They may or
may not accept it. In short we may have war at
their choosing. I trust it will be peace."

"So do we all," Johnnie said fervently.

 'Well, I tell you this because I have instructions
from Lord Dartmouth to offer you and some
other loyal American officials a passage im my
transports. You may take two servants, no more.
These unfortunate refugees from Boston will have
to remain in Nova Scotia for the time being. My
duties are entirely military. I shall afford you any
further convenience that I can, but you must
understand that in the event of war you will have
to make your own arrangements at New York."

 "I understand," Johnnie said. New York who
did he know thereabouts? Nobody but the
Bayards, who had entertained him on that bygone
journey home from Carolina, and they lived far
outside the town at Weehawken. Also they were
Tories. It was odd and painful to reflect that they,
and all the other gentry whose hospitality he had
enjoyed along that pleasant route from the far
South, must have been driven from their homes
long since, like himself.

 "I may not see you in some time," the General
said, putting out his hand, "so good-by, sir, and
may we meet again in happier circumstances." He
turned at once to a staff officer waiting with some
papers in the doorway of a side room, and
Johnnie took his departure.

 In the early days of June, when the fogs and
rains and peep-loo sunshine of May had turned to
clear skies and an almost tropical heat, Mr. John
Wentworth received his sailing instructions and
boarded a transport with Tom and young Benning.
George Brinley and his family sails d in another.
As Johnnie and his

252

companions watched the town disappear behind
the dark woods of Point Pleasant, Tom
Macdonogh shook his fist. "Nova Scarcity! If I
never see the place again it'll be too soon."

 Young Benning shouted with laughter, and
Johnnie joined him. He had no love at all for this
far northeastern outpost of New England, frozen
half the year, wrapped in fogs the rest, and thinly
peopled by a hungry folk. By the fourth noon at
sea they were in the latitude of Portsmouth by
the master's reckoning, and Johnnie gazed toward
the west. Strange to be passing and repassing
home like this, unable to set foot in it, unable
even to see it, as if he were some sort of Flying
Dutchman caught in an old salt's tale.

 As the fleet surged on in the fair weather Long
Island came in sight and passed slowly along the
starboard side. Then Sandy Hook appeared. A
few days later, as if by magic, another forest of
topmasts poked above the skyline from the east,
the fleet from England, its transports crammed
with troops. A regimental band in Johnnie's ship
began to play "Rule, Britannia." As the music
crashed out he thrilled from head to foot. The
power of that whole spectacle covering the sea!
Nothing could stand against it nothing!

253

              EIGHTEEN

a us Journal Y to Yorkshire proved much less of
an ordeal than the dreary way from Falmouth to
London. For one thing the showers of late April
were nothing like the chill wet gales of early
March, and when the sun came out between
showers the air was delightful. For another, Paul
had provided the coachand-four that he used on
his frequent Hittings across the Channel and
about the continent. It was a stout and roomy
vehicle, well slung to ride the worst of jolts and
with cushioned green velvet seats and padded
panels. Fannie and Prudence rode on one seat,
with the baby's traveling crib securely fastened to
the other and their portmanteaus on the roof. As
before the trunks and boxes were to follow by
wagon. Paul's own coachman handled the reins,
and a footman sat beside him, with a blunderbuss
in a leather case close at hand. The fat little
musket was to ward off highwaymen in the heaths
outside the city, but Fannie did not know that,
she had not even seen the gun, and it would have
astonished her to be told that a traveler on the
backwoods road to Wolfeborough was far safer
than he would have been on any of the highways
within an hour's ride of the royal palace.

 On parting Paul said to her, "I'm sending one of
my grooms, well mounted, to ride a stage ahead
of the coach, my dear, and he'll secure the best
accommodation at the inns. I've told the
coachman to go carefully and make the journey in
whatever time you choose. It's something like a
hundred and sixty miles, and for your own sake
and the baby's you shouldn't attempt more than
thirty miles a day. The high roads won't be like
Piccadilly, you understand, specially after the
spring rains. The turnpike companies don't spend
a ha'penny more than they ab solutely have to,
and in places where the road repair depends on

254

statute labor in the parishes you'll find the going
damnable. For comfort you should spend a week
on the way, resting a whole day somewhere about
halfway Bedford, say."

 He took her hand and put his lips to it in his
brisk impersonal way.

 "Au revoir, my dear lady. I leave for the
continent myself in another month, and I'll be
gone until the late summer. Some  ah new and
most important business. You've enjoyed your stay
in London?"

 "Oh yes, it's been wonderful, Mr.
Wentworth wonderful! And you've been so kind,
you and Mrs. Phyllis. How can we ever thank
you?"

 "Tut! My dear, a pleasure. Whenever you return
to town you must consider my house yours. By the
way, I'm changing my abode when I come back
from the continent. I find these quarters pretty
narrow for entertaining nowadays, and one must
jostle with all sorts of people here im Poland
Street, not all of 'em congenial. So I've bought a
house just outside the town to the west, in
Hammersmith. Brandenburg House to be exact,
much more commodious than this, and with quite
pretty gardens  you'll like it, I'm sure.
Remember, Brandenburg House at Hammersmith,
any time after the end of August."

 "You're too good," Fannie said, and fluttered a
handkerchief from the coach window as they drove
away.

 The days and the long miles to Yorkshire passed
pleasantly enough. The roads were little, if any,
better than the one she had traveled so often from
Portsmouth to Boston, but they were far more
comfortable than Johnnie's track through the
woods and hills to Wolfeborough, and most of the
inns were very good indeed. Paul's outrider made
sure that they got the best chambers, and the mere
mention of Lord Rockingham's name brought
bows and scrapes and leaping service from
innkeepers, servants, and hostlers all along the
way.

 The countryside was lovely now, with a yellow
sprinkle of primroses at the wayside and the soft
greens everywhere that New England lacked.
There was no forest, as far as she could

255

see from the coach. The woods were scattered
coppices, mostly of beech and oak just breaking
the bud, with bluebell and primrose blooming
underneath; nothing like New Hampshire's end-
less mass of pine and hemlock and cedar, where
Boston-bred Fannie had always felt a menace
lurking in the shadows. These English woods
seemed purely ornamental, placed like neat green
wigs on the rises of bald pasture and plowland.
Often the gables and chimneys of a great mansion
peered from their midst. And always the towns
and villages had that ancient and everlasting look
that came from brick and stone and slate instead
of wood, with charming gardens and greens and
venerable churches whose spires lifted above the
landscape as if to mark the way from one village
to the next. I like England, Fannie thought. It's all
so so arranged. Nothing wild.

 The towns came and went; Bedford in the rich
valley of the Ouse; Melton Mowbray where the
coachman vowed you could find the best hunting
horses and dogs in England; Nottingham of the
huge open market place, the ruined castle on the
hill, and the boys of the bluecoat school
scampering past the inn like merry little monks;
Sheffield with a sprawl of small manufactories
smoking in the vale of the Don, and the Pennine
hills and moorlands in the distance.

 At last they reached the carriageway of the
Marquess, winding through noble old woods
where deer wandered and peered as tame as
rabbits. At careful intervals the park opened into
vistas of sunny green turf, smooth-shaven by flocks
of sheep, with grottoes or small temples or bits of
artificial Greek ruin standing lonely and romantic
in the distance. Finally the mansion itself. Fannie
gasped. Johnnie had often dwelt on its size, and
she could hear him now "The facade runs a good
two musket shot from end to end, two hundred
yards I tell you, not an inch less, as true as I stand
here. And when you step in from the porch, you
find yourself in a hall sixty feet square, with walls
that go up forty feet. Forty feet!"

 And now she saw it with her own eyes, like a
sculptured cliff against the background of the park
and the low hills. The great

2s6

central block; the twin Hights of stone steps
converging to the majestic porch; the Greek
columns of the porch soaring up to the massive
carved pediment; the stone balustrades of the roof,
each post topped with an urn as if to catch the rain
from heaven, and the pediment itself crowned with
great statues in picturesque attitudes that seemed
to stand in the very sky. From this handsome and
impressive center the wings of the house stretched
out on either hand, each with its own pillared
porch, a miniature of the main one, and each wing
ending in a tall square tower with a belvedere that
looked across lawns and trees to the hills.

 Here again the outrider had performed his task,
so that servants were awaiting as the coach drew
up at one of the Hights of steps, and as the
coachman handed Fannie down she saw a pair of
small figures coming out upon that tremendous
porch. As she came up the steps, lifting her skirts
daintily and mincing a little in imitation of elegant
Phyllis Barradale, she was greeted by these people,
a middle-aged pair with the neat aristocratic
features she had come to recognise in the nobility
she met in Paul's house, but with nothing else to
distinguish them.

 The Marquess evidently had just returned from
an inspection of the estate, for he was in a plain
blue coat and breeches and riding boots. The lady
wore a grey dress of rich material that was,
however, not nearly as smart in cut or fashion as
Fannie's own. Fannie had an instant dread. Her
pale blue lutestring gown, the clocked stockings,
the dark blue greatcoat trimmed with silver, the
dashing black-plumed hat, the powder, the rouge,
and patches everything seemed wrong. Her knees
trembled as she approached. Again she felt as
awkward as a tomboy in all her movements, and
she hesitated to speak in her American accent and
with her colonial expressions, which the ton had
found so amusing. It was a frightful moment.

 "My dear," said the Marquess, taking her hand,
"we see now why our good friend John took so
long in choosing a wife. How beautiful you are!"

 Fannie Hushed and made a little bob. He's nice,
she thought, I won't be afraid of him. She turned
and made another bob to

257

the Marchioness. I am of her, though. Why is it
I'm never afraid of men?

 'Welcome to Wentworth Woodhouse," the lady
was saying in a composed high voice. "Do tell
your maid to bring the baby. I must see my
godson." She's stiff, Fannie thought. But when
Prudence brought the baby the face of the
Marchioness melted. She took the child in her
arms, smiling, touching her lips to the soft cheek,
and Fannie saw in her eyes the hunger of a
childless

wife.

 "Charles-Mary," the lady said. "Charles-Mary, oh
you charming little compliment! Isn't he, Charles?
Isn't he lovely? See, he smiles. He's pleased, the
rogue. He knows he's lovely."

 A warm delight shone in both of these
well-bred faces, and Fannie felt a gush of relief.
They had fallen in love with the child at sight.
She could have stood on her head and uttered an
Indian war whoop, and they wouldn't have
noticed. What an inspiration of Johnnie's to name
the baby after both of them!

And later, pen in hand, she was telling Johnnie
so.

 "I have a handsome apartment in one of the
wings, and there is a special chamber for the
baby, the very one furnished for my lord
Rockingham when he was Charles-Mary's age. I
see now why you called our place a Lilliputian
Wentworth House. I smile when I think of that,
and of this. How enommous it is. One could put
our Wentworth House and all the outbuildings
into my lord's stables alone. It is all very
wonderful to me, as it must have been to you. I
know I shall like it here. What a happy
condescension they give to me, and how they coat
on their godson, as if he were their very own."

 And as she lay in her stately canopied bed that
night, with Prudence and the baby sleeping
peacefully in the next room, with the scents and
sounds of the soft English night coming in the
open window, she could not sleep for thinking
how strange and marvelous it all was. Again she
had those pleasant fancies of herself resuming to
Portsmouth and telling the story of her travels, of
London and Paul's house and Paul's famous
guests, and as a piece de resistance her stay with
one of the greatest and

2s8

richest lords of England. What an adventure! And
to think it had all come about because some noisy
scoundrels ran about an American town and broke
the windows of their betters! She could almost
smile over that now. And she was quite happy to
forego the return home for some time yet,
whatever happened in America. Next year,
perhaps. Johnnie shall come and fetch me. Well
sail the way he did years ago, by the warm and
quiet seas to Madeira and Carolina. We'll come
north as he did, visiting with the gentry all along
the way, and we'll arrive in Portsmouth on a
summer day, with all the people cheering in the
square.

 Why was I so afraid? Ridiculous! And I needn't
have worried about my American accent. My lord
Rockingham himself speaks in a Yorkshire accent,
which is worse and nothing like the ton. And I'm
beautiful, he said. If you're a woman and beautiful
it doesn't matter much how you speak, so long as
you smile and keep your voice down. Still, I must
watch and learn.

 With a new world to explore in the following
days Fannie began with the mansion itself. The
great dim hall was like a church somehow and a
Iittle eerie. She felt the stern gaze of all those
images as if she were a sinner coming unrepentant
into a place of immense and ancient holiness. On
one side of it doors led to dining rooms, huge and
small, and on the other side lay the big drawing
rooms, all sumptuously furnished and carpeted.
Throughout these lofty chambers the walls were
hung with portraits, of Rockingham ancestors, and
landscapes, the work of foreign painters, notably
Italian. Lady Rockingham mentioned the names of
artists who were evidently important, and Fannie
stored away in her busy little head the mental
copies of these pictures with the names
attached Giordano, Guido, Titian, Caracci, Van
Dyck, and the rest for conversation pieces in the
future. She was still in awe of the Marchioness. It
rejoiced her heart to see the great lady unbend
whenever she visited the baby's apartment, but it
was not wise to presume on that. She never
ventured a "Ma'am," but always called her My
Lady with the utmost respect and was profuse with
gratitude and little flatteries.

759

Somehow the Marchioness seemed to be part of
the regal furnishings of the mansion, like one of
those statues in the great hall, cool and aloof, to
be admired and even approached, but never to be
touched.

 Fannie was more at home with my lord, a horsy
man like Johnnie, never so happy as when he was
in the saddle. When he found that she could ride
he invited her to accompany him about the
estate, mounted on one of his superbly kept
hunters and ambling easily along the lanes from
paddock to paddock or following the bridle paths
through the park. She searched her memory for
some of Johnnie's horse-talk, and when she men-
tioned "Rockingham,the greatest horse in
England" the Marquess was delighted.

 "My dear, that's a matter of opinion still. But I
don't mind saying with all due respect to your
American horses, which I believe are very
good England breeds the best horseflesh in the
world outside Arabia, and here in Yorkshire we
breed the best in England. When I speak of Arab
horses don't forget that the best Arabs or Barbs
ever brought into this country for breeding stock
were the Byerly Turk and Darley's Arabian, and
both of 'em came to Yorkshire."

 He went on at length, Fannie hanging on every
word and getting him to repeat the names until
she had them firmly in her mind. "I must talk
over all this with Mr. Wentworth," she explained
with her shy little smile. "He's so devoted to
horses, my lord." But she was thinking of the ton,
too, where the men rated horses next in
importance to women, and a pretty woman with
a stock of glib horse-talk could leave her rivals
nowhere.

 "Ah!" said the Marquess pleasantly. "D'you
know, when I first met your husband he was
betting on a horse of mine at Newmarket? In the
coffeerooms of the Jockey Club, along with
Michael Wentworth, I remember. When Michael
introduced us I took to him at once. Elandsome,
you know, and with that frank and open manner
of American gentlemen. I hadn't met many then,
and I never met one quite like John. If you ever
have Princes in America he should be one."

z60

 The Marchioness preferred her carriage for
transport, and Fannie went with her on afternoon
drives about the countryside. Sometimes there
were longer excursions to the rugged hills and
moors, to York in its long low valley where the
stately Minster raised its towers above the town,
and to Doncaster, where on the town moor the
country gentry raced their horses for fat bets, and
where, according to my lord, they were starting
this year an annual race that would make
Doncaster as important to the turf as Newmarket
itself.

 There were stately calls at the mansions of other
great folk in the countryside and frequently house
parties filled Wentworth Woodhouse itself, where
the gentlemen rode all day and supped hugely and
sat long over wine after the ladies had withdrawn,
talking horses and Whig politics. Everyone was
charming to the pretty and modest American, so
devoted to her infant, and so anxious about her
loyal husband with Howe's army.

 Yet nobody seemed to know much about
America except Lord Rockingham himself. There
was a good deal of wit about the pretty fix that the
King and his creature North had got the country
into, although most of the gentlemen were sure
that Lord Howe could settle the matter without
much trouble. Fannie found it all confusing. There
were two Howes, it seemed, and brothers; one a
general, one an admiral, and both good Whigs.
The admiral was Lord Howe, otherwise Black
Dick because of his complexion, and this sailor
had been charged with the whole business of
treating with the rebels because he happened to
know Benjamin Franklin. How very odd!

 Her first word from Johnnie came by young
Benjamin Thompson, who sent the letter on to her
after inquiring at Paul's house. It was Johnnie's
hasty note written just before the army quitted
Boston, saying he was departing with them,
whither he did not know. Then came three letters
from Halifax, with news of himself, of Benning,
and the Brinleys. He sounded disconsolate and
said he missed her very much, but he knew she
was happy and in good hands. He was writing to
Lord Rockingham, but mean

z6l

time she must give him and Lady Rockingham his
compliments and thanks. He intended to follow
the.army wherever it went, but what would
happen he did not know. It seemed a long way
from New Hampshire. Good-by, darling Fan.

 At the moment when his darling Fan was
reading the last epistle Johnnie was actually afoot
on Staten Island, where the British army had
encamped in the sultry July weather. Their white
tents sprouted everywhere. Long columns of
sweating redcoats and German bluecoats stirred
the dust of the lanes and practiced maneuvers in
the fields and woods, and the summer birds of
this rustic paradise were silenced by a clamor of
drums and fifes and trumpets from morn to night.
All sorts of rumors passed over the officers' mess
tables and through the tents and farmhouses.
Johnnie had grown wary of them now. His only
solid information came as usual from George
Brinley, who had established Mary and the
children in a farmhouse near Denice's Ferry, in
full view of Long Island just across the water. Up
the harbor, lost in the shimmer of the heat over
Manhattan, lay New York, a mystery.

 "The situation?" George said in his offhand way.
'We're here, and Mr. Washinton's over there,"
pointing to Long Island. "He's got an army of
sorts, but it's not more than a third the size of
ours, and one of his generals is guess! that
country lawyer from New Hampshire, your own
Jack Sullivan. My Lord Howe's treating by letter
with the Congress, but the rebels don't seem
impressed with this fleet and army not a bit!
Why, as soon as we landed, the Congress issued
that declaration of theirs 'these united colonies
are free and independent states,' and so forth
you can read the whole fantasy in that copy of
the Pennsylvania Evening Post over there if you've
a mind. So they're not scared. I doubt if anything
will scare 'em but a damned good drubbing in the
field, and my Lord Howe might as well ferry his
brother's army over the water and start the
drubbing now. The rebel army's in a nice position
for it Howe's warships can block the Sound and
coop 'em on the island like a flock of sheep for
slaughter."

z6z

"Do you think he will?" Johnnie said.

"Mr. Washington's betting that he won't."

 It was almost the end of August before General
Howe transferred his army to Long Island. Johnnie
moved with the British camp to E:latbush, and
there he watched a battle for the first time in his
life. It spread over too many miles to make a clear
picture. What he saw were long columns of British
and German troops tramping in various directions
along the dusk island lanes, or moving in ranks of
red or blue that disappeared in woods and
reappeared on a slope beyond, only to vanish
again. There was a good deal of distant musketry
at times, like the running crackle of a fire in dry
brushwood, and sometimes the heavier note of
cannon, and whenever there was firing a grey
vapor arose and drifted lazily across the distant
fields, like the wisps that rise and merge over a
New Hampshire bog on a frosty morning in fall.

 After a time he was told that the rebels had been
defeated, that most of them had run like sheep,
that many had surrendered or were hiding in the
woods. A staff officer explained, scratching with his
cane in the dust of a road, how the British army
had "amused" the rebels with false attacks at left
and center, and stolen a march to their rear along
the Brooklyn heights. It was quite simple after all.
Mr. Washington and all his men were trapped. File
war was over in one battle. Another morning
would see the final surrender.

 But when morning came Mr. Washington and
most of his army had slipped away in boats to
Manhattan. A naval officer said that General
Howe had failed to close his trap at the last mo-
ment. An infantry major raged and swore that
Black Dick had failed to send his ships to block
the Sound. A wounded loyalist, serving as a
volunteer with Howe's dragoons, declared to
Johnnie that Black Dick and his soldier brother
were just a pair of scheming Whigs, and they'd
deliberately let the rebels get away "The best
officers serving the Congress in all America today."

 It was all very queer. In his own charitable mind
Johnnie could only conclude that my Lord Howe
and his soldier brother

~63

still hoped to patch up a peace without much
bloodshed, and he devoutly wished they would.
The sight of American prisoners gave him an
uneasy feeling, like the qualms of a sick digestion,
whenever he passed a group of them shambling
along between the British and Hessian bayonets
on the road. He looked for New Hampshire faces,
but saw none, although he heard that John
Sullivan was wounded and a prisoner.

 A fortnight passed before General Howe, in his
leisurely way, moved the troops over to
Manhattan, crossing to Kip's Bay above New
York, where again there was a chance to catch
and crush Mr. Washington between the British
army and the fleet. Johnnie remained at Flatbush,
writing hopefully to Fannie and Lord
Rockingham, and he was there when Mr.
Washington made good his retreat across the
Hudson. With the other loyalists in the train of
the army Johnnie took up lodgings in New York
and stayed there through the autumn, filling his
letters to England with great news. The British
forces from Canada had reached Lake Champlain
and destroyed Mr. Arnold's fleet. Next year they
could strike at Boston or down the Hudson Valley
as they chose. General Howe stood on the road
to Philadelphia. The Congress were shivering in
their shoes.

 At Christmas he wrote to Fannie again by the
light of a lone candle in his lodging near the
Battery. The British army had settled in winter
quarters in the city and round about some of the
officers were carousing below at this
moment but of course there were strong
outposts in the Jerseys, and next spring would see
the last march. Mr. Washington's army, according
to all report, was down to a mere rabble,
somewhere beyond the Delaware. He had talked
to the latest refugee from New Hampshire, who
assured him that his return with a force of fair
size at his back would be welcomed by all, except
the men most committed to the rebel movement.
This he would do at the first opportunity. He
understood that the British government were
furnishing a few loyalist corps with amms and
rations and pay, and he proposed to raise a force
of mounted gentlemen among the New England
refugees on Long Island, giving a preference to
New

264

Hampshire men. This would be much better than
British or foreign regiments marching into his
province. The thing was to get there first with a
brigade of loyal Americans and do away with such
a necessity. Next summer, my dearest, you shall re-
turn with our darling boy, and we may take up our
life again as if this past two years had never
happened. God bless you both, and may you have
a happy Christmas, as indeed I know you will at
Wentworth Woodhousc. Your affectionate husband,
John.

265

              NINE [KEN

IN SEPTEMBER 1776 as Johnnie rode with the
British army into

New York, Fannie and my lady rode by carriage to
watch a pheasant-shoot on the Rockingham estate.
To Fannie it seemed a dull and very noisy business
of beaters and of gamekeepers loading fowling
pieces for gentlemen in velvet caps and round
jackets and breeches and gaiters. In a pause for
refreshments some of the gentlemen stopped to
chat beside the carriage. Fannie found them
attentive to her, a little more perhaps than to my
lady, in a polite way of course, and in side glances
and remarks more than anything else, but it was
somewhat embarrassing, and she turned their
attention back to her hostess with a deftness that
she admired in herself afterward.

 It was pleasant to have that tribute of daring
eyes, of course. It reminded her of those
assemblies in Boston when the English officers
were flirting with her under Johnnie's indignant
nose. How silly he had been about that as if there
were any harm! Could she help it if men found her
charming and told her so at every opportunity? Or
could they?

 She was sorry when after several days' shooting
and convivial dining the sporting gentlemen
departed. The mansion was like a vast deserted
temple now, with the summer gone and all the
parties over. Servants flitted like wraiths through
the endless chambers and corridors. The figures on
the pedestals and in the picture frames stared in
their fixed attitudes, as if frozen in paint or stone
at some moment in time beyond which they
yearned to go but never could. The elegant
furniture stood stiffly about the silent rooms, as if
daring anyone to use it until another summer
came. My lord had gone to London on political
concerns.

266

My lady was kept to her rooms with a touch of
fever and ague, seeing no one but her maid and
her physician.

 And now came the east winds and the autumn
rains, driving in from the North Sea and across the
farms and moors. The sky was dark, the chambers
darker still. Day and night, but especially at night,
the gales found every hollow and cornice, playing
on the great pile as if it were an organ with an
infinite variety of stops and keys. The very urns on
the long roof balustrade gave forth a chorus of
mournful notes at certain swoops of the wind, and
the windows rattled, doors slammed, draperies
filled and sank on the walls like a ship's sails in
fluky weather, and in the halls the drafts were
those of a winter cave. Even in Fanny's apartment,
where the servants trudged with their scuttles and
kept good fires of coal from morn to night, the
dank chill of the sea could be felt as if the German
Ocean were just beyond the park instead of sixty
miles away.

 And the rain! Fannie could not decide which was
worse, the torrents dashing against walls and
windows like a stormy sea at a cliff, or the dismal
drip-drip-drip of the calm interludes, splashing on
the flagstones outside, and from the drenched trees
of the park, where my lord's deer huddled sodden
and sorry. We had sea gales in New Hampshire,
she thought, even up in the woods at
Wolfeborough, and going on for days, but never
like this. Give me a wooden house and a small one
after all. There's warmth in a wooden house. The
damp can't creep in, as it does through these
stones. And in a small house you don't feel lost
you feel snug. She thought of the snug house on
Pleasant Street across the sea, and for the first
time felt a touch of homesickness.

 As October dragged its days away she was lonely
and rebellious. She had cheerful letters from
Johnnie, full of Mr. Howe's great victory at Long
Island and his own plans and hopes and politics.
All very well for Johnnie, there with the army, in
the midst of those merry of ficers who would
sooner kill a dull moment than a rebel. Here I'm
thrust away like a nun in a convent, in the middle
of nowhere, and in a rain like the end of the world,
forty days and forty nights. What a penitence! And
why?

267

Why when there's London and Paul's house and
all the fun of the ton7A week's travel at most. If
Johnnie can enjoy New York why shouldn't I
enjoy London?

 At the end of the month she put it to the
Marchioness my lord was still away after
rehearsing every word and gesture a dozen times.
She came lo the subject in a shy faltering voice
and with the most demure little hesitations. She'd
enjoyed every moment of her stay; she loathed
the very thought of parting from my lady, who
had been so kind, and from my lord, who had
been her husband's good, good, friend through all
these years and would, she hoped, remain his
friend and hers. But her John had told her she
must not presume upon their kindness, and he
wished her to spend the winter in the household
of his kinsman in London.

 Lady Rockingham protested in her hospitable
way. Presume? Nonsense! Besides, it would be
bad for the baby, bumping over those awful roads
in the middle of the rains again. And now the
ready tears came to }~annie's eyes, and her
mouth quivered, although her chin was
suspiciously firm. She knew all that, she said. She
must confess a weakness, something selfish
perhaps, but she couldn't help longing to see and
talk with some of the other Americam refugees in
London, to share their hopes and memories for a
time. And, too, she couldn't help wishing to get
her dear love's letters the moment they reached
England. She was anxious about him, there with
the army, and with fighting going on. He was
raising a regiment among the loyalist gentlemen,
and she knew how brave and reckless he was
wherever his dub was concerned. She could only
hope that it would all be over by next spring, and
he could jom her in England for a rest before
taking up his labors as a governor again, and then
perhaps, if my lord and lady were so kind, they
could come with the baby to Wentworth
Woodhouse for the summer.

 And so, at last, she and Prue and the baby took
the road again, in a fine blue-amd-buff coach of
my lord's, with six horses, a coachman, a footman
and a pair of outriders, an impressive turnout,
clattering through the villages like royalty itself.
The

268

November rains dripped all the way, and the coach
broke an axle in a deep slough near Higham
Ferrers, which cost them an extra day and a night
at a very bad inn. They saw the hanging smoke of
London at last on a bright cold afternoon as they
came through Paddington in the fields. Then a roll
through the skirts of the town and a flea] three
miles along the Great West Road to
Hammersmith.

 Fannie had scratched off a note to Paul by post
some days before, and all was ready for her.
Brandenburg House proved to be far larger than
the old abode in Poland Street, handsome in a
stolid fashion (all these stone houses looked like
prisons), with tall drawing rooms wainscoted to the
ceiling and furnished with a curious jumble of
English, French, and Dutch sofas, tables, chairs,
mirrors, paintings, and hangings, the mark of Paul's
travels and interests.

 Paul received her and the baby happily and
declared with the air of a fond uncle producing a
doll for a favorite niece, "I have a surprise, from
your own Portsmouth." Fannie's eyes went wide.
And in came old Colonel Boyd, who had sailed to
England from Portsmouth when the troubles
began. Her tongue flew with questions. But he had
heard little from New Hampshire, and his eyes had
a haunted look, sunk in the bony face and the
frame of the long white hair.

 "I near the end of my time," the old man said
heavily. "I wish only to be buried in my own home
soil. I've had my tombstone made. It shall go back
with me when these troubles are over. If I die
before that I've given instructions that my old
bones shall be shipped to Portsmouth whenever it's
possible. This is a pleasant country, my dear, but it
isn't home it isn't anything like home."

 How gruesome, thought Fannie, who did not like
to think of old age, let alone death, and she
changed the subject brightly to memories of the old
happy days, the dinners, the balls, the pleasure
parties in the country, the people they both knew.

 The old shipbuilder's mind wandered. Once he
said, "That fellow Livius. Went to Quebec, you
know. The rebel army nearly

269

captured him when they attacked Quebec about
a year ago. But now, if you please, he's Chief
Justice of Canada. Fancy that. Influence of
course. He always had that, eh? But a fox! And
there's poor Johnnie wandering with Mr. Howe's
army, without a post, not even a home. Sad! Sad!"
And a little later, "I leave here tomorrow. I've
taken a cottage at Bristol. Seems closer to
America somehow."

 He tottered away to his room. A servant came
in with a tray of cordials. Prudence had gone of
~ to put the child to bed. There was a swish of
silk in the doorway, and Fannie turned with a
greeting to Mrs. Phyllis on her lips, but it
perished there. The woman coming into the room
was quite unlike the tall blonde Filly; a petite
creature in the twenties wearing a gown of
emerald green, with a small dark face rouged and
patched and a tight little mouth.

 Paul said blandly, "Mrs. Wentworth, may I have
the pleasure of introducing Mrs. Targill, a very
dear friend of mine? You'll be seeing a good deal
of each other here." Mrs. Targill's black eyes were
hostile amd wary, as The Filly's had been when
Fannie first appeared. She gave the pretty
American a nod and looked her up and down, as
so many women did, trying to guess her age and
intentions and ending baffled. And she sat with a
sidelong gaze as Paul and Mrs. Wentworth talked
about matters in America. Her attitude eased
when Fannie began to prattle about her
Governor, her dear brave love, and how she
missed him, separated by this cruel sea. Soon the
little brunette was smiling.

 Paul passed the cordials, and in another minute
the two women were in animated conversation
about the latest fashions and gossip of the ton,
exchanging a glance now and then with their host.
They understood each other now. Fannie
wondered what had become of The Filly.
Evidently in chamging his domicile Paul had
decided to change his doxy too, and because
Brandenburg House was outside the town it was
more convenient to bed the lady here than in that
rented place in Wardour Street.

On the next afternoon, when Colonel Boyd had
gone, a little

Ho

procession of coaches and carriages brought a
party for dinner and an evening of cards and wine.
They were all of the ton, and many of them
Fannie knew from her stay in Poland Street. The
ladies were Mrs. This and Mrs. That, but as usual
few of their names seemed to have any relation to
the gentlemen who brought them there. Once
again there was the gay banter and gossip, the
camaraderie, the naughty wit, the whole air of easy
pleasure that she had missed in the wilds of
Yorkshire. From time to time one of the
gentlemen whispered in her ear, and when she met
Paul's quizzical eyes he smiled as if to say, You
can take care of yourself, my dear, I'm sure and so
she could.

 The winter's rains and snows had blighted the
afternoon parades of the fashion in Hyde Park,
but the belles and beaux still amused themselves
at the "heater, the opera, at balls amd
masquerades, as well as the round of private cards
and wme that never ceased for weather or
anything else. Paul and Mrs. Targill drove in quite
often to these affairs, and Fennie went with them.
They made an odd trio. With Paul, Mrs. Targill
was like a devoted wife, joining the merriment, but
giving her best attention to her husband always,
amd avoiding amorous gestures from other
directions with disdain. When Paul was away on
his mysterious business affairs she kept to herself
at Brandenburg House and discouraged visitors;
indeed to male callers she was ice itself.

 She seemed haunted by the fate of The Filly and
no doubt the long succession of others before Mrs.
Barradale. In such intervals Fannie grew bored
and a little contemptuous.

 After the old year passed into '77 she began to
go into town alone in Paul's pony chaise. There
was no lack of company there. If their ladies were
sometimes dubious the gentlemen of the ton were
delighted with the pretty and witty American. They
admired her person not only with their eyes but
aloud, in the custom of the ton, complimenting
her points as if she were a pretty mare at the
races, and they were intrigued by her changes of
temperament, the frivolity that let them go so far,
the dignity that crushed them if they went beyond.

27

 She had learned to recognise men with the
magic compound of breeding and money and to
distinguish from them the wastrels of one or the
other and the sharpers living on their wits. And so
it was with the odd melange of fashionable wives,
mistresses, actresses, and dainty whores who
formed the feminine half of the ton. She was
drawn instinctively to people of breeding and,
with conscious snobbery, to those of title, and she
began to imitate their speech and manners,
casting off her New Englandisms like garments
out of style. In this her old gift of mimicry helped
a great deal. It amused her to deceive the casual
strangers she met in this fashionable whirl and set
them wondering who or what she was, and soon
she was no longer playing a part but actually
living the role of a well-bred Englishwoman whose
whim it was to mingle unescorted with the ton.
Perfection in the role could only come with time,
of course, although she could soon disguise her
American origin quite well.

 One evening at a masquerade in the Pantheon,
where eight hundred people whirled, she became
separated from her party in the crush. Tired of
dancing, of sauntering or merely standing in
banter with other masks, she found a small alcove
and sank into a chair. It was empty except for
herself, another chair or two, and a gilded vase in
the window niche which doubtless held flowers at
summer fetes. She was wearing a gown of pink
satin and a brass-buttoned jacket of scarlet faced
with blue, like those of officers in royal regiments,
the latest feminine whim in the ton. The
combined skills of Prue and Mrs. Targill had piled
her hair over a tall frame of delicate basketwork
and powdered it to the hue of snow, and a
domino of pink silk covered her brow to the nose.

 She was fanning herself languidly when a tall
man in a black mask came by, returned, and
stood in the frame of the entrance.

 "View hullo!" he said. "It's the pretty militaire.
Noticed you everywhere tonight, but hadn't a
chance to speak. And nobody knew who you
were. May I ask now as one soldier to another?"

 He wore the splendid uniform of a Hungarian
hussar, but his speech was as English as roast beef
and Burton ale.

272

 "You may ask," she said lightly, "but I'll not
answer as one soldier to another. I know who you
are."

"Ten guineas to one you don't!"

 "Pooh! You're a captain of His Majesty's Horse
Guards, you've just recovered from a bad cropper
at a hunt last autumn, you're the heir to a title and
six or seven thousand a year, and last month you
celebrated your twenty-fifth birthday with a party
at White's."

"Zooks! Anything else?"

 "Yes. You enjoy the ladies, but you're very
particular in your choice." She put out a hand.
"Now, sir, pay up."

 Without hesitation he drew a purse from a
breeches pocket and spilled a yellow heap of
guineas into that slim peremptory palm. Fannie
turned and in the same careless way tipped them
into the vase behind her.

"For the poor," she said.

He laughed. "How the deuce do you know all that
about me?"

 "Because I've seen you everywhere too,
captain and I had better spies."

 He slipped off his mask. "This is no good, it
seems." His face was lean, with the returning color
of a healthy convalescent. A pair of lively blue eyes
regarded her over a short reman nose. His mouth
was pleasant, with a lazy strength about the lips
that seemed to express all the rest of him.

 'Well, since you know everything about me, pray
take off that mask and tell me all about you. That's
only fair, I think  seeing I've paid up."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. You may guess if you
like."

'Avery well. You're not an Englishwoman...."

"Oh? What makes you think that?"

 "Something in the way you speak.
You're urn well, at a hazard you're the
daughter of a West India sugar nabob, you spent
some years in England at school before you
married, you're  um--three-or-four-and-twenty,
and now you're visiting London alone because your
husband's busy with sugar or whatever husbands
are busy with in tile West Indies."

273

"All wrong."

 "May I sit down? I feel like a schoolmaster,
standing over you like this propounding theories."

 She made an indifferent gesture with the fan,
and he dropped into the farther of the chairs.
Beyond the alcove, in the blaze of lamps under
the great dome, the costumed figures went by,
some with masks and some without, in a hubbub
of talk and laughter in which the music was lost.
The Pantheon swam in the scents of wine and
segarsand perfume and warm flesh, the very
breath of pleasure.

 He tried again. "I had it wrong way round.
You're an English girl who's been some years
abroad, in one of the colonies. You're married, I
feel quite sure. And of course I was wrong about
the West Indies ladies from those hot places
always have a drained look, the musketos, I
suppose. You what I can see of you, specially
those eyes you've too much zest about you for
a place like that. Your husband's an army officer
stationed in um Canada."

'Wrong again."

"Am I getting warm?"

 "You hunt the thimble no better than you hunt
the fox. No wonder you fell off your horse!"

 A rueful grin. 'Well, I'm sure of this you're
the most charming creature I've seen in a
twelve month."

 "That's what every rake in London says to every
morsel he fancies. Can't you say something nice?"

 He leaned back in the chair and pushed his
hands in his breeches pockets.

 'What's new since Adam met Eve? Tell me. I
deplore my ignorance."

 Through the mask her eyes considered him
carefully. His looks, his manner, the discreet
distance he kept, everything about him confirmed
what she had heard in that continual and all-
embracing gossip of the ton. A young officer, the
son of an earl and of good manners, with a
healthy interest in women and a taste in his
choice. She felt the compliment of the whim that
had noticed her "everywhere" and turned him into
the alcove

274

when he saw her sitting there. And she knew what
it meant. Her instinct had never failed her in that
since she was seventeen, as if she had in her flesh
a harp string tuned to the male note, something
always taut and never out of key.

 "This is very far from Paradise," she said
evasively. "It's more like the Ark two of every
kind and all in an uproar."

 He nodded, with a contemptuous glance at the
passing crowd. And then bluntly, "I have a closed
chaise waiting in a mews across the street. In ten
minutes we could be in my rooms, very quiet and
much more agreeable."

"What for?"

"To hunt the thimble, shall we say;"

 "My friends would miss me, and we're to sup
together at twelve."

 "I'll have you back by half past eleven at the
most, 'pon my honor. Do come! We have an hour
and a half. And time's such precious stuff."

 The cord was singing hotly now. It was a
pleasant music too. She arose.

 'tYou make me curious. I must see how well
you play this game. Bring your chaise to the east
gate. I'll get my cloak and meet you there."

 He took her hand, brushed the fingers with his
lips, and vanished through the crowd. In five
minutes she slipped out of the east gate, muffled
in the cloak, and there he was, and there was the
chaise.

 At twelve, true to his promise, she was at
supper with her friends. None had missed her in
that madcap mob.

275

               TWENTY

ON AN eVeNING in January '77 Fannie's husband
sat in a

country house at Flatbush, busy with pen and ink.
Outside the frosty window panes the landscape lay
white and rigid under the light of a half moon and
the stars. The snow was deep and the cold sharp.
Even in his room, despite a fire on the hearth, the
candle had a winding sheet. From time to time he
had to take penknife and slice away the unmelted
tallow for better light. The very ink was gelid in
the little brown galipot and oozed slowly from the
quill point, so that his usual free handwriting
suffered.

 Other than foraging patrols the British army lay
quiet in winter quarters. Like many another loyalist
refugee Johnnie had found New York too costly a
place in wartime, and he had moved back to Long
Island with the first cold weather. Most of the New
England refugees had made their way there, even
those who first went to "Nova Scarcity," and the
island villages were filled with them and others
from the Hudson Valley and Connecticut.

 The letter was for John's sister Ann Fisher. Her
Tory husband had been obliged to flee his customs
post at Salem on a moment's notice, leaving wife
and family to return to her father's care at
Portsmouth. The quill moved in Johnnie's cold
fingers.

 I have prevail'd on a man, bound on a trading
journey, to forward you th* letter, and one to my
father, with one from your husband . . . I have a box
containing `6 pair children's shoes 3 pair women's
silk and 3 pair Calamanco shoes, 4 patterns of
Calacoe and 4 handkerchiefs, which Mr. Fisher sent
for you by Mr. Brinley.

He paused, thinking of (George Brinley. Since
forwarding the

276

box from New York that fearless man, seeking
army supplies in the Jerseys, had ridden straight
into a rebel ambush. He refused to surrender,
indeed fought his way out, and galloped four miles
to the British lines with two musket balls in his
legs and one in his body. Now he lay between life
and death in a New York hospital.

 The pen moved again. Johnnie mentioned
Brinley's misadventure briefly. He said nothing of
the recent rebel successes at Trenton and
Princeton. The letter, he knew, would be passed
from hand to hand among his friends who
remained in Portsmouth and it seemed better to
keep his remarks in a high vein of confidence.

 From dispositions and intelligence from
Pennsylvania and southward it * more than probable
that the present unnatural war is almost at an end.
Be assur'd an army of 20,000 Russians and 12,000
Wirtembergers are engag'd and will be in New Eng-
land by June next, unless prevented by Peace. MTS.
Wentworth and Charles are very well. The latter is
taken under the wing of hi* noble sponsors and
namesakes, who are incredibly fond of him . . . Pray
remember me kindly to all my loyal steadfast friends,
the time of their rejoicing is at hand. I am in good
health and will not leave America until peace is
restor'd. Those that love me and that I love will be
good to Prisoners and Captives  I would sell my all
for their comfort. Our worthy parents will accept my
most cordial and attachid salutations, and all will
oblige me in the* continued affections, which are
inestimable to, Your affectionate Brother,

J Wentworth.

 He sealed the letter and rode to put it into the
hands of a furtive skipper bound "down East,"
along with a packet of mail from other New
Hampshire refugees.

 Returning to his quarters half*ozen he went to
his feather bed for warmth and to read by the light
of a dip on the chest of drawers. He had started to
recruit his regiment among the New Hampshire
refugees, under the title of Governor Wentworth's
Volunteers, but nothing could be done about
training

277

and organisation spring weather opened the
countryside. Meanwhile he had borrowed from
British officers some books on the military art,
most of which were translated from the German.
The British regular army seemed convinced that
only the Germans knew the art of war. To
Johnnie it all seemed stiff and foreign and
worthless in the American landscape, but he read
on dutifully.

 His Volunteers were really the old notion he
had cherished so long for the militia at home, a
regiment of American horsemen armed with
sword and pistol and light musket, men who could
move fast and far, and in woods and broken
country could dismount and fight as infantry. This
did not chime with the notions of the British army
staff. 'they had an irritating air of contempt for
American soldiery, loyalist or rebel. A few
regiments of loyalist infantry had been authorized
and placed on the army establishment, but only
two mounted groups, both under the command of
British officers..

 When April came Johnnie began to train his
men in the Long Island fields. It pleased him at
roll call to hear familiar New Hampshire names
like P`indge, Meserve, Lutwyche, Hale, Trail,
Peavy, Stavers, Starke. Captain John Cochrane,
late of the Portsmouth fort, was
second-in~ommand. Fannie's young brother
Benning had a cornet's rank, and Tom
Macdonogh served as adjutant. The rank and file
were pitifully few. The able-bodied New
Hampshire refugees were few in any case, and
only those who had brought away a good sum of
money could supply their own horses and
equipment and serve like this without pay.

 One day at his Flatbush headquarters there was
an unexpected visitor. Johnnie shook Benjamin
Thompson's hand fervently and drew him into the
farmhouse parlor, calling over his shoulder for
rum and hot water and sugar.

"Tell me about Fannie," he said eagerly.

 "I didn't see Mrs. Wentworth, sir, I'm sorry. I
sent your letter on to her in Yorkshire, and I
suppose she's still there. In London I'm so busy
quill driving I don't get about much."

Johnnie's face fell. "Well, tell me about yourself."

278

 Thompson wore a sober clerkish dress, and
except that his red hair was now powdered and
drawn in a neat club queue he seemed very much
the same young man who had visited at
Wolfeborough and planned those scientific surveys
in the mountains. The same clear grey gaze, the
same promise of energy and efficiency in
everything he did.

 "There isn't much to say, Governor. I delivered
your dispatch concerning New Hampshire affairs to
my lord Germain, and he was good enough to offer
me a clerk's post in his department, so I took it.
Nobody there seemed to know much about
America except from reports least of all my lord
himself. I've managed to make myself very useful.
In fact I'm now in my lord's confidence, and if this
government stays in office I have a good prospect
of becoming Undersecretary of State for the
Colonies. Meanwhile, in my private hours, I amuse
myself with odd notions as I used to do at home.
Just now I'm trying to devise a system of signaling
for ships at sea and an improved kind of musket
and a better sort of gunpowder to use in it." He
laughed. "So you see I keep myself out of
mischief."

 The grog appeared, steaming in a jug, and
Johnnie poured the cups full.

'What are you doing over here?" he demanded.

 "A leave of absence and some duty. I wanted to
see a few old friends like yourself and to get a
firsthand view of things over here. I've spent some
weeks in New York, and I sail back to England
soon. But tell me about yourself, sir. I was the
deuce of a time finding where you were. What are
you doing?"

 "Trying to raise a regiment of horse amongst the
New England refugees. A matter of some
difficulty unless I can get on the army
establishment. D'you think you can do anything for
me there? I haven't been able to impress General
Howe."

 "Then you need much better influence than
mine," Ben said bluntly. "The Secretary of State for
the Colonies is directing the war in America, of
course, but he's busy quarreling with the generals,
and the generals have a poor opinion of my lord.
Between ourselves, I don't think Lord Germain's
got the military

279

capacity of a corporal, and I wouldn't rate the
generals' much better. However that's not my
business and not the point. Lord North is head of
the government, with the King's hand firmly
twisted in his coattails. Have you any influence in
that direction?"

 "My great friend and patron over there has
always been Lord Rockingham."

 "Never mention it. The King hates Rockingham
and his Whigs like poison."

"There's Paul Wentworth," Johnnie said hopefully.

 "Um! Paul's got some influence with one or two
ministers, but I'm afraid His Majesty has a low
opimion of the man himself. You've got to stand
well in high quarters if you want anything in
London."

 "You mean I can't fight for the King because
Howe doesn't like me, and His Majesty doesn't
like my friends?" Johnnie blazed.

 Thompson gave him a curious smile. "The
British army are quite sure they can beat the
rebels. That being the case they don't care to see
too many loyal Americans trained and armed.
They might get notions after the war. Much better
to hire clodhoppers all over Germany. The change
m the wind will come perhaps when Howe
marches into the country. He'll find a need for
American light troops, horse and foot, in the kind
of fighting he'll meet in the Jerseys and
Pennsylvania. I recommend patience, Governor."

 "Patience!" Johnnie took a pull at his grog. "You
say His Majesty has a low opinion of Paul
Wentworth. Why?"

Thompson glanced at the door. "Can one talk
freely here?"

 "These people are loyalists. There's no one in
earshot anyway. You sound as if you had some
dreadful secret."

 "It could be that, in the wrong ears," Thompson
said mysteriously. "I suppose you know the rebels
have sent a commission to Paris?"

"I've heard something of the sort."

 "It's there now Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, and
shrewd old Benjamin Franklin. And they're up to
mischief. In fact they've

,80

persuaded the French king's ministers to let 'em
have great quantities of arms and money and
supplies. Not openly of course. It's all being done
through Beaumarchais."

"Who's he?"

 "A man of parts. A gambler, a writer of
plays there's a comedy of his called The Barber of
Seville quite popular in Paris at the moment, I
believe. But his main activity is something else.
He's head of the French secret service. To cover
the movement of this war material to America he's
created a trading firm called Hortales et
Compagnie, with offices in various ports and no
less than forty ships. It looks like a busy trade."

"How do you know all this?"

 "In my department a secretary learns all kinds of
things. How well do you know Paul Wentworth?
What he does, I mean."

 "Paul? He's a speculator on the money markets
in London and abroad. He does a lot of business
on the continent."

 "Quite so. And a speculator on the continent
must have good sources of information. Would it
surprise you to know that Paul Wentworth
maintains a clever little lady in Paris, another in
Antwerp, and another in Amsterdam?"

Johnnie laughed. "Knowing Paul, no."

 There was a twinkle in Thompson's eyes. "Each
of these ladies has a wide acquaintance and a
sharp ear for information that might be useful to
her patron and of course she provides him with a
comfortable p~ed-~-terre whenever he makes his
rounds. Business and pleasure in one pretty bun&.
The man's a genius! But to be serious, a system of
that kind could be useful in other directions, eh?
This rebel commission in Paris, for instance. Or the
activities of Hortales et Compagnie in the ports of
France amd the Low Countries."

"I'm dull at riddles," Johnnie said.

 "I mean Paul's enlarged his um facilities and
placed 'em at the disposal of the British
government. He reports through Sir William Eden,
who's connected with my department. In other
words Mr. Paul Wentworth, late of New
Hampshire and Surinam, is now the chief agent of
the British secret service on the

281

continent, with a chew of spies in Paris and the
chief ports. He travels back and forth under a
dozen names; he's well supplied with money from
the SecTet Service Fund, both for pay and for
bribes; he speaks French fluently and Dutch and
Spanish and German fairly well; and of course his
best agents have the universal language, a pretty
talent for the bed."

"Well?"

 "An American secretary with the commission in
Paris has a weakness for ladies' beds. Another is
in Paul's pay. In short everything done by
Benjamin Franklin and company or shall we say
Hortales et Compagnie is very well known in
London."

Johnnie frowned. "What's London doing about it?"

 "Not a thing. Paul reports to Eden, SiT William
reports to Lord North, North reports to the
King and the King refuses to believe that his
fellow monarch across the Channel would assist a
pack of rebels. In fact, His Majesty says that
Paul's just 'a dabbler in the Alley' that he wants
to throw the London exchange into a panic and
make a financial coup."

'What does the government think?"

 "As I understand it the fleet's in a rotten
state neglected ever since the old French war.
They haven't ships enough to blockade the
American coast, and they daren't try to blockade
the French. They won't risk a war with France
while they've got this American affair on their
hands. So Hortales et Compagnie can pursue their
busy trade."

'What do you think, Ben?"

 '1hese arms and supplies ace just what the
rebels need. By next summer you'll see the effect.
And if the rebels can give the British army one
good thrashing in this yeaT's campaign I'm afraid
you'll see something else."

'What?"

 "The French coming into the open fighting on
the American side. The French want revenge for
the last war and this is their opportunity. That's
what our mutual friend keeps telling London."
Thompson grinned suddenly. "I wouldn't put it
past Paul

282

to plan a coup on 'Change, mind you. It would be
just like Paul. But that doesn't alter the facts."

 Johnnie twitched his shoulders irritably. It
seemed farfetched, all of it, in spite of his respect
for Thompson's alert mind. The story of Paul's new
role was fantastic, and he said so. Thompson
chuckled.

 "My dear Governor, if you think that's fantasy,
hear this. The rebels themselves have a secret
agent in London. His name is Edward Bancroft, a
Massachusetts schoolmaster with a scientific turn
of mind. He spent some years in South
America in Surinam to be exact studying
tropical botany. Then he moved to London. Gives
scientific lectures there, and so forth. Highly re-
spected. I've a scientific bent myself, as you know,
and I've found the man very interesting. Franklin
also has that bent, and I suppose that's what drew
Bancroft to him when the old fox turned up in
Paris. In any case Silas Reade was one of
Bancroft's pupils in America. So they all got
together. In no time Bancroft was up to all sorts of
mischief in England even hiring some mysterious
fellows to set the royal dockyards afire. He travels
back and forth to Paris, sits in the most secret
councils of the rebel commission, and then slips
back to his lectures in London. Have you guessed
anything from all this?"

"Nothing."

 "Surinam! Surinam! Bancroft wasn't the only
Yankee to wander there. Years ago Paul
Wentworth met a rich widow on a trading voyage
there and married her and lived in Paramaribo till
she died. That was when he moved to
London like Edward Bancroft. In fact, they're old
friends and thick as thieves. There isn't a thing that
Bancroft wouldn't do for Paul. So when Paul
undertook the British secret service, Bancroft was
in his pocket from the start. You see? Bancroft
keeps up his meetings with the Franklin
commission in Paris and tattles every word to Paul
Wentworth. And, Governor, those tattletales
confirm everything we've learned from Paul's own
spies there book, chapter, and verse. D'you still
think it's a fantasy?"

"I don't know what to think," Johnnie said
gloomily.

~83

 "Mind you, the war in America can be won this
summer if our generals use their heads. And
there's an end to the whole conspiracy, both sides
of the sea."

 "What if it isn't won this summer? What if the
French come into the war?"

 "That'll change everything. In the long run I
wouldn't give tuppence for our chances here."

 The even voice, the cool grey gaze, the memory
of Thompson's uncanny insight even as a boy in
the teens, all gave Johnnie a child. He lowered
his gaze to the lees in his cup and sat silent.

 "Well," Ben Thompson said, rising suddenly, "I
must be off if I want to see General Clinton in
New York tonight. He's a hard man to catch away
from his duties and his pleasures, and I have
some matters to discuss for the information of my
lord Germain. While I'm there, sir, I'll put in a
word for your regiment if you like, though it
won't do much good. God-by, Governor. It's been
pleasant seeing you again. Like old days at
Wolfeborough. Let's hope we can shove our
knees under a table at your mansion there before
another year rolls by."

 A short hard grip and he was gone, the shrewd
young Yankee in the councils of King George,
and leaving that strange impression of a wizard
with the knowledge of ages concealed inside a
man of twenty-four.

 For Governor Wentworth's Volunteers the
spring and summer passed in military exercises
according to Johnnie's books, carried on doggedly
in all weathers and with the poorest of
equipment. Sometimes there was a bit of action,
usually at night, when parties of rebels crossed
the Sound in boats to raid the loyalist farms; a
business of sudden alarms and long wild gallops
in the dark, a flurry of pistols and muskets, a few
shadowy figures melting away, and then silence
and no more.

 Late in August came a rumor of fighting in
New Hampshire, but no detail except that
Burgoyne's German troops had clashed with the
rebel militia there. Again Johnnie had that
dismaying vision of his own people at mortal
strife with a swarm of foreign

284

ersand Indians among the familiar farms. It was a
relief when word came that Burgoyne's main
march was down the Hudson after all.

 In September he scratched off an excited letter
to Fannie. Wonderful news! Gneral Burgoyne had
reached Saratoga Springs and would soon be
storming into Albany. Gneral Howe had defeated
Mr. Washington and captured Philadelphia. The
Congress had fled, nobody knew where. The end
was in sight. Next spring he would be riding into
Portsmouth at the head of his gentlemen
Volunteers. She must sail at the first news of Mr.
Washmgton's surrender, which was bound to come
before the winter's end. She must join him in his
happiness.

 The hardwood trees turned color with the first
frosts, and skeins of wool went sailing over the
island sky and out to sea. By mid-October some of
the red maples already were dropping their leaves.
A week later Governor Wentworth's Volunteers
riding back in the dark from a long day's
maneuvers, saw along the horizon a bright tricker
of northern lights.

 "Like home," someone said, and Johnnie thought
of crisp nights when those wildfires danced in the
sky beyond the hills of Wolfeborough.

 At the Trider house he and Benning tramped
stiffly, spurs ajingle, into the light of fire and
candles. Old Trider and his wife stood by the
hearth with somber faces. He sensed something
wrong at once.

"What's the matter?"

 They were silent. Then the woman spoke. "It's
bad news, sir. The rebels have taken Gneral
Burgoyne and his whole army."

"A lie of course," Johnnie said easily.

"I don't think so, sir. It's what they all say in New
York."

 "Ha! New York's always a-buzz with some wild
thing or other."

 But the next night there was a note from George
Brinley. My dear John,

 My thanks for the basket of apples, which
Bannister brought me safely. I keep him waiting for
this brief note, and then he

285

shall be off to you. By this time you must have
heard the sorry news from Saratoga. Burgayne was
cut off and oblig'd to surrender, bag and baggage,
on the seventeenth. Clinton here could do little for
him General Howe holds the main army in Phila-
delphia. This will raise the rebels' tails, I fear, and
we shan't see peace for a long time yet. l mend well,
can limp about on a crutch, and hope to report for
duty by spring. My compliments to you, and to Mrs.
Wentworth when you write.

 "Well?" young Benning said, watching his face.
The boy was nineteen now, impatient to be
fighting in the war.

"It's true," Johnnie said. "Burgoyne is taken with
all his men."

 "Then the war will go on?" The boy seemed
more pleased than sorry.

"Another year. More than that, perhaps."

 After supper Johnnie went up to his chamber
and sat heavily on the bed, head in hands. The
long days in the saddle put a rheumatic ache in
his bones by nightfall now. He was forty-one. His
"regiment" was still no more than a hundred men,
and some of them had begun to slip away, seeking
service in one of the authorized loyalist battalions.
Those who remained were New Hampshire men,
clinging to him out of personal loyalty, and
gentlemen from various other provinces, who
preferred the dignity of riding to war instead of
marching on their feet. He realized now that he
could never build the little troop to a respectable
strength, and without that there was no hope of
getting it on the army establishment, whichever
way the wind blew.

 Three months had passed since the last letter
from Fannie and that just a brief scribble with the
usual things: she was well and happy, the baby
thrived, a rainy summer, my lord and lady
Rockingham sent their compliments. Johnnie
longed for her sadly, and for a sight of little
(Charles. It would soon be two years since he saw
them last, and it seemed half a lifetime.

 He was tempted to sail for England. Training
was over for the winter. The Volunteers were
quartered in a scatter of farmhouses about
Flatbush, where their horses could be stabled at
the least expense. And he was his own master,
after all. No need

286

to ask leave of some lofty British officer. Come
back in the spring.

 But still, the whole rebellion might collapse
before the winter ended, Burgoyne or no
Burgoyne. General Howe had beaten Mr.
Washington and sat in Philadelphia now, the very
seat of the Congress. Besides, all the rebel
merchants must be pinched with the lack of trade
mud money. Men out of work everywhere. You
can't eat a liberty pole.

 For Christmas he crossed over by wherry from
Brooklyn to New York. All was gay in this city
where living was too dear for the poorer loyalists,
but where well-to do refugees seemed to be thicker
than wild pigeons in a summer forest, and where
Clinton's officers were in town for the cold
weather. No one seemed to care about Burgoyne;
indeed some of the British officers declared he had
no business where he was caught, and serve him
right.

 George Brinley was out of hospital, convalescing
in a Tory merchant's home in the Bowery, and
Johnnie had his Christmas dinner there. It was a
noble feast, and afterward, sitting over old brandy
and whiffing segars fresh from Santiago, they
talked of absent wives and of the happy days
before the war. It was Johnnie who turned the
subject to the future. With the talk of the past and
the warmth of the brandy he was beginning to see
everything in a mellow light. He spoke of "riding
home before the next campaign is out."

 Brinley's wounds had made him testy. "That's
nonsense, Johnnie, and you know it."

 "If I rode into Portsmouth tomorrow the people
would welcome me back."

 "Ha! They'd shoot you and your Volunteers out
of your saddles as quick as they did those Germans
of Burgoyne."

"What makes you think sol"

 "Oh, stop spinning fancies, Johnnie. You still
think it was only a mob that turned you out that
the better people wouldn't have done such a thing
Any man in New England could give

287

you an argument on that. But you're ignoring
something else  what's happened since. When
Burgoyne came blundering down from Lake
Champlain he sent his foreigners on a side raid to
New Hampshire. They were supposed to collect
horses and provisions, but in fact they pillaged
every farm they came to. That brought your old
friends the Green Mountain boys flocking down
to fight. And the affair at Bennington was just a
beginning. The whole of New Hampshire set off
to war; every man and boy that could walk and c
arry a musket, heading west over those roads you
cut in the wilclerness, indeed every path or trail
that would take 'em toward Burgoyne. And when
they got to Burgoyne they fought like wildcats,
along with Morgan's Virginians and the New York
militia and the rest of Gates's army. Your old
friend John Starke, your old friend Seth
Warner they could tell you a whole lot about
that."

"May I ask how you know?" Johnnie said stiffly.

 "Firsthand, my friend. When I was in the
hospital a wagonload of rebel wounded came.
They'd got astray from their army and blundered
into one of Clinton's detachments lower down. I
talked to 'em, naturally. Some were from
Massachusetts, some from New Hampshire.
Countrymen, mostly. Quite simple manly fellows,
no ranting, just saying what they knew and what
I'm telling you now. One of 'em had been a
mastman on the Piscataqua in the days gone by.
I asked him how he felt about Governor
Wentworth. 'Johnnie?' he says, pleasant enough.
'Oh, I never had anything agin Johnnie. A real
gentleman from the word G. and a mighty good
woodsman too.' So I said, 'How if he came back
to New Hampshire?' He thought about that a
minute. Then he said, 'They'd never let him back.
He's for the King like Burgoyne.' You see? Like
Burgoyne. They'll never forget Burgoyne. And
you're tarred with the same

"Damme, I'd nothing to do with Burgoyne!"

 "Nor did I, but I was for the King, like you and
Burgoyne, and in my case I've got some pretty
scars to show for it." George grinned sourly at his
segar.

z88

 "Suppose His Majesty's forces win this war.
They'll have to remain, to keep the people in
submission. I wonder what it would be like, back in
Boston, walking about amongst a conquered
people that used to be old friends. Have you ever
thought of that?"

"Not in that way," ]ohnnie said.

 "Ha! They hate a Tory now as they hate an
Indian. Specially Tories like you and me that went
off with the King's army. The Congress has
decided that all Tories of that kind must be ban-
ished forever. They're leaving the detail to the
provincial bodies, and every Committee of Safety
is making a list. You know what that means,
surely? They intend to confiscate the lands and
properties of every Tory refugee, whether he
served with the King's army or not. I tell you I've
seen a copy of the Massachusetts list, sent to the
army here by a secret agent. I'm on it. So is my
brother. I could name you dozens of other Tory
refugees you know, including invalids and old men
who couldn't fight for the King if they wanted to."

"That's Massachusetts."

"I suppose New Hampshire rebels are different?"

 "They were never like your ranting Sam Adams
and his crew," Johnnie snapped.

 All the way back to Long Island he reflected on
George Brinley's words and his embittered face. Of
course George was a cynic now. Those painful
wounds. And that ruined business left behind in
Boston. Nothing to come back to. His only hope
for the future was the British Army, as a career
after the war. He'd done well in the Commissary
Department. Even Gneral Howe had noticed him.
And when it came to promotion his wounds in
action would count for a lot. It wasn't often that a
Commissary officer had a chance to show his
courage under fire. All very well for George. My
case is different.

 Late in January '78, in the chill monotony of his
winter quarters in Flatbush, he received what
appeared to be a letter from New York. The outer
fold was addressed in his brotherin-law's hand, but
when he broke the seal he found a printed

289

sheet with a scrawl in a strange handwriting at the
bottom: "Be assur'd that this will be passed at the
spring session, and as it stands." It was a copy of
an Act to be placed before the assembly of New
Hampshire, listing seventy-five Tories who had
left the province. It forbade them ever to return.
Any who did would be deported and warned. For
a second offense the punishment was death. Peter
Livius vvas on the list, and so were famous old
Robert Rogers of the Rangers, John Cochrane,
Colonel Fenton, Samuel Holland the surveyor,
Bart Stavers, Benjamin Thompson, John
Fisher Anna's husband, ever Fannie's brother,
young Benning.

And the first name on the list was his own.

290

           'rLYEN'rr- ONE

FOR MRS CANNY the year '77 had passed like a
dream, a some

what naughty dream in parts, but none the worse
for that. Among the ton, where Paul had
introduced her simply as Mrs. Wentworth, some
thought her his latest mistress, although the
watchful presence of the little Targill creature
made that a puzzle. Fannie had never told her
captain who or what she really was, even in their
most intimate moments in the rooms off Berkley
Square. Once, when he demanded her real
name "because I love you by Jupiter!" she
answered, laughing, "If I'm loved by Jupiter he
should know."

 From that time he called her Juno and knew no
more about her except that she seemed well-bred,
that she lived in the outskirts of the city
somewhere, and that she had a complaisant
husband, or at any rate someone who kept her well
provided and let her go her ways.

 Fannie favored him with these hours in his
apartments at discreetly chosen intervals. When he
saw her with her friends at the "heater, in the Hyde
Park carriage parade, at the Pantheon, in the
Ranelagh gardens at Chelsea, or across the river in
-the bowers of Vauxhall, she gave him a faint smile
in passing and that was all. He was piqued,
naturally, and Juno kept him so. By the time
summer came she was a little tired of her Jupiter.
There was a sameness about him, the nymph in her
no longer tingled at caresses that followed a
tomfamiliar order, and even his nobility had lost its
flavor. There were other noble fish in the stream of
London fashion quite ready to jump at a pretty Hy.

 The move to Yorkshire in June made a
refreshing break in the affair. The Rockingham
mansion was another world, as far removed from
the captain's arms as Yorkshire from America.

291

Again the Marquess and his lady made her
welcome and lavished their affection on Charles.
Again there was the dignity of being waited on by
a swarm of liveried servants, of moving about
those stately rooms as if she belonged there, of
meeting the friends of my lord and lady as one of
the family, and altogether enjoying the queenly
side of herself instead of the romp.

 It amused her to compare all this with the life
of the ton and with Paul's menage, where the little
Targill woman alternately glowed and sulked with
the master's appearances and disappearances.
Lord Rockingham made an occasional call at
Brandenburg House on his brief visits to London,
but he never discussed Paul with Fannie except to
say once, "Curious feller, that. Known him for
years, but never knew quite what to make of him.
Does anyone, I wonder? Likable, of course, and
most obliging with advice in money matters.
Knows a lot about stockjobbing. I don't have
much to do with those people on Change
Alley or is it Sweetings Alley now? Not a
gentlemen's society. No resection on Paul of
course."

 At the Yorkshire dinners and balls and whist
parties, where the society was so much more
sedate than the fashion of London, there was also
more serious talk about the war in America.
Often Fannie was asked for her views, and she
could only give her invariable reply that it was all
very strange and terrible, and that she prayed
every night for it to end soon and let her join her
dear Governor again.

 When September came she was quite ready to
leave, and she did, over the protests of my lord
and lady as before, and with the same excuses. At
the end of a hard and dusty journey she rejoiced
to see once more the hanging smoke, the forest of
chimney pots rising out of the fields, the dark sea
of roof slates, wave behind wave, and then the
streets thronged with vehicles and people. At
Hammersmith she found Brandenburg House
wrapped in the austere quiet that it always had
when Paul was away. Mrs. Targill looked lonely
and glad to see her back with Prue and the child.
Paul had been absent most of the summer.

"Abroad," Mrs. Targill said with a shrug. Fannie
suspected a

292

woman abroad, and obviously so did the little
brunette. Sometimes Fannie wondered how much
Mrs. Targill suspected of her own excursions,
especially those jaunts to town in the past spring,
when she returned so often with the sunrise casting
long shadows on the road before the chaise and
horses. But, la, who was a kept woman to suspect
or judge Mrs. John Wentworth? As for Prudence,
that good plain creature lived up to her name and
devoted herself to the baby. If she thought
Charlie's mother a rather frivolous woman she
gave not a sign. The only person of whom Fannie
had any misgivings was the coachman at
Brandenburg House. Lest he tell a tale she had
paid him well for the nights when she kept him so
late in town. To make doubly sure she had never
driven directly to Berkley Square, but left chaise
and coachman in a mews off Piccadilly and took a
sedan chair with drawn curtains to the captain's
rooms. In the same cautious way she had refused
the captain's chaise on the return, sending his
manservant out for a chair and departing for the
mews as mysteriously as she had come.

 A few days after her return from the country she
ventured forth to Ranelagh. The ton were back in
town after their summer scatter to Bath and other
country resorts, greeting each other with the
hubbub and preening of pigeons who have all
arrived back at the core together. It was a usual
Ranelagh crowd on a fine night, with a concert in
the tall Rotunda to which nobody listened, and the
gardens alive with gay blades and women and with
small colored tampions glowing like fireflies in the
shrubbery. Once she had a glimpse of her late
lover, the captain of Horse Guards, but she slipped
aside in the crowd.

 In the bleak rains and sleet of the new year she
retired to the seclusion of Brandenburg House and
determined to remain away from the ton until it
was time to go to Yorkshire. She took up her
music again, played with little Charles for an hour
at a time, and wrote long letters to Lady
Rockingham and to Johnnie across the sea.

 She felt quite virtuous about her little fling. It
was Johnnie's fault, sending her off to live with
strangers thousands of miles

293

away and with all this temptation about her.
Where were his senses? Far wiser to have kept
her with him, following the army, no matter what
he thought of those roistering officers. And she
went on thinking of herself as a neglected wife,
thrust away into this silent house of Paul's where
the Targill girl moved about like a mournful
ghost. By February of '78 she was dying of ennui.

 March began with its rough winds through the
streets and died away into the languid airs of an
English spring. Driving back to Brandenburg
House in the dark hours of a morning in the third
week of March, Fannie saw lights in the drawing
room and guessed that Paul was back at last. The
night footman opened the door as the chaise
wheels rasped up to the steps, and she passed him
her cloak as she stepped into the hall. The
drawing room door was open.

 She heard Paul's voice saying, "King Louis
received 'em officially two weeks ago, the full
trio Franklin, Deane, and Lee. Truth is, they've
succeeded in getting a treaty of alliance with
France. The French have even named a minister
to the Congress. Sometime soon they intend to
seize all English shipping in their ports. Then puss
will be out of the bag, all teeth and claws. It
means open war with France by summer at the
latest."

 She did not know why she paused in the hall. It
was only Paul rattling on in his positive way to
some visitor, a member of Parliament probably,
staying late over pipe and port. She was drowsy
after a night's dancing and a late supper with her
newest whim, an avid young conqueror of
nineteen. She would show herself in the doorway
and exclaim, "Paul! How good to see you home
again," and then fly up the stairs to bed. She
moved to the drawing-room entrance, noiseless in
her silk dancing slippers. The greeting was on her
lips, but instead she gasped. The other man,
sprawled in a deep armchair, with his chin on his
breast and his legs thrust out before him, was her
own Governor.

 Johnnie! What the devil was he doing here? She
was in a fever of guilt, in a moment perspiring
even to her upper lip. How had he found out?
Prue? Targill? They didn't even know where he
was. She pictured vaguely an officer of the ton,
gone to

294

America and prattling over the mess tables of a
dashed fine piece who called herself Mrs.
Wentworth, and Johnnie there, the visiting colonel
of American volunteers.

 Paul's back was toward her. Johnnie remained
frowning at his shoe buckles, with his fine lips
thrust out in the familiar way when he was
troubled. Fannie drew herself together. Courage,
my dear. He won't say anything in front of
Paul Johnnie's nothing if not a gentleman. And
once in the bedroom pshaw! A husband's a man
like any other.

 She ran into the room crying, "Johnnie! Johnnie!
Oh my darling love what a wonderful surprise!"
And as he sprang up she threw herself on him,
arms about his neck, kissing and weeping weeping
actual warm tears that made a ruin of her powder
and touches of rouge. She was reassured at once by
his own arms, clutching her so hard that the top
buttons of his military coat were cruel to her
breasts. Quickly she put her head back for his kiss.
It was long and passionate.

 Paul sat watching with his bright curious eyes, as
he watched everything in his world, and with the
pursed smile of a man who has had too much to
do with women ever to believe this little scene.
Mrs. Targill, like all his other clever little ladies,
had kept him well informed.

 Fannie was conscious of that gaze and of the
pale blue crepe so deeply droller, the dress
panniers at her hips awry from sitting in the chaise,
and her white coiffure with its plumes and lace and
pearls all tousled as if she had walked from
London in a gale. Johnnie was holding her off now
at arms' length, feasting his eyes after two long
years of nothing but letters and memories. There
was only admiration in his gaze, but lest he find
awkward questions she rattled out quickly, "Oh,
don't look at me, love, I'm a fright. A dance with
some of Paul's friends, and then nearly upsetting in
the chaise, and now Flubbing my eyes out. You
must come upstairs. Paul's had enough of you,
haven't you Paul? Come, love, tell me how you
came, and why, and and everything. I vow I won't
sleep till you do." Already she was sweeping him
out of the room. Johnnie walked in a trance, with

295

Paul's port and the voice of darling Fan singing
one song in his head.

 It was noon when a polite tap on the door and
Fannie's drowsy "Come in" brought Prue with a
tray and breakfast. Johnnie awoke then and
insisted on Prue's bringing little Charlie to him,
and he sat up in bed playing with the child and
his toys, oblivious of the food.

 Fannie smiled over her teacup. "Haven't we
taken good care of him, Prue and I? See how he's
grown. And so strong, the little rogue I can
hardly hold him when he squirms. And isn't he
handsome? You all over again, except the mouth
and chin. He gets those from his mama, don't
you, love?"

 The child had one of those sunny natures that
accept all the world as playmates, and after the
first strange moments he was quite at ease with
this gentle and humorous new creature in the
household. And Johnnie could not get enough of
him. When Fannie commanded Prue to take the
boy downstairs to play, her Governor was out of
bed at the close of the door, dressing quickly and
hastening down to join Charlie on the
drawing-room fioor. Lazing for another hour,
Fannie could hear faintly the little boy's shouts
and laughter.

 She mused on this unexpected twist of things.
For the best of reasons Johnnie had not talked
much in the night. All she knew was that he had
arrived at Paul's house by coach from Falmouth,
after a passage of only twenty-four days from
New York; he had fumed over the command of
his little troop to Captain John Cochrane; they
had fought in no battles at all; and her young
brother Benning, impatient boy, had gone off lo
one of the established loyalist regiments. It all
sounded paltry and dull. She had pictured
Johnnie leading charges of cavalry, with a
splendid flashing of swords like the Horse
Guards, and driving before him a cowardly rabble
who had exactly the faces of the Portsmouth mob.

 When she came downstairs after an elaborate
toilet she found that he had gone into town with
Paul and would not be back until night. They
returned at dark, bringing Benjamin Thomp

296

son with them, and there was long and serious talk
over tobacco and wine behind the closed doors of
Paul's library. Fannie went to bed in a nettled
mood and preserved to be asleep when at last
Thompson's carriage drove away and Johnnie
came to bed. In the later hours of the morning she
forgave him and again they lazed until noon.

 But the rest of the day was a repetition of the
first. He was away in town until dark and again sat
late in talk behind shut doors, this time with Paul
and a swarthy whiskered man in a round blue
jacket and trousers of some coarse stuff like canvas
very wide in the cut and short in the leg, exposing
a pair of thick shanks clad in striped woolen
stockings.

 "Who the deuce was that?" she demanded
pettishly when Johnnie came to bed at last.

"A sea captain, a friend of Paul's."

 "He looked more like a fisherman. What did you
find to talk about with such an oaf, and so late? I
feel quite put out. Wouldn't you rather talk to
me?"

 "Of course, love. But I've a lot of business to do.
I must go into town again tomorrow."

'What for?"

 "Um well, I have to see various gentlemen
about my affairs. My lord Sackville, and so forth.
For one thing I've got to find how I stand with
regard to my pensions as Governor and Surveyor
General, now that I've left America."

 "You mean you're not going back? What about
your regiment?"

 His sober grey eyes looked away evasively. "I'm
afraid my poor little regiment is about to disband.
The gentlemen are tired of no pay and small
prospects."

 "You should buy yourself a commission in the
regular army, as the gentlemen here do."

 He was silent. In the two frugal years away from
Fannie he had saved roughly a thousand pounds.
In that time, he discovered from Paul, she had
spent more than double the sum.

"The army seems to get along without my services
quite well.

297

In any case I've no great desire to fight
against to fight in a British regiment."

"Because you don't like the morals of British
officers!"

 "It isn't that, Fan. Don't ask me to explain. All
I can say now is that a lot of things have changed
in the past year."

 "Have I?" she asked archly. He seemed in no
hurry to join her in bed, sitting on the edge of it
in breeches and shirtsleeves and with that
brooding look.

 His tight lips parted slowly in a smile. "Yes,
Fan, you too. You're a different woman. Not just
the way you do your hair and all that kind of
thing, but the way you move, everything you do,
even the way you speak like an Englishwoman.
Like a woman of the London fashion."

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

 He put out a hand and touched that soft skin of
a girl who could never be more than seventeen
no matter how time went by.

 "Not at all. You're more charming than
ever and younger. I myself I just seem old. '

 "At two-and-forty? Stuff! You're my handsome
Governor, the very one who set me aflutter the
moment I saw him that day in the Parade at
home. You were the man of London fashion
then, remember? And I was the simple country
wife. Now do stop dawdling with your clothes and
come to me."

 A week later she found him choosing some
clothes and stowing them in a pair of
portmanteaus. He said casually, "I'm going away
for a few days, Fan, a week perhaps."

'Where?"

 'With Paul. It's a confidential matter, love, and
I'm bound to tell no one, even you."

 Fannie sniffed. Her eyes searched his face. His
voice was odd. There had been something odd
about him ever since he came. And now going off
with Paul, that devious wanderer.

 "You're up to something, Johnnie, I can tell.
You and Paul. And it can't be respectable, or
you'd tell your wife."

But the mouth was set in that stubborn jaw. He
kissed her

298

briefly and stepped into the coach where Paul was
waiting. Away they went. Fannie turned and found
Mrs. Targill watching from the doorway. They
exchanged a look.

"Where are they going?" Fannie said.

 The brunette stood with folded arms for a
moment and then turned into the house. Over her
shoulder she said coldly, 'Who knows where men
go?"

 For ten days the two women sat about the house,
passing the time at books and backgammon and
needlework and peering forth quickly whenever
there was a sound of wheels in the carriageway.
Usually it was a tradesman's cart with milk or meat
or greengroceries,and once or twice a messenger
came from Whitehall with a heavily sealed letter
for Paul.

 Then the big coach returned. Paul sprang out
briskly, and Johnnie followed, greeting Fannie with
a heartiness that she knew was false. It was eleven
o'clock in the morning. He was unshaven, and his
plain blue coat and buff breeches had a rumpled
look as if he had been out all night. As soon as he
got indoors he commanded a decanter of brandy
and gulped at a glass of it as if his life depended
on getting it down as quickly as possible. Fannie
watched him with a quite unaccustomed feeling of
dismay. Johnnie? She had always been so sure of
him in all ways. And now she was a betrayed wife.
He had been off with Paul, that smiling rake,
enjoying the devil knew what debauchery for ten
whole days the coach had come from the
direction of the town. Memories of the ton floated
before her, filled with pictures of the women and
their ways with men. Paul was an intimate in that
half-wodd of course; it was he and The Filly who
had introduced her there. Johnnie had changed in
these two years away from her. In New York with
those rakehell officers.. She could see it all now,
and she was outraged.

 He went upstairs to wash and shave. When he
came down in fresh clothes he made straight for
the decanter again. Paul said casually, "Isn't it early
in the day for so much eau de vie?" But Johnnie
did not answer. He remained silent and morose
through the day, eating little and drinking much.
By evening

299

he was drunk, staggering up the stairs and
throwing himself down fully clothed on the bed.
Fannie undressed him with angry jerks and lay
awake most of the night hearing his sodden
snores.

 The next day was like the first, except that Paul
said nothing now, merely running a quick glance
from Johnnie to herself and busying himself with
letters. She was tempted to snatch the decanter
away and demand to know everything, but in the
presence of Paul and Mrs. Targill she held her
tongue. Her chance came on the following
afternoon, when Paul took carriage with the
brunette, all smiles now, and went off to town for
dinner and an evening at the play. Fannie ran
upstairs. Johnnie was just arousing from the long
stupor of last night. He sat up and groaned,
putting his hands to his head. In her anger she
seized him by the shoulders and shook him.

 'Wake up! Wake up, you you sot! If you only
knew how disgusting you look!"

 "Brandy," he begged, and she rattled him again
with a strength that surprised him. In another
moment she snatched a ewer from the marble
washstand and dashed a cascade of cold water
over him.

"Are you awake now?" she cried. "Are you?"

 He stared at her with bloodshot eyes, as if she
were a phenomenon.

"Fan?" And then, "Get me a dram of brandy,
quick!"

 'Where do you think you are in a public
house?" she said furiously. And then, thinking
better of it, "I'll get you a dram at a price."

'What?"

 "That you tell me where you've been and what
you've been doing. I demand to know."

He blinked slowly and regarded her again.

 "Very well." He sank back pn the pillow as if the
effort of sitting up were much too painful.

 She ran down to a sideboard in the dining room
and found a decanter with a pint or more left in
it. When she entered the

boo

bedchamber and closed the door she placed the
brandy where he could see it, out of reach, and
poured a small dram. She faced him with
folded arms and watched him drink it. "Now,"
she said.

3

              wE~rr-~wo

OHNNIE put his tonguetip out and slowly
moistened his lips. "I'll have to go back a way," he
said thickly. And then in a stronger voice, "Back
to Portsmouth, when people began to turn against
me, even my friends. I couldn't believe it. Even
after those rioting fellows drove us out. Even on
Long Island I still thought I could go back. With
a turn in the war, I mean. Everybody coming to
their senses. I'd ride back with my gentlemen
no British soldiers, you understand and
everyone would welcome me."

He closed his eyes.

'Well?" she said irritably.

"Another dram," he begged. "Just to loosen my
tongue a bit."

 She hesitated. Well, why not? Men and their
drams! The looser their tongues the more you
heard. She poured him a big one and watched
him drink it down.

'Where was I?"

"Dreaming of Portsmouth," she said
contemptuously.

 "Ah! That's all I've dreamed about these two
years. The old province and the old friends and
the old times. I never had an enemy but Livius,
and he wasn't a New Hampshire man. Even when
the trouble came I was still Governor Johnnie.
There were hard feelings, but nobody hated me.
Not then."

 Fannie eyed him suspiciously. The second dram
seemed to be whipping his wits together. He was
talking quite rapidly, almost feverishly now. Did
he think he could put her off with this garrulous
talk about old times?

 "When the trouble turned into a war," he went
on, "there was just one hope. A short war. The
whole mad business over and

302

done with in a battle or two about New York and
Philadelphia. That, and cool heads and a wise
policy afterward. The shorter the war the better.
No chance for hard feelings to settle into
something that couldn't be mended. And it was
selfish, I sum pose no fighting in New Hampshire
or anywhere near. I wanted the war to stay well
away from my province and people."

 He closed his eyes for a time and then stared at
the ceiling again. "Burgoyne ruined everything.
That affair at Bennington set all New Hampshire
ablaze, all New England for that matter. Like a
fire in the forest. Every man and boy scrambling
through the woods to fight. That was the first
consequence. No middle minds any more.
Everybody up in arms. Then Burgoyne got trapped
and captured with his whole army. That brought
the second consequence. Ben Thompson had
warned me. The French were watching across the
sea. If the Americans won a big battle against the
King's armies the French would make up their
minds. They'd choose their moment and join the
Americans in the war. And they're considering the
moment now. It'll come before this spring is out."

"How do you know?"

"Paul "

"Him! All he knows is money. Money and women."

 Johnnie lifted his head and looked her in the
eyes. "I'll tell you something something you're not
supposed to know. You must keep it mum. Paul is
the chief British spy in France. He has eyes and
ears everywhere. He knows everything that goes on
in Paris and in the ports. Make no mistake about
that."

 "Humph! Well, I'll believe anything of Paul. G
on. It's you and Paul I want to hear about."

 "The French can't beat the British in
Europe they never could. They've got a strong
fleet, so they'll send their troops to America. A
mighty useful battleground, half a world away, and
not so much as a broken windowpane in France
itself. So the war's to be fought out on American
soil, God knows how long  probably for years.
You see what that means? Every American taking
his stand on one side or the other and blood and
ruin

3o3

everywhere from Maine to Florida. And the black
hate setting in between Americans, Whig and
Tory. It's setting in already. I didn't realize how
far it had gone till about two months ago. I saw a
list of Tory refugees, compiled for the new
Assembly in New Hampshire. They're all to be
proscribed forbidden to return, you understand.
On pain of death. All their property will be
confiscated when the act is passed this spring.
They're to be rubbed off the face of the province
like an old sum from a slate. My name is at the
top."

 He paused again, watching her with that red
and somber gaze as if she must be stricken at this
news.

 'Were you surprised7" she blazed at him. "After
all they did to us in Portsmouth? Bah! I despise
them all. I hate them all. I wouldn't want to go
back there, ever." She paused, and recollecting
herself, "But that's got nothing to do with you and
Paul. Tell me what I want to know and stop this
stupid talk of America."

 "Do be patient, Fan. I can't ask you to
understand, I suppose. Just hear me. As soon as
I saw that list I went to New York and took the
first ship out for England."

'To see me of course?"

"You and the baby, yes."

"Not Paul?"

 "I had to see Paul and some other people in
London," he said guardedly. "And one or two in
Paris."

'Why Paris?"

 He turned his eyes away. "I suppose you know
the American Congress has a commission there.
I heard that my old friend John Adams had been
sent to join them."

"So you went to see him?"

"Yes."

'That Boston rascal the worst of all rebels!"

 "You're thinking of Sam Adams, perhaps. John's
a leader in the rebellion, yes, but he was never
like Sam. He's honest, whatever one may think of
his opinions. We were classmates together at
Harvard College, we were like brothers, he and I,
and we kept

3o4

our friendship after we graduated in '55. I went to
see Adams whenever I was in Massachusetts, and
as you know he visited me when his law practice
took him down East."

 "Oh, I remember well enough. That cold clever
fish! A leveler even then looking down his nose
at what he called our Jittle pomps and vanities' at
Portsmouth."

 "He used to twit me about that, I admit, but our
friendship had nothing to do with positions. Not
for twenty years."

'Well, go on. You went to see him. How?"

 "Paul has ways of getting to Paris quietly and
easily. We crossed to France by night in a Channel
rugger, with that smuggler you saw here. At
Boulogne we avoided the public conveyance. Paul
had a coach waiting. And in Paris we stayed at a
grubby little pension, using false names. One of
Paul's spies has a connection with a quill driver in
the American party, and we found that on a
certain night Mr. Adams would attend the p;~) at
the Comedie Francaise. So I went there and saw
him enter a box near the stage. I lingered about
the entrance to the boxes. I don't understand
French except a few words, and the play seemed to
go on forever. When it was over and the people
arose I stood in the box entrance and seized John's
hand as he came out. For a moment he didn't
recognize me. I suppose when you're in a foreign
country you don't expect to meet anybody you
know. I said, 'Governor Wentworth, sir' and shook
his hand. He knew me then of course. And he was
taken aback. He was cold and suspicious. Maybe
he knew something of Paul's activities. He certainly
knew I'd made my home with Paul when I was in
England before. I'd often talked of that. Perhaps it
was something else. The French themselves have
secret police watching every move of the
Americans in Paris; they don't trust anybody, and
now that they're planning to enter the war they're
watching for any sign of the Americans backing out
of it. They know the British Whigs, especially Lord
Rockingham, are eager to patch up a peace with
the Americans. And Adams knew he was watched.
So when a loyalist American governor turned up in
Paris, shaking his hand in a public place like that,
he may have

3o5

sniffed a plot to discredit him. The meeting would
be known to the French ministry in half an hour.
That's what Paul says anyhow."

 Johnnie dragged himself back to a sitting
position, shook his head as if beset by flies, and
passed a hand slowly over his face.

 'Whatever it was, my old friend looked at me as
if I were a snake he'd met in the woods. I sought
to put him at his ease, asking for news of my
father amdvarious other relatives amd friends in
New Hampshire, and he told me very civilly what
he knew of them. Then I asked after the health of
Dr. Franklin and said I must come out to
Passy he lives outside the city and give the old
gentleman my compliments. I said I shouldn't
dare to see the Marquess of Rockingham on my
return without having paid Franklin a visit. My
lord and Franklin are old friends, you understand,
from the time when we were all in London
fighting the Stamp Act, back in '65."

"Yes, yes go on!"

 "I could see Adams was embarrassed, standing
there talking to me with the French people
brushing about us. So I said I hoped to see him at
Dr. Franklin's house in Passy. I said I'd come in
two days' time, in the morning. And with that we
tipped our hats and parted. Two mornings later
Paul got a carriage for me, and I went out to
Passy. I found them in a small chateau, a queer
pile of stone towers and turrets and gables, a
worse jumble than Uncle Benning's house at
Little Harbor, but comfortable and very prettily
situated in gardens on the bank of the river Seine.
The old doctor peered at me over his spectacles.
He wore a homely snuff-colored suit, with his hair
straggling about his shoulders. Adams was in
broadcloth. He had his son with him a bright little
fellow of ten or eleven, and Franklin had two of
his grandsons there. The boys came into the room
as I was introduced, and to break the ice I talked
with them for a time, asking them how they liked
Paris, and so forth. But I couldn't break any ice
with the two men. I talked about America, of
course, nothing of political matters, just polite and
pleasant trifles, and they responded in the same
way."

306

 Johnnie threw out both hands and splayed the
fingers. "I was like a blind man fumbling at a wall!
I couldn't get to them. I couldn't say what was in
my heart. They were suspicious, they were hostile.
I was an enemy that was in their faces all the
time. As if as if I'd come there with a pistol
hidden under my coattails. Oh, they were polite,
you understand. But behind all that genteel
conversation I could feel them saying, 'For God's
sake go!' And so, at last, I went. Paul had some
business in Paris. I had to remain in that damned
pension like a lost soul in perdition till he was
ready to return. Then we took private coach to
Boulogne and crossed the Channel as before, in
the night."

 He turned and thrust his face into the wet pillow
as if he wished to drown.

 There was a long silence, and then Fannie spoke.
She was still in a frigid attitude, arms folded,
tapping a silken foot.

"What was it you wanted to say to them?"

A muffled voice from the pillow. "You wouldn't
understand."

 "Oh yes I do! You think they'll win their war now
that the French are on their side, don't you? And
you can't bear the thought of being shut out of
America forever. You can't think of anything but
your precious New Hampshire and your precious
friends and relatives on the rebel side and your
precious estate up there in the woods at
Wolfeborough. So you went to ask John Adams
and old Franklin to intercede for you. You went to
ask those rebels for mercy and they wouldn't let
you."

He did not answer.

 "Look at me!" she demanded. "There, that's
better. You can't hide yourself in a pillow. What a
child you are after all! Do you realize what you've
done on this foolish whim? You've risked the only
real position you had left, your pensions and
everything else. Hadn't you any thought for me?
You know perfectly well what would happen if the
Secretary for the Colonies learned what you were
up to calling secretly on those Americans in
Paris. They're watched all the time, you admit that
yourself. And you actually got Paul to arrange it.
How far can you trust Paul, this wonderful spy as
you say? How do you know

3o7

he won't report the whole thing to London, just
to keep his own skirts clean; Why, you must be
mad!"

 Johnnie made no answer. He lay like a
sculptured image of despair, with the nightshirt
ruckled about him in quite classical folds, and
looking indeed what he was, a man who has lost
his last illusions. She was so angry that the image
filled her with contempt. He had abandoned the
neat London wigs, which were now going out of
fashion, and wore his own hair long, and now in
spite of the queue it was tangled and hanging in
untidy bunches about his temples, with most of
the powder shaken out of it and natural grey
hairs showing among the brown. There were sacs
under his eyes from the drinking and long hours
of stupor since he got back from France. He
looked old enough to be her father.

 She was scornful, and yet, as she stood there
contemplating him, she felt pity too. She could
not love him in the old way any more. Not with
the reflection of a fresh young woman in the
twenties which her own mirror gave her every
day. But in the other part of her, the second
woman, the calm and regal self which was so
utterly separated from the romp, she could not
help thinking of all he had meant to her in days
gone by, and her mind turned to the future, with
Johnnie as her partner in the business of making
a way in the world. The weaker partner now,
because his mind was still rooted in New
Hampshire and his old small round. Her mind
was free of all that. London  London was the
heart of the world, America or no America. The
home of the King, of Parliament, and an empire
where there were always good posts for those
who knew the right people and could pull the
proper tassels. If the King's armies won the war
in America, well and good. But she had no wish
to go back to Portsmouth. If Johnnie could get
the governorship of New York, say, or one of the
southern provinces where the gentry lived and
entertained like lords, on great estates with
swarms of servants, that would be satisfactory.
They could visit England from time to time, and
when the time came they would retire in England
where her spirit belonged. It was only an accident

308

that she was born in America. She spoke and
thought and lived as an Englishwoman now, and
she wanted to be nothing else. If only Johnnie
could get a good position here! Surely he could do
it with a little influence in the right places. Young
Benjamin Thompson had done it with no influence
at all. The only shadow was this Paris escapade.
She would say no more about it. Let it be
forgotten as quickly as possible, and pray that my
lord Sackville never heard a whisper.

 And so she left the wretched man in the bed and
walked slowly down the stairs. Paul was still at his
letters in the library. She had a notion to confront
him with the whole affair. Had he fallen in with
Johnnie's whim merely to oblige an old friend? Or
had he used Johnnie deliberately in a stupid little
plot against Adams and Franklin, under the
suspicious eyes of the French? Paul was a ruthless
gambler, capable of anything. But she chose to
keep her peace. She even permitted herself a hard
little smile, thinking, We can't quarrel, any of us;
we all know too much about each other.

 She turned her thoughts to the future. With
Johnnie here things would have to be different. No
more little peccadilloes. A harmless flirtation now
and then perhaps, just to assure herself that she
was losing none of her charm. But from now on
she would be unmistakably the lady of Governor
Wentworth, with Johnnie at her side, no longer a
shadowy presence across the sea. A pair of brave
loyalists in exile, with every claim to the best of
English hospitality. A man and wife could make
their way in good society where a lone woman
couldn't, even with such powerful patrons as the
Rockinghams. Especially in that powerful and
sedate society which lay outside the ton, dimly seen
but solid as a pyramid, with the royal family at the
top. As Whigs, the Rockinghams and Johnnie's
other titled friends were all on the wrong side of
royal favor. It was time to cultivate a few on the
right side as well. One or two of her lovers were
slips of the Tory nobility, but that was not the
same thing as being received in their family
drawing rooms. Well, we shall see.

For a few days Johnnie remained subdued, and by
a little con

3o9

spiracy with Mrs. Targill and the house servants
Fannie kept the brandy from him. He had always
enjoyed food and drink, but never to excess; his
pride of person kept him from drunkenness.
Gradually now he recovered himself, he could
even laugh sometimes, especially when romping
with little Charlie, and whenever Fannie
permitted him he was the uxorious and grateful
husband again.

 They went to the plays, they dined with
Johnnie's old friends, they rode together in Hyde
Park. Fanny led him boldly to the Pantheon and
the other evening haunts of the fashion,
introducing him to her friends in a clear voice as
"my husband, Governor Wentworth," and clinging
to him at the balls and masquerades very prettily
and possessively, as if she feared some naughty
creature might run off with him if she let him out
of her sight. When occasionally she encountered
one of her former indulgences she met his eyes
with a blank chill stare, and for their part they
glanced at Johnnie ironically, wondering how long
this handsome middle-aged successor could hold
his elusive prize.

 The weeks rode by, and when June came they
went off with Prudence and the baby to spend the
summer at Wentworth Woodhouse. In these rural
scenes, astride my lord's magnificent horses,
Johnnie was in his element. The shadow passed
from his face and then from his eyes. He seemed
happier than he had been at any time since the
old days on his own country seat in the New
Hampshire hills. Fannie herself found it a little
too much like the Wolfeborough days. He was
gone from morn to night, often beyond the estate
altogether, roaming the country, quizzing the
farmers about horses and cattle and sheep,
inspecting the woolen mills on every stream, even
going down one of the shallow coal pits. What
was worse he talked about these things at dinner
and in the evenings, as if they were all of im-
mense importance, as if he would use this
knowledge somewhere presumably in
America after the war.

 The Marquess and his friends joined in this talk
with the sure knowledge of landowners. It was all
very dull. She was relieved

310

whenever my lord turned the subject to the war,
even though the news was bad. In June word came
across the sea that the secret alliance between
France and the United States of America  that
strange new term which Fannie refused to
utter had been announced by the Congress.
Within a few days British and French warships
were at hammer and tongs in the Channel and all
through England there was a scurry of militia,
drilling and marching, wearing their uniforms very
badly, and looking as fierce as if French invaders
would arrive at any moment.

 Toward the end of July, in a week of soft
persistent rain that drenched the lawns and park
and kept the ladies indoors, the post arrived with
a London newspaper. Over the dinner that night
my lord had a whimsical look and Johnnie looked
dour as death. There were more tidings from
America. In view of his new dangers, with a
French fleet on the sea and possibly a French
army as well, Gneral Howe had abandoned
Philadelphia and retreated to New York, with Mr.
Washington in hot pursuit.

 "Good lack!" Fannie said as they undressed for
bed. "One would think the wodd was coming to an
end, to see your face."

"My world is," Johnnie said.

 "You heard what my lord said. The war's not
over. It's just beginning."

"Yes," Johnnie said. "So it is."

31T

            TlYENTr-THREE

  s PAR as Fannie was concerned the war could
go on forever. Life had never been better. If Lord
Germain ever heard of Johnnie's rash visit to
Paris nothing came of it. The Board of Trade and
Plantations went on paying his pension, of �600 a
year as Governor of New Hampshire and �400 as
Surveyor General of His Majesty's Woods, and
raised no question whatever about his living in
England until the American trouble was settled
and he could go back to his posts.

 In Paul Wentworth's hospitable home, with his
staff and stable and carriages, they were able to
live grandly without a penny of household
expense, leaving a clear thousand a year for
clothes and amusement. That was only a pittance
in the fashionable world, of course, but with
clever management and a cunning dressmaker
Fannie was able to stretch it far. With these
contrivances and a few hundred guineas now and
then from the generous Paul they could always be
seen with the right people in the right places.
When the country was the thing they stayed with
well-to-do friends, acquired in Bath and other
resorts of the fashion, and always there was the
princely hospitality of Wentworth Woodhouse in
the north. Altogether they were able to follow the
fashionable cycle as if they had a fashionable
income, including a journey across the Channel in
summer for the pleasures of Brussels and the
medicinal waters of Spa.

 France had been joined by Spain and Holland in
the war at sea, and there were even rumors of
daring American privateers off the British coast.
But tile war in America was like a shadow on the
moon's face, too far to be felt at all and only
vaguely to be seen. Johnnie watched the
newspapers with a keen eye, but Fannie only
knew that General Clinton still hung about New

312

York, and that the hero now was Lord Cornwallis,
winning victories all over the southern colonies.
London was buzzing with these and especially the
exploits of his young English cavalry officer,
Colonel Tarleton, who commanded a brigade of
loyalist dragoons. Whenever there was news of
Tarleton's Legion, Johnnie would exclaim, "There!
I always said there was nothing like a regiment of
Americans, moving everywhere on horseback and
trained to fight on foot as well as in the saddle.
That's what I tried to raise, but they wouldn't listen
to me."

 London had another hero, present and visible, in
the spring of 1780, when little Prince William came
home in his midshipman's uniform, straight from
the wars. He was only fourteen, and he had
actually served with Admiral Rodney in a sea
battle near Gibraltar. Everybody was toasting "our
intrepid Sailor Prince." Fannie commanded her
husband to make sure of seats at Drury Lane one
night in March, when the King and Queen were
taking the small hero to see The Tempest.

 Nobody paid much attention to the play. William
sat with Prince George and Prince Frederick in a
box, facing his father and mother in another.
Before the play could begin at all there was
tremendous ovation to the little middy, everybody
tossing up hats and waving handkerchiefs and
clapping and shouting "Huzzah!"

"What a manly little fellow," Johnnie said, between
the acts.

 "Homely," Fannie observed. "A very red face and
that odd shape to his head. He looks like a
coconut scraped down one side and painted scarlet
for a curio. And how pleased with himself! A brat,
I venture; I'd much rather look at the Prince of
Wales. He's eighteen amd handsome enough for a
picture. See how he keeps glancing toward the
curtain. Perdita's not on the stage tonight; she's
not well, it seems, and he misses her."

"Who's Perdita?"

 "Don't be stupid. Mrs. Robinson the actress. He's
madly in love with her; it's the talk of the town,
and that pimp Lord Malden's wooing her
desperately on the prince's behalf. Everyone's
betting she'll give in, too, before the month is out."

313

"How the deuce do you know all this, Fan?"

"Oh, we ladies are quite interested, naturally."

 "Lord Malden should be horsewhipped," Johnnie
growled, "and she too."

 "Come now, darling! She can't help being the
handsome creature she is or enjoying the
attentions of a prince. She's really a very
intelligent woman she actually writes and
publishes poetry."

'Where's her husband? If she's really got one."

 "Living with her of course. I'm told he's very
accommodating where her lovers are concerned.
Don't look so scandalised! This isn't New
Hampshire, darling. How often must I tell you
that?"

"But a boy of eighteen!"

 "Pshaw! All boys of eighteen must learn about
women, and she may as well teach him. Much
better Perdita than some common little strumpet,
I say. Ah! There's the curtain going up

  -,

agam'

 News came from New Hampshire in devious
ways. Bit by bit Johnnie learned the fate of his
property. When the state congress moved to
confiscate it, his father put in a claim of �~3,ooo
for money advanced on the estate at
Wolfeborough. But a swarm of other creditors
appeared, with claims for thousands more. Grim
old Mark had been able to rescue nothing but the
family portraits and what remained of the
furniture in the house on Pleasant Street. The
contents of Wentworth House at Wolfeborough,
even to the books from Johnnie's library, had
been sold at auction and so had the timberlands.

 For a long time there were no bidders for the
big house and farm, so far from Portsmouth and
so costly to maintain. But at last, in 1781, the
state trustee sold them to a Massachusetts man.
"Andrew Cabot," said a mysterious letter, "who
has made a pretty fortune in privateering since
this war began. You will smile at the price,
�354j470 Continental paper currency, which is
worth no more than �g,ooo sterling. All goes to
the creditors of course.

314

The state gets nothing for its trouble. And you see
what a pickle our Sons of Liberty have got their
money in."

 When this news came in the autumn of '8I
Johnnie and Fannie had settled down for the
winter at Brandenburg House, after another
summer spent about the English countryside and
on the continent. The war had shut off France and
Holland and Spain to English travelers, but
Belgium remained open and was now more
popular than ever.

 Governor and Mrs. Wentworth had traveled
there in July leaving little Charlie in the care of
Prudence and the Rockinghams. A fast packet
sloop took them from Ramsgate to Ostend,
braving the danger of small French privateers
dashing out from Dunkirk. But none appeared,
and they traveled in a hired diligence through the
flat green Flanders landscape to the Belgian
capital. There they tarried a fortnight, dining and
wining with fashionable English visitors, attending
the Opera and the Co?nedie, riding in the Parc, or
merely driving in an open carriage about the
streets of the handsome old city.

 The merry Belgians did not seem to mind their
Austrian rulers; indeed they were celebrating, with
days and nights of high festivity, the arrival of a
beautiful Austrian archduchess as their governor.
Once, pressing close in the throng, Fannie saw her
go by.

 "I could have put out my hand and touched her!"
she said, thrilling. "Just think, she's a daughter of
the Queen of Austria and sister to the Queen of
France!"

 "What an abject royalist you are!" laughed fat
amiable Lady Derby, whose husband was one of
the great Whigs.

 "You mustn't forget," retorted Fannie, as she did
on every possible occasion, "that we have suffered
cruelly and lost everything, my dear Governor and
I, for our own King."

 "Let us hope then, my dear, that His Majesty will
someday put out a hand and touch you both." The
lady settled back in her carriage and drove on.

 "Someday," murmured Fannie to nobody at all,
"someday he shall."

315

 They moved on to Spa, the little town in the
wooded slopes of the Ardennes, where again they
found the ton. Fannie had tasted the famous
waters and found them horrid. It was far better to
sip a light Rhine wine in the shade of the trees
before the hotel, watching the livelier young men
of the ton at cricket on the green, or riding with
them in the shady woods, or dancing with them in
the evenings, while Johnnie lay long hours in the
baths and sipped faithfully at the nauseous waters
for the good of his rheumatism.

 He was getting a paunch now, and a settled fat
began to show in his silk-stockinged calves and in
his face, the result of these idle years in England.
His old restless energy and the hard muscular
figure had been left behind in the New
Hampshire woods. In the mornings, before his
hair was powered, the grey showed increasingly in
the straight brown locks.

 At thirty-six Fannie could look at herself in the
glass without a qualm. There was not a line in her
face. The satin skin, the wide-set dark eyes, the
slender tilt of nose, the mouth with its sensuous
little pout, the high cheek bones, the wilful
chin nothing had changed. People often spoke in
her hearing of "the American governor and his
pretty young wife," and some, ob serving her
English accent and manners, assumed that this
middle-aged man had married a girl of some
well-bred London family since he fled across the
sea.

 From Spa they had moved on to Antwerp for a
week and then returned to London. Prue had
brought young Charlie down from Yorkshire, and
Paul was there, stocky and nimble and smiling,
and darting his sharp blue glances. Mrs. Targill
had gone long ago. She had not lasted more than
two years, and she had not been replaced.
Perhaps Paul found the immediate presence of a
mistress a little embarrassing after Johnnie came
to join the household. Probably he was satisfied
now with his ladies on the continent, where he
spent so much of his time.

 He was French in his dress, even to his coiffure,
and his conversation bubbled with French phrases
that came fluently and naturally, not like the
self-conscious bits of French that Fannie,

316

with so many of the ton, put into their speech like
plums in pudding. He seemed to have slipped into
a French way of life with the same ease that
enabled him, long ago, to change so quickly from
a young Yankee merchant into a fashionable Eng-
lishman.

 When Paul was at home there were almost
nightly dinner parties, with cards or talk or music
afterward according to the taste of the company.
Often there were distinguished American refugees
like young Sir William Pepperell of Kittery and old
Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts and
Copley the painter, late of Boston and now a huge
success in England. Benjamin Thompson came
sometimes, slipping off his scientific hobbyhorses
as well as his post as Undersecretary of State for
the Colonies. And once Robert Rogers came, an
old, untidy, ugly caricature of the famous Indian
fighter who had led the New Hampshire rangers in
the old French war. Since then he had spent most
of his time in England, living on his reputation, his
half pay, and his wits, and slowly becoming the
unlovely sot he was now. At the start of the
American war he had gone to Boston to raise a
corps of rangers for the King's service. For that his
native New Hampshire proscribed him, like
Johnnie amd the others. Eventually he had
recruited a small corps among the loyalists on
Long Island, but he was too old and too drunken
a man to command it in the field, and Howe had
dismissed him as worthless.

 "He kep' my men though," Rogers grumbled.
"Put a young sprig of an English officer in
command and calls 'em the Oueen's Rangers."

 "I saw them on Long Island," Johnnie said.
"They've done well in the fighting since." But all
this reminded him of his own failure with the
Volunteers, and he fumed the subject to something
happier for them both, their memories of the New
Hampshire mountains and the mountain men.

"What a disgusting creature!" Famnie said when he
was gone.

"I enjoyed him," Johnnie said mildly.

"The way he kept talking of 'us loyalists' ugh!"

317

 Johnnie cocked a whimsical brow, but he said
no more, and Fannie went to bed still indignant.
She liked to think, indeed she always spoke, of
the loyalists as a superior class, the better part of
American society. It was outrageous to suggest
that there might the common and even vulgar
creatures in their ranks.

 Late in that autumn of '8l Johnnie met
Benjamin Thompson riding in Pall Mall. They
pulled up knee to knee, and Johnnie said, "Hello,
you look very serious."

 Ben gave him one of his clear cool looks. "So
will you when I tell you what I've just heard. It'll
be all over London tomorrow. Lord Cornwallis
and his army have surrendered, just like Bur-
goyne."

 "No! Why, Cornwallis has beaten rebel armies
all over the South!"

 "Small armies his and theirs. He made the
great mistake of marching north where the big
armies were and expecting Clinton to support him
from New York. You know Clinton. He just sat
where he was. So Mr. Washington slipped away
with the whole of the Atnerican and French
forces and sent the French Beet to block any
escape by sea. They caught Cornwallis at a little
tobacco landing called Yorktown. And that was
the end of him."

 Ben paused. "The end of this government, too,
I think. North and his cabinet can't survive this
blow, even with the King behind 'em. You'll see
the Whigs in power again by spring and your
humble servant out of work."

"A Whig government," Johnnie mused. "Who'll
head it?"

 Thompson smiled. "Your friend Rockingham
probably. Of course there's Lord Shelburne,
who's ambitious. And there's Charles Fox, the
best of all brains amongst the Whigs but he's
erratic, no one ever knows what Fox will do. I
think it will be Rockingham. You'll be all right,
sir."

 When Johnnie told all this to Fannie that
evening she reflected a moment and said "That
means you can get your pay increased of course.
You should be getting the full �800 as Surveyor
General, and they cut you down to half. You
might even

318

ask my lord for an addition to your pension as
Governor. You could say your expenses now are
much more than they were at home."

 "I'd better leave well enough alone," Johnnie
said. "I'll be lucky if they keep on paying me a
thousand pounds a year for nothing."

 "Pooh! Get along with you! You're always
looking on the gloomy side of things.'!

 Johnnie gave her one of his patient looks.
"England can't go on fighting one nation in
America and three in Europe. My lord
Rockingham's told me not once but many times
that this war must be stopped; if necessary it must
be ended on the Americans' own terms. What then
becomes of posts like mine?"

 "Well," she said quickly, "what if England does
give up America? There are good posts to be had
in London if you'll just assert yourself a little with
Lord Rockingham. Zooks, I wish I were you and
you were me. I'd assert myself, I assure you!"

 He nodded resignedly and said no more. What
was the use? Poor innocent Fannie. She thought
that posts and money grew on bushes as most
women did. When you were lucky they said I told
you so. When your luck was out they said it was
your fault.

 All through the winter, London's drawing rooms
and clubs and coffeehouses chattered over those
tidings from America. In March of '8z the result
came. Lord North resigned, and out went the
government, with all the sins of the American war
upon its head. In came the great Whig lords again,
to the disgust of the King, and to the delight of
Gvernor and Mrs. Wentworth. Their good friend
and patron Rockingham was head of the new
cabinet.

 But Paul, hopping over from France to London
at the news, offered Johnnie some shrewd
comment.

 "I daresay this means the end of my
interesting and lucrative work for the late
government. Charlie Fox is Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, and he'll throw out everyone connected
with North. Heigh-ho! As for you, my dear
Johnnie, don't be too sure of things. Your friend
Rockingham's a charming man, but weak

319

for what he's got to handle. He has one faction of
the Whigs behind him, but Lord Shelburne has
another just as powerful. Shelburne despises
Rockingham and everyone connected with him.
And, my dear Johnnie, Shelburne is now
Secretary for the Colonies your department."

'What's your drift, Paul? I don't see...."

 "Johnnie, Rockingham wants to end the war, but
on some sort of honorable terms for England.
Shelburne's quite cold about that. It's no secret
that Shelburne would throw everything overboard
in North America tomorrow if he could. Scratch
the whole expense off the ledger and have done
with it. He won't even wait till the war can be
brought to an end. He and Burke  a sharp
devil have had their heads together for weeks on
immediate economies. They're plamning a bin to
cut away aD sorts of posts and salaries, at home
and abroad, from the King's household to the
Board of Trade and Plantations. D'you see what
I mean?"

"I begin to see. But you're a pessimist."

 "If I were you I'd see Rockingham as soon as
possible. He daren't oppose Shelburne's group.
AD he can do for his friends is to grant pensions
in other directions before the new bill can go into
effect."

 Johnnie hesitated for a week. Lord
Rockingham's town house, which he had used so
little in the long years out of office, was now
buzzing with cabinet ministers and messengers,
and besieged with supplicants like Johnnie
himself.

 At last Johnnie wrote a polite little note
requesting an interview, but there was still no
answer by mid-April when the economy hid was
placed before the Commons and the Lords. As
the debate went on Ben Thompson caned at
Brandenburg House.

"I've come to say good-by, Governor. I'm off to
America."

"What for?"

 "To fight," said ~o~lmpson calmly. "It Seems
the only thing to do now. Our generals haven't
learned much in the past six years, but at least
they've learned to equip loyal American regi

320

meets and give tem encouragement in the way of
rank and pay. As for the war, there's still a chance.
The rebel armies are just as weary as the British,
and the Congress is bankrupt. One resolute
campaign this coming summer, redcoats and
loyalists together, and we'd end the whole affair
before another snow."

 "How do you propose to fight?" Johnnie's tone
was quizzical. It was hard to picture this ingenious
civil servant as a soldier.

 "I have a commission to raise a mounted
regiment among the loyalists d'you know there
are thirty thousand loyalist refugees in New York
alone? I'm to call it the King's American
Dragoons."

"Ah! That's what I tried to do. I always said...."

 But Thompson cut him short, with a tolerant
smile. Poor Governor Johnnie had been saying
that for years. It was his defense for waiting
through the war in England. He had been eager to
fight the rebels wherever they might be found, but
the general would not listen. Johnnie really
believed it now. He talked sometimes as if his
naive little troop of "gentlemen" could have won
the war singlehanded in '77.

 "I'm afraid I must be on my way, sir. I met Mr.
Paul Wentworth in town and took my leave of him
there. Will you give my compliments to your lady?"

 He put out his hand and Johnnie shook it
fervently. What it was to be young! No doubts no
doubts about anything.

 It was nearly noon, and Fannie came downstairs
in a morning robe of pink silk and lace, yawning
and tapping fingers over her mouth. She had been
in town late the night before, and Johnnie looked
up fondly. How many men his age had wives who
could look so charming in the mornings? In the
past two years he had begged off many of those
evening trips to town. Fannie was tireless, but he
found it hard to keep up the round, especially the
dancing, and because he was a serious player he
found the chatter at card parties irritating. It was
easier and much more satisfying to sit at home
playing ecarte or cribbage with Paul, or with some
neighboring crony when Paul was not there; or
merely to sit alone by a good fire, reading a book
or the latest

32~

newspaper, with a bottle of prime port at his
elbow and now and then a segarin his teeth. He
did not enjoy these Cuban things, which Fannie,
like so many ladies and gentlemen of the ton,
affected nowadays; he preferred Virginia in a
long cool clay, but tobacco of that kind was hard
to get, especially now that His Majesty's forces
had all but abandoned the southern colonies.

 Fannie came over and kissed him on the
forehead. 'Who was that you were talking to?"

 "Eh? Oh! Young Ben Thompson. He lost his
post when the government fell, so he's off to fight
m America."

 "That's silly, isn't it? I thought you said or was
it Paul that this new government intends to end
the war as soon as possible."

 "So they do. But there'll be months and months
of negotiating, you may depend. And it'll all be so
much easier for our side if His Majesty's forces
cm improve their position m the meantime. It's
like a game of cards. You need a trump or two in
hand. And speaking of cards, did you enjoy. your
party last night?"

An indolent gesture of Fannie's hands. "Comme
cat, comme

,pa.n

 "That sounds as if you held bad cards. You
always play so well.

 "I've held better cards, but I think I played
quite well." The faint smile passed over Fannie's
lips. '1he company complimented me."

 That afternoon there was a sound of carriage
wheels, and Paul came bursting m, with eyes
round and gleaming like the blue china buttons
on his French coat.

 'Well, it's passed," he shouted, "and the town's
in an uproar I can tell you. Burke got the bill
through the Commons, and Shelburne's sure to
pass it through the Lords. They've slashed right
and left, like a pair of mad hussars in a shop full
of plaster images. The principal officers of the
Great Wardrobe, the Jewel Office, the Treasurer
of the King's Chamber, the Cofferer of the
Household, six of the Board of Green Cloth all
must go! I'm told the King actually consents,
imagine thatl And of course

322

they took a particular slash at the Secret Service.
They've cut the fund to a pauper's ransom, and
henceforth the Secretaries of State must take a
solemn oath on every penny they spend. Which
means I'm on the heap with all the rest. And I've
told you nothing yet."

 He seemed almost happy in a devil-may-care
way, but now the grin vanished and he looked at
Johnnie with concern.

"Go on," Johnnie said stolidly.

"It's bad."

"I've heard bad news before."

 "Well, they've as much as admitted America's
gone. I mean they've cut away dozens of the old
American posts and salaries in one swoop. You'll
begin to see what I mean when I say they've
abolished the Lords of Trade and Plantations.
Your office as Surveyor General of the King's
Woods won't exist any more."

 Johnnie looked up at Fannie. "There goes four
hundred pounds a year."

 "I'm afraid it's worse than that," Paul said grimly.
"You see, they've slashed the Pension List too.
Those that remam will receive not more than �300
a year; that's the limit; and their names and
pensions are to be laid before Parliament at each
session in the future. So even that won't be
certain."

 Fannie stared. She was at her full height, straight
and rigid as a marble pillar, and clutching the robe
about her like an outraged Boadicea.

 "Are you saying we're to be cut off with a
miserable allowance of three hundred poumds a
year?"

"If that," Paul said.

 "But it's impossible! How can we live on that?
You know what a pinch we've had to get along on
a thousand."

 "I'm afraid we're not expected to live on it,"
Johnnie said quietly. "I shall have to find
something to do."

 "Do! The thing for you to do is to go and see my
lord Rockingham at once and put an end to this
nonsense!"

Paul glanced at Johnnie. "Your friend
Rockingham's in a bad

323

position for that, I fear. Just before the bill went
through he awarded fat pensions to his good
colleagues Barre and Lord Ashburton. Both
Commons and Lords are boiling over that. He
couldn't grant another penny to anyone. Your
best chance is to approach him later in the year,
when things have simmered down, and see if he
can get you a post in the West Indies, or
somewhere like that."

"Fever and mosquitoes and black people," Fannie
cried.

 "It's not as bad as all that," said Paul slowly. "I
once lived in Surinam still have an estate there.
At the moment it's one of the few assets I have
left."

 Johnnie looked at him. Paul had always been so
affluent that this hint came as a shock. They
stared at each other for a moment and looked
away. It was true, then. These years of war
involving America and half Europe had ruined
other speculators, why not Paul? And now his rich
Secret Service income was gone too.

 "How much do I owe you?" Johnnie asked, still
gazing across the room.

"I've told you before. Nothing."

 "But you've lent us thousands, besides giving us
a home all this time."

 Paul grimaced. He made an odd figure, sitting
with nonchalance in the chair, in the foppish
French coat, rich lace at wrists and throat, elegant
white breeches and silk stockings, shoes with
enormous gilt buckles curving over the instep and
almost touching the floor at each side. His hair,
once the color of good New England hay, was
pink with the pomade and tinted powder in vogue
among the beaux of Paris and London, with the
pigtail clubbed in a pink silk bag. And yet there
was the long pointed nose, thrusting into the air
before him for all the world like the bowsprit of
a Piscataqua sloop, and the blue eyes that had in
them all the worldly wisdom of fifty-one and yet
shone with the adventure of a Yankee boy's.

 "My dear Johnnie, we're friends and kin. Your
father gave me a start in New Hampshire many
years ago. That put me on my curious way to
fortune. If there's any debt it remains mine.

324

Say no more about it. The war's ruined many
more than you and me. We'll have peace soon, I
feel it in the air, and then we can recoup our
fortunes one way or another. Courage, mon ami
courage!"

325

            [~ENTr-FO UR

L!ARLY in May Johnnie sought in person an
interview with the Marquess. As he approached
the big town house he was startled to see straw
laid thickly in the street before it, and at his
knock a stout footman in the Rockingham livery
and plush breeches appeared, recognised him, and
said in a broad Yorkshire voice, "M'lord is very ill,
sir. He can see no one, sir, the doctor says."

 Johnnie murmured, "Please convey my deep
regrets to His Lordship."

 "I'll speak to the doctor, sir. Will you step into
the drawing room if you please?"

 He dropped on a chair. A pair of
women-servants swam by on tiptoes. The house
had the atmosphere of death. Rockingham? He
was barely turned fifty and as hale as a hunter.
Some passing fever perhaps.

 The man appeared again. "M'lord wishes to see
you, sir. Will you come this way?"

 They passed up the stairs. A soft tap on a door,
a murmured "Come!", and he was inside a large
chamber where the velvet window hangings had
been drawn against a bright spring sun. In this
semi-gloom he could see a stout man in
broadcloth standing by the foot of the great bed,
the doctor of course, and as he advanced a dim
head turned on the pillow.

"John," it said cheerfully.

 His pupils were widening to the shadow now,
and he was startled by Rockingham's appearance.
The healthy Yorkshire pink had gone from his
features and left a mask of drawn tallow. The eyes
glittered with something more than fever.

 "Come near," the Marquess said. "Whatever I've
got is not contagious, John. A pain inside. I
daresay it'll go away in a few

326

weeks. Did before. What did you want to see me
about? You sent a note, but I've been so busy with
Parliament."

 "Oh, sir, my concerns are too small to inflict
upon you here. Another time."

 "I think I know, my dear fellow. It's that bill of
Burke's. Shelburne was bound to have it, y'know.
Nothing I could do. Have to keep peace in my
party or down we go, the way we did before. North
and the King would be delighted. Can't have that."

 The physician spoke. "I can allow you only five
minutes, my ]ord."

 '~Very well. We must come to the point, John,
eh? You're cut off with a pittance like so many
others. And America's gone, we must recognize
that. No hope for you there now. Sad, that. Very
sad. We must find a post for you somewhere.
Nothing here, nothing at all, with all these
economies. Have you ever seen Nova Scotia?"

"Once or twice, sir, yes."

 "Burke has a poor opinion of the place. Calls it
a worthless expense to this country, and so on. But
it's something something. Anything's better than
nothing in these times, eh? I have in mind the post
of Governor. About a thousand pounds a year. The
post came to my attention with a lot of other
things when we were considering Burke's new bill.
Present governor's a feller named Legge,
appointed by the Earl of Dartmouth years ago.
Had some trouble there with the people in '76.
Legge was recalled to England but allowed to keep
his post. Odd situation, very. He's been here ever
since, drawing his full salary and paying some part
of it to a lieutenant governor in Halifax. That's the
capital town of the province, I believe. D'you
follow me?"

"Yes," Johnnie said.

 'Well, we can't let that go on. Cut off this useless
Legge  there's a pun for you I can still laugh,
you see. Appoint a new governor and send him out
to Nova Scotia with full powers and pay."

Johnnie was silent for some moments. His
memories of Nova

327

Scotia were not attractive. A poverty-stricken
patch of rock and forest at the tag end of New
England. The province of Canada was much
bigger and better, but of course Livius was Chief
Justice there; he could never get along with the
man, and the old intrigues would begin again at
Quebec as they had in Portsmouth. In any case
my lord hadn't mentioned Canada. Nova Scotia
then. Beggars can't be choosers.

 "I think I'd like the post," he said, wondering
what the deuce Fannie would say. The place was
just a poor caricature of New Hampshire, with
everything mean in scale. New Hampshire at the
wrong end of a spyglass.

 The voice of the doctor broke in sharply. "I
think your visitor should go now, my lord."

 "Tush!" said the Marquess. "Another minute or
two won't kill me or you, my dear Parkinson.
Now, John, there's just one thing about this Nova
Scotia post. Shelburne has a man in mind, a
friend of his. A veteran of the old French war
named Parr. At present he's Major of the Tower
of London, a snug little post, and besides, mind
you, this Parr draws full pay as colonel of a
regiment. He should be satisfied with that, but
he's got his eye on something more. Well, I
mentioned your name strongly to Shelburne as a
deserving loyalist and an experienced Governor.
The matter will be decided this summer, so that
the new Governor, whoever he is, can make the
voyage in good weather. Remind me early in July.
And now Parkinson's looking daggers at his watch
and you. Good-by, my dear feller. My
compliments to Mrs. Frances and my love to the
boy."

 Back at Brandenburg House Johnnie found
Mrs. Frances quite unpleased. "Nova Scotia! Why
not go to the Pole? All I've heard of the place
was fogs and ice and snow. You know what the
Yankee skippers call the people there. Blue
Noses!"

 'Well, the thing's not to be decided now. Lord
Shelburne's got another gentleman in view for the
post, and Rockingham must have time to talk him
out of it."

"Is the Marquess very ill? I must write a note to
Lady Mary."

As the weeks went by the Marquess remained
very ill, able

328

to see no one but his ministers. With the approach
of warm weather the physicians advised country
air, and as the journey to Yorkshire was too rough
and far Lady Rockingham had him moved to a
small estate nearby in Surrey. At polite intervals
Johnnie and Fannie drove to Wimbledon in Paul's
carriage, to pay their compliments and leave a
message for the invalid.

 Fannie refused to talk of Nova Scotia, sure that
something better would turn up, but by the end of
June Johnnie found himself eager to go.

 "The residency's fairly large and comfortable,
Fan a good ballroom, you'll like that. And I
confess I look forward to being an actual Governor
again, with work to do, and of course enjoying
what John Adams used to call our little pomps and
ceremonies."

 "And because it's in America and something like
New Hampshire," Fannie said, amused. "You'll
never get New Hampshire out of your mind, my
poor darling, will you?"

 Two days later a mounted groom in the
Rockingham livery delivered a note at
Brandenburg House. Fannie glanced at Johnnie's
face as he opened it.

"What's the matter now7"

 He seemed unable to speak, as if his mouth had
been clamped by lockjaw in a moment. At last he
said hoarsely, "Rockingham  he's deadl
Yesterday. I I can't believe it."

 Fannie put out a faltering hand for a chair. She
sat down and burst into tears, and Johnnie wept
with her. Their whole world seemed to be tumbling
about them.

 With Paul, and in Paul's big traveling coach, they
took the long road north to Yorkshire, traveling
day by day in a solemn little procession of
carriages led by a black-draped wagon carrying the
coffin. They wept again at the funeral service in
York Minster, seeing the last of that kindhearted
gentleman disappearing into a tomb beneath the
church. It was not until they were on the road back
to London that Fannie spoke a word on the
practical side of things.

'Who will inherit the Rockingham estates?"

329

 "Everything goes to his nephew, Sir William
FitzWilliam. Lady Rockingham's provided for
naturally. I thought you knew," Johnnie said.

 "Oh! We've met Sir William and Lady Charlotte
there a good many times of course. About my age
and very nice too such charming condescension.
I'll send her a note as soon as we get back. And
be sure you write Sir William."

 Paul was looking out of the coach window at the
rolling dust. "D'you think FitzWilliam will cut
anything like the figure in Whig affairs that his
uncle did?" he asked blandly.

"I wasn't thinking of that," Fannie said quickly.

 "Of course not. Still, one must be practical
nowadays, eh, Johnnie?"

 Johnnie frowned. There were times when Paul
was a little too sly. But he met the barb with
dignity.

 'We'll keep up our friendship with Lady
Rockingham, and with the FitzWilliam naturally.
And it's quite possible that Fit~7William can do
something for me later on. At the present time
I'm only too well aware I've lost my patron."

 "Are you also aware that Lord Shelburne now
becomes head of the governments"

"Shelburne!" Fannie cried. "God forbid!"

 "I'm afraid neither God nor FitzWilliam can do
much about it," answered Paul. "Shelburne is the
devil himself to those he doesn't like. And he's
got his own friends to look after. Even the devil
has friends."

 Less than a fortnight later Johnnie knew the
truth of that. A pair of Whitehall quill drivers,
chatting in a coffeehouse, remarked that "a little
strutting cock sparrow of a man" had lately got an
appointment as Governor of "some Godforsaken
place called Nova Scotia in America."

His name? Mr. John Parr, a friend of my lord
Shelbume's.

 Paul merely screwed his mouth at this news.
"You're probably well shut of the place, Johnnie.
I have some news myself. Shelburne sent another
friend of his to Paris some months ago, as soon as
the Whigs came to power. Richard Oswald, who's
never

33o

seen America. And this naive gentleman was
charged with opening peace talks with wily old
Franklin and your sharp friend Adams. I hear he's
gone a long way toward agreement. The Americans
want His Majesty's troops and rule withdrawn en-
tirely from North Americaincluding Canada and
Nova Scotia. Shelburne's quite willing to give up
everything, but some of the cabinet insist on
holding those last parts. Just what will happen is on
the under side of the cards, but I still have
sharp-eyed friends in Paris and some pretty little
ears. I'm told the preliminary peace terms must be
signed not later than this autumn. Neither side
wants to face another winter in the field."

 Johnnie said, "I'm told there are thirty thousand
loyalist refugees behind the British lines at New
York. What's to happen to them?"

 "They'll have to get out with the British troops, I
suppose, some time next year. They could remove
to Nova Scotia in the fleet if Nova Scotia's left in
British hands by the treaty. If not, God only knows
where they'll go."

 Johnnie was silent, thinking of that hurried flight
from Boston, and the misery of the Tory refugees
put ashore in Halifax. And they were only two
thousand. He tried to picture thirty thousand
stranded there. If that happened the little cock
sparrow was going to find his post a nightmare.

 I'm well out of that, he thought. And so it's all
over and the rebels have won!

 It was just over seven years since he and Fannie
fled to the old fort at Portsmouth harbor mouth
and heard the news of Bunker Hill. What a deuce
of a time!

 With their last prospect gone and their income a
mere shadow Fannie put a brave face on it. No
more of the ton. No more of Bath and Tunbridge
Wells and Brussels and Spa. Paul still kept his style
at Brandenburg House, and with his carriage and
horses she and Johnnie drove on fine days in the
nearby countryside or about the town. Sometimes
they stood in the Hyde Park throng like any
cockneys to watch the stout popeyed King out for
a ride

331

with some of his boys, and Fannie dropped a
curtsy and Johnnie swept off his hat as they went
by.

 On fine Thursdays, when His Majesty allowed
the public to roam about his gardens at Kew
Palace, they went faithfully for a peep at the royal
family. The King apparently disliked Buckingham
House, the small brick mansion in the town
where he and Queen Charlotte had spent the
early years of their marriage. Thee royal family
now lived most of the time at Kew and Windsor.
They were an enormous brood. Fourteen sons
and daughters and, as Fannie noted with a
perceiving eye on Her Majesty one day at Kew,
another on the way.

 There was something magical about the aura of
royalty. When the lively royal tribe was at
Windsor the Wentworths drove there frequently
and walked outside the Castle and about the
sleepy little town and admired the lush green view
from the hill.

 '~hen you retire," Fannie said once, "this is
where I'd like to live. A nice little estate where
we can see the Castle and the royal family
sometimes; and somewhere by the London road,
so we can have an easy drive to town whenever
we wish."

 Johnnie shook his head with a melancholy
smile. "Ah, Fan, you're the dreamer now. What
could we retire on? Three hundred pounds a
year?"

 "Let's see." She turned her pert nose toward the
Castle tower, as if consulting an oracle. 'iYou'll
get an appointment to be Governor of
Jamaica that's the rich part of the West Indies,
isn't it? We'll live there in a huge stone mansion
with palm trees all round it, and hundreds of
black servants to wait on

us....

"And to fan us in the heat!"

 "And beat off the mosquitoes. And then at last
you'll retire, and you'll condescend to accept a
pension of five thousand a year from the grateful
planters, and we'll buy ourselves the nice little
estate. Over there somewhere. Sunning Hill, say."

"And what if the planters aren't grateful?"

 "Charlie will have to marry an heiress and buy
Sunning Hill for us."

332

 They both burst out laughimg, and Johnnie
patted her hand affectionately. What a dauntless
creature she was!

 November brought momentous word from Paris.
The British and American peace commissions had
reached agreement and signed their names. The
formal and final document would be made next
year, when the last British soldier left the thirteen
colonies. Britain was to recognize the
independence of the United States. His Majesty
would retain only the two provinces in North
America which had never joimed the Congress,
Canada and Nova Scotia.

 It was black news to the great host of anxious
loyalists in New York. Some had expected it,
however, and sailed away. London seemed full of
refugee Americans. Ben Thompson turned up in
the uniform of the King's American Dragoons and
talked of going off to join the Austrian army
against the Turks. Fannie's brother Benning came,
a bronzed captain, veteran of four years' fighting in
a loyalist regiment, and talked of studying for a
degree at Oxford University. Her merry sister Mary
came with her family George Brinley remained at
his Commissary duties until the army left New
York. Even that hearty sailor Captain Harry
Bellew, R.N. appeared with his wife and her
grown-up children, the young people all looking
very much like their father, Johnnie's brother Tom.

 Brandenburg House became to all appearances
an American club, with these and other relatives
and friends comimg every day to exchange
greetings and news and tales of the war and to
chatter over prospects for the future. The house
was in an American hubbub all through the winter
and the spring of '83.

 In May Johnnie wrote to Captain John
Cochrame, "My destination is quite uncertain; like
an old flapped hat thrown off the top of a house I
am tumbling over and over in the air, and God
only knows where I shall alight amd come to rest.
We are all looking for something to do."

 A month ago, surprisingly, Lord Shelburne's
government had gone down to defeat. The Whigs
seemed doomed by their own quarrels, amd
brilliant Charles Fox had actually gone over to the

333

enemy. Lord North was back in power again, with
Fox of all people at his side and both of them
using the convenient figure of William Bentinck,
Duke of Portland, as the head of their
government. Fannie rejoiced at the downfall of
Shelburne, "that hateful creature," but Johnnie
could see nothing else to be happy about. Yet
now, in his darkest hour, came one small ray of
light. A few days after writing to Cochrane he
had a card from Lord FitzWilliam inviting him to
call at the Rockingham town house.

 Rockingham's heir greeted him pleasantly, and
they chatted for a time about affairs at
Wentworth Woodhouse. At last FitzWilliam
murmured, "I mustn't raise your hopes too much,
Mr. Wentworth, but it's possible the new
government may have something to offer you.
Nothing of great importance, you must
understand, before I go any farther. I've kept in
mind what you told me of your present
unfortunate situation, and I've made some careful
inquiries. I know Billy Bentinck very well Lord
Portland. A friend of my late uncle's in Whig
party affairs, and by an odd chance now the head
of the government. Truth to tell, he's quite under
the thumbs of North and Fox, but he's in a
position to recommend some favors here and
there."

 "My pension," Johnnie began hopefully, but
FitzWilliam cut him short.

 "I'm afraid nothing can be done about that.
Economy's the watchword in Parliament now,
especially with this disastrous end to the war. No,
what I have in mind is your old office as Surveyor
General of the King's Woods in America.
Shelburne had it abolished on the ground that
His Majesty no longer had woods to survey in
those parts. Now it seems we're to retain Canada
and Nova Scotia. In fact I believe thousands of
loyalist refugees at New York have already sailed
to Nova Scotia on the promise of lands there.
The Crown Lands office in Halifax is
overwhelmed. There's also the matter of masts
for His Majesty's Navy. The fleet now hasn't a
good haven on the whole coast of America,
except at Halilax. I understand there's a fair
amount of mast pine in Nova Scotia. Do you
see?"

"I think so," Johnnie said.

334

 "I've been talking to one or two gentlemen from
the Colonial Office, who furnished me with these
details. In fact they had one of your old reports on
the pines in Nova Scotia. It's clear that the
government should send out, this summer, some
competent gentleman to direct the surveying of
lands for the loyalist settlers and to explore the
woods and reserve a supply of mast pines for the
Navy. In short, another Surveyor General of His
Majesty's Woods. Would you be willing to go?"

"Of course, my lord."

 "The matter of um pay is a bit uncertain. As
I understand it the former honorarium was �800 a
year, but of course that covered all the colonies.
Now there's only Nova Scotia to con-
sider Canada's too far back from the sea, and I
believe the approach by water is frozen six months
in the year. The Colonial Office is prepared to pay
only �400 a year."

 "I see," Johnnie mumbled in dismay. He could
hear Fannie now

 "With your present pension that would give you
�700 a year altogether, not a princely sum I
admit it wouldn't go far in London, eh? but I
understand life is much simpler and cheaper in the
colonies. As you can see I've explored the matter
at some length. D'you still feel you'd like to go?"

 The dismay was plain in Johnnie's face. He
recalled the cost of bare necessities in Halifax in
'76. And now, with all these new refugees pouring
imto Nova Scotia, bidding against each other for
food and a roof overhead God!

 Lord FitzWilliam read his look with sympathy.
"If I can find a better post for you later on, you
may be sure I shall do so. At the present time the
government's besieged with people wanting posts
of every kind. Next year, with the fleet and army
discharged and so many loyalist of fleers flocking
over here, the outcry will be worse. Pandemonium.
How would Mrs. Wentworth feel about going to
Nova Scotia?"

"She'd much rather live in England, my lord."

 'Well, we can sympathise with her, my dear
fellow, can't we? Could you put it to her as a
temporary affair, something that may

335

last only a year or two? You might even go out
alone and leave her and the little boy in comfort
here. But naturally she'll decide on that the
ladies always do. And now I fear I must be off to
Tattersall's.Some excellent horseflesh coming up
for sale, and I want to look it over for my stable.
Shall I suggest through Portland, then, that you'll
take the post in Nova Scotia if it's offered7"

"Yes, my lord. You've been most kind all this
trouble."

 'Tut! Not a word. Good-by, Mr. Wentworth. Be
sure to see me again before you sail."

 Johnnie shook his hand and departed quickly.
In the street he slowed his pace, preparing
himself for Fannie. He would have to put this
carefully.

336

            [LYENTr-FIVE

For received the new turn in their fortunes in
silence, sitting with knees tightly crossed and arms
tightly folded, the attitude of a woman on guard
against all the maneuvers of mankind and watching
mankind's face. Her gown was a simple sprigged
muslin. She wore neither rouge nor patches now,
even on evenings when fashionably dressed people
came to Brandenburg House for cards and talk.
She dressed her hair low and wore becoming but
cheap laced caps made by a sewing woman in the
neighborhood. In fact, as she said to Paul, she had
introduced a bill of economies just as drastic as
Mr. Burke's and carried it through both sides of
her parliament.

 Her quick mind soon grasped the main points of
Johnnie's tale, and while he went on with his
careful discourse she was calmly making her
decision. When he stopped at last she gave him
her answer at once, and it surprised him.

 "How you beat about the bush! You must take
this post, of course. And I shall join you. We'll
show FitzWilliam that we're ready to make any
sacrifices for a living, even the barest, in the worst
of places. Our fortunes depend on his interest with
Lord Portland now, and we must hold his
sympathy. After we get there you shall keep him
informed how we fare on this poor crumb, and for
my part I'll ply my pen in the direction of Lady
Charlotte and of course dear Lady Rockingham,
who knows the Portlands even better."

 "Fan, you're a trump. I was afraid you wouldn't
want to come." He smiled broadly in his relief.
'We'll probably sail about midsummer, a passage
of five weeks or so, which takes us there before
the autumn gales."

"Not so fast, love," Fannie said. "You may have to
launch into

337

your new work at once. Indeed you will, for I
know you, my jockey. You'll be riding off to the
woods as soon as you land, and gone for weeks.
After that you'll set about finding a house for us,
and furniture, and servants we can't manage
without a cook and a housemaid at the least. You
mustn't expect me to stay in some horrid little
lodging while you're doing all that. NO, I shall
wait here, and you can write me when all's ready."

 A shadow crossed his face. "But Fan, that'll
mean a passage in the stormy weather for you. I
mean to say, the hurricane season begins about
the middle of September, and by the time that's
over it's cold weather and a long rough voyage
against the westerlies."

 "Very well, then I shall wait till the next spring.
I crossed the ocean once in the rough season, and
I'll never do it again. Certainly not with a
nine-year-old boy on my hands, and into mischief
all about the ship."

 "You'll have Prudence," Johnnie suggested
weakly. "She's always so faithful."

 "Prue) When we crossed before, Prue was
seasick the whole way from Boston to Falmouth,
and I looking after her. No, my dear, there's no
way out of it. You must go this summer, and I'll
wait over the winter here."

 He nodded slowly and resignedly. It was the
sensible thing, naturally. And he was lucky that
she'd come at all.

 He notified Lord FitzWilliam the next day, and
after a slow grind of government machinery the
appointment came in June. He set off at once for
the London docks to seek a passage to Nova
Scotia. He returned somewhat downcast. "It seems
the only ships making dependable voyages to
Nova Scotia go just once a year. They
accommodate some passengers, but chiefly they
carry the annual suRlies for the garrison and
merchants of Halifax. And they sail at the end of
August. That means I probably wouldn't get there
till October, on the edge of winter. There may be
naval vessels going to the Halifax station, but I'm
not important enough to get a passage of that
kind."

A few days later Paul Wentworth, who could
always discover

338

things, anywhere it seemed, had the solution.
"Johnnie, I learn there's a brig at Bristol loading
for Halifax with whaling supplies. She's to sail in a
few days' time. The accommodation will be on
hard lines, but I'm assured you can get a berth if
you leave at once."

 A great flurry of finding everything he would
need, from stockings to one of Paul's saddles, and
packing and boxing, and roping the boxes, and
stowing them all in Paul's big coach. It was a
dismal day. London lay smothered in one of its
fogs, dark with the soot of Newcastle coals, and a
faint air from the east whirled it slowly about
Brandenburg House and along the Great West
Road. Johnnie took a solemn farewell of little
Charlie, sitting in a chair with the boy before him
and his hands on Charlie's shoulders.

 "You must be a good boy, and mind your dear
Mama for me, and pay attention to your spelling
and arithmetic. I'm going over the sea, a long way,
more them two thousand miles three perhaps,
I'm sure I don't know. Next year you and Mama
will follow me, and you'll be in a new country,
nothing like this, but very exciting for a boy. You'll
see Indians, wild from the forest, walking about the
streets; and soldiers and sailors, and lots of
fishermen, and all the houses made of wood, and
deep snow in the winter time, and ice to skate
on I've told you how I used to skate when I was
a boy like you. It's very like Papa's own country,
and you'll enjoy it."

 The boy stared at him with round eyes. Tears
came into Johnnie's own, and to hide his emotion
he jumped up, kissed Charlie hastily on both
cheeks, and turned to darling Fan. Fannie was
tearful herself; it was such a long way, she Died,
and the ocean so wild and a ship so small; she
sobbed in Johnnie's arms and kissed him again and
again before she let him go.

 At the end, remembering for the first time the
cautious custom of sea travelers, Johnnie stepped
into Paul's library, took paper and quill, and
snatched off a will. He did not enumerate his poor
possessions; he merely left everything to "My dear
wife Frances, regretful that it is not what she
deserves, and I humbly

339

ask my Maker to have pity and protect and care
for her and my little son in the event of my
death."

 Paul came out to the coach with him, and
Johnnie pushed the folded paper into his hand,
mumbling, "I leave this in your care. God bless
you, Paul, for all you've done for me and mine. If
there is anything that I can ever do for you, count
me your servant."

 "As it happens," Paul said in a musing voice,
"there's a little something, Johnnie. I learn that
many of the American refugees going to Nova
Scotia are from the southern colonies, and some
are taking their household slaves. Now, in the
nature of things in a raw country like Nova
Scotia, and with no great means to support 'em,
these people must find they have to sell their
slaves for what they'll fetch. In short, my nose
tells me that good sound Negroes, male and
female, might be had at a bargain in Nova Scotia
by the coming winter's end. Watch the chance
then, Johnnie. Buy me a score if you can, and
ship 'em to my plantation in Surinam. That's my
great asset now, and there's a fortune in it waiting
to be developed. I'll repay you to the penny, and
with a good interest, you understand. Pish! No
argument. You must keep an account and let me
know. And now good-by and good luck to you,
and a short safe voyage. I shall look well after
Frances and the boy, you may be sure, and see
'em off to you next spring. I'll expect to see you
back in two years no more, mind and taking
over the post of Secretary for the Colonies,
nothing less!"

 The coach rolled away into the murk,
with-Johnnie leaning out and waving a
handkerchief at the dim figures of Fannie and the
boy in a window and Paul in the stable yard.
When he was gone little Charlie piped, "Mama,
what are you crying for? Next year we shall see
Papa. And there will be Indians and fishermen."

"Yes," Fannie said truthfully, "and that's why
Mama cries."

 It was autumn, the stormy autumn of '83, when
the first letter came from Halifax. As Fannie had
foreseen, John had been swallowed up by his
duties from the day he landed. The refugees

No

from New York and the southern colonies were
pouring into Nova Scotia; some of them well to do,
many destitute, all clamoring for land. Ten
thousand of them "I do not exaggerate"  in one
spot alone, hewing away the forest on 8 wild part
of the coast in order to build a city laid out like
New York. A place without an acre of good soil,
indeed nothing to support a tenth of them, a
veritable Utopia. "And my dear they are so stupid
as to name it Shelburne, after the very wretch who
threw them to the wolves."

 In Halifax itself everything was in a turmoil. Such
a little town, and loyalists, male and female, and
discharged British and German soldiers all
tumbling over themselves for want of room. Rents
and food prices fantastical. Impossible to buy a
house except for a fortune. People with money
renting the merest hovels for as much as Moo a
year. People without money huddling in churches
and warehouses, in brushwood wigwams and old
army tents pitched on the town common "a mere
swamp"  even in deck cabins torn from the ships
and set up in vacant lots along the streets.

 He had written a full account to Lord
FitzWilliam and could only hope that amiable
gentleman would appreciate his situation.
Meanwhile he was striving to get a house, even a
small one, so she and little Charles could come to
him in the spring. A thousand kisses to them both.

 The next day Fannie called on Lady FitzWilliam,
dressed in a modest little gown of brown lutestrin&
with her hair neatly done but unpowdered, and a
small chip hat perched on it at a brave little angle.
She took Charlie with her, and poured out her sad
story with the greatest humility and deference.
Johnnie's poverty in the midst of all these frightful
expenses. Her longing to join him in the
wilderness~uite impossible because he could not
afford the merest hovel to house her and their
darling boy. She had been separated from her
husband two long years of the war, when he was
fighting bravely for his country, and now it seemed
they must be torn apart again, for Heaven knew
how long. FitzWilliam came into the room in the
midst of it, and she went on

341

with a catch in her voice and at the last with tears
in her eyes. They were kindly people and much
affected. His Lordship declared he would see
Portland at once, and off he went.

 In November darling Fan was able to write
triumphantly that the old full salary of �800 had
been awarded to the Surveyor General of His
Majesty's Woods. 'With your Governor's pension
this will give you �1100 a year, as much as you
ever got in New Hampshire and all sterling
money. There for yout What would you do
without your clever wife?"

 And now another winter came. It was not so
dull as those former days when the Targill woman
moped in Paul's absence and the house was like
a crypt. As the favorite calling place for American
refugees in London it was lively now from noon
to night, and in spite of his financial reverses Paul
seemed able to keep up the round of dinner
parties and card parties without cease.

 After her habit Fannie lay abed through the
morning, and drank tea there at eleven over the
Morning Herald. It was the liveliest of all the
London sheets, and in its pages she could read
the latest gossip of the ton. The pace was madder
than ever now, with the war over and so many
new and old bucks out of the army and back in
town. The leading belles at the moment were
known in the ton as the Blue-eyed Nun, the Bird
of Paradise, the Farrenelli, Dally the Tall, and
Perdita. The fascinating Mrs. Robinson was still
the talk of them all. Her scandalous affair with
the young Prince of Wales had lasted no more
than a year, but Perdita had a rich choice of
other lovers, and now she had been swept off her
own pretty feet by Colonel Tarleton, the
handsome hero of the campaign in Carolina.

 What a career! thought Fannie. Of course it's
vulgar, parading her amours like that; still they
say she's very genteel in her manners and talks
like a well-bred woman. If I were in her shoes I'd
play the game a little more discreedy, to be sure.
Perdita's shoes would fit me very well. I don't
look a day older than she, for all she's in her
twenties, and I've got exactly her shape, which is
what gentlemen most admire. I made note of that
when she was

34~

on the stage, wearing her gowns half down to her
waist, or showing her legs to the last inch in trunk
hose as Viola and Rosalind.She liked those parts
where she could display herself as a woman and
then a man. I don't doubt I could have been as
good an actress too. Sheridan taught her all she
knew, and slept with her to boot.

 What a list she's had! Robinson, Sheridan,
Charles Fox, Sir John Lade, the Prince of Wales,
that French duke what was him name,
Chartres? and that other one, Lanzon; and Lord
Maiden, of course, and now this devastating
Tarleton and the deuce knows who else between
acts. How strange it is; whenever I've seen her at
Drury Lane, or dashing about the town in her pony
phaeton or at Ranelagh with the crowd on tiptoe
for a look at her, I've wished that could be me.
And I'm not a bad woman. Half the wives of
London wish that. Heigh-ho! A pretty conceit, my
dear. You're bound for Nova Scotia in the spring.
Who shall you charm there? A savage in feathers
or a codfisher in boots and a tarpaulin jacket?

 As the days drew on toward Christmas she had
some news that shattered all reverie with a fact.
Paul came from town one afternoon, threw off a
wet greatcoat and hat, and in the drawing-room
doorway announced, "My dear, you got your extra
�400 for Johnnie just in time. The government's
gone down on the India Bill. Your friends are out."

"Again? I don't believe it!"

 "Fact! Young Billy Pitt's to form a new
cabinet at the age of five-and-tvventy. He was
one of Shelburne's followers, you may recall."

 Fannie wrinkled her nose at the mention of that
name. "Does this mean another Shelburne
government?"

 "Not at all. Pitt's playing his own game now and
choosing his partners in the Tory camp. Naturally
the thing's not settled yet. There'll be a general
election in the spring."

"Ah! Then our Whig friends may win again."

 Paul cocked his head knowingly. "My dear, they
haven't a chance. From all I hear, Billy's Tories
will win by a mile

343

what's more they'll probably keep office the
deuce knows how long."

 "Oh Fish! The government changes every year
as far as I can see.

 "Not quite. But the country's sick of everlasting
chop-andchange. That's why I'D bet on Billy and
his Tories for a good long run, with the King
behind 'em all the way. His Majesty's delighted to
be rid of the Whig lords. He hates 'em all."

"Including Lord FitzWilliam?"

"Naturally."

Fannie nipped her lower lip in her neat white
teeth.

"How shall I ever tell poor Johnnie?"

 Paul shrugged and walked away, whistling the
air of "Man's Life's a Vapor."

 In March of '84 she had a happy letter from her
Surveyor General. He had secured a small house
in Halifax at � r 50 a year, and she could sail in
April or May, when all the rough weather was
past. He missed his darling Fan very much and
could scarcely wait to take her in his arms again.
The only cloud on his mind was little Charles.
The boy's education was most important, and
there was not a proper school for the sons of
gentlemen in the whole of Nova Scotia, nor a
college of any kind. What did she think? Would
it be wise, perhaps, to leave Charles in some such
school in England until FitzWilliam could find a
post there? He would leave the matter to her.

 And she would inform Paul, please, that he had
bought nineteen Negroes at auction in Halifax
and sent them off to Surinam in a lumber ship,
consigned to Paul's plantation agent at
Paramaribo. All good healthy creatures, and
Christians he had had them all baptized by a
Church of England clergyman before they sailed.
The prices ranged from �60 to �100, excellent
bargains, and he had given his note for �1520 in
payment. Tell Paul, please, to regard this as an
investment in the plantation.

 Fannie passed the letter to Paul. When he had
read it with his quick blue gaze she said, "Poor
Johnnie! He hadn't my last letter when he wrote
of course. He still has such hopes in Fitz

344

William. When I think of having to live in that
awful place indefinitely ugh! I'm sure I don't
know what to do."

 "My dear lady, there's just one course for you."
For once the bland note had gone from Paul's
voice. It had a steely sound. "Place the boy in the
Westminster School and sail to join your husband.
He needs you. Go to him as soon as you can, and
face the world with him. There aren't many good
men in this world. He's one."

 Fannie lifted a haughty stare and met the gaze of
a man who had no illusions about the world or
her, and it was she who looked away. That
evenimg she wrote to Johnnie. She would sail for
Nova Scotia as soon as a ship could be found. As
for Charlie, she would not think of bringing the
boy to such a place. She wished him educated as
an English gentleman, and it was time for him to
go to a proper school. She would place him in the
Westminster School, which was very genteel.

 In May she wrote that Paul had been unable to
find a ship with decent accommodation for ladies.
A month later she wrote that the only prospect
was in what Paul called the annual ships, and she
and Prue would be sailing in either the Saint
L~ence or the Adamant toward the end of
August.

 To her sister Mary, and to brother Benning when
he came up to town from Oxford, she said
repeatedly, "My last summer in this country for
heaven knows how long. I feel as if I were going to
my death and had just these little months to live."

 At the end of June she journeyed with the
Brinleys to spend a few days at Bath. A good many
of the ton were there, including Perdita and her
gallant colonel, driving about the town in her
splendid scarlet-and silver carriage with its white
satin seats and the famous chestnut ponies in their
silver-mounted harness.

 One afternoon Fannie sat alone in the gardens
while George and Mary Brinley attended the
baths. Two army officers strolled along the path
among the throng. She noticed the younger one
first because he uttered a loud "Gad!" and gave
her the bold look of a connoisseur among
petticoats. He was only twenty or so, a short pert
fellow, wearing his cocked hat with an air, and with
a

34s

sword cane tucked beneath his scarlet arm. She
was more amused than indignant. Her eyes went
to the taller man. The Horse Guard! He stopped
at once and swept off his hat.

"Juno, is it really you?"

 "Good afternoon, Captain." Fannie was
conscious of being well dressed for the first time
in many months. On the assurance of Johnnie's
increased pay she had been gathering a new
wardrobe, and at the moment she wore a
paduasoy gown with a snug bodice in the
fashionable long points and the skirt modishly
bunched and flounced and looped. She was
dressing her hair high again and powdered, and
upon it sat a wide black hat with black ostrich
feathers sewn along the brim and about the
crown. The loops of the gown exposed a scarlet
{lash of petticoat at the front, and from the
petticoat hem peeped a very neat ankle in a
clocked silk stocking. She ran over all these items
in her mind as she met Jupiter's gaze, and she
was conscious of something else about herself a
singing note from the mysterious harp string in
her flesh.

 The younger officer had his hat off now. He
was still giving her that bold appraisal. An
annoyed look passed over the captain's face.

 "May I beg your leave for a few minutes, Dyott?
I'll rejoin you farther on."

 Dyott gave a knowing grin. "Of course, my dear
fellow." He bowed to Fannie, replaced his hat,
adjusted the cane, and strutted off.

 Jupiter turned to Fannie with an apologetic
voice. "A lieutenant of the Fourth. A very devil
with the ladies." And then eagerly "How
handsome you look! Are you here for long?"

 "Only another day or two. I'm with married
friends." And casually, "I expect them here at any
moment."

 "So you wish me to go in a moment. How cruel
you are! D'you realize my heart's been broken
ever since you jilted me?"

"You look extremely well, dear Jupiter."

 "A mere shell, I swear. I've thought about you
all this time I really have. What did I say or do
wrong? I've gone over every

346

thing a hundred times, and I still can't understand.
You were my idol, Juno. You know that. I
worshipped you from head to toe."

 Fannie wore her little secret smile. How well she
knew that! And now the notion of him seemed
quite pleasant again. The ennui had gone. He
stood there beseeching with his eyes, and from a
corner of her own she perceived Mary Brinley
coming toward her, with Gorge a few steps behind.

'1hat's very easy to say," she declared invitingly.

 "I'll prove it again whenever you choose." She did
not fail to note the familiar deep tremor in his
voice that came always uben he was aroused.

"You still have the same chambers in town?"

"Yes, of course."

 "Be there next Saturday evening at eight, and see
what the gods may send. Now be off with your"

 'Who was the handsome officer?" Mary Brinley
said as she came up.

"A gentleman I met in London a mere
acquaintance."

 Mary looked at Fannie's eyes and that betraying
mouth. The sisters had always understood each
other perfectly. She uttered her hearty laugh, the
laugh of a good-natured matron in the presence of
a naughty but enchanting child, and gave the child
a light tap of her fan.

"Your"

347

             [WEN/r-SIX

1 UB STOUT SEUP Adamant, veteran of many
annual voyages to the wild coast of America,
found her way to the chief harbor of Nova Scotia
on a September afternoon in '84. With the
blessing of fair winds she had made a remarkably
quick passage, and after the first two days even
Prudence had suffered no sea sickness. Adamant
fired a signal gun, as she passed abreast of a long
wooded island in the Halifax entrance, and was
answered after some minutes by a puff and a
bang from a small island far ahead, a mere green
hump that seemed to be anchored like a ship just
off the town.

 Fannie, standing with Prue on the after deck,
gazed about her with an odd feeling of
recognition. It was so like coming into New
Hampshire's Portsmouth. The spruce and pine
woods more blue than green on the low hills; the
patches of turf and coddrying flakes and small
hovels of fishermen by the shore; the streets of
the little town flowing in wooden waves down the
slope; the bristle of schooner masts at the
wharves; the harbor shining beyond the town and
far into the land like the broad water of the
Piscataqua itself.

 The captain peered through his spyglass at a
bare hill that stood like a fat green wigwam at the
town's back door.

 "Citadel Hill," he said tO Mrs. Wentworth,
pointing with the spyglass. "They've got our signal
on the blockhouse staff for all the town to see.
Oh, they watch pretty sharp for us here, I tell ye,
ma'am. There'll be a crowd on the wharf. And in
a day or two, when the merchants have hauled
the pick of their stuff ashore, you'll see the ladies
flocking the shops to see what's new from
London."

Fannie sniffed. All she wanted to see was Johnnie
with a

348

decent carriage to take her away from the dock. It
would be just like the jockey to be miles off in the
forest somewhere. Under shortened sail the ship
eased in slowly, and a boat took off a cable end to
the wharf. There was a crowd indeed. Apparently
the whole town came down to welcome the annual
ships from London. She noticed a number of
redcoats among them. There was a garrison, then.

 Seamen stamped barefooted about the capstan,
singing one of the slow tunes they used for this
sort of work, and ill a key doleful to Fannie's ears.
She liked much better their halyard chanties,
especially the ribald and lively ones they sang when
they were giving short quick pulls to finish a job. It
took a long time to warp the ship in, and Adamant
was almost alongside before she noticed Johnnie
waving a frantic hat from the crowd. He was
smiling and calling out something she could not
catch in the uproar. As soon as the gangway was in
place he came bounding up the thing like the spry
Johnnie of the old Portsmouth days, and beaming
all over his face.

 "Oh Fan! Fan!" For a moment she had a dread
that he would set to hugging and bussing her there
in front of all these staring people she could see
some well~ressed gentlemen among them, but he
remembered his manners, caught her hands and
kissed them, and then touched his lips to hers
quickly and lightly before taking her arm and
leading her ashore. Behind them his hired wharf
porters waited to pick up the baggage. On the way
up the wharf, in the jostle of the crowd, he said
apologetically, "I've hired the best carriage in the
town, but it's not much. Naturally this isn't
London."

 No, it isn't, thought Fannie. There was a strong
reek of split codfish drying on the Hat roofs of the
warehouses. The carriage was a faded thing from
some hackney stable, drawn by a pair of nags more
suited to a London night cart. And as they swayed
along the muddy water-front street, past shabby
wooden houses and small slopshops and boozing
dens, the reek of fish was mingled with viler
smells.

"One would think they all emptied their chamber
pots in the

349

street," she gasped, and drew a scented lace
handkerchief from her etui and held it to her face.

 "They do," Johnnie said. "You'll see a better
quarter when we turn up the slope."

 She did not take the handkerchief away until
they turned into an open square, lined with quite
handsome wooden houses and shops, gleaming in
white or yellow paint, and two or three large
coffeehouses. A gambrel-roofed mansion of two
white stories sat on a garden terrace in the midst
of the square, with a pair of tall-capped
grenadiers beside their sentry boxes at the
entrance.

"Government House," Johnnie said.

"Oh? Where we should be!"

 He gave her a rueful grin, "Never say that near
Governor Parr, my dear."

 They turned again at what he called the
Mall "or as some say, Barrington Street" and
he pointed out the parade ground. "That's the
Planelagh and Vauxhall of Halifax. No shrubs and
flowers though. The garrison guard musters in
Grand Parade every evening in summer, and all
the beaux and belles of the town saunter up and
down, and an army band of music plays till dark.
I must take you some fine evening it'll all be
over for the season in October."

She gave it a glance. "What's the church?"

 "St. Paul's. We'll attend Sunday service there.
Governor Parr always goes with his family and
staff and the troops. It's the garrison church. A
lot bigger than our chapel at Portsmouth, eh?
You'll be surprised when I tell you this. It was
built with timber from our own Piscataqua,
fetched here when this town was founded
thirty-five years ago."

"Is this where the gentry live?"

 "Yes, round about here and the governor's
square, and during the war quite a few of the
most prosperous merchants built mansions up
there on Argyle Street, where you see the
willows."

 The carriage was still bouncing on away from
the genteel quarter, she was quick to notice,
although the plank walk of the Mall continued
beside the road and far on into the distance. They

35o

passed the town burying ground. The houses were
few and smaller and shabbier, and there were
stretches of stony pasture although here and there
a mansion stood in shrubbery and young
ornamental trees, well off the road. The worn
planks of the Mall ended, and now the muddy road
went on alone, a mere track.

 At last Johnnie said, "Ah! There's our house.
That one! And this part's called Pleasant Street.
You see? We're right back home!"

 A small wooden cottage of two unpainted stories,
with all its shingles weathered gray, and a chimney
at each end. A fence tottered about a neglected
garden patch, half-seen behind it, with one or two
apple trees. As they went inside Fannie's heart
sank into her shoes. A dark little hall divided the
lower floor into two chambers, furnished as sitting
and dining room. The kitchen was in an ell at the
back, like a rickety afterthought. A steep and
narrow staircase led to a pair of bedrooms above.

 Everything had been recently swept and well
scrubbed  Johnnie had seen to that and he
pointed out with pride the furniture, the carpets,
and window hangings.

 "Some of those New York refugees brought
beautiful household stuff in the ships and had to
sell it, for any price at all. They'd nowhere to store
it, and they needed money just to keep alive. I'm
ashamed to tell you what I paid for all this. They
spent a terrible winter, most of those people. One
of these days I'll take you up to the town common
and show you how thousands of 'em spent the cold
weather. Their brush huts and wigwams are still
there falling down now of course. Most of the
refugees moved away in the spring to the Saint
John River or to Upper Canada. But that's a sorry
subject. Now that you see our abode, what d'you
think of it? I can tell you I was deuced lucky to get
it for �l50 a year to get it at all, the way things
are."

 "There's not a speck of paint, inside or out," she
said coldly. "Let alone wallpaper. We had a better
house for our gardener at Wolfeborough."

 "I got the lease of it last winter, when I wrote
you," he said unhappily, "but I had to wait till
spring for the other tenants to

351

move out they were refugees going to Montreal.
Then I had to be off about my work, at Shelburne
and up the Saint John River, a dozen other
places. I had a fatiguing summer; it's all rough
country, and I find I'm not so tireless in the
woods as I used to be. I didn't get back here till
about a fortnight ago and and, well, I've done
the best I could."

 "Two bedchambers, one for us and one for Prue.
There's no room for servants." And on a sudden
thought, "You have engaged servants, I trust?"

 "Oh yes, love. I told 'em to wait in the kitchen
while you looked at the house. The housemaid's
a girl from down by the harbor it's not far, down
that way. She'll sleep out of course. So will Juno."

"Juno!"

 "The cook, a black woman. She was one of
twenty I bought for Paul. The rest were field
Negroes and quite cheap, but Juno's been in a
genteel family in New York for years and knows
how to cook and serve every kind of food in the
best manner. So I kept her. I'm very proud of
Juno, though she's ugly as sin to look at. I had to
give my note for Moo. The gentleman who sold
her said I could search the kitchens of the best
people from one end of the town to the other,
including Governor Parr's, and not find a better.
I've arranged to bed her with a free black family
that live at the edge of the Common."

Fannie sank down on a green sofa in the sitting
room.

"Will you order me a glass of wine, please. I feel
faint."

 There was no bellpull, not even a hand bell. He
had to go to the kitchen and speak to the
housemaid himself. The aid came with a tray, an
awkward young slattern in brown cotton gown and
apron, broken shoes, and upon her head a vast
mobcap sprouting ribbons of all colors like a
flower bed gone mad.

 When she had vanished again Fannie sent Prue
upstairs to prepare the bed in the larger
chamber "I wish to lie down for a while."

 Johnnie sat beside her and put a solicitous arm
about her waist. He had dressed for this great
occasion as soon as a running

352

messenger carried him word of the Adamant's
signal Hying on the hill. The exertions of the past
year had pared his fat to something like the old
figure, and he wore his London clothes with the
distinction that came to him so naturally. A green
coat of fine cloth with silver buttons, scarlet
waistcoat, ruffled shirt, lace cravat, and tan silk
breeches. The combination of green and tan was
the mode among the fashionable gentlemen of
London, copied from dashing Colonel Tarleton,
who wore it on every occasion as the uniform of
his late regiment. Johnnie, thinking of his own
Volunteers, had adopted it in something of the
same spirit. Among the American refugees there
was a sharp distinction, very important in petitions
to London, between loyalists who had borne arms
for the King and those who had not. Except that
his face was as brown as a carter's he would have
looked well in any English drawing room, and
Fannie's sidelong eye approved.

He took his arm away as Prue came down.

"I turned back the bedclothes, ma'am."

 Fannie drained the glass of wine. "Thank you,
Prue. You had better come up with me." She went
up the stairs slowly. In the chamber Prue quickly
slipped off Fannie's gown, bodice, and petticoats,
and unlaced her stays.

 Prudence was now well into the thirties, a lean
and somewhat grim creature utterly devoted to her
mistress. After young Chadie passed his baby years
she had become Fannie's handmaid entirely. In her
own way, like gallant Captain Jupiter across the
sea, she worshipped the beautiful mistress from
head to toes, and took the greatest pleasure in
dressing and undressing her as if Fannie were a
doll grown in some marvelous way into a woman.
She was deft and usually silent although with the
privilege of her kind she made free comment on
anything that affected her doll's welfare.

 As Pannie lay down Prue covered her with a light
quilt, at the same time jerking her head toward the
stairs and saying, "It's not much, this place, eh?"
Fannie closed her eyes. "It's miserable. But it will
have to do till he can get something better.

353

And he shall, mark that. I don't care what it
costs. Meanwhile we'll have this ruin improved as
far as paint and paper can make it."

 "The furniture's quite genteel," Prue said, "and
the carpets and hangings. A lot better in some
ways than all that queer stuff in Mr. Paul's
house."

 "Yes. Those New York refugees apparently had
taste. Paul had everything in the world but that."

"D'you really feel faint?"

 "Naturally not. I just wanted to get off by myself
and think a bit."

 "I thought so," Prue said. "D'you want anything
more before I go down and see what that
blackamoor's cooking for dinner}"

"Just untie my garters so my legs don't swell,
Iying here."

 When Prue was gone, her mistress lay very still
with her thoughts. There must be some sort of
society to this place. Like Portsmouth, probably,
a clique of purse-proud merchants and their
wives. And some of the moneyed refugees must
be able to do themselves well. And of course
there's this Governor Parr and his officials, the
garrison officers and their ladies, and the naval
staff at the dockyard down the harbor. We shall
call and leave cards as soon as possible. Governor
and Mrs. Wentworth. Let them see we're as good
as anybody in this wretched town. Johnnie shall
have the house properly decorated and get some
decent silver and china and glassware. We must
entertain if we want to be entertained. Keep a
good wine cellar no matter what it costs. If this
black woman's cooking is what he says we should
be able to offer a first-rate dinner. That means a
lot. Better to have good food and wine in a hut
than a damned poor meal in a palace how often
I've heard Paul say it, in that poky house in
Poland Street. And think of the people who used
to come there. Some of the best in London.

 For the next two weeks the little house was in
a Hurry of painters and paper hangers and
carpenters, and it assumed a fresh appearance.
Meanwhile in a hired carriage Governor and Mrs.
Wentworth called on Governor Parr, on the
Admiral, the

354

Commissioner of the Dockyard, the Chief Justice,
and other officials, and upon the chief merchants
and their wives. Johnnie was well known to them
after a year in the town, and most of them called
him "Governor" out of courtesy to his former rank.

 But alas the courtesy ended there. Fannie
received no calls in return. In the past twelve
months the little town had been flooded with such
people as themselves, once-prosperous Americans
looking for hospitality in this northern wilderness,
and hospitality was exhausted. What was worse, the
provincial society now had a jealous eye on the
newcomers. The loyalist exiles in Nova Scotia were
demanding every sort of post and privilege as a
reward for their faithfulness to His Majesty in the
other colonies, and His Majesty's government was
inclined to indulge them as much as possible.
Johnnie's own appointment in the Nova Scotia
woods was an example. The native settlers already
were calling themselves "the old inhabitants" and
the loyalists "those damned refugees."

 Fannie was scornful. 'What is this Halifax society
but a little parcel of provincial snobs and smug
officials from England like that absurd little
rooster Parr? And Mrs. Parr, how she looked down
that big nose of hers whenever anybody called you
Gvernor in her presence. And that simpering girl
of theirs who thinks she's a beautyjustbecause the
young officers have to make themselves agreeable
to the Governor's daughter! What shocking
frumps, all these llalifax women! Did you ever see
such sights in your life? They stared green with
envy at my London modes, and all jealous because
I've got a shape and they haven't."

 Fannie leaped up, struck a pose, amd cried in an
affected voice, "After all, who's she to cut such a
figure here? The wife of that Wentworth man who
runs about the woods and still likes to call himself
a Governor. Why, they can't even keep a carriage,
my dear, and live in a hovel in the edge of the
Point Pleasant woods."

 And springing down again to her own self, full
length on a sofa with one leg thrown out and a
foot on the floor, "Johnnie, the only well-bred
people I've seen in the town are Lieutenant

355

Ayer of the 17th and Captain Bentinck of the
Assistance frigate. I discovered in conversation
that they're both relations of the Duke of
Portland, and I lost no time in inviting them to
dinner, you may be sure. They're coming next
Sunday. As for these socalled Halifax gentry, what
have they got to be snobbish about? I'm told the
town was founded by criminals sent from England
thirty or forty years ago...."

 "Oh, that's hardly true, Fan. I believe the first
settlers were simply poor people from London; I
daresay they had a proportion of absconding
debtors, but they also had a number of gentlemen
amongst 'em like old Mr. Bulkley, who's told me
a good many stories of the early days. What's
more they were joined by a lot of New England
merchants and fishermen even some from New
Hampshire. And since the late war, they imclude
a good many loyalist refugees and disbanded
soldiers and sailors."

 "A mongrel crew, one and all," said Fannie, and
nothing could change her mind. She conveyed her
impressions in her first long letter to Lady
FitzWilliam, when Johnnie had gone off to his
woods again.

   Halifax Oct. 5, 1784 My dear Madam,

 I feel myself separated from everything (except
Governor Wentworth) that my heart holds dear.
I have scarce reason to except Gov'r Wentworth,
as he has been absent on his duty more than two
thirds of the time since I arriv'd. Seven long
months I was endeavouring to get to him, and he
had to leave on his surveys after a fatiguing
summer.

 During his absence, which Your Ladyship will
readily conceive must have been dreadfully dull,
I confess I felt my change of fortune with a
poignancy almost insupportable. We pay �150 a
year for the house we live in, which has an eating
room and sitting room on the lower floor, and
divided into bedrooms above, without any
accommodation for servants, not one room
prepar'd or painted until we came into it. I must
secretly own to you that

356

there are other things more humiliating. The
returning to a Country where for years I knew
myself the first in it, with a competence and I may
justly add affluence to aid the station I possess'd,
makes it hard for me to meet and mix, and be
looking up to, many who a little while ago were in
a situation too inferior for common acquaintance.

 This Province was first settl'd by Vagrants and
wretches who escap'd the law and were exempted
from debt by being here, a method adopted to
settle this part of America as being convenient for
a Dockyard, but otherwise held very cheap, as a
soil not worthy of improvement. It requires a
century before such blood can be purify'd, and the
contamination remains.

 I plumed myself with hope that a short exile, for
so I hold my present situation, would enable a
better arrangement. The dreadful change of
Ministry backers all my views. The time will come
when you can, by a word, make us happy. It's quite
impossible the present young Minister can hold the
reins of that important country long, they must be
return'd to abler hands, and the guidance rest with
or about you. Bear in mind, Then, the solicitation
I have ventur'd to suggest to you. I trust it does
not wear dhe face of impertinence.

 I keep to the house and entertain only a few
friends. We gain more satisfaction in dhe company
of Captain Bentinck and Mr. Ayer, because dhey
are relations of dhe Duke of Pordand, than from
everyone else. Governor Wentwordh and myself
consider Captain Bentinck as one of our family.

 My dearest Madam, adieu. Accept Governor
Wentworth's best respects to you and Lord
FitzWilliam. From your Ladyship's most perfectly
attach'd and devoted servant,

F. Wentwordh

 Fannie surveyed this screed for some minutes,
brushing her nose gently with the feathered end of
the pen. She liked dhe long roll of the sentences
and the carefully chosen words. It was really
excellent, all of it, and a neat beginning to her
campaign for

357

"a better arrangement." She sealed it for the post
with Johnnie's monogram and wrote the address
on the outer fold with a nourish.

 Captain Bentinck was the best of company, with
all the bouncing spirit of the Navy, and Fanny was
sorry when the Assistance departed with the rest
of the squadron to spend the winter in the West
Indies. However the young militaire Mr. Ayer re-
mained, and at her suggestion he brought one or
two companions to her dinners throughout the
autumn. Not always the same companions. Word
of the Wentworths' food and wine, and of the gay
and beautiful hostess, soon passed in the officers'
messes of the garrison. Where else could a man
of taste find such a combination in this dreary
colonial outpost? Mrs. Wentworth had the speech,
the manners and dress of a fashionable
Englishwoman, something they had not seen in a
long time, and she had all the latest gossip of
London, the very last word of the ton. They
roared at her little tales of Perdita and the
Farrenelli and the rest, all told with a spicy wit,
while she sat in a negligent attitude after dinner,
blowing wisps of smoke from one of her amusing
little segars. And they in turn regaled her with
tales of Halifax society, those purse-proud
merchants and their underbred wives, all so
anxious to play the genteel in the presence of
English officers and all so naive and so unaware
as the officers tittered up their sleeves.

 Johnnie was away most of the time, even after
winter came. The part of Nova Scotia that lay
toward Canada had been split off by a recent
London decree and was now a new province
called New Brunswick. This obliged the Surveyor
General to send a capable deputy there and to
pay the man out of his own salary. There were
times when his mounting debts at Halifax fright-
ened him. In his need for money he had been
levying fees from every loyalist who got a grant of
land, and this had brought a storm.

 The refugees were bombarding Governor Parr
and the new governor of New Brunswick with
their complaints, and some

358

with important connections had written to London.
In short Johnnie was in hot water, and it was not
the soothing water of Bath or Spa. He told Fannie
nothing of this. Except that she never had enough
of it, she was not concerned with money. She was
determined to show her contempt for the ladies of
Halifax society and to outwit them all, and already
she had accomplished both. The most eligible
young officers of the garrison amd fleet, whom the
provincial snobs were dying to get into their draw-
ing rooms, were calling on every opportunity at
what Fannie gaily described as "our shabby little
cell in the edge of the woods."

 Nevertheless Johnnie was uneasy. In his own
polite way he got along very well with the
provincial people, and his experiences in New
Hampshire had taught him to be chary of making
enemies. Fannie seemed to be making a lot. When
one makes enemies one must be careful about
one's armor, and Fannie in her spirited way cared
nothing for armor at all.

 At Christmas when he came home from one of
his long journeys he ventured cautiously, "Fan, you
mustn't think I'm criticising, understand, I'm
merely thinking of what other people might say. I
mean about entertaining these young gentlemen
night after night when your husband's absent.
D'you think it's wise?"

"Odds fish! Are you being jealous again? Fie on
you!"

 "I'm not, dear Fan, and never shall be. I
understand you, and these people don't. I've heard
some whispers, even as far away as Shelburne
town, and scotched 'em very quickly. But there it
is. You know how tongues wag in a small society,
specially where a pretty woman's concerned. Don't
misunderstand me, darling Fan. My whole thought
is of you. You're goodhearted and hospitable, and
you like to entertain. I wouldn't have you any
other way. I'm only jealous of your good name."

 "My good name in what?" Fannie cried. "In this
trumpery little Halifax society? Who are they to
censor me? There isn't a well-bred man or woman
in the lot including that smug old Parr. Pooh!
Their town stinks to my very nose! Where in God's
world would you find so many low taverns and
boozing dens in

359

a small population? They blame that on the
soldiers and sailors, of course, when everybody
knows half the business of Halifax is to sell rum
and the other half to drink it. They have the same
excuse for all those bawdyhouses on the upper
streets and along the harbor front. Why, those
precious snobs on Argyle Street can hear the
whores laughing and shrieking up the hill
whenever they open their back windows. And
from the other direction so can Governor Parr,
down there by Hollis Street. My young officers
jest to me that Halifax is garrisoned with one
regiment of artillery, two of infantry, and three of
whores  they've never seen such a place for
debauchery in all their travels. If the truth be told
the women of this town are just a little huddle of
prudes in a crowd of common slurs. And because
I'm neither one nor the other they dare to roll
their eyes at me! Well, that for them!"

 She snapped her fingers under Johnnie's nose
as if he were all the prudes in one. For the rest of
the day she would not speak to him. When they
went to bed she turned her back and kept apart
as if he were leprous. And his punishment
continued until he went away once more to his
precious woods.

360

           ~lYENTr-SE VEN

1 HB IIMB of ice and snow, of storm doors and
early candlelight and the daylong glow of stoves
and open fires, which she had always loved in New
Hampshire, went merrily enough for Fannie in
Nova Scotia. On days when there was no wind and
the sun was bright she fared forth with her ponies
in the sleigh, a red canole of the Canadian kind
with a high front curved inward like the crest of a
breaking wave. She went well wrapped in furs, with
a hooded scarlet coat to match the sleigh, and a
little cap of fox fur at a jaunty angle with the tail
dangling down her back. Many of the officers and
merchants had smart sleigh turnouts, and pretty
Mrs. Wentworth often fell in with a jingling proces-
sion through the streets and along the Windsor
road as far as the Blue Bell tavern, where everyone
stopped for hot grog or negus or coffee, and sweet
cakes and sillabub. Although some feared her, the
military wives had a kinder view of Mrs. Went-
worth than the ladies of Halifax itself, and the
more lively ones admired her, so that Fannie did
not lack feminine companionship when she chose.
But her choice was for the gentlemen, and when
the severe weather came in January she stayed
close to her fires and let them come to her.

 Eagerly the young officers followed the white
lane to her little house, riding if the snow was not
deep, often walking the whole way from their
quarters on snowshoes and bursting in, cheerful
and glowing from the cold. Sometimes their
careless chatter mentioned dinners or dances given
by the elite of the town, to which she was never
invited, and she burned within, but she never
revealed these fires except to Johnnie. Her guests
saw only a blithe hostess lending her beauty to a
delicious dinner, playing a clever hand at whist or
Iced, singing gay little songs to her

361

own tunes on the harpsichord, or reclining on the
sofa in those careless charming attitudes that
never seemed posed, while the young gentlemen
drew up hassocks in the firelight and talked of
their experiences in the late war, of life in
England, of Halifax, and of her. Mostly they
talked of themselves and her, admiring both like
all young men, and adroitly Fannie led the
conversation back and forth.

 The scattered dwellers along the track called
"Pleasant Street" noted sometimes that one or
another of the military gentlemen came alone,
and that he stayed very late; and whenever this
happened, by a coincidence, Mr. Wentworth was
away. Their comment passed idly from kitchen to
kitchen until it reached the town, and there it
took wings and flew from drawing room to
drawing room, gathering spice and color as it
went. Before winter was over the virtuous wives of
Halifax spoke of Mrs. Wentworth as a veritable
Messalina, with a husband playing Claudius to the
life, and apparently the whole garrison performing
the other roles.

 As for Johnnie, that uxorious man spoke no
more about the danger of appearances. He was
afraid to provoke another furious outburst and
another long sentence to silence and a frigidly
turned back. At forty-eight he did not seek a
husband's privilege as often as in younger days,
but now when the desire came to him he found
that if he had not displeased her in other matters
she awarded her person as prettily as ever, she
was generous, even ardent, and he fell asleep with
all shadow of doubt brushed away.

 At the frosty turn of the old year into '85 there
appeared a sudden lift in his hill-and dale
fortunes. Since the end of the war hopeful rumors
had buzzed among the outcast loyalists that His
Majesty's Government might repay them for the
property they had lost in the United States.
Johnnie and some others in London had even
submitted hopeful claims, making them modest
for fear that Parliament might reject the notion.
Nothing had come of them. But now came a letter
from Paul Wentworth saying that His Majesty's
Government had decided to be gen

362

erous. A sum of �Iso,ooo was to be set aside for a
loyalist fund  and this was merely a beginning, a
payment on account. The plan had yet to be
completed, but he believed that commissioners
would arrive at Halifax late this year, and they
would set up an office to consider the claims of
loyalist refugees in Nova Scotia.

 At this news Fannie leaped to her feet, plucked
up her skirts and danced a shepherd's hornpipe of
her own invention on the moment, knees high,
kicking out her legs, and humming the tune of
"A-hunting We Will Go!" At last she pranced up to
Johnnie, snatched the letter from his hand, and
waved it over her head.

 "Three cheers for Billy Pitt! Huzza! Huzza!
Huzza! Who'd ever have thought it! And
now now, my Johnnie we can show these
Halifax cana~lle a thing or two!"

"How?" he said.

 'What a silly question! For one thing we can get
a decent house in town."

 "But, Fan, you can't rent a decent house in town
for any money. You can't even buy one."

 "Then build one! There are vacant lots to be had
not too far from Saint Paul's or Government
House if you want to pay the figure for 'em. I
don't care where you build, so long as it's under
the noses of those prigs."

 "It would cost like the devil, Fan. Wages,
lumber everything's so dear in this place."

 "I don't care a fig what it costs! Go and look out
a suitable lot, and buy it. And start to build as
soon as the snow's off the ground. I want a house
finished by mid-summer at the latest  stable,
coach house, and all!"

"But Fan!"

 "Don't Fan me, Johnnie! Think of those
creatures and the way they've snubbed your wife.
So we live in a tumble-down cottage, eh? We can't
afford a carriage, eh? They shall see!" And away
she went again, a whirl of legs and lifted petticoats.

 Johnnie watched her in a mixture of amusement
and dismay. Some fairy gift in the cradle had
abolished the laws of nature

363

for Fannie and decreed that she should be forever
young. She was one of those rare creatures that
the world produced from time to time for the
envy of all other women and the admiration of all
men. He had heard Paul speak of such a one, a
Frenchwoman called Ninon something, who
captivated men till she was sixty though of
course one never knew how much to believe from
Paul where French ladies were concerned. He
watHhed this giddy flying creature with a growing
sense of awe. Nobody, and certainly none of those
young officers, could have guessed her age within
a dozen years. Even the spiteful gossip he had
overheard avowed her to be "nudging thirty, if a
day," exactly what spiteful she-gossips had said in
that Boston winter a good nine years ago. And
Fannie would be forty next September!

 Dutifully, as the winter waned, he searched for
vacant lots within the magic circle about Saint
Paul's and Government House. None satisfied
Fannie. Then an old mansion on the Mall went
up in flames one stormy night in March, together
with the elderly merchant owner and his wife.
Johnnie bought the ground and a cellar full of
ashes from the lawyer in charge of the estate.
When it came to planning the new house he was
relieved to find that Fannie wanted nothing big.

 "After all," she said shrewdly, "we won't be here
forever. As soon as fitzWilliam can get you a post
in England we'll be off like wild swans in the fall.
And it isn't as if we had a crowd to entertain. Just
twos and threes, as I've done here. What I want
is just a neat little villa, with a fair-sized sitting
room and eating room, and say four
bedd~ambers above. There must be an ell for
the kitchen and rooms over that for the servants.
At the back a stable and coach house combined.
We won't need much in that; a good carriage, a
smart sleigh for winter, a riding horse for you and
one for me, and a marched pair of ponies for the
carriage of course. You might as well send to
England for a phaeton now. I want it green, with
your monogram and a circle of roses painted on
the doors, and the seats done in white satin like
Perdita's. And look about for a pair of good
chestnut ponies like hers too."

364

 Johnnie set about all these matters with his
native energy, and his close knowledge of the
province proved most useful. He knew a sawmill
on a small river down the coast that could turn out
most of his building material at a reasonable price,
considering the times. He found a coasting
schooner willing to move the stuff to Halifax at a
reasonable freight. He even got his chimneys built
of bricks that came from England as ballast in a
timber ship. His heaviest expense was in wages to
the Halifax workmen, accustomed to fat pay during
the war and refusing to take less now. To finance
all this he gave his notes wherever possible, and for
the rest he borrowed cash from a Halifax
moneylender.

 As soon as the snow was gone a crew of
carpenters and masons began to work on the new
house. It might have been finished in mid-summer
as Fannie had decreed, but her own changing ideas
about the interior finish delayed matters until fall.
They moved into the villa in September. The
furniture they had was almost sufficient for the
downstairs rooms, and for the rest Johnnie again
was able to buy excellent stuff from refugees
moving off to Canada. From an army major
transferred to India he bought a pair of handsome
and nimble carriage ponies of the proper chestnut
hue, and with his eye for a riding horse he soon
picked up a pretty little bay mare for Fannie and
a fine black hunter for himself. Indeed all went
fortunately, for the new phaeton arrived in one of
the annual ships just as they took up their
residence under the noses of "those prigs," together
with a fresh wardrobe of gowns and hats in the
latest mode from Fannie's own dressmaker and
milliner in London.

 Now the merchant aristocracy of Halifax were
permitted to see, indeed they could not avoid
seeing, every day, the beautiful and wicked
creature of the tales, so long withdrawn in the mys-
terious little house toward Point Pleasant. In the
golden autumn afternoons, when the harbor lay
like a blue sword blade in the folds of a tufted and
many-colored quilt, Mrs. Wentworth drove her
pony phaeton up and down the Mall and around
the Government House square each morning and
each afternoon, always accompanied by two or
three scarlet-coated gallants well mounted

365

and trotting at her side. Sometimes her husband
sat with her, but usually he was away somewhere,
swallowed in His Majesty's woods.

 All of the well-to-do young officers in the
garrison had light carriages and fleet-footed
ponies of their own, and often there was a merry
challenge and a madcap race with Mrs.
Wentworth down the Mall, while staid folk
cautiously drew their carriages to one side, or if
afoot took refuge on the long plank promenade
and shook their fists. At band concerts in Grand
Parade, when the whole area by Saint Paul's was
thronged with people, and "those snobs" stood in
their accustomed groups or sat in their carriages
nearby, naughty Mrs. Wentworth was sure to be
there, beautifully dressed, sitting easily in the
phaeton. And a cluster of young naval and
military gentlemen was always about her, even
taking turns at holding her ponies' heads like
common grooms, and all chatting away and
laughing at her sallies. And when she departed,
always before the concert's end, they escorted her
to her very door, as if music had no charms
without her, and as if in that short passage along
the Mall she might be insulted by footpads or
assailed by Indians.

 The ladies of Halifax society, especially the
mamas of marriageable daughters, were in fury
and despair. The ships of His Majesty's squadron
sailed in and sailed out; the regiments caune and
went in the regular process of garrison reliefs;
and it made no difference. Within a day or two of
each new arrival the most eligible young officers,
the ones with family and money, the most
handsome and dashing, were drawn to Mrs.
Wentworth's phaeton wheels and to her house as
if by royal command. It was of no use to
denounce her, to invent and spread the worst of
tales about her and make sure that they reached
the proper quarters. lathe more the young
gentlemen heard, the more they were intrigued.

 As for cutting her, the ladies of Halifax had cut
her long ago and flung their only weapon at her
pretty head. They were defenseless now.
Whenever she met her enemies Mrs. Wentworth
looked through them as if they were not there at
all. They might

366

take what pleasure they could in the fact that she
was never invited to their balls and parties and
suppers. The young English officers who went to
those affairs had an abstract look, as if something
were missing. They were inclined to be
contemptuous of provincial society, joking to
themselves about this gown and that headgear and
yonder shockingLad pair of ankles, and quoting
hilarious little bits of provincial gaucherie. And
more than one of them, when the scarlet woman
was mentioned in provincial accents, declared
coldly that he considered Mrs. Wentworth a
gentlewoman and one of the few to be found.

 Everybody, and especially her young courtiers,
would have been astonished to see the other Mrs.
Wentworth the Fannie who sat down in quiet
hours and penned long obsequious letters to Lady
FitzWilliam and Lady Rockingham, bewailing the
loneliness and monotony of her life in the wilds,
separated from her dear husband for weeks and
weeks, and longing to see her dear friends and her
own darling boy Charles-Mary far away across the
sea. And there were the pleasant homely letters
she wrote to brother Benning, now married to the
daughter of an English squire; and to sister Mary
Brinley, whose oldest girl was to be married soon
to a London merchamt, with the wedding at Paul
Wentworth's house. '~You'll be a grandmother,
dear Mary, before you know it. How strange that
seems to me, tho' I'm no, I've forgot how old I
am. Is it true that George might be posted here7"

 Johnnie himself was busy with pen and ink
whenever he came home. A snow of letters
fluttered across the sea to Lord FitzWilliam, Lord
Portland, and a score of other people of im-
portance, and letters no less important to young
Charlie at Westminster School. The boy was doing
well at his studies his masters had written
commending his progress in Latin and Greek a
prodigy at ten years old. To Paul Wentworth he
wrote cheerfully, "I hold no connexion with New
Hampshire now but I confess a part of my heart
lies there, and I was much gratified to learn last
year that you had, at your own expense, published
in London the careful map of that province which
Mr. Holland made in my time as Governor. What
a paradox it is that Mr.

367

Holland was proscrib'd along with me and many
others who had labour'd so long for New
Hampshire's welfare.

 "My duties still take me all over Nova Scotia
and give me little rest. A wise and industrious
Gcvernor could make something of this country,
which has portions of good soil for cultivation as
well as the forest and the fishery. The present
Incumbent is content with his comfort and
emoluments at Halifax. As for the town itself, it
is beneath contempt, as I suppose any garrison
must be in such conditions. The chief money
income of the town is from the troops and fleet,
with what results you may imagine. I have never
seen such depravity. In a small town of twelve
hundred people we have whole streets and parts
of others given up to bagnios and drinking dens,
with every crime from theft to murder. This year
no less than fifteen criminals have been tucked up
on the gallows in George Street. There are many
good sound people here, however, and I think if
Nova Scotia could enlarge a natural commerce
this dependence upon the army and fleet would
shrink away, and these evil conditions with it."

 November came, and with it the English
commissioners on loyalist claims, a thin-faced
lawyer named Jeremy Pemberton and a bustling
Colonel Thomas Dundas. They set up an office,
and Johnnie was one of fifty-three American
refugees who favored them with a complimentary
address. He went over his own claim carefully,
with Fannie at his elbow, and stated it before the
commissioners and their clerk one afternoon as
Christmas approached. For Fannie's benefit he
obtained a rough summary of their submission to
Lcndon.

 "Governor Wentworth had 4,387 acres in
WolfeEcrough, New Hampshire, with a new
mansion house and offices, with gardens, park,
etc. He estimated that in House, Gardens, Mills,
and Improvements he laid out �lo,ooo sterling.
He lived upon the Estate, had between 7~00 and
400 awes highly cultivated, and a garden of 47
awes walled in. He valued it at �zo,ooo, which
sum he would not have taken for it. The claimant
had other lands in New Hampshire, purchased or
inherited, at

368

-    8

Portsmouth, Barrington, Lyman, Thornton, The Gore,
Lime, Dorchester, Cockermouth, etc. The claimant was
oblig'd to flee to Boston in 1775. Has recovered no part
of furniture, stock carriages, or plate. A mob broke into
his House and destroy'd a great part. Thinks some part
was sold. Mr. Nathaniel Ray Thomas bears witness that
claimant had a most magnificent house, the best in the
four provinces of New England. The house was almost
furnish'd. A Park fenced in with deer, and a large
Garden. His carriages and horses were very handsome."

Fannie read the sheet quickly. "What d'you think you'll
get?"

 "I don't think the government will pay the full claims.
When you stop to think of all the refugees, some of
'em very wealthy people in their provinces and bereft of
everything, the sum would be enormous. I may get ten
thousand."

'Ten thousand pounds. That's not bad."

 "Of course I still owe a good deal of that, for money
advanced me on the Wolfeborough property."

 'To whom? That canting pack of rebels? They took
everything you had!"

 "I'm thinking of my father," Johnnie said slowly.
"When the other creditors filed their claims on my
estate he set his own aside. In the heat of the times it
was the only wise thing to do. He kept out of political
makers himself, but as father of the Governor he had
to be careful."

"But your father's rich! He can afford it!"

 "I wonder. You must remember his main dependence
was the mast business, and that was ruined during the
war. I feel it's a debt I must pay if he should ask me for
it."

 "As if you hadn't other debts!" She frowned at him,
but she said no more. Within a fortnight her mind was
eased. Mark Wentworth would never ask a penny in
this world. He had died five days after Johnnie placed
his claim before the commission.

 The return of warm weather enlarged Fannie's world
again. The ponies took her phaeton to all the usual
places in town, including Grand Parade for musical
evenings and the wide ex

369

panse of the Common for garrison reviews, and
when the mud had gone from the country roads
she began to fare forth a-horseback in her
favorite blue habit, with a wide hat and plumes,
or in breezy weather a cap fashioned like a little
cavalry helmet with a strap under her chin. With
her cavaliers she ambled through the wood paths
to Point Pleasant, or to the narrow blue fiord
called North West Arm, or along the Windsor
road past the Blue Bell to the shores of Bedford
Basin.

 Johnnie came with her quite often when he was
in town. His presence did not discourage her little
entourage, who were always very polite to Mr.
Wentworth, calling him Governor and deferring
to him in all manner of ways. Indeed they irked
Johnnie with their very deference; there was
something about it as if he were a nice old
gentleman attached to their goddess in some way
like an uncle or even a father. His hair was quite
grey now, and he never powdered it except for a
call on Governor Parr or some other official of
importance. It made a handsome contrast with his
sunburned face and neck, and even the ladies of
Halifax who pitied him as a cuckold never failed
to remark his distinguished looks.

 Fannie sensed his irritation, and to soothe it she
sometimes begged off her cavaliers and rode with
him alone. It always made him happy to ride with
her, and on the wooded roads outside the town
he could almost fancy himself back on the
Governor's Road, heading for Wentworth House
and another summer in the sunny peace of the
woods and fields. Once in that fall of '85 they
rode as far as Birch Cove on the Bedford Basin
shore, six miles from the town, where they paused
to refresh themselves at the small wayside inn.

 "Before we turn back, Fan," Johnnie said,
"there's something I want to show you, over there
by the mouth of the cove." They rode along the
road through the rustling birches for a short dis-
tance, and Johnnie jumped down and gave her a
hand to dismount. He tied the horses to trees at
the roadside and led her afoot through a grove of
pine trees to a small steep knoll. On the crest of
it they stepped forth on a slate ledge, and Johnnie

37o

swept an admiring arm about the scene. The knoll
had a handsome view. Behind them and just
beyond the road the land rose in a bluff covered
with white birches in yellow leaf. Before them the
ripples of Bedford Basin danced in the sunshine,
with darkwooded hills far across the water and the
shore at their feet running away to the right and
left, a long arc unbroken by any sign of habitation.
Only the exposed olive and yellow sea wrack
marked the existence of salt water or a tide. This
expanse at the far end of Halifax harbor, like a
broad mirror at the end of a slender handle, was
so completely enclosed by the hills that to all
appearance it might have been a lake in the heart
of the continent.

 "It's four miles long and a good two wide,"
Johnnie said. 'whey say the whole of the King's
Navy could ride at anchor here, with room for
every ship to swing and shelter from every wind."

 "It's pretty," Fannie said, wondering why he had
dragged her through those trees to look at a great
patch of water.

 "But doesn't it remind you of anything, Fan?
Don't you see, it's our lake in the New Hampshire
hills without the islands of course. The same size
and much the same shape, and the same woods on
the hills. I daresay there's another Mount De light
and a big pine on the shoulder of it, if we climbed
back over that birch bluff and went far enough."

 'What's in your mind, Johnnie?" she said
suspiciously. If he had some wild notion of starting
another Wentworth House out here, miles from
the town, she would have to scotch it quickly.

 "Just a little summer house, love, here on this
knoll. A hut, a mere ceD, a place where we could
come in the hot weather and stay for days and
nights, just we two." He put his arm about her.
'We could lie here and look out on the water and
dream we're back in New Hampshire."

 She stiffened at once. "That," she said, "would be
a nightmare as far as I'm concerned. If you want
to have a summer visa, build one where the
Halifax merchants have theirs, on the Dart

371

mouth side of the harbor, or at North West Arm,
or even on the tip of Point Pleasant like Colonel
Fanning."

 "But I've already bought the land here, love, a
hundred acres. Oh, don't be alarmed. I got it for
a mere trifle. And it'll just be a little hut, as I
said."

 She stepped away from his arm and shrugged.
"Build your cell if you must play the hermit. But
I won't promise to join you, except now and then,
perhaps. I haven't your love for solitude, Johnnie.
I never did."

 And she began to walk down the back of the
knoll toward the horses and the road. He
followed her with a downcast face. Perbaps if he
built a comfortable little cottage here, next year
say, and made a proper carriageway from the
road, she would see it better. At forty-nine he
began to feel odd pangs and yearnings, as if the
best of life were slipping away, as if he must do
something now to recapture that old sweet time
with Fannie, when they were first in love and
before the troubles came. Impossible to find it in
the house in town, where they never seemed to be
alone. But the yearning was more than that. What
he sought was Fannie and the New Hampshire
scene in one. The lake at Wolfeborough and the
smell of pines, and the daylong creak of saddle
leather and the pleasure of her arms at night;
amd in the dark the loons calling and the waves
lapping on the shore and the treefrogs cheeping
for rain in the summer weather. All that. Soon,
too soon perhaps, FitzWilliam would find him a
post in England and he would never find that in
England, ever.

 They rode off toward the town in silence. The
road was dusty and scattered with droppings of
cattle and sheep that the drovers brought through
the forest from the farms of Windsor. The horses
picked their way daintily. After a time, to bring a
happier mood in her, he remarked, "In another
week or two three at the outside George and
Mary will be here."

 She smiled at once. "It still seems incredible.
How did Gorge Brinley do it? He must have
influence that poor you beven'rgot."

 "Oh, I don't know. George has got along well in
the Commissary Department ever since he was
attached to the army at

372

New York. He showed his worth there, I tell you
Fan. And he's got a good head for
business always had. Influence is all very well, but
even the British army has to have some men who
can stand on their own worth."

'What's his new rank again7"

 "He's to be Deputy Commissary Gneral to His
Majesty's Forces in Nova Scotia. Which means the
garrisons at Halifax and Windsor, Fort
Cumberland and Fort Anne. He'll make his
headquarters at Halifax of course. So you and
Mary will be company for each other."

 "Yes," Fannie said, a little dubiously. Her
isolation in the town had a pretty advantage that
she was reluctant to give up. But on second
thought she was reassured. George would be busy
at his duties always, and Mary Mary would
understand, with a sisterly wink and a nod. Mary
was that very rare creature, a virtuous woman with
a sporting view of life.

373

            [lYENTr-EIGHT

I;YHEN George Brinley arrived at Halifax he
took up his residence in HoDis Street a few doors
from Government House, as became an official of
his importance, and Fannie welcomed not only
her sister but the presence of a house always
open to her in the heart of the town's elect.
Although Mary was only two years older the birth
and upbringing of five children had left their
mark on her. She retained the lively temperament
of Sam Wentworth's girls, but she was now
thoroughly the comfortable middle-aged matron
who let out her stays and enjoyed her food and
her nips of cordials and was never without her
little bundle of segars. She gave Fannie her family
news with a cheerful air of insouciance. One son
had died, one was in the army, amother was
studying for the law in London, and her daughter
was now well married there. She had with her
only the youngest boy, a hobbledehoy of fifteen.

 "Very different from your boy, Fan. We went to
see Charlie now and then, as you know. What a
delicate creature he is, so mannerly and
soft-spoken, and so dainty in his movements,
more like a girl than a boy. Reminds me of you at
that age, even to your mouth and nose, though
he's got Johnnie's eyes." Mary gave one of her
deep chuckles and a knowing look. "He'll have
none of your diable au corps, as far as I can judge,
and a good thing too."

"What a thing to say!"

 Another chuckle. "You always had a lot of that,
Fan, why deny it? How is John?"

"Still madly in love with trees."

"You don't see much of him, I take it."

374

"He comes home often enough."

"So you don't find it dull, eh?"

 They looked at each other, and Fannie made a
mouth. "This is a damned dull town, my dear, as
you'll soon discover. For myself, I confess my
diable helps me pass the time. Now tell me all the
London gossip. You may begin at the top the
Prince of Wales."

 "Ha! Georgie's amours alone would take a
twelvemonth to tell you. Perdita gave him the first
taste of a woman, and he liked it so much he's
gobbling his way merrily down the whole London
menu. A pretty example to his young brothers. But
of course they're all full of the Old Scratch, and
everyone takes an indulgent view a sign of good
health and spirits in a young man, after all. Well,
to begin with Prince Georgie...."

 The Brinleys kept a good table like the
Wentworths, and they dined often together, back
and forth. For his other guests Brinley preferred
officers of the garrison and fleet and made a point
of inviting one or two sprightly young subalterns to
give a sparkle to the conversation and afterward to
sing with Fannie at the harpsichord. A few favorite
officers, the best of all company, appeared at both
boards. It made an intimate little cycle, and if
Mary sometimes winked at her husband, guessing
how matters were, Johnnie remained oblivious, and
Fannie did not care.

 There was another feature of this new turn of
affairs which amused Fannie herself. As the chief
Commissary officer Gorge Brinley was a man to be
cultivated by the town merchants, whose best profit
came from supplies to His Majesty's forces. He
and Mary were flattered on every hand and
showered with invitations from the very people
who would not give Mary's sister a nod in the
street. And when in turn the merchant-aristocrats
received a card to dine at the Brinleys', they often
found themselves at table with the naughty Mrs.
Wentworth and obliged tO be polite to her.

 And Fannie had no mercy. It was they who had
to address themselves to her, to scrape their
noddles for thing to say, and

375

to smile throughout, suffering her cold gaze and
the subtle barbs of her wicked little tongue in
reply. They could still punish her, as they thought,
by keeping their own doors closed to her. And she
was never to be seen when they entertained
abroad at the Great Pontac, the Glden Ball, or
Roubalet's, or the new and elegant British Coffee
House where three hundred people could dine
and dance together. But Mrs. Wentworth
remained indifferent, letting it be known that she
herself would not associate with such a pack of
bores and flaunting her own choice of company in
the face of everyone.

 What scandalised the critics as much as anything
was her regular appearance with Johnnie, or in his
absence with one or more of her courtiers, at the
Sunday morning service at Saint Paul's. It was
always the great show of the week in the fortress
town. The regiments marching down behind their
bands, infantry in red and artillery in blue, and
fomming up before the church. The gentry
arriving m their carriages and coaches. The
Governor, the Commodore, the General, and the
Chief Justice stepping down with their families.
The Gvemor taking the salute of the troops and
passing inside with his brilliant staff, all scarlet
and blue and plumes and gold lace. The soldiers
filing to their places upstairs in the long galleries.
The officers and gentry settling themselves in their
pews. The fops taking snuff and sneezing and
making a great display of silk handkerchiefs. The
common folk jostling at the back and halfway
down the center aisle the Wentworth pew notably
empty.

 And then, just before the first boom of organ
notes, Mrs. Wentworth sweeping in, a
morocco~covered prayer book in one silkgloved
hand, and the other tucked in Mr. Wentworth's
arm or in her muff for she never touched her
other gentlemen in public. She was always dressed
as handsomely as any woman there, and better
than most, including the somewhat dowdy ladies
of the Gvemor, but with her looks and figure and
that bearing of an empress she could have looked
better than most in an Osnaburg sack.

She never wore paint or patches on these religious
expeditions.

376

And standing, kneeling, or seated as the senice
went on, she never glanced to right or left. With
her chin high she kept a steadfast gaze on the
altar, offering friends and foes alike the pale
chiseled profile of a saint in plumes and velvet. In
all that colorful and self-important company she
was a cynosure from first to last, when she sailed
out in the same manner, like a royal yacht in a
crowd of codfish schooners.

 Johnnie was never so proud of her as at these
times. He saw nothing but admiration in all those
staring eyes. And in that unwavering mystic gaze at
the altar he saw a revelation of the true Fannie,
the woman essentially pure under all that weekday
facade of mischief. She was good, really good, and
he was ashamed of the doubts that crept upon him
from time to time.

 The rush of American refugees had subsided in
Nova Scotia like a tide that pours into a sea pond
and then drains away, leaving only a few small
pools here and there. The work of the land
surveyors had drained away with it, and Johnnie no
longer had to keep an eye on them. He was now
able to devote himself to his proper duties,
searching out mast pines in the forest and marking
them with the King's broad arrow and his own JW.
As in the old days in New Hampshire he had
orders to resene such trees anywhere they might be
found in reach of tidewater, even on private land,
and as in the old days he had to make frequent
rounds of his wide domain, watching the marked
trees and the loggers.

 He truly loved these living wooden giants and
hated the notion of cutting them at all. Trees were
like people. Here and there among them, rooted in
the same soil, under the same suns and rains, one
grew straighter, stouter, taller than all the rest, and
free of all the common fiaws. As if certain trees
and men were born to stand over the others, and
no more to be disputed than any other fact of
nature.

 In this train of thought he could not think of
Governor Parr as a monarch pine. The man was
too small in all ways and not even native to this
soil. A petty creature on the fringe of Lord

377

Shelburne's favor,and so granted this post in the
wilds. Johnnie got along well with him as he got
along with most people, but he could not help
feeling a contempt for His Excellency. The vulgar
little man loved ease and food and wine, and had
no interest in the province whatever. He seldom
went farther into the country than the head of
Bedford Basin.

 Once, in the fall of '83, at a dinner to introduce
the new Surveyor General to some of his officials,
Parr had confided himself to Johnnie at his elbow.
The Governor had done well at the wine and was
talkative, but Johnnie could still remember every
word.

 "My dear feller, some people in London
wondered why I gave up the Tower to come away
here to this rude place. But you'll find it's not so
rude after all. In my own case I enjoy my position
as head of the government, with the greatest
civility and attention from all ranks of people.
The government provides me with a most
excellent mansion and garden as you see. To get
away from the heat amd smells of the town in
summer I have a farm of seventy or eighty acres,
at a distance of two miles, with a snug farmhouse
on it, a beautiful prospect and good fishing. In
town I enjoy plenty of provisions with a very good
French cook to dress 'em for the table. I've a
cellar well stocked with port, claret, Madeira,
rum, brandy and of course plenty of Bowood's
strong beer. Ha! As you know, I've reserved an
estate for myself in this new town of Shelburne
down the coast. And what d'you think I call it?
Bowood! Bowood that's very good, don't you
think?

 "But as I was saying, I'm well off here. I draw
full pay as colonel of a regiment that I never see,
amd the Governor's salary besides a neat
income of �zzoo a year, far beyond my expec-
tations in London. London! In London they
shudder at the very notion of a winter here. What
do I care? I've got warm clothes, damme, and
plenty of wood and Cape Breton coals to stand
off the cold. I tell you, at fifty-eight I'm as happy
and comfortably seated as anyone could wish to
be, and I intend to live a hundred."

Johnnie heard him with a polite smile. All that,
he thought,

378

should have been mine if Lord Rockingham had
only lived another month. What a business it all
was a man's fortune hanging, not on his worth,
but on the whim of a few lords jostling each other
for power in London! You felt so damned helpless.
There was nothing you could do but write cadging
letters to people who might be of importance, and
at regular intervals send them little gifts a
well-spiced and smoked bear ham, a pretty bauble
of amethyst from Cape Blomidon, a carved walrus
tooth, an Indian bijou case of birch bark
ornamented with dyed porcupine quills anything
at all to catch their eye for a moment and remind
them of their humble servant, off there in the
wilderness

 Meanwhile dear Fan was keeping up her own
valiant little campaign by pen to Lady FitzWilliam
and other wives of useful Whig lords. As she kept
saying, '4That upstart Billy Pitt can't hold the
government forever. One twist of affairs and the
Whigs could be in again. And Whigs, like all men,
listen to their wives."

 Darling Fan! How amxious she was for his
success! He thought often of that time, long ago at
Wolfeborough, when they heard the news of Uncle
Benning's will. And Fannie Hinging her arms
about his neck and crying, "Never mind, I'll bring
you fortune yet, I vow I will!"

 He rode into the town of Shelburne on a grey
afternoon in October '86, admiring the site, a long
low slope beside a harbor that ran deep into the
land like the one at Halifax. Four years ago the
first crowd of loyalist refugees from New York had
come here, cleared away the woods, and laid off an
ambitious town with wide streets, crossing at exact
right angles, from the ridge crest to the water.
Within a year they were joined by the final exodus,
including many British and loyalist soldiers of
disbanded regiments. In all, more than ten
thousand people had built here one of the greater
cities of America, with a bristle of wharves,
handsome shops and stores, and street upon street
of painted frame houses extending over the crest
of the ridge. Many of them spent every penny they
had in creating and furnishing as fine a mansion as
the one they had fled in the United States.

379

 And then the bubble shattered. What was here
to support a city? A worthless hinterland of rock
and thin clay hidden under the forest. A thin river
that led nowhere and dwindled to a brook in dry
weather. The only hope of a living was in the
codfishery, and few of the refugees were fitted for
that. Their claims for property lost in the United
States were still in the slow government machine.
Idiot a penny had been paid, and an the signs
from London indicated a delay that might go on
for years. And so they drifted away, first in
hundreds, then in thousands. They were still
going, seeking lands in the Annapolis Valley, on
the Saint John river, in the savage reaches of
Upper Canada.

 Johnnie rode past whole streets of good houses,
nearly all empty and silent, the paint already
beginning to peel, a broken window here and
there. An occasional chimney smoking, a few
children playing outside a door, the rattle of a
wed windlass or the sound of an ax splitting
firewood at the back except for these it might
have been a city of the dead. It filled him with
melancholy. As if the American loyalists were a
race accursed doomed to wander like the Jews in
the wilderness, without a home and without a
hope. How had it all happened? And why? After
eleven years of exile he still could not understand.

 It was a relief to pus up at last outside the big
clapboard residence of Captain Gideon White.
The captain was from Plymouth, Massachusetts, a
descendant of the first child born to the Pilgrims
in America, and with the spirit of the Pilgrims he
had determined to remain in Shelburne, find ng
what business he could and living in his
accustomed style, come what may. A Negro
servant ran out to catch Johnnie's reins, and he
entered into the welcome of the house. It was a
typical New England mansion; the wainscoted
wars, the sturdy but elegant furniture, the Turkey
carpets, the family portraits, the fires blazing
under wellcarved mantelpieces.

 And in an hour he was seated before a good
New England dinner of roast turkey, potatoes,
squash, corn, and beans, with pumpkin pie and
coffee to follow, and a decanter of well-traveled
and matured Madeira at his elbow. The talk was
of old

380

times of course. That came first whenever refugee
met refugee. Then it drifted to woodland matters.
Finally, after a lull, when the port was passing at
the dinner's end, the captain said, "When did you
leave Halifax?"

"A week ago."

"Then you didn't see the Pegasus frigate?"

 "No," Johnnie said, with indifference. The
movements of His Majesty's ships to and from the
Halifax station did not interest him much.

 The captain laughed. "I guess your Halifax
society will be bowing and scraping all over the
place. Her commander's young Prince William
Henry, fancy that. Came out from England by way
of Newfoundland and plans to stay a time before
going on to the West Indies. Our little cock Parr
will be all of a fluster  royalty right on his
doorstep bang! like that."

 Johnnie sipped his wine in silence. It was easy
to picture the fluster. The military parades, the
levees, the dinners, the balls, the fetes, the
fireworkdisplays, the nightly illuminations. And
the problem of invitations. He could see Parr
scratching his wig over that minor official, the
Surveyor General. How to invite Mr. Wentworth
and not to invite Mrs. Wentworth the social
problem of Halifax for the past two years. And
the relief to hear that Mr. Wentworth, as usual,
was off in the woods.

 He put up his chin. "I'm well away from all that,
Gideon. I confess I'm not much of a man for
formal entertainment nowadays. I suppose I've got
out of the way of it since I left New Hampshire."
And with a shake of his head, "How strange it
seems, that boy commanding a warship. I saw him
in a London theater not so many years ago, a
middy of fourteen or so. But of course he must
be, what, twenty or one-and-twenty now. How the
time flies! A sign of age, they say."

"Not in you, Gvernor. Why, you're just in your
prime."

 "I'm fifty," Johnnie said. "Fifty and creaking at
the joints, like an old ship that's seen too many
storms, and as far from harbor as ever. It isn't just
the years that count, my friend. It's the weather."

38

             [~ENTr-NINE

11lE LIl red DINNER was one of Juno s best.
Turtle soup, partridge, and woodcock, a noble
round of the best Windsor beef a golden-brown
crusted prune pie, tarts, and coffee. For the wine
Fannie had chosen some of Johnnie's special
Caret. The guests were three of her favorites,
Captain Jack Hoskins of the 60th Regiment,
Lieutenant Catesby of the Seth, and Lieutenant
Broa&urst, R.N. of the Dockyard staff. Their
uniforms made a gallant show of blue and scarlet
about the table, and Fannie showed no less
gallantly in a white gown whose bodice was tipped
with Limerick lace like the foam of a breaking
wave. The foam, as the sea officer noted to
himself, came barely to the neaptide mark. A
modest wisp of gauze was draped loosely about
her shoulders, and she wore on her powdered
coiffure a bandeau of navy blue "especially for
you, Broadhurst." She had a small round necklace
of pearls at her throat and her favorite pearl
earrings. Her hands were bare. She seldom wore
rings, except on her wedding finger when she
appeared at church. She had found long ago that
at dinner or cards the whole art of a woman's
appearance was in what showed above the table,
and rings spoiled the grace of the white hands,
nervous and slender, playing about the cloth
before her, on exact foil for the serene display a
few inches above.

 The window hangings were drawn against the
curiosity of passers in the street, candles gave the
softest of light, and below the mantel a fire of
maple logs sent out a comfortable glow. Juno's
son, a neat and silent Negro youth in green livery,
attended the table, and as he removed the soup
Fannie said, "Now, dear boys, let's hear all about
Our Sailor Prince. You start, Broadhurst, you're
the naval man."

38z

 A dark grin from BroadFurst. "Our Sailor Prince
is a card, in fact he's the deuce. I le celebrated his
twenty-first birthday on the voyage out, and I'm
told it was no mere splice of the main brace but a
general souse, at his command. At one stage a
gang of tipsy seamen carried him about, shoulder
high and cheering away, and nearly knocked his
head off against the deck beams. In fact Our Sailor
Prince, his officers and half his crew were so
completely drunk for hours that His Majesty's
frigate Pegasus was in charge of the midshipmen.
As one mid put it to me, it was a case of 'Reel,
Britannia' and chorus of 'All in the Downs."'

 A roar of laughter. "Mind you," Broadhurst went
on, "it could have been merely a case of sorrow to
drown. It's whispered that His Highness fell in love
with a young girl over there somewhere" a jerk of
Broadhurst's black head toward England "and he
actually proposed to marry her, so his royal papa
got him packed off to the North American station.
If that's the case we may see quite a bit of Sailor
Billy in the next year or two. Nothing like time and
Canadian winds for a hot head."

 "Have they ever chilled yours?" Fannie asked
with a meaning little twinkle. "But tell me, what's
he like?" instinctively not mentioning that she
had seen the Sailor Prince a remarkable number of
years ago.

"Well, in the Navy they call him Coconut Head."

 Another roar. "Fact! His noddle goes up to a
peak just like that. Indeed he's not what you'd call
impressive. Stands about five foot seven or eight,
straw-colored hair, face the color of a ripe red
apple and about the same shine. Very brisk, very
nautical talks like Jack Tar. Free Ad easy in
many ways he passed the word to our officers
here that they're not to make a princely fuss, that
he's plain Captain Guelph of the Royal Navy, and
so forth. Just the same I'm told it's not wise to
overstep the mark with him. Not when he's sober,
at any rate. Speak when you're spoken to, hands
off and all that, else you find yourself brought up
with a round turn."

"Very well," Fannie said. "Now you, Jack, tell me
about the

383

formal landing today. By some oversight His
Excellency didn't invite my presence." They
laughed again. Fannie made no secret of her
private war with Halifax society.

 "My dear lady," Hoskins chuckled, "he merely
wished to spare you. It wasn't much, I vow. His
Royal Coconut landed at the King's Wharf under
a full royal salute from the Pegasus and the
batteries...."

 "And what a din that was!" said Fannie, making
a face. "Enough to wake the dead."

 "Quite so. Well, the 57th lined one side of the
way to Gvernment House, ours the other. The
General and little Parr were on the dock in full
fig to receive him. Swarms of people everywhere.
They never saw a prince before mad with
curiosity. Ilardtime keepmg 'em back. The bands
struck up 'God Save the King.' We presented
arms and all that. They walked up to Government
House between our lines, and then our officers
and the town bigwigs were presented to him
there. Fussy business. I could see he was
impatient. As soon as that was over he took a
quick look around the younger officers, caught
Catesby's eye  and well, go on with it, Jeff."

 Lieutenant Jeffery Catesby rolled his eyes at
Fannie comically. "You won't believe this, dear
ma'am, but here goes. He beckoned me over amd
said he wished to take a walk about the town with
me. And off he started, at half a run. He seemed
dam' glad to get away. So I steered him up to
Grand Parade amd along the Mall a wonder you
didn't see us, but naturally the streets were
crowded. Showed him inside Saint Paul's on the
way back, and thought that'd be the end of it.
Sailors, you know, ain't got the legs for a long
march," with a grin at Broadhurst. "But then,
deuce take it, he said he wished to view the town
from the top of Citadel Hill!"

 Catesby leaned back in his chair and uttered a
hoot. 'We never got up the hill. When we reached
Albemarle Street, where the better dolly-shops
are the sixpenny ones are further up the slope
on Barrack Street lo and behold the ladies were
just up

384

Fir

and washed for the day's affairs. This was about half
past two in the afternoon, and of course the
best-lookin' merchandise was in the windows, as usual.
I said this was the bawdy quarter, but we'd be out of it
in a few more minutes. And by the great Jove if he
didn't insist on goint in and talkie' with the gels! Said
they were His Majesty's subjects, damme!.the same as
you and me. What's more he knew their language,
make no mistake laughin' and jokin', discussing their,
um, points and they lost no time showin' 'em, you may
be sure. You've no idea, my dear lady, no idea. And
this went on right along the street from one place to
another, wherever a pretty baggage caught his
eye Madame O'Hara's, Hogg's, the Sultana's the
whole brigade."

 "He seems to have chosen a most knowledgeable
guide," chaffed Fannie.

 "My dear ma'am, you wrong me. We have to pass and
repass those places we run the whole dam' gauntlet
every time we come or go from the barracks. Ain't that
so, Jack7"

"Never mind," Fannie said. "Go on."

 "Well, he called it 'inspectin' the larboard watch,'
making sure that everything was properly unrigged and
coiled down and well cleared for action. That's the way
he talks. It was deuced comical, you know, but still I
was a bit nonplussed. I mean to say, it's one of the
sights of the town for new officers on the station and
other visitors, like takint a new boy to the Punch and
Judy show, but well, I couldn't help thinkin' I might
get into hot water for takint him there, and all that. I
hinted at it, but he shut me up; said he was his own
master on this side of the Atlantic, and nobody was
gain' to tell him what he should or shouldn't do."

 "Well," said Jack Hoskins, darting a grin at
Broadhurst, "we all know what sailors are of course. It
comes of being shut up aboard ship too much, and not
enough saltpeter in the beef. Besides...."

 "I think," broke in Fannie, in her most imperial tone,
"we shall talk about something else. After all, who are
we to discuss the idiosyncrasies of princes) Besides, I'm
not the least bit in

385

terested.Do you like the partridge, Jeff? Mr.
Wentworth sees I get a constant supply of
game I expect a haunch of caribou very shortly,
and if you're very good and mind your manners
nicely you shall taste it, all of you."

 His Majesq's frigate Pegasus, twenq-eight guns,
remained in the anchorage day after day. Prince
William seemed in no hurry to join the squadron
in the West Indies for the winter. There were
formal dirmers and balls of every kind. There
were carriage drives, each a long procession of
smart turnouts filled with officers and gentry,
while the Prince inspected the woods in their
autumn color along the Bedford Basin road and
about Dutch Village and the shore of North West
Arm. The garrison staged sham battles for his
benefit on the Common and Camp Hill. There
were London plays, acted by young officers and
gentlemen of the town in the theater on Argyle
Street. There was, indeed, every polite
entertainment that the town could offer.

 The Prince appeared to enjoy them all, but he
enjoyed his odd private entertainment no less,
and he often cut his formal evening engagements
for the purpose, to the "Teat chagrin of the
tuEthunting ladies of town society. Again and
again he was to be seen, accompanied by one or
two gay young officers, visiting the ladies of the
larboard and starboard watches on the upper
slope. The gentry were shocked or merely
puzzled, according to their temperament. Even his
officer companions hardly knew what to make of
him. His whims were uncertain. He seemed a
young man full of zest who does not know quite
what to do with it. He was a frequent guest at
regimental dinners, where a redcoated band
played softly in an anteroom and the grenadiers
were lined up outside, in the frosty dark, to fire
volleys in honor of the main toasts. At these
affairs the wine always flowed freely. Sometimes
he drank himself into a stupor and was carried off
to bed, or at a late hour was led down the hill,
with a staggering escort of officers, to the half
frozen crew of his barge, waiting at the quay. At
other times he drank nothing, but took a
mischievous delight in calling a long list of
bumper toasts in quick succession and

386

walking off and leaving the company swaying in
their chairs or sliding under the table. When the
Governor and the Gneral were present it made no
difference. Their dignity had to go down with the
rest. If he saw anyone nursing a half empty glass
he would cry in his topstl yard voice, "I see some
of God Almighty's daylight in that glass,
sir banish its"

 Word of all this came to Fannie through her own
young officers, who often arrived with headaches
and notable tales from the night before. She could
almost hear the agitated whispers in the tight little
circle of Halifax society, those prudes who lived so
far from the London ton and knew nothing of
what wagged the world. It was impossible for them
to believe that good King George and plain little
Queen Charlotte had produced such a wild young
man.

 At four o'clock on a dark afternoon she sat in
her drawing room awaiting Captain Hoskins. It
had been raining for the past two days, and now
under the dull October sky a cold wind swept
along the Mall. The curtains were drawn, the
candles lit, and the fire crackled pleasantly. She
had just finished one of her plaintive letters to
Lady FitzWilliam when the knocker sounded in the
hall. She sanded the last sheet hastily and slipped
the letter into a drawer. Prue went to the door,
and there was a sound of two male voices in the
entrance. So Jack had brought a guest. Why? They
were to dine and spend the evening together

 deux. And now, having parted with hats and
cloaks, the two men came into the drawing room.

 She hardly saw Hoskins at all. Her eyes went at
once to his companion, a stocky young officer in
naval blue and white, wearing a pair of muddy
Hessian boots. His eyes were blue and very large,
they seemed to bulge in the florid face, and his
yellow hair was gathered in a short queue with a
blue ribbon.

 "Mrs. Wentworth," said Hoskins, "may I have the
honor of presenting you to Captain Guelph, of the
Royal Navy?"

 For a moment her knees shivered, and her face
went hot. What did this mean? They had been on
what Prince Billy called a "cruise," that was
obvious from their boots. Did Sailor Billy

387

think she was part of the "starboard watch?" If so,
what had Hoskins said? He was a gentleman, all
her chosen companions were gentlemen, not the
sort to bandy a lady's name about where a favor
was concerned. But where a prince of the realm
was concerned, what then? Would they feel
obliged to mention her as a particular sort of
confection? If Jack Hoskins had even hinted at
such a thing she could kill him.

 The flush left her face, and her knees were firm
again. With a cold dignity she dropped a curtsy
and murmured, "Your Highness," looking at his
boots.

 "Stuff!" said His Highness, stepping forward. He
seized her hand as she arose and kissed it with a
jerky little bob, like a boy at his first dancing
lesson.

 "Call me Captain, ma'am, if you please. That's
a good fire you have over there. Mind if I warm
my flippers?" And without waiting for a reply he
strode to the fire and held out his flippers to the
heat, tossing over his shoulder, "This is a very
nice little house you have here. Everything
snug and elegant, of course, very elegant.
Hoskins tells me your dinners are the best in the
town. Eh? Eh?"

 Captain Hoskins cast her a mute gaze of
apology, embarrassment, and a faint tinge of
despair. Her own eyes were frosty. She would
never forgive him.

"Your Highness," she began.

"Captain!"

 "Captain Guelph, you mustn't believe everything
Mr. Hoskins says. He's most unreliable, I find. As
it happens my servants have prepared a dinner,
nothing extraordinary, and if you'll do me the
honor you shall have a chance to judge."

 "Ah! Well, that's most kind of you,
Mrs. Wentworth, is it? Have you any Madeira?
I always drink Madeira when I can  nothing like
it."

Fannie rang the bell and ordered a decanter and
glasses.

"I'm afraid you'll find it a little ordinary, Your .
. . Captain."

"It'll be very good, I'm sure."

When the decanter came the Captain attacked it
thirstily.

388

"Not a bad little wine, this, eh? Eh) Tomorrow, my
dear lady, I shad send up some Madeira of my
own for you. Magnificent stuff, eight-and-twenty
years im bottle, I give you my word. A gift from
Sir Archibald CampbeD just before I sailed."

 By the time they sat down to dinner the Captain
had imbibed the amount of a fun bottle, and he
drank as much again during the meal. He became
very talkative, rattling on about his ship, his
officers, his crew, his seven years in the Navy.
Hoskins sat silent over his food, avoiding Fannie's
eye.

 "You're an American, I understand," Prince BiDy
said, interrupting his own long discourse in the
abrupt way he had.

 "Yes, Captain. My husband was Governor of His
Majesty's Province of New Hampshire. Before that
terrible war, of course, which ruined aD the
loyalists, as you know. I lived some years in
England after, with Lord and Lady Rockingham
and other friends. England was a home to me, and
seems so stir. I shad never be quite happy till we
can get back there."

"Husband's got some sort of post in the woods
here, eh? Eh?"

"Yes, he's at his duties now."

"How long d'you expect him to be away?"

"A month or so."

 "Um! WeD! A man must go where his duty is,
eh? That's what I have to do, damme."

 At the dinner's end Fannie ram her fingers over
the keys of her new pianoforte, and discovered at
once that Captain Guelph liked to sing. He had a
loud unmusical voice, but he commanded a varied
of songs, especially drinking songs, and bellowed
them with tremendous gestures as if he were on
the Covent Garden stage. As the evening wore on
Fannie lit one of her little segars, and the Captain
took snuff and launched into another long straggle
of talk about his nautical experiences. He knew
every rope and plank aboard a ship and the duties
of every man, whether in storm or battle or in
harbor, and he seemed anxious to display his
knowledge, as if to convince his hearers that he
was a captain, not through royal influence, but
because he had, as he said, "Come aboard by the
hawse, not the gangway."

389

 Fannie's heart sank in ennui. It was a relief
when Hoskins murmured something about going.
The Captain jumped up at once, saymg, "Yes, by
Jove. It's late, eh? Eh? You must see me to my
barge, Hoskins. Good night, ma'am, and thank
you for an excellent dinner and a most pleasant
evening. I may come again, oh?"

"Of course, Captain Guelph."

'With or without Hoskins, eh?"

 "As you choose." Her voice had a faint
contempt. He was so absurd, like an overgrown
schoolboy, blustering and stumbling over himself
im his eagerness to be a prince and a mam at one
time. Prue helped the gentlemen into their cloaks,
and they departed. When the door closed Prue
folded her hamds and said "Well! A prince in our
house! I can't believe it even now, but there he
was. And you you deserve it, ma'am, after all
the nasty things these people have said about you.
I always said the best was none too good for you."

'what," Famnie said, making a mouth, "remains to
be seen."

39o

               [HIR or

1 HI3 NEXT MOWING a handcart and a party of
seamen arrived with half a dozen cases of prime
old Madeira, and a polite young lieutenant handed
Mrs. Wentworth a card scrawled, With my Thimbles
and Compliments. William H.

 On the following afternoon she noticed him
walking along the Mall with the General and
another officer, but he did not give the house a
glance. She did not see him for another two days.
Then he came in the forenoon with Hoskins and
would drink nothing but tea, because he said the
sun was not over the yardarm. They stayed half an
hour, and diffidently Fannie offered an invitation
to dine. She knew he was beset with invitations on
every side and that Governor Parr was holding a
ball in his honor tonight. To her astonishment
Captain Guelph accepted at once, and added, "I'm
to dance at the Governor's later. D'you mind if I
dress here? Eh? Eh? I always come ashore in
boots, and so forth."

 "Captain, if you'll give this poor little house the
honor, please consider it your pied~-te~e at any
time."

 She extended the dinner invitation to Hoskins,
but in such a cold voice that he looked away
miserably and said he had duty.

 So it was a dinner ~ dew, and she wondered
what would happen. A naval servant brought a
portmanteau with the Captain's dress clothes, and
Prue placed it in the best of the spare
bedchambers. Her guest drank little, in view of the
ball to follow, and at dinner talked of nothing but
his midshipman days in the Navy, full of little
anecdotes that he seemed to think very funny
indeed.

 "Is New Hampshire far from New York? I was in
New York once, during the late war. Some of the
rebels planned to kidnap

391

me, I Wieve a compliment, that, eh? They
wouldn't do that for the admiral, eh? It was
wintertime, devilish cold, but I enjoyed it. Just a
boy then. Snow on the ground, ice on the ponds.
Some of the fellows put a chair on runners and
pushed me about a pond, scattering the skaters
right and left and yelling, 'Make way, make way
for Prince William!' Ha-ha-ha, what a lark!
Whenever I think of America I think of that.
Nobody in America would make way for me now,
eh? Would they, eh?"

 "How soon must you leave for the West Indies?"
Fannie asked at last.

 "Oh, that. Im putting it off as long as I can. I'll
stay three weeks altogether. Then I must be off.
I'll come north again with the squadron in the
spring of course. Look forward to that. I like it
here in Halifax. Very jolly place."

 The hour came for him to go "aloft," as he said,
to dress for the ball, and Mrs. Wentworth was
kind enough to lend her carriage for the muddy
passage down to Gvernment House. His servant
had been lurking outside, and now carried off the
portmanteau with his "boots, and so forth."

 As William took his leave, in full dancing fig,
from powdered hair to silk stockings and pumps,
he gave one of his jerky bows and kissed Fannie's
hand. He held the slim fingers for a time.

 "Did you really mean what you said about
making this my pied-2-terre7"

"Of course I did, Captain."

 "I mean to say, Hoskins mentioned to me that
you're always very kind about putting up a guest
or two on wet nights, and so forth. I could bed at
the Gvernor's or any of a dozen places, but
they're all so deuced stiff, those people. I mean to
say, I have to be my rank with 'em all the
time all Prince and no Billy. I like it here. Feel
like myself here. Don't like a crowd. And you're
such pleasant company."

 "How very good of you to say so, Captain,"
Fannie murmured, and paused. And then
deliberately, "I should warn you that  outside of
the garrison circle I'm not considered good
enough

392

company for the ladies of the little society in
Halifax. They don't call on me are you sure you
should?"

 She watched him carefully, and he looked away.
He had heard, then. Old Mrs. Parr probably, very
conscious of her responsibilities, setting forth the
people to meet and those to avoid. His large blue
eyes came back to hers. He sucked in a great
breath that turned his hearty pink face almost
purple. Then he exploded. His voice was just short
of a scream. "I go where I wish and do what I
please! Who are these people to tell me who's
acceptable and who's not? They're all in trade, the
lot of 'em. That's why I don't accept their private
invitations. That's my rule. Why should I hobnob
with tradespeople? I choose my own friends. No
one shall do that for me not even my father!"

 Fannie waited for this eruption to subside.
"Thank you, Captain. Then you may come to my
house as often as you wish." She waited again a
few moments, with a cool straight stare into those
bulging blue eyes. '~You won't be breaking your
rule. As Captain Hoskinshas surely informed you,
I am not in trade."

 In return for the formal hospitalities ashore the
Prince gave a few dinners aboard the Pegasus, with
his own staff of cooks and confectioners and a
magnificent array of china and silverware. His
guests were ferried to the ship in his handsome
eight-oared barge, with oarsmen dressed in white
trousers, short scarlet jackets and black velvet
caps. The coxswain wore a cap of gold cloth which
(as the Prince informed everybody) had cost fifty
guineas. Fannie's chief enemies received cards to
some of these affairs and were delighted to see she
was not there. But it was a nollow triumph. In his
brisk way the Prince declined all private invita-
tions. It was his rule, he said, to accept
entertainment only from the chief officers of His
Majesty's government, fleet, and garrison. And in
the following days they saw him keep his rule in
every direction except one.

 Each morning His Highness came ashore to take
his pleasure for the day. And no day passed
without a visit to Mrs. Wentworth's house in the
Mall. Sometimes an army officer came with

393

him, sometimes he came alone. He drank tea
there in the mornings, he dropped in for a glass
of wine whenever he passed in the afternoons, he
dined there often, and when he did he stayed the
evening. He used her carriage, but alone she
was never to be seen with him in public. Her foes
drew what satisfaction they could from that. The
worst feature was that he sometimes stayed the
night at Mrs. Wentworth's. He was even known
to keep clothes there, and whenever he appeared
at a ball to which the merchant aristocracy were
invited, it gave the ladies a pang to know that he
had dressed for the occasion at that wicked
woman's house.

 At hard-drinking dinners where the guests were
all male, at the Governor's, at the
Commissioner's, at the three barracks on the hill,
and whenever he was too far gone to return
aboard, he would mutter, "Take me to Mrs.
Wentworth's," and a group of fuddled officers
took him there. When he came down red-eyed in
the morning his hostess awaited him, smiling,
always immaculately dressed and groomed, and
always ready with a silver pot of hot black coffee
for the dry mouth and the queasy stomach. He
would never know what a sacrifice it was for her.
Fannie had always loved to lie late abed, and it
was good for the complexion; she felt she needed
every possible hour at rest.

 One evening when she knew he had gone to
dinner with the officers of the 60th, a notably
hard~rinking crew, she decided to retire early.

 "Catesby tells me the Prince is sure to bed at
the barracks," she informed Prue. "So I'm off to
bed for a nice long sleep myself." She went
upstairs and Prue undressed her, loosed her hair
from its pins, and plaited it for the night. She was
asleep almost as soon as she touched her head to
the pillow, but it was not a nice long sleep. She
wakened lo the banging of the door knocker. It
was hard to see the bedroom clock in the wan
light of the nightcandle, which for safety's sake
Prue always stood in a saucer of water on the
dressing table. She sprang out of bed and saw
that it was only half past eleven.

She threw a chintz peignoir over her little night
chemise,

394


thrust her feet into slippers, took a quick searching
look at her face in the glass, and hurried
downstairs. Prue was there with a candle, a
shapeless figure in flannel.

 "It's him again," Prue grumbled. "And drunk
again, without a doubt, and a crew of those foolish
young officers, fumbling and stumbling up the
steps." But when she opened the door Captain
Guelph was alone, and although his breath smelled
of wine he was far from drunk. He wore a black
boat cloak over his uniform, and Fannie saw from
the mud on his Hessians that he had walked all the
way down from the barracks. Pausing on the way
no doubt for a chat in Albermarle Street, or
perhaps even that shrieking slum on Barrack
Street.

 He offered no apology for this unexpected call.
"Those fellows of the 60th," he said, passing his
gold-knobbed malacca to Prue and tossing off hat
and cloak. "They pride 'emselves on their heads for
wine, but I saw 'em all scuppered before I left.
Drank a few glasses myself but gave 'em no mercy
called the toasts myself. The Royal Family, one by
one that's seventeen counting me. And bumpers
all, with just time for breath between. Ha! Well, I
walked off and left 'em there with their heads spin-
ning, and here I am, stranded and looking for a
bed."

 He uttered his braying laugh, but there was no
pleasure in his face. He seemed excited and
restless and unhappy.

 '~You may go, Prue," Fannie said coldly. "The
Captain can light himself to bed."

 She took Prue's candle and from it lit another on
the little table in the hall. The woman vanished
into the shadows toward the servants' quarters.
Captain Guelph picked up the second candle and
followed Mrs. Wentworth "aloft." She had the
chintz clutched about her with one hand and held
forth her candle with the other. She was vexed, and
she showed it in the rigid line of her back and
head. From the first meeting with him she had held
herself armed against any familiarity, guessing that
he had come to see her as he went to see the
women of "the hill." She had determined to show
him she was not to be rated in that class and
indeed was far mor' a lady than he was a
gentleman. And

395

she had succeeded. Aside from his awkward little
courtesies he had not made the slightest advance.

 But he carried his hands-off policy much too far.
She resented his failure to invite her to dine and
dance with him at those affairs aboard the Pegasus
and to demand that Gvernor Parr invite her to the
Government House affairs, as he might easily
have done. He was always ready to use her
carriage but never asked her to drive with him or
be seen with him anywhere. He used her home
exactly as she had offered is as a p~ed-~-terre,
convenient to the center of the town. But what
right had he to treat her as the keeper of a
common lodginghouse? Coming at any hour of the
day or night, and more often drunk than sober! In
the face of the Halifax snobs it was a satisfaction
at first to have a prince of the blood under her
roof, but now the satisfaction had gone with the
novelty. What was he after all but a stupid and
drunken young bore) Jack Hoskins with his dark
good looks and pleasant manners was twenty
times the man.

 On the landing at the top of the stairs, where
her chamber stood open in the small glimmer of
the night light, he paused as if to say Good Night,
and she turned to face him. With the candles held
up before them they inspected each other like two
night-faring strangers meeting suddenly in an
alley.

 "Ma'am," he said morosely, "there's something I
want you to understand. I only drink because it
cuts me adrift from all the cursed restraints that
have been put upon me since I was a child. And
because it excites me of course."

"And is that why you go to see those strumpets up
the hill?"

 He blinked. And then in the same voice, "Yes.
They're so different from the ladies I meet in
drawing rooms and the like. They don't put on
airs. They don't expect airs from me. They talk to
me as if I was just a man."

 Into Fannie's mind poured that scene at Drury
Lane, the happy and excited boy in the box, the
young hero home from the wars. And the older
youth beside him, the Prince of Wales, gazing at
the painted scene on the curtain and longing for
Perdita.

396

What was it she had said to Johnnie? Better Perdita
than some common little strumpet.

 Widhout hesitation she touched her candle to his
and blew out both in a puff. Only tile faint glow of
dhe chamber light remained.

"Come in," she said.

 For ten days more the Pegasus swung idly at her
anchors, and each of those days dhe Captain was
seen passing in or out of dhe little white house in
the Mall. There remained a good deal of of ficial
entertainment that he could not refuse, including
bibulous farewell dinners at dhe various officers'
messes of dhe garrison and the Dockyard. Again
he was led, stumbling, late at night to the quay or
deposited at Mrs. Wentworth's house, a fuddled
lump, to be put to bed. But there were evenings
enough when he could enjoy one of her quiet lithe
dinners, her gay little songs and pranks and dhe
comforts of her bed.

 He was to sail on the twenty-fourth of October,
and he took his leave of her on dhe afternoon
before. '1here's to be a grand farewell dinner and
ball at dhe Governor's tonight, and I must be
Here, my dear. I'd stay anodher week if I could,
but Schomberg says I must sling my hook
tomorrow."

'Who's he?"

 "My first lieutenant. Aged thirty-four, if you
please, and an old West Indies hand. The Lords of
Admiralty put him aboard to keep an eye on me,
and damme he acts sometimes as if he were the
captain. I've put him in his place more dhan once,
you may depend, but I daren't carry it too far
where the ship's concemed."

 There was a long and tearful farewell in her
drawing room. A few evenings before, in one of
her romping moods, she had played for him her
imitation of Perdita in a breeches part. And now,
feeling dhe drama of this moment, she made her
farewell as good as anything ever done by Mrs.
Robinson at Drury Lane, to She very last, when
she fumed away flinging dhe back of her hand
across her eyes as he moved toward dhe door.

She was still feeling pleased widh this
perfommance when he

397

walked in cheerfully the next night at ten o'clock,
just as she was undressing for bed.

'William! What are you doing here? Go, Prue."

 "Ha! The ship's wind-bound. Schomberg was
bound to try beating out, but we had to come
back inside the big island and anchor. So I came
up to town in my barge. Promised him I'd come
off again at the first sign of a fair slant. And here
I am."

 And there he was imdeed, with the greedy look,
as if he had been gone a twelvemonth.

 Hours later she awakened and heard the town
watch passing along the Mall and their hoarse
rum-tuned voices bawling, "Three o'clock. Three,
and all's well." The tired blond coconut was heavy
on her shoulder. She moved for comfort, and he
stirred and wakened. He lay silent for some
minutes. Then he said, "You know, there's
something I can't fathom about you. I don't know
what it is exactly. You're clever, and I'm stupid of
course. All I know is you seem to be two or three
women all in one."

'Well?"

 "I like the one you are now. You you content
me. That's the only word I can think of. I never
feel wild and angry when I'm with you like
this and I do whenever I'm away from you. I'm
not putting it very well, I s'pose. But you do
understand me, don't you? you always do."

"Of course."

 Another pause, and then, "Your husband when
d'you expect him backs"

"About the end of the month.''

 "He sleeps with you, eh?" There was such
jealousy in his voice that she smiled at the ceiling,
where the last flicker of the night-candle played
before "uttering out in the water saucer.

"Naturally."

"Are you like this with him?"

 "My husband's a handsome man in his way and
much older than myself. In fact he's past fifty, and
you're twenty-one. Does that explain what you
want to know?"

398


 "Ah! You know, you seem a very young girl
sometimes, specially now, with your hair down in
a thick plait like that, like a like a dark rope on
a deck that's all polished white from the
holystones. 'Course I know you're older than me.
How much,-"

"I've forgotten."

"Tell me how old you are!"

 "Hark!" She sat up and gazed toward the
window. The candle had gone out, but the moon
was up, and its light shone through the panes.

'What is it?" He threw an affectionate arm across
her lap.

"The wind there's a wind blowing."

"Let it blow."

 She threw oR his arm impatiently and sprang
out of bed to the window. The wind was hissing in
the eaves, and in the moonlight she could see
fallen leaves blowing along the Mall.

 "It's straight down the street that means a fair
wind down the harbor, doesn't it? Get up,
quickly! You must get to your boat at once.

 He was still inclined to linger, but she would
have none of it. In twenty minutes he was bullied
into his clothes and down to the door. There he
halted.

"You didn't answer my question, did you?"

Fannie kissed him, opened the door, and thrust
him forth.

 "Save your questions for the ladies in Jamaica
and Antigua  and try to remember me."

"I'll count every day till next summer."

"Your Schomberg's counting minutes now go!"

 She stood for a moment watching him run down
the moonlit street, with the cocked hat jammed
down to his ears and the boat-cloak blowing out
behind him. It was cold there in the new north
wind. She shivered and went back to bed.

399

            TIlIR Tr-ONE

For had no illusions about her royal lover. There
would be royal drinking in the naval ports of the
Caribbean, a thirsty part of the wodd, and he
would call the roll of larboard and starboard
female watches wherever they might be found.
And he would find no lack of ladies like herself,
willing to be Hattered with the royal embrace. For
she was Hattered enormously, in spite of her first
coolness. She did not realize how much until he
had gone. Whatever the sailor prince was counting
in the West Indies, she found herself counting
weeks if not the days until he came north again.

 It was odd to think of those London days when
the magic air of royalty had drawn her again and
again to Kew and Windsor, merely for a peep in
the distance. How awed she had felt as the King
and his sons rode by in Hyde Parkl And now here
in the wilds of Nova Scotia, of all places, that
mystic presence had been laid upon her in person
with the rollicking captain of the Pegasus. It was
like being touched by a god in a Greek fable. One
of the odder gods perhaps, but nevertheless she
felt transfigured. When Johnnie came home she
asked him to sleep in another chamber, pleading
the delicacy of her health and her need of
unbroken sleep. 'Lou snore so, love, and the
doctor insists."

 For Fannie the winter and spring went well
enough, but May crawled and June was a torture.
Would he never come? The month had almost
gone when the quiet of a hot afternoon blew apart
in gunfire from the batteries and then from the
ships. The long and seemingly endless thunder of
a royal salute Happed along the harbor hills and
rumbled about the wooded slopes of Bedford
Basin. Johnnie was busy at a mast report for the
Com

400

modore, seated at the little writing desk in the
sitting room. He looked up.

"That must be His highness back again!"

 "Yes," Fannie breathed. She glanced at the
papers on the desk. "How long will you be on that
report?"

"Another two or three days."

"And then you go to Cape Breton?"

 'Well, I have various other matters here. I shan't
be able to leave for a week or more."

 She bit her lip in vexation. The slow scratch of
Johnnie's pen was intolerable. She sent for the
groom to harness the phaeton, and in fifteen
minutes she was whipping her ponies up the hill
past Saint Paul's, past the tall wooden mansions of
Argyle Street, on through the harlots' quarter, and
at last up the rough track to the peak of Citadel
Hill. There she found the redcoats of the citadel
battery running wet sponge-rods in and out of the
hot guns after the salute. They paused to gaze at
the phaeton and its beautiful driver, as she swung
the blown ponies and sat looking down at the
harbor.

 It was the finest view in Halifax. Barrack Street,
straggling along the shoulder below, marked the
uppermost fringe of the town, and from there the
jumbled cascade of wooden roofs went down
steeply to the water, broken only by the open
space of Grand Parade and the spire of Saint
Paul's. In the strong sunshine the harbor flickered
like brandy afire, a hot blue flame in the long
trough between the hills. Several ships lay in the
anchorage, but only one thing in the whole scene
had importance, the small black frigate furling sail
inside the knob of Georges Island. Already a speck
detached itself from the side of Pegasus and moved
in toward King's Wharf. The Prince's barge of
course. His first call on the Governor the formal
debarkation would take place tomorrow. She
pictured William receiving the Governor's smug
little courtesies, impatient to be off to the house in
the Mall.

 At once she lashed the startled ponies, and away
went the phaeton down the hill. It seemed to
touch the stony track only

401

here and there, flying through air like the car of
Aurora herself. The soldiers gaped. At the house
Fannie gave Juno a volley of instructions for
dinner and ran to her chamber, calling for Prue.
For months she had been creating a new
wardrobe for this important season, and now she
chose an afternoon gown of light brown, with
sea~reen silk bows and Bruges lace. She sat long
at the mirror, with Prue at her back busy with her
hair. Any moment now the knock would come.

 Slowly the afternoon waned, and no knock. At
five o'clock she had Prue powder her hair for the
evening, changed into dicolleti, rouged her
cheekbones, placed patches with care at her
mouth corners and chin, and held up the dinner
until Juno was frantic and Johnnie starved. And
still no sign of the Prince. At last they dined
alone, or rather Johnnie dined, while she pecked
at food that had no taste and sipped wine that
had no tang.

 "Aren't you well, my dear?" he asked after a
time, seeing her lack of appetite and the flush on
her face.

 "I'm perfectly well. I'm just a little put out,
that's all. But I'm used to it. I've told you how the
Prince is. One never knows when he will come, it
may be any hour of the day or night, and one has
to be ready for him whatever the hour may be.
I'm not complaining, I'm sure. You realize what
an honor it is for us, having him regard our house
almost as a home when he's ashore."

"Of course."

 "His officers say he'll be on this station for a
year longer and probably more. So we have the
chance to do a lot for him in the way of
hospitality. When he returns home it means a
friend at court, remember that he's told me he
never forges a favor. Naturally I'm not thinking
selfishly about any of this. I regard him as I do
any of our young officer friends, so far from home
in this horrible place."

 Johnnie sipped his wine thoughtfully. "As an old
loyalist I wonder sometimes about the gratitude of
kings and princes. Prince William seems an erratic
young man from what you tell me and what I've
heard outside."

402

'What have you heard outside?" with a sidelong
glance.

 "Oh, you know, drunken bouts night after night,
and calling on those slutsup the hill, and so forth.
I'm told the King sent him abroad to get him out
of bad company the boy's been his father's
favorite ever since he went to sea as a midshipman.
But it seems to me here, amongst these dissolute
young officers....""

'What a thing to say of our good friends in the
garrison!"

 "Fan, I learned long ago that military and naval
gentlemen live at a faster pace than the rest of us;
it seems to go with the profession, and I suppose
one must accept it as one accepts the weather or
the moon. Nevertheless I can't help feeling the
officers here overdo it. Life's dull in a garrison in
peace time anywhere, but need they go in for so
much drinking amd wenching and all those riotous
larks? The older officers tell me Halifax now beats
Gibraltar as the most disreputable post in the
empire. It's notori

ous.

 "Oh, stuff! You sound like the dissenters'
preacher in the little meeting house down by Hollis
Street. He's always preaching sin and damnation."

"I think he's got a good text."

 "Bah! You never hear that kind of thing at Saint
Paul's. That's what I like best about the established
Church it minds its own business."

 "Maybe I'm just getting old," Johnnie said mildly.
"Speaking of the Church, I'm told Nova Scotia's
now an episcopal see, and our first bishop's to
come in the fall. That means an improvement in all
directions. Some of the gentlemen are planning a
grammar school here. They even talk of a
college subsidised from London under the
Church of course in another year or two." He
smiled suddenly and warmly. "Do you know, love,
that means we can bring our own dear boy here in
another twelve months?"

 "Charlie?" she said, astonished. Swiftly she turned
the notion in her mind. In chatter with her young
gentlemen she sometimes mentioned a "child" at
school in England. Charles-Mary would be thirteen
next year, rather big for a child. In fact a boy at
the

403

awkward size and the inquisitive age underfoot
every evening. Impossiblel She said the word
aloud.

'Why?" he said sharply.

 'Well . . . well, what sort of school could they
start here? What sort of teachers could they get?
Indeed what would they have, when all's said and
done? A shoddy little backwoods imitation of
something much better in England! Charlie's
doing well at Westminster. In a few more years
he'll be going on to Oxford. Meanwhile he's quite
happy there, and he spends his holidays with the
FitzWilliams, in the most genteel society anyone
could wish. Do you really think I'd let him come
out here, to this shabby end of the world--this
notorious place as you say yourself where the
so-called ladies don't even speak to his mother?
You must be out of your mind."

 She was pleased to see that Johnnie looked
properly dashed. He was foolishly fond of the
boy, and for Charlie's sake she had put a wise
foot down. He turned away to his everlasting
documents and was silent. The clocks ticked on
through the evening. At nearly midnight just as
they were about to go upstairs, there was a rattle
of wheels in the street outside, a jostle of feet on
the steps, and a sudden rat-tat-tat of the knocker
that rang through the house like pistol shots.
Fannie flew to open the door. A small curricle,
driven by one of the garrison officers, was just
turning under a street lantern in the Mall and
heading back toward the barracks. And here was
her Prince at last, swaying on the doorstep like
his own Pegasus in a heavy sea. He reeked of
wine. The fore peak of his cocked hat was tipped
over his eyes. The gold-laced coat of navy blue
hung unbuttoned and open, so did the white
waistcoat, and somewhere in the course of a
convivial evening he had spilled a glass over his
white silk breeches and calves, which were
spattered as if with blood. He pushed back the
hat and lurched inside, thrusting out his arms
affectionately.

 "Ahoy there m'dear! Pegasus the winged
stallion. (lad, you look marvelous!"

 She was aware of Johnnie on the first step of
the stairs, pausing on his way to bed, and she
evaded William's clutch, crying at the

404

same time, 'Welcome welcome indeed, Your
Highness. May I present my husband, Governor
Wentworth?"

 "Another?" said William loudly. "Damme! The
town's overrun with governors." And then, as her
words penetrated the wine fumes in his head, he
stared past her at the approaching Johnnie. And
pulling himself together with invisible halyards he
said care fully, "Good evening, sir. I hadn't the
pleasure when I was here before." He shook Mr.
Wentworth's hand solemnly, turned into the
drawing room, dropped in a chair, and tossed his
hat on the {loon

 "I'm a bit far gone, as you see, sir. I've been well
seen to, you may depend. Dinner with those devils
of the filth, and drink for drink after. For the
honor of the Navy, you understand. Bounds! You
never saw such a slaughter of bottles in your life!"

 His head fell forward. He was far gone indeed.
Fannie gave Johnnie a glance and a significant nod
of her head toward the stairs. Prue appeared, and
now she and Johnnie got the captain to his feet
and up the stairs, Fannie leading with a candle.
They deposited him on the bed in a chamber at the
farther end of the hall, and Fannie modestly
withdrew while they undressed William to his linen
and covered him for the night.

 She was sitting at her dressing table when
Johnnie paused in her doorway.

"Does he come very often like that?"

 "Oh, sometimes," she said calmly. "It's only when
he's been to one of those mess dinners Whew he
dines here he takes a little Madeira, and that's all.
He's really quite abstemious when he has a chance
to be just himself. Tell Prue to come and do my
hair  she can clean the Prince's clothes before he
gets up in the morning."

 And in the morning a very different prince came
down the stairs. The hour was well on in the
forenoon, and he sat drinking cup after cup of
Fannie's coffee and talking volubly to Governor
Wentworth. When Johnnie asked him about naval
life in the West Indies he went on at great length.
He was strict, sir, strict, and his officers didn't like
it. Specially that watchdog Schomberg

405

that the Lords of Admiralty had put upon him. In
fact Schomberg and the rest had put in for
transfer to anodher ship. Deuce of a row.

 "I was supported, mark you, by my superior
officer in dhe Leeward Islands. Captain Nelson.
Just a young man, and very capable though I
confess I Thought him a queer phiz at first. A
very old-fashioned cut to his clodhes and a
regular old Benbow pigtail down his back. Ha!
But we got along very well, very well indeed. I
even gave the bride away at Horatio's wedding.
Fact! A widow at Nevis. Handsome creature in a
cold sort of way. Couldn't see the attraction
myself. Besides, there's his career. A man in a
profession like yours or mine, Governor, must
consider his career before marriage or anything
else, eh? How long d'you expect to be at home,
eh?"

 "I don't know exacdy," said Johnnie evenly. "A
week, perhaps two it depends on the business in
hand. I cruise dhe woods as you cruise He sea,
sir, and we must both put into port for a refit now
and then."

 "Ah!" The Captain looked at Fannie and back
to Mr. Wentwordh. "That's true and very needy
put, I must say. Well, I'll be off to my own
business. No, no, ma'am, I can't stay longer.
You've bodh been very kind, I'm sure." And
suiting action to the word he rushed out into dhe
hall, clapped on his hat, and departed at a brisk
trot down dhe Mall.

 The next ten days were purgatory for Fannie,
listening for a familiar banging at He door which
never came. Her hopes lifted at the end of a
week, when Johnnie departed in a coasting sloop
for Cape Breton, far to dhe east. But Pegasus had
taken his wings elsewhere. There was the
customary round of dinners and dances in his
honor, and before long Fannie knew dhe topic
whenever the ladies whispered together. His
Royal Highness was cutting chat creature in the
Mall. She'd been one of his passing whims after
ah. And Fannie could picture the rejoicing. She
would not stir abroad. She refused to expose
herself to dhe knowing smiles and glances of
"those prigs." Even her courtiers stayed away, in
deference perhaps to dlat royal standard she had
flown so long.

406

There were times when she lay on her bed
through the silent evenings and wept in
mortification. If only Johnnie had been in the
woods! Why did he have to be here with his
stupid papers just at the wrong time?

 At last she could stand it no longer. On a warm
evening she appeared at Grand Parade. The
artillery band was playing, the beaux and belles of
the town, the clerks, the fishermen, the soldiers,
and sailors, and their girls, strolled up and down
or sat on the grassy verge; the gentry and their
ladies sat in their carriages along the Argyle
Street side, where they could look down on the
scene and enjoy the music in comfort. For twenty
minutes Fannie sat lonely in the phaeton,
conscious of stares and remarks, with her own
eyes half closed, as if the flat notes of the
bandsmen, well primed with beer in the summer
heat, were the very music of the spheres. It was
the spry little dandy Catesby who rescued her. He
appeared suddenly at the phaeton wheel,
thrusting his cane under his arm and sweeping off
his hat. She did not waste words.

"Where is H.R.H.?" she demanded in a swift
undertone.

"Dining at the Dockyard the Commissioner's."

 "Jeffery, you must get word to him for me. My
Governor's gone away, and I'm alone. Do you
understand?"

He gave her a comical look of reproach.

 "You see my position, Jeff I won't have these
cats laughing at me. You surely know what this
means to me."

 Catesby looked down as she said this, sucking
the knob of the sword cane.

 'Well, my dear lady, it'll be a lithe difficult. I
mean an army subaltern can't go bargmg in on
His Highness widh odd little messages. I'll have
to do it through one of his friends, Major Linzee
probably."

 'when go, as quickly as you can." And with her
most intimate smile. 'you'll be rewarded, Jeff, I
promise you."

 "Donel" He was off through the crowd at once,
and Fannie turned her ponies and drove away
slowly, with her head high, down the Mall.

 The next day passed without a word or a sign.
She was in despair. And then, just at dark,
William came. Inside the door he bent over her
hand politely.

 "I'm sober, my dear, as you see. I find that
Bacchus interferes with Venus damnably. Not to
mention the presence of husbands. Is he really
gone?"

"For several weeks."

 'What a shame I've only got four more days!
My orders are to sail for Quebec and, damme,
spend the rest of the summer there."

"But then you'll come here again7" she said
quickly.

"Oh yes. I purpose some weeks here, as I did last
year."

 "Bless you, William, for a moment you
frightened me. You don't know how I've missed
you, all this time. Come! Juno's prepared a little
supper, all the things you like, and if you coax me
nicely you shall have some Madeira but not too
much."

"And then!" The large blue eyes regarded her
greedily.

408

             THIRTY-TWO

~ HAT SUMMER Johnnie's carpenters built his
"cell" on the knoll near Birch Cove, a flimsy doll's
house of pine boards and shingles, with two small
rooms and a veranda. A corduroy track for the
carriage led through the trees from the Windsor
road, and a flight of wooden steps climbed the side
of the knoll to the door. It was a charming spot,
even Fannie admitted that now. Frequently in the
hot August weather she drove out there with the
Brinleys and one or two of her own cavaliers to
spend the afternoon and evening. Juno provided a
hamper of good things to eat and drink, and at low
tide the gentlemen and the Brinley boy waded
among the weedy rocks below, hunting for lobsters.
Fannie and Mary themselves took off shoes and
stockings and dabbled their feet like children.

'What are you going to call it?" Mary said.

 "The Hermitage, I suppose," Fannie smiled.
"John plans to spend a lot of time here with his
books and papers."

"And you?"

 "Oh, I like it well enough with company, like this.
But he can have his precious solitude."

 Captain Lingay looked up from the water. "I
suggest you call it Friar Laurence's Cell."

"What for?"

"Because that's where Juliet came and not for
solitude."

 Fannie waved a leg at him. 'Well, why not? Friar
Laurence's Cell. It sounds romantic."

 'Which part shall Johnnie play, Romeo or the
friar?" said Mary.

"The friar of course!"

When Johnnie came back in September he was
delighted with

409

his new retreat and no less with its name. It was
only a short ride from town. Here he worked
away at his papers and maps in utter peace, and
at the head of every letter he wrote with a
flourish, "Friar Laurence's Cell." As October drew
near he began staying there several days at a time
alone. Fannie rode out once with her little troop
to visit him, but he received them a little coldly,
as if they were an intrusion, and they did not stay.

 The leaves were changing color now. Already a
company of maples stood like scarlet infantry in
the grassy swamp beside the knoll. Fannie
measured the days carefully. The Prince would be
sailing from Quebec at any time and Johnnie
showed no sign of leaving for the woods. As she
remarked to Prue, Johnnie at the Cell was
Johnnie neither here nor there, but just an easy
forty minutes' canter from the town. By
mid-October she was getting frantic. On the
twentieth she drove to Birch Cove in the phaeton,
climbed the steps, and found Johnnie sprawled in
a chair and gazmg idly at the water. She came to
her point at once.

"Isn't it time you went off to the woods again?"

"I'm in the woods now," he smiled.

 'Don't be silly. I mean your work. You've been
in town six weeks or more."

 "Oh, I don't know, Fan. I begin to feel I've been
much too concerned with the woods and not
enough with the town." He gave her a side glance
and went on, "I mean of course I'm not a young
man any more. Those backwoods' journeys are
tiring, and my rheumatism gripes me hard
sometimes. There are days when every step I take
is torture, and every jolt in the saddle, specially in
wet weather. Why should I suffer all that for �800
a year? So long as I can write a good report, on
yards of paper, those men in London will be
satisfied. I take example from Governor Parr. He
thrives on paper."

"This doesn't sound like you," Fannie said
uneasily.

"We all change, my dear."

 He was in an old waistcoat and a pair of
comfortable trodden breeches, the sort he wore in
the woods. His stockings were ungartered and
hung in loose wrinkles to his ankles, and a pair of

410

worn Indian moccasins disgraced his feet. His jaws
had not seen a razor for at least two days. An
unclubbed queue hung down his back like a rope
of famished silver. He might have been a back-
woods' farmer taking his ease in some patch
beyond civilized reach.

 "You look and talk as if you'd thrown away all
ambition," she said.

"Let's say better that I've thrown away my
illusions."

 "You mean you've got downright lazy!" Her voice
was angry, and the careful English accent
disappeared. The sound was that of a scolding
Boston wife. "Oh, get up out of that chair, do, and
take a look at yourself."

He did not stir. 'Why are you so anxious for me to
go away?"

 "Because I haven't lost my ambition, and it
seems I must find enough for both of us."

"You mean you expect the Prince now, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

 "And what is His Royal Highness to you, my
dear?" He said it quietly, with that same dreamy
gaze on the water. Fannie sat up very straight and
drew m a breath, watching the calm profile of the
man without illusions. 'What do you think?" she
said sharply.

Johnnie fumed his head. "He's your lover."

"Yes."

 "Does he, by any chance, know you're old
enough to be his mother?"

'what makes no difference," she snapped, "to him
or to me."

 "Apparently. Is this passion on your part or mere
tuft-hunting?"

"You know very well what he can do for both of
us."

"I doubt it very much."

 Fannie leaped to her feet. To the slouched figure
in the other chair she seemed to rise tall against
the sky over Bedford Basin, like one of those
majestic statues on the pediment of Wentworth
Woodhouse, dressed as a fashionable mortal.

"You doubt! You doubt everything, Johnnie.
Because you're

411

weak! Because you've lost all your purpose.
Because you think of nothing but your
misfortunes. And I'm your chief misfortune
that's it, isn't it? That's what you've always felt,
inside, ever since you married me. Oh, I had my
points as a woman, but as the Governor's lady I
embarrassed you. I was the bride who set the
tongues wagging all the way from Kittery to
Wolfeborough. I was the wife who cost you Uncle
Benning's fortune. Oh yes! Don't deny it! And
now I'm the scandal of every jealous prude
imHalifax. Well, you've heard what they had to
say. Now listen to me!

 "Johnnie, when we first came together there in
Portsmouth I was mad about you. Love-love-love,
that's all I thought about. Love and nothing else.
And of course you loved me in your fashion.
After we were married I soon came to know what
that was. Your wife was just something pleasant
for a journey's end, like meat and ale and a good
warm bed. All you really cared about was that
crazy dream of yours New Hampshire the bigest
province in America, and John Wentworth the
greatest man in it, the one everybody looked up
to and admired. What was a mere wife to that? I
was just something with your mark, like one of
those mast pines in the forest. You could go
traipsing off through the woods for weeks and
months, and I didn't matter. Oh, you were Prince
Bountiful to everyone else. They could have your
time, your money, your smile, your influence, any-
thing they wanted. But not me. You were selfish,
Johnnie, after all. Selfish!"

 She paused, as if for breath after this outburst
or perhaps to see what he would say. Johnnie
remained dumb, hunched in the chair.

 She began again, but im a lower voice, very cool
now. 'When I tried to amuse myself in innocent
little ways you paid me the compliment of being
jealous now and then, but that was all. When I
tried to help you in my simple way you brushed
me off, as if I were a silly little black fly buzzing
in your ear. I heard the way people were talking
in Portsmouth. The grumbling about the favors
you gave your friends. Then all that talk about

412

liberty, that kept growing and growing and
growing. Your friends begged you to take a strong
hand, to crush those plotting busybodies while you
had the chance. But you wouldn't listen. Then I
tried to tell but of course I was only your wife,
poor dear empty-headed Fannie! You stood like
one of those precious mountains of yours, with
your own foolish head up in the clouds and a
forest fire running at your feet.

 "So the trouble came, and we were driven out.
We had to run away in the dark, like a pair of
good-for-nothings flitting to Boston because they
couldn't pay their bills. And still you wouldn't see
that I was right. I was always wrong, in everything
I said or did. Ha! Even in Boston. You shipped me
off to England as if I were a piece of baggage that
annoyed you underfoot something you wanted out
of the way. And for two years you left me there
alone, in the midst of strangers. Well, my Johnnie,
your baggage had time to do some thinking for
herself over there. To see how big the world was,
and how small New Hampshire after all.

 "And at last you came to me or rather to see
those rebel friends of yours in Paris. And you
came back from that meeting with your tail
between your legs. AD your wonderful dream was
gone, wasn't its What a picture you made then!
How those Portsmouth viDams would have
laughed! From that moment I knew our fortunes
were up to me. And I had my own dream by that
time, mark you, Johnnie. We were never meant to
be nobodies, you and I. I vowed that we'd be
somebodies again, if I had to crawl and knock my
head against the pavement aD the way to the royal
palace. Oh yes! And I've worked at my dream. I've
put myself in the way of people that had position
or title anyone who might have any influence at
ad. I've hinted, I've cajoled, I've schemed I've
stopped at nothing. And all the time I've held up
my head in public. I've let people see that I was
somebody. Especially here in Halifax, where they
tried to snub me from the first. I've made it clear
that they were the nobodies. Any officer in the
garrison of rank or family can tell you that."

Again she paused. This time Johnnie spoke. His
voice was

413

dull, and he did not look up. "And where has it got
you, all this?" "So far, nowhere. We're still in this
wretched hole. But now my chance has come. A
way to the royal palace at last  and not on my
knees!"

"Prince William?"

 'Who else? I'm a good influence on him, the
only one in Halifax the only one he's ever met
since he went to sea as a boy. In the time to
come he'll be grateful to me and to you, of
cours~and when we have a favor to ask . . ." Her
voice trailed off. She was not looking at Johnnie.
Her face was lifted to the sky over the Narrows,
toward England, and she smiled into the distance
and made a little open gesture with her hands.

 Johnnie was still staring over the water. The
smoky haze of Indian summer hung over the
Dartmouth hills. A pair of savages paddled a bark
canoe toward the Narrows and the invisible town.
On the bright skin of the Basin it crawled like a
sluggish ant.

 "Those other gentlemen of yours," he said at
last. "Captain Hoskins, say. Was that a matter of
good influence too?"

 "You can forget Hoskins. He went with his
regiment to Quebec."

 "Ah, of course! And, to he sure, the 4th
Regiment came from England to take their place.
The King's Own Regiment. The Devil's Own, as
some carping folk in the town call them now. And
young Mr. Dyott of the Devil's Own took Mr.
Hoskins' place very quickly, didn't he?"

 "I met Dyott in England, one day when I was at
Bath with Gorge and Mary Brinley. When he
called on me here I couldn't be less than
courteous."

 "I see. And what does courtesy require toward
the most notorious young buck in that regiment
of rakehells?"

 "Billy Dyott's the most popular officer in the
regiment, and he comes of a good English county
family. All those prigs in town would welcome
him into their parlors, so I invite him into mine.
To spite them. And that's been true of my other
gentlemen visitors, ever since we came here, as
you know very well."

414

 Johnnie turned his head slowly and regarded her
again. She made a handsome figure in the fitted
blue riding coat with its silver frogs and huge
military buttons. A blue sugar-loaf hat with a small
curled brim was pinned at a jaunty angle on her
hair. She stood with her gloved hands clenched on
the back of the chair, and a small fur muff dangled
from one wrist. Her dark eyes glittered. Tears;
Anger? Both? He could not tell.

 "My dear," he said heavily, "do sit down. As it
happens I'm very glad you came today. I've wanted
to discuss this matter with you, and in privacy,
something we could never do at the house in town.
I haven't been blind all this time, Fannie. I don't
accuse you of deceiving me. I simply deceived
myself. I wouldn't believe my own eyes and senses,
any more than I believed the gossips. And please
understand I'm not angry now. I'm getting old,
Fan. I seem to have left you behind, in another
world. Why should I care what happens there?
Life's too short for that."

 Fannie's eyelids closed to slits, and the
movement sent a pair of tears sliding down past
her nose. What did this mean) Was he being
horrid, or was he really indifferent? Her lips
moved as if she were about to speak, and he held
up a finger for silence, as if he were in Council
again and wished no one to interrupt what he had
to say.

 "The sum is this, my dear Fan. When I was
younger, when we were in that other world
together, I loved you very much, in spite of what
you say. I had my work to do, of course, but I
loved you I enjoyed you, if you want to put it
that way. I enjoyed my whole life then, and you
were no small part of it. A very sweet time, that.
Something to look back on. Something no one can
ever take away from me not even a prince. And
now we're two other people altogether. Like a
change of horses at a postinn. It's the same coach
with a different pair in the harness. And whatever
we do, Fan, whatever our separate gaits may be,
our marriage must roll along somehow at our
heels. We've been too much to each other in the
past to break the harness now and we have our
boy to think about. Very well. You go your gait,
and I'll go mine. And if your gait makes the

415

leather rub me here and there, well, the world
has galled the old horse pretty thoroughly, the
past ten years, and another gall or two won't
make much difference."

 Johnnie gave her a sad tired smile. "Horse
talk I can't keep away from it, can I? But you
see what I mean."

 Fannie returned him a long and careful stare
with those halfclosed eyes. There was nothing
contemptuous or mean in his face, only that look
of resignation and despair. For one wild moment
she had an impulse to throw herself on her knees
beside him, weeping, begging forgiveness as if she
were a naughty child, but she crushed that with
the hard grip of her hands on the chair back.

 "Then you agree to go away mto the country
while the Prince is here?"

 "If that's your wish." And then, in a cold voice,
"May I ask when it might be proper to return?"

"Give me until the end of November."

 Fannie's companion of the past summer,
Lieutenant Dyott of the King's Own, was
twenty-six, a wiry bundle of energy with brown
hair, grey eyes, and a satanic arch of eyebrows.
His regiment had arrived a week or two after
Prince William's departure, as the warm weather
began. In a hard-living officers' mess he was the
boldest rider, the best shot, the most reckless
player at cards or dice, the most valiant at bottle.
He was foremost in every sport under the sky,
from boat sailing on the harbor to coursing hares
with a pack of terriers on the moorland behind
Citadel Hill; and indoors it was the same, from
ballrooms to bedrOQmS. There was no one in
Halifax quite like daring laughing Billy Dyott.

 Fannie, with her inevitable choice of the most
admired men in the garrison, had awarded him
her favor soon after he came. She had got over
that absurd feeling of dedication which made the
time so long between the Prince's visits. Dyott
amused her in all ways. And she was not entirely
surprised when, SOQn after

416

Prince William returned in the autumn, His
Highness chose Dyottas the boon companion for
his jaunts ashore.

 Unfortunately their combined spirits were like
the ingredients of a skyrocket, acting one upon the
other in a fizzing spectacle of mischief. There was
never such wild drinking. There was never such a
visiting of the half-world on 'the hill,' and never
such a commanding of wanton performances to be
whispered about in Halifax drawing rooms. And
there were never such other pranks. More than
once, after a convivial dinner at the barracks, the
Prince commanded the entire garrison to march to
the top of Citadel Hill and fire a fen de Jose in his
honor, no matter the hour of the night. Once, after
Captain Duvernet of the Artillery had provided a
firework display from the hill, His Highness
demanded something real, in fact a firing of live
shells from the battery, and with a sublime
disregard of ships in the dark anchorage the shells
were thrown. In a short time the shibboleth of the
whole town was What next?

 In all this merry roistering Fannie had to content
herself with her Prince's brief morning or
afternoon calls, and those evenings when he came
sober or sufficiently sober for a lover's enjoyment
of her charms. She felt that she was the one good
influence on him hadn't he told her so last
June? and with every wile she strove to anchor
him in her sensible little haven. The difficulty
was as he had also confessed to her that he was
rigged with loo much canvas and no rudder. For
nineteen days and nights the madcap round went
on. Long before the end, everyone in the town but
Fannie wished that Pegasus would take to his
wings and fly away to his winter station in the
Caribbean.

 Fannie did not see him at all on the night before
he left. That was spent in a last carousel with the
officers of the King's Own, of which Dyott gave
her a comical account the next evening.

 "And finally," he chuckled, "I begged leave to
give the superior toast, to be swallowed standing
on our chairs and with hree times three cheers. I
tell you it was a laughable sight; old Governor
Parr, the General, and the Commodore, all so
drunk

417

they could scarcely stand, and hoisted up on their
chairs, each with a bumper in his hand. After
that, while we were still on the chairs, I proposed
a toast to His Highness and a fair wind on the
morrow. He stood at the head of the table he'd
taken care not to drink so much as the rest of
us and I never saw a man laugh so. The old
Governor asked if we'd any more toasts, because
if he ever got down he'd never be able to get up
again."

 "And after all that?" Fannie said impatiently,
piqued that her lover had not come to say
good-by.

 "He demanded that I take him for a walk in
fact what he calls a cruise."

"How could you!"

 "My dear lady, when a Prince commands you
don't offer objections, not when you're a humble
subaltern in His Majesty's forces. Anyhow he
went straight down to the quay and back to the
ship." Dyott paused and regarded her carefully.
"He's not sailing where he's ordered to the West
Indies. Did you know that?"

"Nol Where's he going?"

 "Home to England. Fact! He told me he'd had
letters from his older brothers in the last mail.
The Prince of Wales and Duke of York. They're
going the pace in London, you know, and the
King's quite furious; and now they've invited
William to join 'em in the fun. There'll be the
deuce to pay, you may depend. Apart from
anything else, the older pair were given
dukedoms, and so they get a fat grant from
Parliament. William still has to ask his father for
every penny. And of course he resents it, and he
intends to make a row about it."

 "So that's what was on his mind!" Fannie cried.
"I saw he was more excited than usual, whenever
he came to me. Did he say anything about me
before he left you?"

"Not a word."

 She was hurt and indignant. How ungrateful the
creature was, after all! And now he was off to
England, and she would never see him again!

418

 Johnnie came home, polite and amiable, at the
end of the month and settled down to his books
and papers as if nothing had happened. The
interview at the Cell had cleared the air between
them so perfectly that Fannie wondered now why
she had hesitated so long. Together they settled
into the winter calendar, and the little cycle of
dinners and whist parties at the Brinleys' and the
Wentworths' in turn, sometimes with Dyott and
one of his fellows as guests, sometimes with more
ponderous colonels and majors. The town lay
under snow, sleigh bells jingled up and down the
Mall, the soldiers marched muted in greatcoats and
mittens to and from their posts; the harbor smoked
in the frigid weather, and for a few days in
February put on a skin of ice thick enough for
people to cross on foot.

 Spring weather brought letters from England,
including a note from Paul Wentworth. Would
Johnnie please procure him a schooner lading of
good pine boards and scantlings and send it off to
the Surinam plantation? And, please, add the
charges to his account for slaves, et cetera. He had
no news, except one or two of the latest tidbits of
the ton. There were levers from the FitzWilliams
and other friends, the usual family news, spun out
in long stately sentences to make a decent packet
for the mail. They did not mention Johnnie's hopes
of a post in England any more, and their silence
was eloquent. And finally there was a letter from
Charles-Mary, written in a beautiful hand that did
credit to his writing master. It recounted his
progress at lessons and what he had done in the
Christmas holidays, and how the King had come to
see the boys of the school and paved him on the
head. But there was no more of that touching
longing for his dear Papa and Mama which had
appeared in the childish scrawl of the first few
years. The gap was growing as wide as the sea.

 With the coming of summer Johnnie departed
for a long season of timber cruising, leaving his
wife to her own devices. Most of the town society
had gone to spend the warm weather on their
country estates about Windsor, forty miles away on
the shore of Fundy. Even the garrison was dull.
Since Prince Wil

419

liam'sdeparture the air of the town was like the
silence and darkness after a display of Captain
Duvernet's fireworks from the top of Citadel Hill.
Fannie's courtiers found her listless. Even those
excellent meals at her table lacked something. It
was like taking food and wine in the presence of
a widow newly bereaved, with the coffin in the
next room. Their best efforts at a lively
conversation fetched a faint smile to her lips that
came and went like an illusion. There was no
change in her eyes. Fannie's dark gaze regarded
them in a way that made them uneasy, as if she
were trying to see someone else imside the uni-
forms. One by one they fell away. There were
other pretty ladies, after all.

 Only Dyott persisted. The gay cockerel of the
King's Own was a little surprised at himself, but
he came faithfully to the house in the Mall and
rode faithfully at Mrs. Wentworth's phaeton
wheels whenever she went abroad. Perhaps she
would be grateful by-and-by. After all, the gods
came only once in a mortal life and never again.

 On an August evening in that hot summer of
1788 he came to dine. The Wentworth cook, that
black magician, had provided a meal fit for a
prince, and as usual the wines were first-rate.
When Dyott lifted his first glass and murmured
politely, "To you, my dear lady," he seemed to
detect for the first time in months a trace of that
long-vanished interest in her eyes. With the skill
of an accomplished hunter he kept his elation to
himself. She was recovering, then. Was she ready
to lower her royal standard at last? That remained
to be seen. What a splendid game it was!

 As the meal progressed, with the silent Negro
boy gliding in and out of the room with the
removes, and with due attention to those first-rate
wines, the captain began to feel pleasantly sure of
himself. The lady was there like a delicious
dessert for the meal's end. He was only mildly
annoyed when these happy anticipations were
interrupted by a knock at the door. Prue answered
it. Dyott heard a murmur of low voices and
nothing more. Then Prue called her mistress out
of the room. When Mrs.

To

Wentworth came back to the table Dyott had a
rude shock. Her face was utterly changed. It had
come alight. Indeed her whole person seemed to
glow like a paper lantern at a ball, lit in a moment
by some mysterious taper in the hallway.

"He's back!" this transfigured creature cried.

"What! Impossible! Who says so?"

 "A seaman a naval servant of the Prince. He
says his master will be here in a few minutes. You
must leave at once, Dyott."

 His face was red and furious. "This is some trick
of those devils at the barracks." He sprang up, but
he made no move to leave.

 "Not at all!" she answered. "He's here straight
from England, in a frigate called Andromeda.
Andromeda! Do you know your Greek mythology,
Dyott? Wasn't she the girl who was chained to a
rock for some monster to devour and delivered by
a hero at the last moment}" She cried it out to him
in a dhallengimg voice, as if he were the monster.

 And now there was a tremendous rat-tat-tat at
the street door. Fannie destroyed the unhappy
Dyott with a final look and ran out into the hall,
just as the door burst open and Prince William's
hearty voice rang through the house. He must have
come hard on the heels of his messenger, for he
was panting and the red face shone with
perspiration. He was in his sea uniform, without
cane or cloak, and carried in his hand a
salt-stained hat with tarnished gold braid on its tall
naval cocks. Dyott had followed his hostess into
the hall.

 William was in one of his excited moods. He
noticed Dyott with a nod, turned into the drawing
room, dropped in a chair and hurled the hat across
the room.

 "Sit down, everybody!" as if the house were full
of people. "Gad! I've run the whole way from the
King's Wharf. Ping for Madeira and a tumbler, my
dear lady, I'm parched. And I've got the deuce of
a lot to tell you." He sat there panting until the
wine came and then drank off a full tumbler.

 "That's better! Well, I'm back, you see. And I've
had a time of it, you may depend. Sailed home
without orders. Lost my

421

nerve when I got to Plymouth, I must confess.
Dropped my hook in the Sound and sent off a
note to George and Frederick in London. Down
they came, hell for leather. Spent days there with
me, egging me on to go to London with 'em and
join the fun of the fair. Strolled about the
Plymouth streets with me, arm in arm, and all the
people cheering."

 He poured himself another glass and drank that
off. The wild smile left his face, and the voice
turned querulous. "After all, why shouldn't I go
home, hey? After all this time on foreign service.
Eh? Eh? Home, and a title and a grant from
Parliament like my brothers. That's only right,
damme. That's justice."

 A harsh laugh. "But no, not for William! The
devil to pay. Father furious. Admiralty furious.
Gad, those purple-nosed admirals, they'd ha'
hanged me at the yardarm if they could! A mere
frigate captain defying 'em in that manner! But
they stuck to their course according to the chart.
Consulted His Majesty. Took 'em some time to
make up their minds. Meantime I was ordered to
take command of a frigate in the home fleet and
stay away from London. Then it came, both
broadsides bang! bang! Father first. No title, no
parliamentary grant. I must continue to look to
him for every sixpence above my captain's pay,
same as before. And, by gad, if I broke orders
again I'd never get another penny. You see?
That's to keep his hold on me. That's to keep me
out of this quarrel between him and my brothers.
Then the Admiralty. I must return to the North
American station at once, in Andromeda. Barely
gave me time to ship my stores. What could I do?
I've been m the Navy since I was a child.
Discipline! They put it in your bones. So I slung
my hook, and here I am again, Captain Guelph of
the Andromeda frigate, if you please, that and
nothing more."

 He addressed himself to the Madeira again,
glaring at the decanter as if it were His Majesq
and the Lords of Admiralty all in one. In the
silence Fannie murmured, with a careful diffi-
dence, "I suppose you must go on to Quebec and
spend some time there, as usual?"

"No!" He rapped out the word like a gunshot.
"Damme,

422

they've ordered me to the North American
station till the snow comes, and then off to join
the West Indies squadron for the winter. Very
well! I've no great liking for Quebec. Halifax suits
me better. So as far as I'm concerned, Halifax is
the whole North American station. Here I am,
and here I stay till the snow comes. Mark that,
Dyott, and tell your friends at the barracks. We'll
make a merry season of it."

 William's face wore again that frantic and
unhappy grin. His eyes lifted slowly from the
decanter and met Fannie's gaze. Her mind was
calculating rapidly. The snow never came not to
stay until late November.

Three months. Three whole months!

423

            THIRTr-THREE

~r~ESURVEYOR GENERAL of His Majesty
s Woods, far away in the western parts of the
province, did not hear of Prince William's return
until late in September. He dismissed the news
with a clamp of his teeth and went on with his
work, cruising his own green domain with
diligence, riding the rough bridle paths that
passed for roads about the coast, exploring rivers
and a maze of lakes by canoe with a silent Indian
for companion, visiting many a lonely settlement
and finding welcome wherever he went. Here and
there he slept in a mansion, usually the home of
a well-to-do loyalist. More often his shelter was a
rude little country inn or the dim smoky log hut
of a fisherman or a backwoods farmer; mostly he
slept under the sky, or in rainy weather beneath a
brushwood shelter thrown up for the night.

 The American refugees had forgiven him that
unfortunate attempt to levy fees on their land.
They saw John Wentworth now as one of
themselves, a man who had known better days
and faced misfortune with courage. The Nova
Scotians, inclined to look upon all the refugees
with suspicion and dislike, saw a forester with a
good sound knowledge of the country, a
gentleman who could make himself at home with
the poorest backwoods family, a lone Halifax
official who actually gave sweat for his money.
Fannie herself would have been surprised to see
the man who fled, whenever he could, from the
formalities of Halifax to the slovenly comfort of
Friar Laurence's Cell. Here among the country
folk he traveled the woods in rough trodden and
linsey-woolsey, in moccasins, and buckskin
leggings to the thigh, but he carried with him a
suit of dress clothes, ruffled shirts, silk stockings,
buckled shoes, along with the clean linen and soap
and razor in his journey baggage. His hosts,
whether

424

well to do or poor, received a sunburned unshaven
woodsman at nightfall, and in half an hour were
entertaining another creature altogether.

 There was a thin snow on the ground when he
returned at last to Halifax and the house in the
Mall. Fannie greeted him quietly by the
sittingroom fire.

"You look well, Johnnie."

"Thank you, my dear. Did you have a good
season?"

 "Yes." There was a look of ravaged triumph in
her face, and he said no nore.

 In the idleness of winter Fannie was able to look
back upon those three tempestuous months with
the philosophy of a warrior after a hard campaign.
During the whole of that time she had been
mistress to a youth whose sole concern was his own
whim and pleasure and whose appetites had no
end. Her house was his. He came and went as he
pleased, sometimes alone, sometimes with Dyott,
sometimes storming in with half a dozen others of
Dyott's stamp, demanding food and drink for all.
Each day from morn to night she held herself
poised, powdered, rouged, and beautifully dressed,
and with her household drilled and alert like a
quarter guard awaiting the officer of the day.

 As always he refused to appear with her in
public. Yet he would stop and strike up a
conversation with any pretty whore he chanced to
meet. When Fannie was bold enough to reproach
him on that score he said loftily, "You must
understand that I can't be seen abroad with the
wife of one of His Majesty's officials in the absence
of her husband. I have to consider your position as
well as mine. These little baggages I hail when I'm
cruising the streets have no position at all."

"But I don't see why 1. . ."

"Madam, you have no right to question me."

"Forgive me," she said meekly.

 "I may point out that I never appear ashore with
any of my own officers I choose my sporting
companions among the army gentlemen. That's for
the discipline of the ship. Do I make myself clear?"

425

"Yes, Your Highness."

 So she was another of his officers, perfomming
her duty in her own little ship, but never to
witness his liberties ashore. Sometimes, waiting
alone through evening vigils while the clock
struck off the hours, longer and longer, she asked
herself what he meant to her, just as Johnnie had.
And there was no easy answer. William was
anything but handsome, an absurd strutting
cockerel in manner and appearance. He was a
libertine and a snob. There were times when she
despised him, when in her anger she was tempted
to have the door shut and bolted in his face and
yet she craved the very sound of his voice.

 What for? Her own doable au corps? Her
detemmination to flout the pious snobs of
Halifax? The magic touch of royalty? The hope
that William's influence might be useful later on?
Or just pride in her looks, the constant urge to
prove that she was all she had been at
five-and-twenty, the assurance that time moved
for other women, never for Frances Wentworth?
Something of all these. A curious sum.

 As the weather softened into spring she began
to look forward with eagerness and dread to the
fourth season of her royal liaison. Each morning
she inspected herself carefully in the glass. Her
body was flawless still. So were the even gleaming
teeth, something rare in married women over
twenty and every knowmg gentleman looked a
horse or a woman in the mouth. But there was no
denying a small sag of flesh under the firm little
chin, a slackening of that white skin at the throat,
and lines beginning to show about the eyes that
stared back from the mirror. Worse than all that
for the past year Prue had been finding and
plucking grey hairs from that soft brown fall
about her shoulders. One morning she wept.

"What's the matter?" Prue snaRed.

"I'm getting old."

"Fiddle! You don't look half your age."

"I do, I'll soon look all of it and I'm nearly
forty-four!"

 "Who knows that? Stop fidgeting while I brush
this tangle out. You're thinking of your prince, I
suppose."

426

"Yes."

 Prue sniffed. "You're too good for the likes of
him any day of the week. And that her-gate Dyott
too. What a pair! Come summer and the two of
'em wiD be bouncing in and out again, and
ordering us about like chambermaids."

 '1hey're just selfish. AD young men are. It's
something a woman has to put up with."

 Another sniff. 'Well, stop crying, do. It's bad for
your looks. You've just got a fit of the mopes,
that's all. You're as lovely as ever you keep that
in mind and stop adding up your birthdays. What
men don't know won't hurt 'em. They're all fools
anyway."

 The remark came back into Fannie's mind on
AD Fools' Day, when there was a sudden rumble
from the batteries. She tried to count the reports,
but it was impossible in the jumbled chorus of
actual guns and the bang~lop-bang~lop of
echoes in the harbor. It seemed long enough to be
a royal salute. The Prince? Impossible! He was not
due from the Caribbean until June at the earliest.
Two hours later Johnnie came in, with a sardonic
glance, "I suppose you know the Andromeda's
here?"

'What!"

 "In fact I met the Prince himself, as I was
stepping out of the Crown Lands office."

'What did he say?"

 "He looked me up and down and said, WeD, my
dear Governor, you're in town, I see?' And then he
asked me very politely how I was, and how my lady
was, and passed on without another word.
Unfortunate, wasn't it?"

 She felt a chill at the heart. 'What on earth's he
doing here, at this season, when there's stiD deep
snow in the woods? Thesquadron never leaves
Jamaica till summer."

 Johnnie did not miss the unconscious irony of
that "deep snow in the woods," but he went on
calmly, '1here's a rumor in the street, from his
boat's crew, I suppose, that he's on his way to
England, that he had a squabble with his superiors
down

427

there and sailed north on the spur of the
moment. And something else."

"What?"

 "This part's no rumor.There's news from
England. The King's ill in fact he's mad. If he
doesn't recover, that means a board of regency,
with the Prince of Wales at the head of it."

"What's that got to do with William?"

 "Everything, my dear. He was sent abroad on
his father's orders, to put him away from his
brothers' influence.. Now he can go home to join
'em. A board of regency's bound to include
Prince Frederick and Prince William. And the
Prince of Wales will see that William gets his
dukedom and a grant from Parliament. So Billy
can quit the Navy at last. He's always resented
being shoved abroad like a naughty boy. I daresay
that's what made him so wild and erratic on this
station if you'll forgive me. I refer of course to
his other aberrations, not to you."

She was silent.

 "Do you wish me to disappear?" he said. "This
warm weather's made the roads almost
impassable the frost coming out of the
ground but I could remove as far as the Cell."

 With a shrug that was almost a shiver Fannie
said, "I'm afraid it doesn't matter, if what you say
is true. His mind's full of England now. He'll be
off as soon as he can get his ship refitted for the
voyage."

 A week passed with Andromeda Iying at the
dockyard quay. The Prince abolished all official
receptions, dining privately with the Governor,
the Commissioner of the Dockyard and no more.
He made no appearance in his old haunts. Even
Dyott had no word from him. But at the last, on
the day before he sailed, a naval servant brought
a card to the house in the Mall. It was written by
William's secretary, and it invited Mr. and Mrs.
John Wentworth to a dance and supper aboard
Andromeda tonight at seven.

 Half an hour after sunset the Wentworth
phaeton drew to ward the Dockyard in a little
train of carriages. Their lamps flickered and
bobbed like the eyes of drunken cats along the

428

miryroad from town. At the Wayside, in the light
cast by a cluster of lantems, Johnnie sprang down
and handed out his lady. He was in blue velvet,
with his hair powdered and clubbed and his erect
figure and the bronzed face under the White hair
gave him a distinction not to be missed. Fannie was
proud of him. She took his arm and moved toward
the ship's gangway with the air of a duchess.

 She had been at her toilet without cease from the
moment the card arrived. She had put on and
discarded gown after gown, studying herself from
every angle in the mirrors, walking away and
coming back again. She had made Prue arrange
her hair in various ways before the powdering,
each of which took infinite care and patience. And
so it was with shoes and stockings and gloves and
headgear. She had nearly driven Prue mad. The
dress of her final choice had a modest dicolleti, a
shimmering green silk body and train festooned
with delicate lilacs, and the front looped to show a
dark green tiffany petticoat. On the snow of her
powdered hair sat a cap of small green feathers.
Her pearls were at her throat amd ears and in her
hair. And on one finger, plain to be seen, was her
wedding ring.

 The Prince's carpenters must have been busy for
days. Andromeda's quarter-deck was divided at the
mizzenmast by a partition of hung flags. The deck
from there to the mainmast had been prepared for
dancing. Behind the flags were concealed the
supper tables. The whole of this area had been
covered by walls and a roof of wood and canvas,
festooned inside with panels of white and blue
clod. Rows of borrowed sofas instead of cannon
lined the bulwarks, amd seven musicians were
perched on a staging overhead.

 Captain Guelph stood with his officers just
beyond the gangway head, receiving the guests as
his boatswains piped them aboard. He
acknowledged Johnnie's bow and Fannie's curtsy
with an easy impersonal smile and a nod, precisely
as he greeted the others. As they passed into the
canvas ballroom the glow of dozens of small
colored tampions overhead made it like a little
Ranelagh. Fannie looked about her carefully.
Including the

429

Prince's officers about sixty people were chatting
and circulating slowly under the lights. She beheld
the cream of Halifax society in assembly at last.
Apart from government officials and their wives
they were all "tradespeople," merchants in fish, in
lumber, in West India stuffs, in wines and spirits,
in dry provisions, whale oil, and ironmongery.
Some of the men seemed to be at ease in
gold-laced coats and embroidered waistcoats and
silk tights and stockings. Some of the ladies
looked well in silks and Bounces and laces of all
the proper hues. But these were exceptions. Most
of the men were awkward in ill-fitting finery, like
lubberly boys obliged to wash and dress for
church. And their ladies were amazing. What a
riot of vulgar colors, of loops and bunches and
ribbons arranged in what their dressmakers
considered the height of fashion the height of
five years past! And what coiffures! Hair done in
mountains, with plumes nodding and waving from
the peaks, like the fume clouds of impossible
volcanoes, and the whole prinked with ribbons
and beads and brooches as if a peddler's pack
had been shaken over their heads!

 Fannie looked them over with contempt and
received their hard glances in return. A veritable
muster of her foes. It had been deliberate, then.
Had William invited her here, at this last mo-
ment, for the humor of seeing her cut in public by
the people she hated most? Or would he make a
point of favoring her with his attention, to show
them all now that it did not matter any
more where she stood in his regard? He was
capable of anything. The Brinleys were there, and
the colonels and senior majors of the regiments
and their wives, with whom she was on friendly
terms, but she was aware of female daggers right
and left' and behind her smile she was tortured
with anxiety.

 After an hour of the general chatter the Prince
gave a signal, and the musicians struck up. There
was not room for more than one set to dance at
a time. The tune was for "Country Bumpkin," his
favorite, which he danced indefatigably with the
prettiest ladies at every ball. He chose six now, a
delighted Fannie among them, but casually he
went on to select half a dozen gentlemen for the
set and retired tO watch. And so it went through
the

430

-
evening. William did not dance a step, but he saw
that everyone else did. He was sober, smiling,
courteous, the perfect host. And his alert blue gaze
was everywhere. If anyone thought of cutting Mrs.
Wentworth they dared not try it. Whenever the
conversation on the sofas flagged, wherever there
was a tendency to draw apart, Prince William was
there with his hearty little quips and his
commanding eye to set things right again. The
dancers swept back and forth, and twirled and
bowed, and one set followed another as the
musicians went on from "Country Bumpkin" to
"Tarleton's Delight," and "The Little Ploughboy,"
and "I've Kissed and I've Tattled," and the other
tunes in their repertoire.

 At one o'clock in the morning a pair of
midshipmen pulled briskly on the halyards of the
flag partition and drew it up to the roof, revealing
the supper room. A yammer of Ohs and Ahs arose
at the decorations, notably a large transparent
painting of Saint George's Cross and the Garter,
lit by a lamp behind, and another of the Scottish
thistle and motto. The tables formed a horseshoe,
with a feast of cold meats and fowl of every kind
from joints of Windsor beef to platters of partridge
breasts, of wines from hock to port, and a
magnificent display of pastries and sweetmeats.

 The Prince sat at the head of the horseshoe and
called the toasts himself, a discreet little list with
only one bumper, to His Majesty the King. And
although many of the provincial gentlemen applied
themselves thirstily to the wines thereafter, espe-
cially to the Prince's champagne, their host
touched little of anything. His chief steward
hovered behind him, and with curt little commands
tossed over his shoulder William directed the crew
of waiters, watching everything about the table,
like an admiral directing a fleet in action.

 In an hour he arose, and the company sprang up
hastily and followed him to the dance again. By
three o'clock, however, some of the gentlemen
were showing signs of the champagne, and their
ladies decided it was time to go. The Prince moved
with his officers once more to the gangway head,
and the company made their farewells. It was a
long business. When the

431

slowly moving line brought Fannie to her host he
seemed a little weary of the whole affair, but his
politeness was unshaken. Her eyes were bright
with gratitude and something close to tears as she
curtsied and arose. But she found his eyes
impersonal, as they had been throughout the
evening. He said exactly what he was saying to the
rest, "G`'od-by, my dear lady, I trust that we may
meet again." Then she was past, and Johnnie was
making his bow.

 It had been warm in the canvas ballroom, but
the April night outside had a chill breath of the
snows that lingered still in the woods. Fannie
shivered all the way home in spite of her fur
cloak, and once indoors she went straight to the
fire, pulling up her skirts to warm her legs. She
did not feel sleepy in the least. When Johnnie
came in from the stable she said over her
shoulder, "Did he seem strange to you the
Prince?"

 "I'm afraid I haven't seen enough of him to
judge. Unless you mean it was strange to see him
sober and well-mannered."

'`That's nasty."

 'Well, I suppose he wanted to show everyone
that he could play the proper Prince and
gentleman, in spite of all his other antics. I
daresay he's all right at heart. The trouble with
him is his spirit and brains. He's got too much of
one and not enough of the other. If he were in
ordinary life he'd have had a lot of the nonsense
knocked out of him before he reached twenty-
three. As a prince of the blood everyone's been
too eager to indulge and spoil him."

"Is that a thrust at me?"

"My dear, we settled that last fall."

"It was kind of him to ask us, don't you think?"

 'you're the best judge of that, my dear. He owed
you something, after all. Don't be offended. As I
said once before, gratitude's not a common trait
with kings and princes, and I suppose a little thing
like this must mean a good deal to you."

 She tossed her head, and Johnnie went off to
bed. Now that the first glow of the evening had
gone she was dissatisfied. William! It wouldn't
have hurt him to give me some little recog

432

nition in front of those others since he'd gone far
enough to invite me. He could have danced with
me. He could at least have held some talk with me.
I wonder if that was why he didn't dance or talk
with anyone especially? Because he didn't want to
be put to the test?

 She went up the stairs in a discontented mood,
and lay awake going over it all again. It was long
before she dozed away, and she did not awaken
until the noon gun from the Citadel clapped over
the downtown roofs. Prue brought her tea and
bread and butter. She drank the tea and ignored
the rest. Now that it was all over, the whole affair
that began nearly three years ago, she felt drained
in body and spirit.

 "Draw the shades again, Prue, and leave me. I
shan't get up today."

 Late in the afternoon the long thudding of the
guns began. He was leaving. Leaving forever, and
picturing to himself, as she could picture all too
well, the merry round of London's ton with his
brothers. What was one woman in his madcap life?
No more than a bottle tasted and pitched aside.
She found herself sniveling and was angry that she
could care that much. In the evening Prue tiptoed
into the chamber.

"Are you awake? Lieutenant Broadhurst came."

 "Send him away. I won't see anyone, least of all
a man. If I don't see another of those ungrateful
creatures in a twelvemonth it will be a happy year."

 "I'll believe that when I see it. Anyhow, Mr.
Broadhurst has gone. He just came to leave this
package. Said he'd been charged to deliver it to
you."

 "A very stupid way of getting a billet doux to me.
Light another candle and open the thing if you
like. It won't do him a bit of good."

 She lay with her eyes closed against the light.
Her head ached miserably. She could hear Prue
breaking sealing wax and rustling paper.

"Well?" she said.

"Look!"

433

 Fannie turned her head and saw a large
enameled locket dangling on a thin gold chain.
She sat up with a bounce, all headache gone. She
seized the locket from Prue and opened the catch
with twitching fingers. And there she saw
William, a headand-shoulders portrait done by
some English miniaturist years ago, when he was
seventeen or so; the familiar coconut pointed at
the chin and the back of the head, the yellow
hair, the dimpled chin, the full-lipped avid mouth,
the nose hooked at the tip, the pink cheeks, the
wide blue eyes. The locket lid held a scrap of
paper with four penciled words, laboriously small.
"For kindness, a remembrance."

434

            THIR trio UR

MR W~NrWOR~ selected a quill, trimmed the
point with his

penknife, dipped it in the ink, made some
preliminary twirls, and began a letter to the
Reverend Jeremy Belknap.

Friar Laurence's Cell, Near Halifax, May 15, 179

Dear Sir,

 It is a long time since I have rec'd such sincere
pleasure as your letter has given me. I was much
pleas'd on hearing you were continuing the history
of New Hampshire, having rec'd so much
satisfaction from the first volume, and being myself
more interested in the two next. I herewith send
you the papers you desire, as far as I can find
them. Most of my papers were destroy'd during the
late tumults. Their loss is now particularly
regretted as they might have been useful to you.

 I now declare to you, in private friendship, that
on a review of all my public conduct to this day, I
acted with zeal for the King's service and the real
good of his subjects, which I always did and do
now think were inseparable. Nor did I ever know
any intentions to impose arbitrary laws on
America, or to establish any system repugnant to
British liberty; and I do verily believe that had the
true, wise, and open measures been embraced on
both sides, that their union would have been many
years establish'd and their prosperity wonderfully
increas'd.

 Their independence having been consented to by
the Government which entrusted me with its
powers, I most cordially wish the most extensive,
great, and permanent blessings to the United
States. If there is anything partial to my heart in
this case, it is

435

that New Hampshire, my native country, may
arise to be among the most brilliant members of
the confederation, as it was my zealous wish to
have led her while under my administration.

With the most cordial good wishes I am, dear sir,
Your Obed't Serv't,

J. Wentworth

 Johnnie laid down the pen and slouched in the
chair, brooding. The old letters and documents
brought back all the memories. Four-and-twenty
years ago he had arrived in Portsmouth as the
new Governor, with the applause of the whole
province. Sixteen years ago he had fled, a fugitive
with scarcely a soul to raise voice or hand in his
defence. And now he was just a page or two of
history. A relic of the past at fifty-five!

 For there was nothing now. Indeed, looking
back, he could see nothing im his life from the
moment he fled Portsmouth. The dreary
emptiness had set in then. The corroding idleness
at Boston, Long Island, and then in England. And
nearly eight years of this existence in Nova Scotia,
with even his private honor gone into the
shadows with Fannie's lovers. What was there to
show for it all? On one hand the bundle of New
Hampshire documents, the last mark of a time
when he was a proud and happy man, the most
popular and the best of royal Governors in
America. On the other hand he glanced at them
with distaste a stack of bills, dishonored drafts,
and dunning letters, the history of his exile, one
long record of failure.

 In a moment of self-pity it seemed to him that
his fortunes had begun to change for the worse
when he yielded to temptation im the Portsmouth
garden, all those years ago. But pshaw!  that
was what Adam said, wasn't it? And what was the
truth or even the use of blaming Eve? She
couldn't help being what she was, made as she
was. You had to get along with her and with the
serpent somehow, even in the wilderness. And
even the serpent was getting weary now. A little
over two years ago Fannie's prince had sailed
away to England forever, and within a few more
months the gay companion Dyott had marched
with

436

his company to a fort on the other side of the
province. Dyott still appeared in town on leave at
long intervals, and dined in polite cheer at the
Wentworth house and at Brinleys', but the rest of
his leave was passed in revel with gay dogs of the
garrison and the ladies of "the hill."

 Fannie herself had changed. She still kept herself
the bestdressed woman in Halifax, and, although
she did not like the saddle any more, she still
drove about in her carriage and drew the company
of the younger puppies in scarlet and blue. But
there was something a little sad about these
gestures. She had a haunted look, as if the secret
spring of her youth were failing at last and she
could not bring herself to admit it.

 Johnnie's eyes caine back to the bills and duns.
He took a silver dollar from his pocket, chose
heads, and spun the coin in air. Heads it was. Very
well! He locked the cottage door, taking only the
letter and the bundle for the Reverend premy, and
went slowly down the steps to his horse, tethered
in the trees below. In another minute he was
trotting along the road to town. It was a bright
spring day. The birches about the cove were just
breaking into leaf, and on the farther hillsides the
white bloom of Indian pear made patches like
snow. Beside the road the dandelions were
showing, and in the shade of the trees in low
places the white and blue of violets, and in sunny
places the bank was spangled with white blossoms
of wild strawberry. The trees swallows were back
from the south and busy nesting, and there was a
music of sparrows and bobolinks, and robins were
everywhere.

 As the road climbed to the lip of the plateau
above Bedford Basin he halted beside the tottering
ruin of a blockhouse, built to defend the rear
approach to Halifax in a time long gone. There
was a broad view of the Basin, blue and sparking
in the green bowl of hills. It was like standing
under the big pine on Mount Delight and looking
at the beloved lake in the hills of Wolfeborough.
God, to be back there again, with all these dreary
years nothing but a mince-pie dream!

When he reached home Fannie was Iying down in
her cham

437

ber with the shades drawn. She did this nowadays
whenever she returned from an excursion in the
company of her cavaliers, like an actress tired by
her performance under the eyes of the crowd.
Her chamber door was open, and he paused
there.

 "May I speak to you for a few minutes, my
dear? I don't like to disturb you, but it's a
confidential matter of some importance."

'Avery well. Come in and shut the door."

 The sunlight through the crimson shades made
a deep rosy light in the room, and Fannie lay in
it like an elegant corpse. He sat in a chair and
crossed his knees, gazing down at the lifted riding
boot and spinning the rower of the spur with a
finger.

"It's the matter of money," he said.

"Oh, that again!"

 "Yes, that. My dear, I'm afraid we're at the end
of the tether. My creditors have got together, and
I can't put them off any more. Some of my notes
go back years. They threaten to clap me into jail."

"Fiddlesticks! Those tradespeople always do."

 "They mean it now. Apart from anything else, a
good deal of my paper is in the hands of certain
merchants in the town  the ones whose ladies
you despise. I'll get no mercy there."

 "Bah! Now you want to blame me for your own
incapacity, and I won't have it, Johnnie. What did
you do with all that money you got from your
loyalist claim?"

 "The government reduced my claim to five
thousand pounds and paid me that two years ago.
Every penny went as payment on the principal
and interest of my debts and to support this
house your carriage and ponies alone cost Moo
a year, d'you realize that? and of course the
milliners and dressmakers who wouldn't do
another stitch for you without pay."

 "And what about your own tailors and saddlers
and bootmakers, and the rest? More important,
what about all the debts you've run up on behalf
of Paul Wentworth the slaves, the cargoes of
timber and fish, and heaven knows what else all
the things he's asked you to send to Surinam?
You've always refused to dun him. What does he
owe you?"

438

"Four thousand pounds or more."

"Ah! And what are your debts altogether?"

"Close to double that."

 'fiery well. Draw on Paul and pay your creditors
the four thousand. That will satisfy them for
another year or two. Why do you bother me when
it's all so simple?"

 She turned on the bed and presented her back,
the familiar attitude.

 "For your information, Fan, I drew on Paul for
the full amount last year. When the spring mails
came I found my draft dishonored. There was no
explanation, but a friend in London gave me a bit
of gossip. As you know, Paul's been very intimate
in Paris for years, and since the American war he's
had more luck there with his speculations than in
London. In short, his interests are more French
than English, though he still travels back and
forth."

'Well?"

 "May I remind you that the French have been in
a state of revolution for the past two years? With
their king and queen held practically as prisoners?"

 "And serve their damned king and queen right.
That's what they get for helping rebels in
America."

 "Maybe. Paul remembers the American
revolution too. He remembers who came out on
top. So for the past two years he's been playing his
hand with the revolutionary committees in Paris.
For his own purposes, naturally. But that makes
him suspect in Englamd."

'Why?"

 'You should read the newspapers now amd then,
my dear. The King and the Tory party fear a
revolution in England. It's their bogey. They're
arresting all sorts of people and putting 'em on
trial for treason, on the least excuse."

'What's all this got to do with your debts?"

 Johnnie sighed and fingered the spur again. "I
must find what's happened to Paul. I must get that
four thousand pounds. In the meantime I must get
out of Nova Scotia. Otherwise I shall

439

find myself imprisoned for debt. The law of the
land applies to me the same as the poorest
cobbler in the town. My creditors can throw me
into jail and keep me there at their pleasure, so
long as they supply me one pound of hard biscuit
every day. And what would become of you?"

 Fannie was sitting up now and staring, as if
behind him she could see all her she-enemies
gloating. She put her hands to her face and drew
the fingertips slowly down to her chin, as if to
erase the picture.

 "So we must run away? How I hate to give
those cats the satisfaction! But I confess there's
nothing else to do. And heaven knows I've
nothing else to hold me here. I've always hated
the place. It'll be something to see England again
and the FitzWilliams and our other friends and
young Charlie of course. How soon do we go, and
how?"

 Johnnie said, 'Lou understand of course we'll
come back here if I can get the money from Paul.
Otherwise I must throw up my post along with
everything else. I've thought it all out carefully.
We'll take the first ship for England. Prue shall
stay and give out word that I've got leave to go to
London, that we've gone to see our boy, and we'll
be back next year. Our establishment will remain
exactly as it is, and I'll leave Prue enough money
to keep it going for a year."

 "But I can't get along without Prue for a
year even for a month!"

 'you'll have tot She's the only person I can trust
to keep up appearances here. Otherwise my
creditors will seize the place and sell up all we've
got. As it is, they'll hold their hands. I've told 'em
I have a large sum owing to me over there. And
besides, they'll figure I won't throw up a post
worth �800 a year here. The present notion is to
throw me into jail for a time. Then, when I'm
desperate enough, I'll assign the whole of my
salary as Surveyor General to the payment of my
debts. They know I get a pension of �300 a year
besides, and as far as they're concerned we can
damned well live on it."

"Like a pair of church mice! How they'd love
that!" Fannie

440

reflected for a few moments. 'What if you can't
collect from Paul?"

 '~Then we'll send for Prue and abandon
everything here. We'll cast ourselves on our
English friends, and then Perhaps FitzWilliam
will find a post for me in some other
colony there's no hope of one in England."

 She sprang off the bed and threw back the
curtains, gazing with a sudden animation as if
England lay just at the end of the Mall.

 "London! London again! Huzza! Set about it as
quick as you can, Johnnie! I can hardly wait I
can't wait at all!"

441

            THlR [r-FIVE

So it WAS London again, after seven years for
Fannie, and for Johnnie eight. They put up at a
genteel lodginghouse in Clarges Street, and at
once Fannie insisted on driving about in a hired
carriage, drinking in all the old impressions as if
she had never seen the town before. The
handsome houses and churches not a wooden
building to be seen the rich goods in the shops,
the fashionable customers stepping in and out of
chairs and carriages the lively hubbub of voices
and feet and wheels, all the familiar things. Even
the lesser folk delighted her eye: the piemen and
the nosegay girls, the chimney sweeps, the
milkmaids with tubs and measures balanced on
their heads, the knife grinders, the butchers and
bakers, the crossing sweepers, the paving gangs,
the oysterwomen crying their wares, the soldiers
on horseback and afoot, the sailors from
Wapping, the beggars blind or crippled; and in
side streets here and there a laughing group
about a puppet show or a pair of tumblers or a
juggler. Hyde Park's trees and fields looked the
same as ever, although the riders of the ton wore
another fashion now, and passing views of
Ranelagh and the Pantheon called up all the old
exciting memories.

 The next day they went to see Gharles-Mary. At
the Westminster School they were ushered into a
musty little sitting room w ith India curtains and
hard chairs and a badly worn sofa, and after a
time one of the masters, a lean suave man in a
blue coat and scratch wig, brought the boy to
them. Fannie was prepared to rush at him with a
glad cry, throwing her arms about him and
smothering his face with kisses. But at sight of
him the notion perished. Charlie was tall for
sixteen taller than Johnnie himself and slim in
brown velvet coat and breeches. His

442

brown hair, gathered in a neat club at the nape,
had the soft shine that comes of careful daily
brushing. He had his father's large grey eyes but
nothing else that was Johnnie's. The face was pale,
the mouth soft, even weak, and he walked with a
peculiar grace and made little girlish gestures as he
talked.

 He gave them a limp hand to shake, regarding
first Johnnie and then his mother with a well-bred
curiosity but no visible affection. He seemed
concerned that he was missing an important Greek
lesson. He mentioned that he was in the top form
at the school and that next year he expected to go
on to Oxford. He spoke of his high marks and said
that Lord FitzWilliam had invited him to be his
secretary when he came down from ()xford. The
ivory face lit when he said this, and it was the only
emotion he displayed. When they left at the end of
half an hour Johnnie said, a little heavily, "He's
grown a nice lad. A scholar, every inch of him."

 "Yes," Fannie said. Her son was not what she
had expected. Charles-Mary seemed not quite so
much Charles as Mary. An exquisite creature of
course. Such beautiful speech and manners. She
could display him for a time when he came down
from Oxford, the very model of a well-bred young
Englishman. She would be fifty then no more
nonsense with men and they would make a
striking pair, the pretty youth and the handsome
mother who could not be much more than forty,
with Johnnie grey and distinguished in the
background.

 Charles-Mary's father had his own thoughs.'He
retained his old affection for the boy, but he was
disappointed. All this time he had pictured Charlie
as he had been himself at that age, eager to
grapple with the world, and with an eye for a gun
or a horse, as well as for books and pens. He tried
now to picture CharlesMary in the American
woods, and his imagination failed. He could not
even picture Charles-Mary taking a wife and siring
boys to carry on his name. In fact Charlie seemed
a changeling not at all the boy of whom he had
written so long ago, "he'll do to pull up stumps at
Wentworth House."

If the renewed acquaintance with their son had
proved a sur

443

prise, a visit to Hammersmith, expecting to see
Paul, gave them quite another. They found
Brandenburg House in the hands of strangers. All
they could discover was that Mr. Paul Wentworth
had got into trouble as a suspected radical on this
side of the Channel and as a suspected English
spy on the other, and that he had sold up
everything in a hurry last year and gone away "to
some wild place in South America."

 That could only mean Surinam. So Paul had
retired to the plantation that he had preserved
and built up all these years. It seemed good sense,
as Johlmie observed.

 "Paul's sixty-odd. He lived some years in
Surinam long ago, and no doubt he's always
planned to retire there. No fogs, no winters,
nothing but ease and sunshine. It's strange,
though, that he didn't write to me about all this."

"Letters get lost," Fannie said hopefully.

 As soon as they got back to Clarges Street
Johnnie sat down and wrote a long and urgent
letter to Surinam. He fretted at the delay. It
would take at least six months to get a reply and
possibly a year. In the meantime he could only
trust that Paul would realize his straits and pay
the old account promptly.

 At the end of the week they left for Yorkshire,
and there at all events found what they had
expected. The green sprawl of the park, the
stately pile of Wentworth Woo&ouse, the settled
air of quiet luxury that centuries could not
change, and best of all the delighted welcome of
the FitzWilliams. It was the happiest of reunions.
They were given the same apartment, and within
a few days they had slipped into the old pleasant
Woo&ouse round of country balls and parties and
race meetings, and carriage tours of the
countryside when there was sunny weather. In this
easy fashion the summer passed into autumn, and
the autumn fled.

 When November came they prepared to return
to London for the winter. So far Johnnie had said
nothing of his plight, and the noble lord had not
mentioned the old dead subject of a post in
England. On the evening before they left Johnnie
took the plunge. Dinner was over, and the ladies
had withdrawn, leaving

444

their men to the port and walnuts. Johnnie told his
story simply, ending with, "You understand, my
lord, I'm not seeking a loan. Far from it. I have
too great a debt of gratitude to you as it is. And as
I've said, Mr. Paul Wentworth can relieve me of
much anxiety on this matter of money. But my
problem in Nova Scotia remains the same, even if
my old debts were extinguished. The income from
my present post isn't enough to make ends meet.
In another two or three years I shad be in trouble
again. The only remedy is a more lucrative
post and it doesn't matter where."

 His Lordship looked embarrassed. '] fear, my
friend, that I can't do any more for you now than
I've been able to do since you left for Nova Scotia.
The Tories remain in power, and aD the
government patronage lies in their hands. The
Whigs are too divided ever to upset them." He
hesitated. "I don't mind teDing you that I'm
somewhat in your position myself. I can't content
myself with a vegetating life on these properties.
My uncle always sought public service, and I'm of
the same mind. I speak from my seat in the Lords,
naturally, but the speeches of Whig lords nowadays
are just a whistling down the wind. I feel there
should be some use for my abilities in the
government of this country. I feel myself out of
sympathy with many of the Whigs; they're too full
of this French republicanism for my liking, and I
have a growing respect for Mr. Pitt, a very capable
young man. I have reason to believe he regards me
as one Whig of ability and sound principles."

 He took a walnut from the bowl and cracked it
with great care, as if it were a problem. '1his
revolution in France an evil busimess to have just
across the Channel. Paris seems to be in the hands
of madmen, and their affairs go rapidDy from bad
to worse. Unless I mistake the signs we shad see
something frightful there in a year or two, and the
men in charge wiD start a war with us merely to
distract their own populace. Our government's
taking military precautions, as perhaps you know.
Now, my dear sir, if war should come, all
Englishmen must unite. Mr. Pitt knows that as wed
as anyone. And in that case I may be

445

offered a post in his cabinet. I have no more than
a hint, but we shall see. If that happens I shall be
in a position to do something for you. In the
meantime I can only wait, and so must you."

 When Johnnie repeated this conversation to
Fannie on the road to London she gave an
impatient "Humph!" And then, "Ifififf I'm sick of
If! There's only one thing to do. I'll go to see
Prince William."

 "My dear, your friend William has turned Whig,
like his brothers, just for the sake of kicking up
his heels. He has no more influence on the
present government than an Indian in the wilds of
Nova Scotia. What's more, the King recovered
from his fit of madness long ago. There's no
question of a board of regency, with or without
your friend."

 "I don't care two pins!" Fannie cried. "William
got himself made Duke of Clarence, with a grant
of �12,000 from this precious government, didn't
he? So he has influence, never fear. Lady
Charlotte tells me he's still the favorite son of the
King and Queen. And that's enough. We have a
voice at court if we care to use it, and William
owes us a word or two as well you know."

 As soon as they reached Clarges Street, Fannie
began inquiries. Prince William, it appeared, was
living at Petersham Lodge in Richmond Park, a
nine mile drive outside the town. Johnnie had
some acid detail.

 "Your royal friend didn't waste much time after
that last dance at Halifax. He crammed on sail
and got to Spithead in three weeks a mighty
smart passage on the eastward run in April
weather, even for a frigate with a lot of hands and
canvas. Soon after he reached London he was
briskly engaged with urn the larboard watch, in
particular a Miss Polly Finch, I believe. And that
same fall he bought Petersham Lodge and set up
housekeeping with her there."

 Fannie's lips tightened. She refused to be
discouraged. She had a new daydream of meeting
William somewhere, at Ranelagh say, and
skipping off with him to a cozy rendezvous in
town, as she had with the Horse Guard long ago.

446

"He must come up to town sometimes," she said.

 "Oh, yes indeed, my dear. Miss Finch, it seems,
has served her turn and been dismissed. For the
past several months he's been wooing a Mrs.
Jordan, an actress at Drury Lane."

 A few nights later they sat in a box at Drury
Lane, in the second tier, and close to the stage. It
had cost precious money, but Fannie insisted.
Curious to see William's current taste in women
she had armed herself with a borrowed opera glass,
and she sat impatiently waiting for the curtain to
go up. The boxes on both sides of the house were
filled with lively members of the to,?, a new ton in
which she could not recognise a single face.
Johnnie regarded them with a slow contempt. A lot
of patent whores and fops with quizzing glasses,
some of the men with their hair unpowdered and
cut off at the nape, imitating the new fashion of
the French republicans. It was more interesting to
watch the squirming commonality down there in
the pit.

 Before long Fannie noticed a titter and a craning
and passing of opera glasses in the adjoining box,
where two young officers of the Coldstream
Guards sat with a pair of pamted creatures wearing
a droll travesty of the Ouaker dress. She turned
her own glass in the direction of their amusement
and found the cause at once, a long rent in the
stage curtain near the hither end. In the oblique
view from these boxes there was an odd little peep
show through the gap. Prince William there was
no mistaking that head stood chatting and jokmg
with an actress composing herself in a chair. Other
members of the cast were moving about, getting
themselves placed for the opening scene, and
Fannie could not get a good look at the woman.

 One of the pseudo-Ouaker ladies, seeing her
interest, leaned over with a confidential wink.
"Sailor Billy and Dolly Jordan  he drives her up
to town himself, every performance. D'you know
her?"

"No."

 Another wink. "She has five little tokens of her
old affairs but that don't bother Billy a bit. He's
got the whole brood out at Richmond with
him ever since October. And he's had no

447

money so far from his Parliament grant. So the
question is  does he keep her, or does she keep
him?"

 Another gale of laughter from the other box.
But now William disappeared from view, and in
another minute the curtain rose, and the play
began. It was a comedy, but Fannie had no mind
for humor or the plot. Throughout the
performance she saw nothing but Billis fancy, a
creature of voluptuous Hesh, bouncing on and off
the stage, now in skirts and now in tights,
speaking her lines in an undisguised Irish brogue
and sending the audience into roars of laughter.
She was anything but pretty' but she had a
bubbling sense of fun that passed easily across the
footlights to the crowd.

 As they came away Johnnie murmured, 'Well,
what do you think of your successor?"

"She's fat and vulgar."

 "I heard someone say she's the best comedy
actress since Kitq Clive."

"She must be thirty if she's a day."

 "Ah, that sounds familiar. And William's now,
what, six-andtwenq? Not a boy any more. D'you
still think of going to Richmond for an interview?"

'With that creature there? Impossible!"

 At Christmas they journeyed out to the village
of Hope, in Hereford, to spend the holidays with
Benning and his pretty English wife and children.
The erstwhile captain of loyalist volunteers had
found an Oxford education of no help in getting
suitable employment. He was living very modesdy
on his halfpay and an allowance from his
fadher-in-law, hoping year after year for a
government appointment chat never came, like so
many others.

 He had some small news of the loyalist refugees
in England. Most of them had scattered away
from dhe expensive living in London and vanished
into the countryside like himself, or gone back to
North America. Old Colonel Boyd had returned
to New Hampshire, tombstone and all, and was
buried under it not long

448

after. Robert Rogers, that hopeless sot, had
vanished in the London stews. Young Bcn
Thompson alone seemed to flourish in foreign air.
Soon after Johnnie saw him last Ben had entered
the service of Prince Maximilian of Bavaria, and
applied his many-sided genius so well that he was
now Grand Chamberlain with almost supreme
authority over the whole state.

 "He always makes a first-rate job of everything
he does," said Benning with enthusiasm. "By God,
he's marvelous, and all Europe knows it, not to
mention Britain. This year he was made a Count of
the Holy Roman Empire. And chose his title from
his wife's place in New England too. Count
Rumford, if you please. How's that for a Yankee
boy abroad?"

 "Maybe we should aD move to Bavaria," said
Johnnie with heavy humor. "Here we seem to be
just the discounts of the lowly British Empire."

 In the dark days toward the end of December he
and Fannie returned to their chilly lodging in
Clarges Street. A few doors away a pair of servants
were helping a crippled female into a coach. She
was well dressed, and it was pitiful to see her
moving with crutches and dragging her almost
helpless feet. Her face in side view appeared to be
that of a pretty woman in the midthirties, and
there was something oddly familiar about it. John-
nie had gone inside, and their landlord stood
holding the door.

'Who's that7" Fannie said.

 "Eh, ma'am? Oh, her! That's the famous Missus
Robinson. She lives there. She had a rheumatic
fever some time back that crippled her legs."

'What! Perdita?"

 The man chuckled. The coach was just driving
away. "Ay, there's some still call her that, though
she ain't been on the stage for years. They say she
still gets a small allowance from the Prince of
Wales him they called Florizel though she's
lived the past ten years with Colonel Tarleton.
She'll need that money now."

'Why?"

"Tarleton's left her." Again the irritating chuckle.
"They all

449

come to the one end, them affairs. Another pretty
face and off he goes, with not so much as a
thankee."

 Fannie stalked inside wrathfully. She had
fancied herself so often as another Perdita, the
darling of gallant soldiers and a prince, that this
revelation was like a sharp needle in the heart.
Men! What ingrates! What cruel selfish animals,
the whole lot of them!

 In their chamber she found Johnnie with an
open letter in his hand and a face as grey as the
winter sky. He glanced up, crushed the sheets into
a ball, and flung it across the room.

 "From Paul he can't pay me a penny. Says his
money's tied up in the plantation, and no getting
anything out of it in these hard times. Assures me
my investment's safe, of course, and hints
delicately about all the money he let us have in
time past."

"He would!"

 "So, you see, we can't go back to Nova Scotia.
I've simply nothing for my creditors."

"Whatever shall we do?"

 Johnnie shrugged and went to the window. Not
far away, at the end of Clarges Street, he could
hear the rattle of Piccadilly. 'there's a letter for
you. From Prue, I think. The address looks like
her hand."

 "Poor Prue! We can't afford her passage here
now, let alone her wages. How shall we ever tell
herb"

 She broke the wax and unfolded the single sheet
slowly. Johnnie heard a gasp.

 He turned and saw Fannie's pale face lit from
within, like one of those transparencies at the
dance aboard Andromeda, but her voice seemed
almost lost. Her lips moved, and he heard a
hoarse and rapid whisper.

 "Johnnie! Johnnie, he's gone he died of a
stroke five weeks ago!"

"Who?"

 She had found her full voice now, and the
words rang in the room like a war whoop. "Old
Parr Governor Parr!"

450

             THIR Tr-SIX

SNOW was falling in large flakes, without a wind,
settling like scraps of swansdown on the wayside
roofs and fields, even putting a white skin on the
deep mud where the post chaise plunged and
wallowed. It might have been a New Year's Day in
New England except that the cold was a damp and
miserable kind nothing like the tingling frost of
America. The trees stood black and bare, except
for the white snow-tippets along the branches. The
hedgerows wore the tippets, too, and the tops of
the walls about fields and gardens. Sometimes
there was a glimpse of the Thames flowing like
molten lead between the pure white banks. The
houses and villas along the riverside, always so
charming in the summer greenery, had a grim
besieged look now; the smoke from their chimneys
told a tale of urgent fires and busy scuttles and
bellows, and nobody seemed to be abroad.

 The driver's brown greatcoat had several
overlapping shoulder capes. He sat huddled in it
like the top of a monstrous pine cone, with a wool
scarf bound over the crushed cocks of his hat and
tied in a great knot beneath his chin. Inside,
Fannie sat bracing herself against the heaving of
the chaise. She had a new cloak with a tall calash
hood, stiffened by whalebones to protect her
headgear. It was of good cloth, but she wished
heartily for the fur cloak left behind in Nova
Scotia. The nine miles seemed endless, and when
the chaise reached Piichmond Park the bristle of
naked trees in acres of snow might have been a
hardwood forest in the wilds of Canada.

 The driver turned into a private carriageway and
pulled up at last. To right and left a high stone
wall shut off all view except the upper tangle of
trees, but through the intricate ironwork of the
gate Fannie could see a brick villa half masked and
half

451

exposed by barren shrubbery. There was a small
gatehouse, and the door opened, and a stout man
in blue-and-yellow livery stepped out to the post
chaise. Fannie had told her driver what to say.
The reply came bluntly.

'~The Jook don't see nobody, specially ladies in
po'-shays."

 She opened the window. In a clear voice, using
her well-bred English accent to the full, she
commanded, "My good man, have the goodness to
open the gate and let me through this minute! I
am an old friend of His Highness." But the fellow
held that stubborn insolent look. He seemed to be
used to lone females approaching in just such a
way, and clearly he had orders. Thrusting back
the cloak, Fannie unclasped and drew from her
neck the Prince's locket the pride of her life, and
held it open for his inspection.

 "You recognize your master, I trust? Take this
to him him alone, you understand? And say that
Mrs. Wentworth Mrs. Wentworth from Nova
Scotia begs the favor of a word." He took it,
with a comical mixture of awe and suspicion on
his round moon face, and trotted away up the
carriageway. The gate remained barred. After five
minutes he came back at the same trot, trampling
his own tracks in the snow.

 "You may come in, ma'am, but the stray" there
was a rich contempt in his voice for the shabby
hired thing "must stay outside." He admitted her
through a little side gate, and Fannie walked up
to the house with what dignity she could summon.
She was chilled to the bone and disheveled by the
long drive on a road at its winter worst, and when
a footman opened the door and showed her into
a smaD sitting room she made straight for the fire
and the mirror above the mantel.

 Almost at once there was a rustle of skirts. In
the glass she saw a woman coming into the room.
She turned, and they regarded each other. It was
Mrs. Jordan. The actress wore a much-em-
broidered grey silk gown in the new high-waisted
fashion, which made a notable parcel of her
bosom; the puffed sleeves stopped well above her
elbows, and a pair of long grey mittens covered
her lower arms and the palms of her hands. The
naked fingers

452

glittered with rings, and from one finger, dangling
by the chain hung Fannie's locket.

 Dolly Jordan had neither rouge nor powder.
Indeed she needed none off the stage, for she had
the soft skin and colorof an Irishwoman still on the
sunny side of thirty. A white moLcap of many
ruffles and a large blue bow covered her hair.
Fannie could see no beauty in her face. A snub
nose, big green eyes, a mouth as broad as her
native Liffey. Yet she had that air of animal good
spirits which Fannie had noticed at Drury Lane;
there was warmth as well as humor in the mouth,
and now as she inspected Fannie's pale set face
under the hood of the calash a good deal of the
hostility went out of her eyes. Fannie could almost
hear her shrewdly counting up her years and
coming to a reassuring sum.

 Without removing her gaze Mrs. Jordan opened
the locket not for the first time, for the little scrap
of penciled paper was gone.

 "You seem to have found William when he was
just a boy," she said. There was a faint note of
derision in the brogue.

 "Not so long ago," Fannie answered defensively.
She saw the disadvantage of her position. This
creature had the real William in her fingers just as
she held the locket now.

'What do you want to see him about?"

 'We my husband, Mr. Wentworth, and I had
the honor of the Duke's acquaintance in Nova
Scotia. He was good enough to make our house his
p~ed~-terre whenever he was ashore, and he left
us the little picture as a memento."

"So I see."

 "Please it's Mrs. Jordan, isn't it? I've come to
ask a favor for my husband, not myself. If I could
see His Highness for a few minutes...."

 "If it's money," the actress said with a laugh, "he
hasn't a ha'penny. I can tell you that. The
Parl'mint's passed a grant to him, but they're a bit
slow with the dibs."

 It came to Fannie suddenly that William was not
far, that he was probably lurking in earshot,
somewhere beyond that open

453

door. She raised her voice to a note of piteous
appeal. "Oh, please, please, don't misunderstand.
It's the matter of a post for my husband. He
sacrificed his position and fortune for the King, in
the time of the war in America, and ever since
he's had to earn our living in the woods as a
surveyor. Summer amd winter. You may imagine
the hardship. And my poor man's getting
old he's fifty-six."

 Without moving a step Fannie seemed to throw
herself at the woman's feet. There were two
actresses in the room. And now she read a
friendly light in Dolly Jordan's green eyes. She
had touched the quick Irish sympathy.

 "There's something just come vacant," she went
on breathlessly. '1he Governor's post in Nova
Scotia. It's one that my husband could fill very
well he's been a Governor before in America.
But you see we have no friends in Parliament. If
His Highness could use his influence . . ."

 "Ah! Well, he's got a little of that, to be sure.
And why not?" Dolly Jordan closed the locket,
gave it a little twirl on the chain, and then held it
forth. "You may as well keep this," she chuckled.
"He'd never look as innocent as that again, I
warrant

you."

 She whirled about and left the room in the swift
dancing way she had, on the stage and off. There
was a murmur in the hall. Then William walked
into the room with his familiar nautical gait,
planting the feet well apart as if the floor might
heave on a sea at any moment. His cutaway blue
coat had a naval shape and plate buttons, opened
below the breast to display a bright scarlet
waistcoat. In the Whig fashion affected by his
brothers he wore tight buff breeches with the
coat to show the party colors.

 He had put on fat in the past two or three years
in England. With the buff legs and the round red
belly and breast he was like a preposterous robin.
I lis big blue eyes were clear. There was nothing
of that bloodshot look in the whites which she
remembered, the result of those Halifax drinking
bouts, and under English skies his face had lost
the sunburn of the West Indian win

454

ters,which had given his hearty complexion such a
purplish cast. His cheeks now were those of a
fresh-ripe Devon apple.

 "Your Highness," Fannie murmured, and
curtsied. He brought his heels together and gave
her one of his stiff little bows. "This is an
unexpected pleasure, ma'am. Your husband's with
you in London, I take it?"

"Oh yes, Your Highness."

"And there's a Governor's post in the offing, eh?"

"Yes, Your Highness."

 He sat in a damask armchair and motioned her
to another across the little room. By chance it
placed her with the window light at her hack,
leaving her face shadowed in the hood, and she
was thankful. She could match her figure against
Dolly Jordan's, but she shrank from any
comparison with that exquisite skin. She wondered
what was passing in William's mind. The locket
was still in plain view in her hamd. Surely he must
be thmkmg of those three seasons across the sea?
She could remember every kiss, every touch of his
hands. However rude and greedy he had been,
there was a warm autumn haze of romance about
those kisses and caresses now. She kept them
pressed between the pages of her mind like petals.
The great love of her life. And the last, for she
would have no other now. She told herself that
William had carried off her heart, when what he
had really taken was her looks. As if her beauty
had kept its fresh appearance through the years for
that one supreme affair, and then gone to pieces,
like a September rose at the shake of a wandering
child.

 "Those fellas in the Government," he was saying
ponderously. "I've got no influence there, you
know. Before they'd let me have my dukedom and
make the money allowance, I had to threaten 'em
with a broadside at the water line. Fact, I assure
you! I said if they were going to keep me a
commoner I'd dam' well he a commoner. I told the
newspaper fellas I was going to stand for election
to Padiament, so I could tell the people of my
grievances. I had a seat picked out, too, down in
Devonshire at Totnes. And the people would have
listened, you may de

455

peed. I haven't had a sal e and comfortable life,
like my brothers. I've served my country in the
wars, and at sea, where nothing's ever safe or
comfortable. The people know that. I'm not called
the Sailor Prince for nothing. Well, the
Government couldn't have that, eh? Nor could my
father, eh? Never never do! So suddenly I was
made Duke of Clarence and Saint Andrews and
Earl of Munster titles I should have had long
ago. But that's not what you've come to talk
about, eh? Eh? What's happened to old Parr?"

 "He's dead of a stroke, Your Highness. We had
word a few days ago."

 "I see. But you've got other friends to speak for
you, eh? I've often heard you mention Lord
FitzWilliam, and so forth. But Whigs Whigs, the
lot of 'em. All the oars on one side of the boat.
Deuced awkward rowing, that! But of course
there's His Majesty. A Tory if one ever lived.
That's what's on your mind, eh? Eh?"

 "If His Majesty spoke to Mr. Pitt," Fannie said
meekly, "and Mr. Pitt put in a word at the
Colonial Office . . ."

 "Ah! So he might, so he might! Well, let's see,
what should I say to His Majesty? Mr.
Wentworth's an American gentleman, the former
Governor of what d'you call it? New
Hampshire?  yes, of course. Gave up everything
for his King, went into exile, and so forth. Long
service in Nova Scotia since, looking after His
Majesty's forest. Deuced rough business, that.
Zounds, I found it rough enough hunting
partridge in the edges. And he's getting
on fifty-six, eh? Time he was rewarded. By gad,
yes. A governorship at the very least. Nothing's
too good for a man like that. Nothing!"

 "During the late war," Fannie pursued, without
hesitation and in the same small voice, "I ord
Germain told Mr. Wentworth he deserved a
baronetcy. But of course that was lost sight of
when the war ended, like all the promises."

 "Oh?" He pondered that for a moment or two.
'Well, we must tackle one thing at a time. First
thing's this post in Nova Scotia. The rest can
follow in due course. Point is, we'll be at

456

war with those damned Frenchmen in a
twelvemonth, as sure as you're sitting there. Sea
war, mainly. And the French have a station up by
Newfoundland; those islands, Saint Pierre and
Miquelon, I've seen 'em, right on the way into
Canada. Damned dangerous, you know. And
there's Halifa7`, your Governor's seat, the only
British naval station left on the whole continent of
America vital, you know, vital! I may be stupid
about a lot of things, but I know my own
profession, damme. Used to talk over all these
things with my friend Captain Nelson another
man I'll see promoted, mark you, when the war
begins. Well, there you are. As soon as the
shooting starts it'll be time to pull the halyard for
a title. It can be done, I give you my word for it. A
little patience, and there you are."

 As William rattled off these remarks he seemed
to keep an ear cocked toward the door. And now,
as if at an unspoken command, he jumped up to
end the interview. Fannie rose at once, curtsied
respectfully, and moved toward the door, slipping
the locket once more about her throat. At that
moment in some distant room, there was an
outburst of children's voices and the jolly laughter
of Mrs. Jordan. She had felt quite sure of William,
then.

 For the first time the Prince dropped that stiff
and distant attitude, stepping forward and catching
Fannie's hands in his. "I must tell you something,
my dear something you'll understand as no other
woman would. All my crazy frolics over there in
Nova Scotia and the West Indies I wasn't just a
silly- colt feeling his oats and kicking up his heels,
though I admit that was part. But I was in a
temper all that time. I mean to say, my father and
the Admiralty packing me off the way they did, like
a press gang picking up a young lout in the street.
My brothers could enjoy themselves in London, but
not William. William hadn't answered Papa's helm,
so William must fry in the Caribbees, and freeze in
the Canadian winds, and rattle up and down the
seas between, for years years!"

 He snorted at the memory. But the bitterness left
his voice at once. In a warm tone, and with a
surprising sensibility, he went

457

on, "I'm not a drunkard by nature, nor a rake for
that matter I didn't know what I wanted, really.
Till I met you. You were much older than me, I
always knew that. And there was something about
you the young baggages didn't have. You you
satisfied me. You made me feel content. I think I
told you that. I'd gone to sea at thirteen. We're a
big family, and I'd never had much of my mother.
I never had a playmate. And when I grew up and
found what women were for I wasn't allowed to
take a wife. And there you were, all three
somehow. After I got home to England I took up
my old antics for a time, but it was no good. Then
I met Dorothea. You can guess the rest. I've
never been so happy in my life. I never drink
more than five glasses of wine at dinner now. And
no more capers none. I even lock the doors
myself each night, to make sure the servants don't
stay out late and give my house a bad name.
Whatever some people may think, I'm perfectly
respectable. I'm like a married man Dolly tells
me I'll be a father next autumn, fancy that!"

 There was a sound of Mrs. Jordan's voice again,
closer now and the thump and patter of her
children's feet. William released Fannie's fingers
hastily.

 "Give Mr. Wentworth my compliments," he said
in the stiff loud voice, "and assure him I'll do
everything in my power. And now be off with you,
my dear lady. Good-by Good-by!"

 Through the cold and dismal January of '92 they
waited in their lodgings, Fannie in high heart,
Johnnie in a mixture of dour patience and
disbelief. He pictured a dozen English candidates
for the post, each with the proper Tory influence.
Somewhere in the mysterious clockwork of empire
about Whitehall the wheels and cogs were turning
in their slow inhuman fashion. Eventually there
would be a click, unnoticed in the London bustle,
and a little figure would emerge from the clock
and set off to rule distant Nova Scotia.

Early in February a messenger came to Clarges
Street with a

458

document that bore the Colonial Oflice seal.
Johnnie passed it to his wife.

"You open it. I haven't the heart."

 He threw himself into a chair and sat slumped,
feet out, chin on breast, eyes closed, the old
attitude of despair that Fannie so despised. She
broke the seal quickly, glanced at the letter, and
slid it under Johnnie's nose.

"Read it, if you please, Your Excellency!"

 He opened his eyes and sat up. And there it was.
It has pleased His Majesty to appoint Mr. John
Wentworth, Esquire . . . and so forth, and so forth.
Mr. Wentworth was requested to call at the
Colonial Of lice at the earliest opportunity, to
receive his commission and receive instructions. He
must expect to sail for Nova Scotia as soon as the
March gales were past, and one of His Majesty's
ships would be provided for the passage.

 It seemed so incredible, after all the years and all
the disappointments, that he read it over and over
again to assure himself that he was awake and the
paper real. After a time he was aware of Fannie's
silence. He looked up.

'Well, my dear, why aren't you crying Huzza and
dancing?"

 "For this?" she said, giving the paper a tap with
the back of her hand. "I knew you'd get this. You
were always the doubter, not I.

 And seeing his puzzled look she went on, "There
are other things in view, my Governor. Our luck's
turned at last, as I always knew it would.
And.nothing can stop us now. Next year there'll be
war with France I have it on the best authority
and there you'll be, my trusty Govemor,
commanding His Majesty's loyal province of Nova
Scotia, the only British naval station on the coast
of North America. And what's in the offing for a
man of such importance? Nothing less than a title!
Oh, don't give me that irritating smile. Lord
Germain hinted at a baronetcy, years ago, didn't
he? This time it shan't fail, I promise you. Think of
it Sir John and Lady Wentworth!"

"That's a little premature," he said.

"Fiddlesticks! You must start your preparations
now. You'll

459

need a coat of arms, and I don't see why you can't
use the arms of the Yorkshire Wentworths, with
some little addition of your own. The first
Wentworth in New Hampshire came from York-
shire or thereabouts, and there's sure to be a
connection of some sort if you trace it back far
enough. Write Lord FitzWilliam and ask if he'd
have any objection but he won't quibble, you
may be sure of that. Lord Rockingham always
received you as one of the family. Go to the
Herald of Arms, or whatever the deuce he's
called, and get a little advice on your own
addition to the Wentworth arms. You must have
everything ready when the title's granted."

 Johnnie regarded her in astonishment. "When
did you get this ambition?"

"I've dreamed of it for years. And that's not all
I've dreamed."

"Oh?"

 "Someday, Your Excellency, I shall be presented
at court  Lady Charlotte will do it gladly when
the time comes and because of my handsome
looks and your long distinguished career I'll be
made a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. What do
you think of that for Fannie Wentworth?"

"A nice dream."

 "Dreams come true. Mine will, you'll see. A
matter of time and patience, and a friend or two
in the right places. And do you know why I've
dreamed all this what I want all this for  why
I'll have it all before I'm done?"

"No."

 Her eyes glowed in the taut ivory face, as if
some inner fire, smoldering for years, had burst
into flame at last. Johnnie was startled. A
woman's eyes should only look like that when one
is making love. She was a handsome creature still;
she would never lose that figure, slim, erect, and
utterly feminine, as imperishable as if carved m
marble by some cunning Greek or Roman in a
time going back imto the shadows. But the lines
of forty-six were plain now in her face, and the
grey was showing thickly in her hair, impossible to
disguise except with the dye pot, for powdered
heads were out of fashion now, like wigs for

460

gentlemen. She was past the age for love at last,
and what glowed in her eyes made her face look
older still. It was hate.

 'Those people in Portsmouth," she began. The
words came out between her teeth, low in tone but
tingling in a way that made his flesh creep. 'Those
people in Portsmouth, the ones that considered me
beneath them because I came from Boston, that
gossiped about me that cast us both out finally I
want to show them Frances Wentworth moving in
a better society than they ever knew. But that's not
the main thing. That little group of pious prigs,
those smug she-cats who've ruled the society at
Halifax all this timer I can't wait to get back there
now, my Governorl They wouldn't call on me, they
wouldn't even speak to me if they could help it.
And now they shall bite their fingers and wish they
had. Fannie Wentworth's the lady of Government
House, and she'll still be there when half of them
are dead and gone and damned. She'll entertain as
that stingy old Parr never thought of doing.
There'll be such a round of dinners and parties and
balls as Halifax never saw; and with a war on, and
all sorts of great people, anny and navy, coming
and going. And, my Governor, I'll see that not one
of those creatures ever steps inside my door.
They'll be shut out of everytlung that matters. So
will those purse-proud husbands of theirs those
tradesmen! I shall write you a list. Not one on that
list is to get a penny of government contract
money ever. You'll make sure of that. They made
me suffer eight long years. Ill make them suffer
twice the pain and twice the time before I've
finished with them. Do you see now?"

 He nodded dubiously. The old question hovered
in his mind. Why make enemies? When you ruled
a province you found enemies enough in the course
of time New Hampshire had proved that. And
that little group in Halifax included some of the
ablest and most useful men. But it was useless to
argue with Fannie in this high mood. Perhaps she
would grow out of it.

 'Well, don't waste time," she said briskly. 'We
have a thousand things to do. We'll both need a
new wardrobe. We'll need new furniture and china
and silverware I never saw what the

461

Parrs had, but all my officer friends used to laugh
at it. And we'll need servants experienced in
genteel households we must engage them here
and take them with us."

'What about Prue and Juno?"

 "Juno's the best cook in Halifax. She shall be in
charge of our kitchen. But we must have a pastry
cook who knows the fashion here. And they must
have some well-trained helpers it's one thing to
prepare a dinner for half a dozen and quite
another for three hundred. As for Prue, dear
Prue, she shall be housekeeper  we couldn't get
a better m the world. I'll engage a lady's maid
here. A lot of those French Emigres brought their
maids to London with them when they ran away
from the Revolution, and can't support them
now; and there's nothing like a French maid. As
for you, you must get a set of English footmen
like those you brought to Portsmouth, all of one
height and properly trained, and dress them in a
good smart livery. One to act as coachman. And
that reminds me, our present horses and ponies
in Halifax will do for the time being, but we'll
want a new glass coach and phaeton. You must
order them now. Go to Benwell of Long Acre,
he's the best in London."

 Fannie paused for breath, and he said mildly,
'Where shall I get the money for all this?"

 "Borrow from Drummond the banker. All you
have to do is show him your new
commission that letter will do. What a silly
question to ask!"

462

            THIR[r-SEVEN

ILL~E WAY to Falmouth, rolling through the
green length of southern England in an air scented
with primroses, Johnnie had the odd sensation of
traveling back through time. This was the way he
had come, sick at heart, in the spring of '78, seeing
from the coach window nothing but Amedca torn
and bleeding, and himself forbidden ever to set
foot at home again. But the hands of his life's clock
were turning much farther back than that. He was
leaving England to govern a province on the other
side of the ocean he was living again that
homeward journey in '67.

 Some things ware different. A cider with a bugle
went ahead of the imposing little procession to
warn the inns of important folk approaching; then
came the leading coach in which he sat with
Fannie, and behind that four others laden with
baggage and servants. When at last they rattled
into Falmouth the captain and crew of H.M.S.
Hussar were duly impressed. Half an hour later
the-Governor and his lady stepped aboard to the
chirrup of boatswains' pipes, with the seamen
drawn up at stiff attention and the captain and
officers saluting, a pleasant lithe taste of dine* new
importance.

 In consultation with dhe Colonial Olfice and He
Admiralty Johnnie had chosen his sailing date with
care. Although dhe wild March gales were safely
past dhere was still a prevalence of westerly winds,
and the voyage would take a month or more. It was
now the sevendh day of April, so dhey would arrive
in Nova Scotia well on in May, when the sun's
warmdh had returned to northern latitudes and dhe
last of dhe snow had vanished.

 Fannie was gratified to find dhe commander of
dhe Hussar no coarse old salt, but a Londoner of
good family with a house in

463

Park Lane. Captain Rupert George had given up
his own spacious day and night cabins to the
distinguished passengers and fitted them with
especial care for a lady, even tO fresh cowers amd
potted plants, well secured in a rack by the great
stern window. He had laid in a choice supply of
provisions and wines for his table, and even
provided a stock of books for the long idle days of
the voyage. OD the second day at sea Fannie
discovered among the novels Vancenza, poor
Perdita's latest effort to support herself, and one
that was bound to set London agog.

 In the course of the next five weeks she read
Vancenza several times. It was Mrs. Robinson's
apologia in thim disguise, of course; and the
theme was in one stately passage to which Fannie
returned again and again.

 SmaU is the triumph of chastity that has never
been assail'd. The female heart has little right to
exult in its resolution till it has resisted the
fascinations of pleasure, the voice of insidious
flattery, and the fatal allurements of example.

 Whenever she read these words she felt
increasingly virtuous. They might have been
addressed to those censorious females across the
sea in Halifax.

 But im spite of novels, of whist in the evenings,
of all the little diversions and comforts of this
pampered shipboard life, she found the voyage
very long. Her French maid was seasick most of
the way, and she had to make her own toilet. It
was impossible to apply her new hair stain
properly through so long a time; the grey showed
near the roots and sometimes, she was sure, at
the back of her head, where a hand mirror
combimed with the big glass on the bulkhead gave
no satisfactory inspection. She felt this whenever
she arrayed herself to meet Captain George and
his keen-eyed company. But she put a good face
on it; her accent and manner as a well-poised
Englishwoman of fashion were faultless now, and
she wore them like an armor.

At the proper times she could be far more
imperious than

464

dumpy little Queen Charlotte; and again she could
be the gentlewoman at ease, whiffing a
segar,shuffiing and dealing cards, or discussing
wine, French cookery, horses, politics, art, and
London plays with the facile tongue of one who
had known these things always as part of her life.
Casually she mentioned famous lords and ladies as
close friends of hers, and she talked much of the
Duke of Clarence "dear Prince William, a sailor
like yourselves" who had been such a charming
guest of Gvernor Wentworth and herself for three
seasons on the North American station.

 Sometimes she threw out a light allusion to
Prince William's amusements there, with a roll of
her fine eyes, as if to say that she could tell a little
more on that point if she wished. But somehow the
point was lost. The officers regarded her always
with the polite impersonal eyes of young men
toward a woman in middle age, as if she could
never have been pretty and young and exciting. It
nettled her at first, but as the sea weeks went by
she became resigned. She had always been happiest
in the company of men, and she would prefer them
to women till the day she died, but the familiar
devil had deserted her flesh at last and taken her
youthful looks in the going; she was merely a
handsome relic in their eyes now, and she must
content herself with memories.

 What annoyed her now was an amazing and quite
absurd return of youth in Johnnie. He spent every
possible moment on deck, walking the holystoned
planks with a spring in his step that she had not
seen in years. He had the daring eye and at times
the very sinew of the young Johnnie Wentworth
who chose and felled mast pines in the forest for
his father. More than once, when the lookout
reported a whale or some such thing in the offing,
her Governor climbed the rigging to the foretop,
with surprising skill, and made a point of reaching
that perilous little platform by the difficult outside
way, instead of popping through what the seamen
called the lubber's hole. His old lively humor was
back; he joked with the officers and often set them
in a roar of laughter with some droll tale of the
backwoods, told in the

465

country dialect of New Hampshire or Nova Scotia.
His whole air was that of a man half his age,
which Fannie found ridiculous. What the deuce
had got into him?

 Johnnie hardly knew himself. His head was
fizzing, just as it had on that voyage
five-and-twenty years ago when he was on the way
home from his first stay in England. His journeys
in Nova Scotia had made him familiar with every
part of it, and he had long seen the things that
ought to be done, as old Governor Parr never
could. Plans, wonderful plans!

 Roads first, just as in the New Hampshire days.
Improve the so-called Great West road, which
actually was nothing but a wagon track winding
through the woods from Halifax to the Annapolis
Valley, and the south shore road, which was a
mere bridle path. The eastern half of the province
was still a wilderness. Open it, then, with a new
road through the forest and over the hills to
Pictou, where some pioneers had come by sea.
There was good land up that way. Grant himself
a large tract there and put some settlers on it to
show what could be done, as he had at
Wolfeborough long ago.

 But roads were not all. In England he had seen
what a canal could do. And what couldn't a canal
do for the settlers on all those fertile lands about
the Bay of Fundy? A waterway across country to
Halifax could move the country produce easily to
the capital, and merchandise from the Halifax
stores could move as easily in return. He had
gone over every inch of the ground, and he knew
a canal was feasible, using a chain of lakes behind
Halifax harbor, and northward the long run of the
Shubenacadie River.

 Start a flour-milling industry at Halifax, using
native grain. Why should the town, the garrison,
and fleet depend so much on flour bought
abroad? A fat profit to be made there, too, when
the war came. His loyalist friend, Hartshorne the
merchant, could build the mill and get the
government contract. Then the matter of mines.
Cape Breton was one big lump of coal, so far un-
scratched except for a few shallow pits to serve
the army posts Get permission from London and
encourage men of money to

466

come and develop real mines, as he had seen the
great landowners doing in Yorkshire. A
tremendous prospect in this country of cold
winters more, there was a market on the whole
American seaboard, where people still used wood
for fuel. And the Nova Scotia coals right beside
the sea, a mere matter of tipping the carts into the
ships! A dozen other matters of this kind. Put 'em
all in motion. Start a new tide of prosperity that
would double the population in ten years. Just
what he had promised in New Hampshire-and look
at New Hampshire now!

 As for government, Fannie was right; he must
avoid his old mistakes in New Hampshire,
especially in view of this new and dangerous
French republicanism which seemed to be catching
so many minds, even in England. Take no
nonsense from the Assembly. Fill the Council with
men loyal to himself as well as the King, and leave
no opening for another Peter Livius at the board.
Deal justly with the "old settlers," but give the
loyalist refugees a preference, because they
deserved it. Support the Church faithfully, and get
a royal charter for the new college at Windsor as
a Church institution, as he had failed to do for
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. And of
course since loyalty begins at home  as soon as
a decent post is vacant send to England for
Fannie's brother Benning. And when Charles-Mary
graduates from Oxford bring him out, too, and
make him a member of the Counc~l.

 lohnnie liked to walk the deck alone at night,
thinking of all these matters, because in the
darkness they passed before his mind's eye as
finished realities, one after another, like the
painted slides of a magic lantern. And as the
voyage went on he became aware of something
else, not a plan, not even a dream like so many of
these things. He had not thought of a woman in a
romantic way for years. His old faithful love for
Fannie she had killed herself, and he had no pangs
about that any more. And now, in this strange
return through time to the year '67 he felt in his
blood a new stirring where all had been quiet for
so long.

 Sometimes on deck in the darkness, where there
was nothing really but the sea, the sails, and the
topmasts scraping at the

467

stars, he seemed to hear sometimes the laughter
of a girl. That, and the sound of a light wind in
trees, as if some sprite of the forest awaited him
in the invisible land toward the west. Where
exactly? He amused himself with the idea. The
sound of trees suggested Friar Laurence's Cell.
Would she come to him there? He could picture
that scene well enough but not the girl. Perhaps
she was only an unconscious wish, a longing for
some lively mischievous creature like the Fannie
of the Portsmouth garden, but without Fannie's
selfishness and with no ambition except to please
him and to give him back his youth for a time. A
crazy conceit; yet there it was, something to be
fulfilled with all the other things, one spell of
Indian summer in his life before the winter came!
He felt as sure of the mysterious wild girl as
Fannie was sure of her titles and honors in the
time to come.

 Fannie reminded him of those on the night
before the Hussy sighted the Nova Scotia coast.
"What have you done about a coat of arms)"

 Johnnie opened a dispatch case and took out a
drawing. She had seen the arms many times at
Wentworth Woodhouse, but she had given them
no close examination. Now she did. The heraldic
symbols of the Yorkshire Wentworths were rather
odd. The whiskered heads of two cats glared
popeyed from the upper portion of the shield. A
third cat glared below, shut off from the others by
a chevron. A griffin pranced on the shield top,
and at the bottom was the family motto, En Dieu
Est Tout.

 Fannie looked at the three grimalkins and
laughed. "How very appropriate! I'm the lone cat
inside the bar, you see, and the others are the
Halifax tabbies, watching." And then, seriously,
"What do you propose to add to these arms for
yourself?"

"Two keys."

'Where?'"

"One on each side of the lower cat."

"And what will they represent?"

"Fidelity."

The smile left her face. She looked up, startled
and furious.

468

"That's a very bad joke in fact it's ungrateful and
hateful. Where would you be today if it hadn't
been for me?"

 "Sometimes I wonder, my dear. But as it happens
your interpretation is quite wrong. The'cats' and
they look exactly that, I admit are supposed to be
leopards. And the addition of the keys is to mark
my own fidelity to the King, in New Hampshire
and in Nova Scotia."

 She saw that he was in earnest, and to turn his
calm gaze from a very red face she pointed once
more to the drawing. "What's that ugly creature on
the top?"

 "A griffin. Half lion, half eagle. Griffins are
supposed to guard the family's gold and all
treasures of that sort."

 "Humph! It won't have much to guard in our
case. What do you intend to do about your debts
at Halifax? You've got Drummond to pay now."

 Johnnie shrugged. "My creditors can't very well
arrest their own Gvernor for debt. He's got too
many favors in his power. Ill offer 'em a system of
payments stretching well into the future, and they'll
be thankful to settle for that."

 'You'll have to make the payments precious
small," she said tartly. "Our expenses will be
heavier than ever now, remember that. We have a
position to maintain. Can't you find some money
outside of your two salaries as Governor and
Surveyor Gneral?"

 "There's a chance, when the war with France
breaks out. I'll raise a regular regiment for home
defense in Nova Scotia and get myself made
colonel. That should give me another thousand a
year, if Prince Edward approves."

 "Edward? You mean William's soldier brother?
He's posted at Gibraltar. They're treating him just
the way they treated William. What's he got to do
with you?"

 "He's commanding the forces in Canada now. He
was sent out to Quebec last year."

 "Oh? I didn't know that." Fannie considered this
news for some moments. "That means he'll be
coming to Halifax for garrison inspections!"

"No doubt, when the war begins." And seeing the
sudden

469

interest in her eyes he added blandly, "I'm told
he's acquired a little French mistress at Quebec,
and that he's very much in love with her. She's on
the sunny side of five-and-twenty."

 'While I'm a hag of seven-and-forty! Why don't
you say that too? As if I had any intention . . . but
of course you just want to be cruel. Sometimes I
think you have no heart at all!"

 "I have a head, at any rate, my dear." He put
the drawing back into the dispatch case carefully.
'We've come a long hard way together, my dear
Fan. If I've learned anything it's not to fret over
whatever's past and can't be changed. All I see
now is the present and future, and they look very
pleasant to me. Dignity again, and work to do.
Shall we let our sentiments rest on that?"

 The Hussar raised Cape Sambro on the twelfth
of May, having sighted and followed the coast all
the previous day. Then Thrum Cap appeared, and
Devil's Island, and in the distance the green tip of
Citadel Hill. The frigate entered the harbor in
perfect weather, a hot spring morning with just
enough breeze to fill the sails and bring her to an
anchorage off the town. On the harbor slopes the
snowy bloom of Indian pear was showing in the
woods, and the fields and pastures had their
freshest green. In the town itself the well-kept
mansions of officials and merchants shone like
painted faces in the morning sun, and the tall
white bulk of Government House peered over the
waterfront sheds toward the frigate Iying off
King's Wharf. There were the familiar red and
yellow barracks on the shoulders of Citadel Hill,
and the sprawl of houses and shops and
warehouses down the slope to the water, all with
a clean look at this distance, as if the March
winds and April rains had scrubbed them for the
occasion.

 Johnnie could not have wished a better time of
arrival. It was Saturday. All the preparations for
their reception could be made today, while they
remained on board. And tomorrow they would
make their landing, after the churches emptied,
when the whole population, dressed in its Sunday
best, would pour down to Hollis Street to watch
the show. He considered the arrangements

470

carefully and sent notes ashore to old Mr.
Bulkeley, President of the Council, who had been
administering the government since Parr's death;
and to Gneral Ogilvie, Chief Justice Strange, and
the other dignitaries, while Fannie herself
dispatched a note to sister Mary and a long list of
instructions to Prue.

 They slept little that night. There was too much
to think about, of the past as well as the morrow.
They were up at daylight, Fannie caking once for
her maid. For hours Emelie fussed over her
mistress, while the sun climbed and the air grew
hot, in spite of the open cabin window. Miladi's
hair, now a dark and flawless brown, was dressed
in the new mode, fairly low, and full at the sides
and back. The face lightly powdered, with deft
touches of rouge and lip paint to take away the
pallor of her face. The chosen gown was in
Fannie's favorite blue, with the new high waist and
short sleeves, and at the neck a modest V and a
rich froth of lace. White gloves to the elbow, a
white turban with twin ostrich plumes pinned by a
diamond brooch, and on one hand a white feather
muff. When the Governor's lady stepped on deck
at last she heard a flattering murmur from the
assembled crew.

 "There, I venture," breathed Captain George to
his first lieutenant, "is one of the handsomest
women of her age to be seen outside of London!"

 It was past noon, and she found Johnnie at the
rail gazing eagerly toward the shore, where he
could see the trim ranks and musket barrels of the
215t Regiment, and beyond them a gathering
multitude. For his own dress he had copied
instinctively what he had worn on that triumphant
entry into Portsmouth all the years ago; white silk
breeches and stockings, a waistcoat in red satin, a
coat of red velvet with silver buttons, a cravat of
white ruffled silk, a hat with tall military cocks
edged in gold lace and bearing the black cockade
of Hanover. The gold hilt of a dress sword
gleamed in the open sweep of the coat. His hair
was white with pomade and powder, the queue
neatly clubbed at the nape with a scarlet ribbon.
His face, bronzed by five weeks in the winds and
sea glare, made a frame for the calm grey eyes and
the

471

resolute mouth. From head to foot he looked
every inch the man chosen to govern a key post of
the empire in the coming war.

 The ship's rigging fluttered every scrap of
bunting to be found in the flag lockers, and now
a larboard gun fired, the first of a fifteen-gun
salute, startling the maid Emelie half out of her
wits, and seamen swarmed aloft to dress the
yards, standing erect and motionless on those lofty
perches like rows of trousered sparrows. At the
foot of the gangway the captain's barge waited,
with oarsmen in green jackets and black caps. The
Governor and his lady embarked, the long oars
rose and fell in a beautiful flashing rhythm, and
the barge swept in to the stone landing steps just
as the Hussar fired her last gun. It was exactly one
o'clock. And now the battery at Grand Parade
began the reply.

 Sixteen years ago Johnnie had watched
Governor Legge departing from these same steps
amid the curses of a Halifax mob, but if there was
a lesson in that scene he had forgotten it. At the
head of the steps His Excellency received the of
ficial greetings of General Ogilvie and his staff.
The Admiral was missing the North American
squadron was on its way north from the winter
station in the West Indies but the Commissioner
was there to do the naval honors. The troops
presented arms, with a smart slap of hands and
Aide of heels. And now the procession formed, at
the foot of an avenue of scarlet and flashing steel
that ran all the way from King's Wharf to the
portico of Government House.

 Fannie tucked a hand in her Governor's arm.
Emelie, a pace behind, held forth a tall white
parasol to shield her mistress from the sun.
Behind them came the General, the
Commissioner, the Chief Justice, ar d the
Secretary of the Council; the senior garrison and
dockyard officers; the members of the Council
and the Assembly; and finally a concourse of
leadmg merchants and citizens anxious to show
their respect for the new power in the land.
Among these last, Fannie's sidelong eye noted
with a gleam, were the husbands of "that little
group of prigs."

 They moved off at a slow majestic pace. Hollis
Street was a solid human mass, held back by the
red files of infantry. Most of the people were
townsfolk, but Johnnie's alert gaze noted the

472

farmers up to town for the market, sawmill men
from Dartmouth and the Sackville River, sailors
from the merchant ships, dockyard hands,
fishermen from Eastern Passage, Herring Cove,
North West Arm, and Sambro. The crowd
extended up George Street and Prince Street, and
there was a mass of carriages along Granville
Street. People hung from open wmdows all about
the square, and daring boys and young men were
clustered on the roofs wherever there was a
foothold. There was a patter of polite hands as the
Gvernor and his lady moved across Hollis Street.
And then a sunburned fellow in country dress,
perched on a lantern pole, shouted cheerfully, "Ah,
there he is! Hu77a for Governor Johnniel" and in
a moment the crowd was roaring and wavmg hats
and handkerchiefs.

 Johnnie's eyes went wet, and there was a lump in
his throat that he could not swallow. It was
Portsmouth all over again. The twenty-five years
since had never happened. He looked up at the
portico, half expecting to see the lean figure of old
Theodore Atkinson, where in fact the President of
the Council was waiting with a formal address of
welcome.

 Fannie, smiling at his side, had no such illusion.
Her mind.was entirely on the future. She walked
along, inclining her head and plumes graciously
from side to side and thinking of a grand dinner
and ball to celebrate the baronetcy. It would be
wartime, of course, and the town thronged with the
army and the fleet. And it would be evening, with
magnificent decorations and a blaze of chandeliers
in every chamber of Government House, a feast
prepared and waiting in the dining room, and
musicians playing on the balcony. Sir John and
Lady Wentworth would come down the staircase to
the levee room at the exact moment when Prince
Edward and his glittering staff arrived at the Hollis
Street steps. There would be at least two hundred
guests assembled, and in all that favored company,
cherishing her invitations like tickets to Heaven,
not one not a single one of those creatures on
her black list! She could taste the moment now,
like the first sip of a delicious wine that had been
years maturing.

The guns at Grand Parade fired the last shot of the
fortress

473

salute, and the procession halted. On the grassy
terrace of Government House the band of the gist
lifting their instruments. Johnnie blinked the
water from his eyes and turned a steadfast gaze
upward to the terrace, to the 9agstaff, to the
British colors stirring in the light air on the
harbor. With an imperceptible movement he
slipped off Fannie's proprietary hand and took a
single pace forward, sweeping off his hat and
standing as he had stood in the Portsmouth
square all those years ago, free and alone.

 At that moment the tense waiting silence of all
those gathered people was broken by one sound,
the naive happy laughter of a girl. And then the
band crashed forth the notes of "God Save the
King."

474

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