CHAPTER XIV.

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“The deuce!” cried the old man. “What could be more important than tobacco?”

And he stood looking into the fire, muttering to himself between furious puffs.

Colden sought comfort of Miss Sally. “Was ever a woman as unreasonable as Elizabeth?” he said to her. “She’d have had me lower myself to meet that rebel vagabond as one gentleman meets another.”

But Miss Sally was not going to betray her own disappointment by showing a change from her oft-expressed opinion of the rebel captain,—particularly in the presence of Mr. Valentine. So she answered:

“You met him so once, three years ago.”

“I had a less scrupulous sense of propriety then,” replied Colden, raging inwardly.

“But, as he’s a rebel and deserter,” pursued Miss Sally, “was it not your duty as a soldier to take him, just now?”

“I’d have done so, had my men been here,” growled the major. “Elizabeth ought to’ve had her servants hold him. I had half a mind to order them, in the King’s name, but I never can bring myself to oppose her, she’s so masterful! By George, though, I’ll have him yet! My two fellows will soon come up. They shall give chase. He will leave tracks in the snow.”

Colden went to the window, and peered out as257Peyton himself had done not long before. The flakes were coming down as thick as ever.

“I don’t see my rascals yet!” he muttered. “They’ve stopped at the tavern, I’ll warrant.”

And he continued to gaze eagerly out, impatient that his men should arrive before the new-fallen snow should cover his enemy’s tracks.

Old Mr. Valentine, having exhausted his present stock of mutterings, now walked over to Miss Sally, who had sat down near the spinet.

“Miss Williams,” said he, “this is the first chance I’ve had to speak to you alone in a week.”

“But we’re not alone,” said Miss Sally, motioning her head towards Colden.

“He’s nobody,” contemptuously replied the octogenarian. “A man that damns tobacco is nobody. So you may go ahead and speak out. What’s your answer, ma’am?”

“Oh, Mr. Valentine, not now! You must give me time.”

“That’s what you said before,” he complained.

She had, indeed, said it before, scores of times.

“Well, give me more time, then,” she replied.

“How much?” asked the old man, in a matter-of-fact way.

“Oh, I don’t know! Long enough for me to make up my mind.”

Thus far, this conversation had followed in the258exact lines of many that had preceded it, but now Mr. Valentine made a departure from the customary form.

“I think,” said he, “if my other two wives had taken as long as you to make up their minds, I shouldn’t have been twice a widower by now.”

“Oh, Mr. Valentine!” said Miss Sally, in a sweetly reproachful way. “Now you know—”

But he cut her speech off short. “Very likely,” said he. “I don’t know. Well, take your time. Only please remember I haven’t so very much time left! Better take me while I’m here to be had! Good night, ma’am!” And he went to the dining-room to fortify himself for his long homeward walk through the snow.

In crossing the hall, he saw Cuff on the settle in Sam’s place. In the dining-room he met Molly, who was clearing the table of the supper that Colden had disdained. He asked her the whereabouts of Williams, and she replied that the steward and Sam had gone out on some order of Miss Elizabeth’s. Deciding to await Williams’s return, the old man sat down before the dining-room fire, and was soon peacefully snoring.

Elizabeth had gone up-stairs to watch from her darkened window the issue of the expedition of Williams and Sam, who had gone out by the kitchen, equipped respectively with rope and pistol. While259they were in the immediate vicinity of the house, she could not see them from her elevation, but presently she beheld them glide swiftly across a white open space in the garden, cross a stile, and disappear among the trees and bushes between the garden and the post-road. Turning her eyes to the road itself, that lonely highway now called Broadway,[9]she made out a solitary figure toiling forward through the whirling whiteness,—and she gave a sigh, the deepest and longest with which her frame had ever trembled.

Meanwhile Miss Sally remained in the parlor, thinking it best not to go to Elizabeth unless sent for; while Colden continued to stand at the window, showing his impatience for the arrival of his two soldiers in a tense contracting of the brow, in a restless shifting from foot to foot, and in intermittent stifled curses.

As he kept his eyes on the place where the branch road left the highway, he did not see that part of the lawn walk which led from the garden. But suddenly a slight noise drew his look towards the portico before the east hall.

“Who are these coming?” he cried, startling Miss Sally out of her musings and her chair.

“Are they your men?” she asked, hastening to join him at the window.

“No, mine are mounted,” said he. “Why,—these260are Williams and Sam,—and they are bringing,—yes, it is he! They’re bringing him back a prisoner! She has done it, after all, without consulting me!” And he strode to the centre of the room, in the utmost elation.

Miss Sally weakened at the imminent prospect of a meeting between the two enemies in the changed circumstances, and felt the need of her niece’s support.

“I must tell Elizabeth they have him,” she said, and ran out to the east hall, and thence to the dining-room, just in time to avoid seeing Peyton led in through the outer door, which Cuff had opened at Williams’s call.

The steward and Sam conducted their prisoner immediately into the parlor. There Colden stood, with a rancorously jubilant smile, to receive him.

Peyton’s wrists were as Williams had tied them. He was without his hat, which had been knocked off in a brief struggle he had essayed against his captors in a moment when Sam had lowered the pistol. There was a little fresh snow on his hair, and more on his shoulders. The feet of his boots were cased with it. His left arm was held by Williams, who carried the broken sword, having taken it from the scabbard at the first opportunity. Peyton’s other arm was grasped by the huge, bony left hand of Sam, who held the cocked pistol in his right. The261two men walked with him to the centre of the parlor, and stopped.

“By George,” said he, turning his face towards Sam, with fire in his eyes, “had the snow not killed the sound of your sneaking footsteps till you’d caught my arms behind, I’d have done for the two of you!”

“Good, Williams!” said Colden. “Place him on that chair, and leave him here with me. But stay in the hall on guard.”

“So Miss Elizabeth ordered us, sir,” said Williams, dryly, and, with Sam, conducted Peyton to the chair, on which he sat willingly.

“Of course she did,” replied Colden. “Was it not at my suggestion?”

Peyton looked sharply up at the major, who regarded him with the undisguised pleasure of hate about to be satisfied.

Williams handed the broken sword to Colden, saying, “This was the only weapon he had, sir. We grabbed him before he could use it. We ran out behind him from the roadside, and he couldn’t hear us for the snow.”

“Ay, or the pair of you couldn’t have taken me!” said Peyton, with hot scorn and defiant gameness.

Colden, with the piece of sword, motioned Williams to go from the room.

“Leave the door ajar a little,” he added, “so you can hear if I call.”

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Peyton uttered a short laugh of derision at this piece of prudence. The steward and Sam withdrew to the hall, where Sam remained, while Williams went in search of Elizabeth for further orders. As soon as she had assured herself, by watching and listening, that Peyton was safe in the parlor, she had stolen quietly down-stairs to the dining-room, where she had met her aunt, with whom the steward now found her sitting. She told him to get the duck-gun, make sure it was loaded and primed, and to wait with Sam on the settle in the hall. She then requested her aunt to remain in the dining-room, silently returned to the hall, and took station by the door leading from the parlor,—the door which Williams, at Colden’s command, had left slightly ajar. Her original plan, she felt, might have to be altered by reason of Colden’s having obtruded his hand into the game, a possibility she had not, in roughly sketching that plan, taken into account. It was in order to have the guidance of circumstance, that she now put herself in the way of hearing, unseen, what might pass between the two men. Meanwhile, through the snow-storm, Colden’s two soldiers, who had indeed tarried at the tavern for the heating up of their interiors, were blasphemously urging their sleepy horses towards the manor-house.

In the parlor, the two enemies were facing each263other, Peyton on his chair, his tied wrists behind him, Colden standing at some distance from him, holding the broken sword. As soon as they were alone, Peyton uttered another one-syllabled laugh, and said:

“The hospitality of this house beats my recollection. One is always coming back to it.”

“You’ll not come back the next time you leave it!” said Major Colden, his eyes glittering with gratified rancor.

“And when shall that time be?” asked Peyton, airily.

“As soon as two of my men arrive, whom I outrode on my way hither to-night. They attended me out of New York. I shall be generous and give them over to you, to attend youintoNew York.”

“Thanks for the escort!”

“’Tis the only kind you rebels ever have, when you enter New York,” sneered the major.

“We shall enter it with an escort of our own choosing some day! And a sorry day that for you Tories and refugees, my dear gentleman!”

“But if that day ever comes,you’llhave been rotting underground a long time,—and thanks tome, don’t forget that!”

“Thanks toher, you coward!” cried Peyton. “’Twas she that sent her servants after me! You didn’t dare try taking me, alone!”

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“Bah!” said Colden, hotly, “I might have pistolled you here to-night”—and he placed his hand on the fire-arm in his belt—“but for the presence of the ladies!”

“Was it the ladies’ presence,” retorted Peyton, contemptuously, “or the fact that you’re a devilish bad shot?”

Neither man heard the door moved farther open, or saw Elizabeth step through the aperture to the inner side of the threshold, where she stopped and watched. Peyton’s back was towards her, and Colden’s rage at the last words was too intense to permit his eyes to rove from its object.

“Damn you!” cried the major. “I’d show you how bad a shot I am, but that I’d rather wait and see you on the gallows!”

“Willshecome to see me there, I wonder?” said Peyton, half thoughtfully. “She ought to, for it’s her work sends me there, not yours! ’Twill not beyourrevenge when they string me up, my jolly friend!”

Taunted beyond all self-control, the Tory yelled:

“Not mine, eh? Then I’ll have mine now, you dog!”

With that, he strode forward and struck Harry a fierce blow across the face with the flat side of Harry’s own broken sword.

Harry merely blinked his eyes, and did not flinch.265He turned pale, then red, and in a moment, first clearing his voice of a slight huskiness, said, quietly:

“That blow I charge against you both,—the lady as well as you!”

Colden had stepped back some distance after delivering the blow. Something in Harry’s answer seemed to infuriate still further the devil awakened in the Tory’s body, for he cried out:

“The lady as well as me,—yes! And this, too!”

And he advanced on Peyton, to strike a second time.

“Stop! How dare you?”

The cry was Elizabeth’s. It startled Colden so that he loosened his hold of the broken sword before he could deliver the blow. At that instant, she caught his arm in her one hand, the sword-guard in her other. She tore the weapon from his grasp, and faced him with a countenance as furious as his own.

“What do you mean?” he cried.

For answer she struck him in the face with the flat of the sword, as he had struck Peyton. “You sneak!” she said.

He recoiled, and stood staring, a ghastly image of bewilderment and consternation. After a moment he turned livid.

“Ah! I see now!” he gasped. “You love him!”

“Yes!” came the answer, prompt and decided.

He gazed at her with such an expression as a266painter of hell might put into the face of a lost soul, and he said, faintly, in a kind of articulate moan:

“I might have known!”

Suddenly there came from the outer night the exclamation, quick and distinct:

“Whoa!”

267CHAPTER XIV.THE BROKEN SWORD.

Thesound wrought a transformation in Colden. His face lighted up with malevolent joy.

“You love too late!” he cried, to Elizabeth. “My men are there! They shall take him to New York a prisoner, at last!”

“But not delivered up by me, thank God!” replied Elizabeth, while Peyton rose quickly from his chair, and Colden reeled like a drunken man to the window.

She went behind Peyton, and, with the edge of the broken sword, hacked rather than cut through one of the outer windings that bound his wrists together, whereupon she speedily uncoiled the rope.

“You were my prisoner. I set you free!” she said, dropped the rope to the floor, and handed him the broken sword.

He took the weapon in his right hand, and imprisoned Elizabeth with his left arm.

“I’m more your prisoner now than ever!” he said. “You’ve cut these bonds. Will you put others on me?”

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“Sometime,—if we can save your life!” she answered.

Both turned their eyes towards Colden.

The Tory officer had drawn his sword, and was motioning, in great excitement, to his soldiers outside.

“This way, men!” he shouted. “To the front door! Damn the louts! Can’t they understand?” He beat upon the window with his sword, knocking out panes of glass. “Come through that door, I say! Quick, curse you, there’s a prisoner here, with a price for his taking! Ay, that’s it! Some one in the hall there, open the front door to my men!”

The sound now came of knocks bestowed on the outside door, and of Sam’s heavy tread on the hall floor.

“Williams! Sam!” shouted Elizabeth. “Don’t let them in!”

The heavy tread was heard to stop short. The knocking on the outer door was resumed.

“Let them in, I say,” roared Colden, too proud to go himself to the door. “I command it, in the name of the King!”

“Obey your mistress,” cried Peyton, to those in the hall. “I command it, in the name of Congress!”

Colden was silent for a moment, then suddenly threw open the window and called out, “This way, men! Quick!”

And he drew pistol, and stood ready with steel269and ball to guard the window by which his men were to enter. A new, wild ferocity was on his face, a new, nervous hardness in his body, as if the latent resolution and strength which a prudent man keeps for a great contest, on which his all may depend, were at last aroused. In such a mood, the man who, governed by interest, may have seemed a coward all his life becomes for the once supremely formidable. At last he thinks the stake worth the play, at last the prize is worth the risk, and because it is so he will play and risk to the end, hazarding all, not yielding while he breathes. Having opened the theme which alone, of all themes, shall transform his irresolution into action, he will, Hamlet like, “fight upon this theme until” his “eyelids will no longer wag.” So was Colden aroused, transfigured, as he stood doubly armed by the window, waiting for his men to clamber in.

“What shall we do, dear?” said Elizabeth.

“Fight!” replied Peyton, tightening at the same time his right palm around his broken sword, and his left around the hand she had let him take,—for she had moved from the embrace of his arm.

“Ay, there are only two of them,” she said, as two burly forms appeared in the open window, one behind the other.

“There will be three of us, you’ll find!” cried Colden. “This time I’ll take a hand, if need be.”

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“You must not stay here,” said Peyton to Elizabeth, quickly. “Things will be flying loose in a moment!”

“I won’t leave you!” said she.

“Go! I beg you, go!” he said, releasing her hand, and stepping back.

Meanwhile, Colden’s men bounded in through the window. Rough, sturdy fellows were they, who landed heavily on the parlor floor, and blinked at the light, drawing the while the breeches of their short muskets from beneath their coats. Their hats and shoulders were coated with snow.

“Take that rebel alive, if you can!” ordered Colden. “He’s meant to hang! Stun him with your musket-butts!”

The men quickly reversed their weapons, and strode heavily towards Harry. To their surprise, before they could bring down their muskets, which required both hands of each to hold, Harry dashed forward between them, thinking to cut down Colden with his broken sword, possess himself of the latter’s pistol, shoot one of the soldiers, and meet the other on less unequal terms. He saw a possibility of his leaping through the open window and fleeing on one of the soldiers’ horses, but the idea was accompanied by the thought that Elizabeth might be made to suffer for his escape. Her safety now depended on his getting the mastery over his three would-be271captors. So, ere the two astonished fellows could turn, Harry had leaped within sword’s reach of his doubly armed enemy.

But Colden was now as alert as rigid, and he opposed his officer’s sword against Peyton’s broken cavalry blade, guarding himself with unexpected swiftness, and giving back, for Harry’s sweeping stroke, a thrust which only the quickest and most dexterous movement turned aside from entering the Virginian’s lungs. As Harry stepped back for an instant out of his adversary’s reach, the Tory raised his pistol. At the same moment the two soldiers, having turned about, rushed on Peyton from behind. He heard them coming, and half turned to face them. Their movement had for him one fortunate circumstance. It kept Colden from shooting, for his bullet might have struck one of his own men.

Now Elizabeth had not been idle. At the moment when Harry had stepped back from her and bade her go, she had run to the door of the east hall, and called Williams and Sam. While Peyton had been engaging Colden near the window, the steward and the negro had entered the parlor, and she had excitedly ordered them to Peyton’s aid. Williams still had the duck-gun, Sam the pistol. Thus it occurred that, as Peyton half turned from Colden towards the two soldiers, these last-named saw Williams and Sam rush in between them and272their prey. Before Williams could bring his duck-gun to bear, he was struck down senseless by one of the musket blows first intended for Peyton. Another blow, and from another musket, had been aimed at Sam’s woolly head, but the negro had put up his left hand and caught the descending weapon, and at the same time had discharged his pistol at the weapon’s holder. But Williams, in falling, had knocked against the darky, and so disturbed his aim, and the ball flew wide. The man who had brought down Williams now struck Sam a terrible blow with the musket-club, on the temple, and the negro dropped like a felled ox.

During this brief passage, Peyton had returned to close quarters with Colden. The latter, who had lowered his pistol when his men had last approached Peyton, and who had resumed the contest of swords unequal in size and kind, now raised the pistol a second time. But it was caught by the hands of Elizabeth, who had run around to his left, and who now, suddenly endowed with the strength of a tigress, wrenched it from him as she had wrenched the broken sword earlier in the evening. She tried to discharge the pistol at one of the two soldiers, as they, relieved of the brief interposition of Williams and Sam, were again taking position to bring down their muskets on Peyton’s head while he continued at sword-work with Colden. But the pistol273snapped without going off, whereupon Elizabeth hurled it in the face of the man at whom she had aimed. The blow disconcerted him so that his musket fell wide of Peyton, who at the same instant, having seen from the corner of his eye how he was menaced, leaped backward from under the other descending musket. Then, taking advantage of the moment when the muskets were down, he ran to the music seat before the spinet, and mounted upon it, thinking rightly that the infuriated major would follow him, and that he might the better execute a certain manœuvre from the vantage of height. Colden indeed rushed after him, and thrust at him, Peyton sweeping the thrusts aside with pendulum-like swings of his own short weapon. His thought was to send the point that menaced him so astray that he might leap forward and cleave his enemy with a downward stroke before the Tory could recover his guard. But Colden pressed him so speedily that he was at last fain to step up from the music seat to the spinet, landing first on the keyboard, which sent out a frightened discord as he alighted on it. Finding the keys an uncertain footing, he took another step, and stood on the body of the instrument, so that Colden would be at the disadvantage of thrusting upwards. But Colden, seeming to tire a little after a few such thrusts, called to his men:

“Shoot the dog in the legs!”

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Both men aimed at once. Elizabeth screamed. Peyton leaped down from his height to the little space behind the spinet projection, where he had hidden a week before. Here he found himself well placed, for here he could be approached on one side only,—unless his adversaries should follow his example and come at him from the top of the spinet.

Colden attacked him with sword, at the open side, and shouted to his men:

“One of you get on the spinet. The other crawl under. We have him now.”

Still guarding himself from his enemy’s thrusts, Peyton heard one of the men leap from the music seat to the spinet, and the other advance creeping, doubtless with gun before him, under the instrument. Peyton sank to his knees, placed his shoulder under the back edge of the spinet’s projection, and, warding off a downward movement of Colden’s sword, turned the instrument over on its side, checking the creeping man under it, and throwing the other fellow to the floor some feet away. As the spinet fell, one of its legs, rising swiftly into the air, knocked Colden’s blade upward, and the Tory leaped back lest Peyton might avail himself of the opening. But the spinet-leg itself hindered Peyton from doing so. Colden rushed forward again, thrusting as he did so. Peyton leaped aside, made a swift half-turn, and landed a stroke on Colden’s sword-hand, making275the Tory cry out and drop the sword. Harry put his foot on it and cried:

“You’re at my mercy! Beg quarter!”

But the man who had been thrown from the top of the spinet now returned to the attack, coming around that end of the upset instrument which was opposite the end where Colden had menaced Harry. Seeing this new adversary, Harry retreated past Colden, in order to put himself in position. The soldier hastened after him, with upraised musket. At this moment, Peyton saw himself confronted by Elizabeth, who pulled open the door of the south hall. He stopped short to avoid running against her.

“Save yourself!” she cried, and pushed him through the open doorway, flinging the door shut upon him, a movement which the pursuing soldier, stayed for a moment by collision with Colden, was not in time to prevent. Harry heard the key move in the lock, and knew that Elizabeth had turned it, and that he was safe in the south hall, with a minute of vantage which he might employ as he would.

Elizabeth withdrew the key from the locked door, just as the pursuing soldier arrived at that door. The man, in his excitement, violently tried to open the door. Colden, who was wrapping a handkerchief around his wounded hand, shouted to the man:

“You fool, she has the key! Take it from her!”

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“You shall kill me first!” she cried, and ran from the man towards the open window, stepping over the prostrate bodies of Sam and Williams as she went.

“After her! She’ll throw it into the snow!” cried Colden.

This much Harry heard through the door, and heard also the heavy tread of the soldier’s feet in pursuit of the girl. His mind imaged forth a momentary picture of the fellow’s rough hands laid on the delicate arms of Elizabeth, of her body clasped by the man in a struggle, her white skin reddened by his grasp. The spectacle, imaginary and lasting but an instant, maddened Peyton beyond endurance, made him a giant, a Hercules. He threw himself against the door repeatedly, plied foot and body in heavy blows. Meanwhile Elizabeth had reached the window, and thrown the key far out on the snow-heaped lawn. She had no sooner done so than the man laid his clutch on her arm.

“Fly, Peyton, for God’s sake! For my sake!” she shouted.

“You shall pay for aiding the enemy, if he does!” cried Colden. “Don’t let her escape, Thompson!”

At that instant the locked door gave way, and in burst Harry, having broken, to save Elizabeth from a rude contact, the barrier she had closed to save his life. That life, which he had once saved by callously assailing her heart, he now risked, that her body277might not suffer the touch of an ungentle hand. So swift and sudden was his entrance, that he had crossed the room, and floored Elizabeth’s captor, with a deep gash down the side of the head, ere Colden made a step towards him.

The man who had been under the fallen spinet had now extricated himself, and regained his feet, and he and Colden rushed on Peyton at once. Elated by having so speedily wrought Elizabeth’s release, and reduced the number of his able adversaries to two, Peyton bethought himself of a new plan. He fled through the deep doorway to the east hall, and took position on the staircase. He turned just in time to parry Colden’s sword, which the major had picked up and made shift to hold in his wrapped-up, wounded hand. Harry saw that an opportune stroke might send the sword from his enemy’s numb and weakening grasp, and his heart swelled with anticipated triumph, until he heard Colden’s hoarse cry:

“Shoot him, James, while I keep him occupied!”

This order was now the more practicable from Harry’s being on the stairs, above Colden, a great part of his body exposed to an aim that could not endanger his antagonist. Breathing heavily, his eyes afire with hatred, Colden repeated his attacks, while Harry saw the other’s musket raised, the barrel looking him in the eyes. He leaped a step higher, swung278his broken sword against the pendent chandelier, knocked the only burning candle from its socket, and threw the hall into darkness. A moment later the gun went off, giving an instant’s red flame, a loud crack, and a smell of gunpowder smoke. Harry heard a swift singing near his right ear, and knew that he was untouched.

Lest Colden’s sword, thrust at random, might find him in the dark, Harry instantly bestrode the stair-rail, and dropped, outside the balustrade, to the floor of the hall. He grasped his half-sword in both hands, so as to put his whole weight behind it, and made a lunge in the direction of a muttered curse. The curse gave way to a roar of pain and rage, and Colden’s second follower dropped, spurting blood in the darkness, his shoulder gashed horribly by the blunt end of Peyton’s imperfect weapon. Harry now ran back to the parlor, to deal with Colden in the light, the latter’s greater length of weapon giving a greater searching-power in the darkness. In the parlor Elizabeth stood waiting in suspense. Sam was sitting on the floor and staring stupidly at Williams, who was now awake and rubbing his head, and the Tory first fallen was still senseless. Harry had no sooner taken this scene in at a glance, than Colden was upon him.

The major’s eyes seemed to stand out like blazing carbuncles from the face of some deity of rage.

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“G—d d—n your soul!” he screamed, and thrust. The point went straight, and Elizabeth, seeing it protrude through the back of Harry’s coat, near the left side of his body, uttered a low cry, and sank half-fainting to her knees. Colden shouted with triumphant laughter. “Die, you dog! And when you burn in hell, remember I sent you there!”

But the evil joy suddenly faded out of Colden’s face, for Harry Peyton, smiling, took a forward step, grasped near the hilt the sword that seemed to be sheathed in his own body, forced it from Colden’s hand, and then drew it slowly from its lodgment. No blood discolored it, and none oozed from Harry’s body.

The Virginian’s quick movement to escape the thrust had left only a part of his loose-fitting coat exposed, and Colden’s sword had passed through it, leaving him unhurt. Colden’s momentary appearance of victory had been the means of actual defeat.

The Tory major saw his cup of revenge dashed from his lips, saw himself deprived of sword and sweetheart, neither chance left of living nor motive left for life. His rage collapsed; his hate burst like a bubble.

“Kill me,” he said, quietly, to Peyton.

His look, innocent of any thought to draw compassion, quite disarmed Harry, who stood for a moment280with moistening eyes and a kind of welling-up at the throat, then said, in a rather unsteady voice:

“No, sir! God knows I’ve taken enough from you,” and he looked at Elizabeth, who had risen and was standing near him. Softened by the triumphant outcome for her love, she, too, was suddenly sensible of the defeated man’s unhappiness, and her eyes applauded and thanked Harry.

“You’ve taken what I never had,” said Colden, with a chastened kind of bitterness, “yet without which the life you give me back is worthless.”

“Make it worth something with this,” and Peyton held Colden’s sword out to him.

“What! You will trust me with it?” said Colden, amazed and incredulous, taking the sword, but holding it limply.

“Certainly, sir!”

Colden was motionless a moment, then placed his arm high against the doorway, and buried his face against his arm, to hide the outlet of what various emotions were set loose by his enemy’s display of pity and trust.

Harry gently drew Elizabeth to him and kissed her. Yielding, she placed her arms around his neck, and held him for a moment in an embrace of her own offering. Then she withdrew from his clasp, and when Colden again faced them she had resumed that invisible veil which no man, not even281the beloved, might pass through till she bade him.

“You will find me worthy of your trust, sir,” said Colden, brokenly, yet with a mixture of manly humility and honorable pride.[10]

“I am so sure of that,” said Harry, “that I confide to your care for a time what is dearest to me in the world. I ask you to accompany Miss Philipse to her home in New York, when it may suit her convenience, and to see that she suffer nothing for what has occurred here this night.”

“You are a generous enemy, sir,” said Colden, his eyes moistening again. “One man in ten thousand would have done me the honor, the kindness, of that request!”

“Why,” said Harry, taking his enemy’s hand, as if in token of farewell, “whatever be the ways of the knaves, respectable and otherwise, who are so cautious against tricks like their own, thank God it’s not so rotten a world that a gentleman may not trust a gentleman, when he is sure he has found one!”

Turning to Elizabeth, he said: “I beg you will leave this house at dawn, if you can. Williams and Sam, there, will be little the worse for their knocks, and can look after the fellows on the floor.”

“And you,” she replied, “must go at once. You must not further risk your life by a moment’s waiting.282Cuff shall saddle Cato for you. I sha’n’t rest till I feel that you are far on your way.”

He approached as if again to kiss her, but she held out her hand to stay him. He took the hand, bent over it, pressed it to his lips.

“But,—” he said, in a tone as low as a whisper, “when—”

“When the war is over,” she answered, softly, “let Cato bring you back.”

283

“The old county historian.” Rev. Robert Bolton, born 1814, died 1877. His “History of the County of Westchester,” especially the revised edition published in 1881, is a rich mine of “material.” Among other works that have served the author of this narrative in a study of the period and place are Allison’s “History of Yonkers,” Cole’s “History of Yonkers,” Edsall’s “History of Kingsbridge,” Dawson’s “Westchester County during the Revolution,” Jones’s “New York during the Revolution,” Watson’s “Annals of New York in the Olden Time,” General Heath’s “Memoirs,” Thatcher’s “Memoirs,” Simcoe’s “Military Journal,” Dunlap’s “History of New York,” and Mrs. Ellet’s “Domestic History of the Revolution.” For an excellent description of the border warfare on the “neutral ground,” the reader should go to Irving’s delightful “Chronicle of Wolfert’s Roost.” Cooper’s novel, “The Spy,” deals accurately with that subject, which is touched upon also in that good old standby, Lossing’s “Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution.” Philipse284Manor-house has been carefully written of by Judge Atkins in a Yonkers newspaper, and less accurately by Mrs. Lamb in her “History of New York City,” and Marian Harland in “Some Colonial Homesteads and Their Stories.” Of general histories, Irving’s “Life of Washington” treats most fully of things around New York during the British occupation, and these things are interestingly dealt with in local histories, such as the “History of Queens County,” Stiles’s “History of Brooklyn,” Barber and Howe’s “New Jersey Historical Collections,” etc., as well as in such special works as Onderdonk’s “Revolutionary Incidents.”

Of Colonel Gist’s escape, Bolton gives the following account: “The house was occupied by the handsome and accomplished widow of the Rev. Luke Babcock, and Miss Sarah Williams, a sister of Mrs. Frederick Philipse. To the former lady Colonel Gist was devotedly attached; consequently, when an opportunity afforded, he gladly moved his command into that vicinity. On the night preceding the attack, he had stationed his camp at the foot of Boar Hill, for the better purpose of paying a special visit to this lady. It is said that whilst engaged in urging his suit the enemy were quietly surrounding his quarters; he had barely received his final dismissal from Mrs. Babcock when he was startled by the firing of musketry.... It appears that all the roads and bridges had been well guarded by the enemy, except the one now285called Warner’s Bridge, and that Captain John Odell upon the first alarm led off his troops through the woods on the west side of the Saw Mill [River]. Here Colonel Gist joined them. In the meantime Mrs. Babcock, having stationed herself in one of the dormer windows of the parsonage, aided their escape whenever they appeared, by the waving of a white handkerchief.”

The British attack was under Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe, whose journal shows that his force so far outnumbered Gist’s that the latter’s only sensible course was in flight. About the year 1840, trees cut down near the site of Gist’s camp were found to contain balls buried six inches in the wood.

The three generals arrived on theCerberus, May 25th. All the histories say that they arrived “with reinforcements.” It is true, troops were constantly arriving at Boston about that time, but none came immediately with the three generals. TheConnecticut Gazette(published in New London) printed, early in June, this piece of news, brought by a gentleman who had been in Boston, May 28th: “Generals Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe arrived at Boston last Friday in a man-of-war. No troops came with them. They brought over 25 horses.” It is a wonder that Frothingham, in his admirably complete history of the siege of Boston, missed even this little circumstance. Probably everybody has read the incident thus related by Irving: “As the ships entered the harbor and286the rebel camp was pointed out, Burgoyne could not restrain a burst of surprise and scorn. ‘What!’ cried he; ‘ten thousand peasants keep five thousand King’s troops shut up! Well, let us get in and we’ll soon find elbow room!’” I don’t think Irving relates anywhere the sequel, which is that when, after his surrender, Burgoyne marched with his conquered army into Cambridge, an old woman shouted from a window to the crowd of spectators, “Give him elbow room!” This story ought to be true, if it is not.

It was in a letter under date of October 4, 1778, that Washington wrote: “What officer can bear the weight of prices that every necessary article is now got to? A rat in the shape of a horse is not to be bought for less than £200; a saddle under thirty or forty.”

Captain Cunningham was the British provost marshal, as everybody knows, whose name became a synonym for wanton cruelty in the treatment of war prisoners. He had come to New York before the Revolution, and had kept a riding school there. As soon as the war broke out he took the royal side. It was he who had in charge the summary execution of Nathan Hale. He would often amuse himself by striking his prisoners with his keys and by kicking over the baskets of food or vessels of soup brought for them by charitable women, who, he said, were the worst rebels in New York. He died miserably287in England after the war. His career is briefly outlined in Sabine’s “Loyalists.” As to the manner in which Peyton, if caught, would have died, it must be remembered that in the American Revolution the rope served in many a case which, occurring in Europe or in one of our later wars, would have been disposed of with the bullet. Writing of General Charles Lee, John Fiske says: “There is no doubt that Sir William Howe looked upon him as a deserter, and was more than half inclined to hang him without ceremony.” Then, as now, a deserter in time of war was liable to death if caught at any subsequent time, his case being worse than that of a spy, who was liable to death only if caught before getting back to his own lines. There was, by the way, much unceremonious hanging on the “neutral ground.” Not far from the Van Cortlandt mansion there still stood, in Bolton’s time, “a celebrated white oak, in the midst of a pretty glade, called the Cowboy Oak,” from the fact that many of the Tory raiders had been suspended from its branches during the war of Revolution.

I am not sure whether the saying, “The corpse of an enemy smells sweet,” attributed to Charles IX. of France, in allusion to Coligny, is historical or was the invention of a romancer. It occurs in Dumas’s “La Reine Margot.”

Mr. Valentine’s unwillingness to lend aid was doubtless due to the frequency of such incidents as one that288had occurred to his neighbor, Peter Post, in 1776. Post’s estate occupied the site of the present town of Hastings. He gave information to Colonel Sheldon regarding the movements of some Hessians, and afterwards deceived the Hessians as to the whereabouts of Sheldon’s own cavalry. Thereby, Sheldon’s troop was enabled to surprise the Hessians, and defeat them in a short and bloody conflict. The Hessians’ comrades later caught Post, stripped him, beat him to insensibility, and left him for dead. He recovered of his injuries. His house, a small stone one, became a tavern after the Revolution, and was a celebrated resort of cock-fighters and hard-drinkers. Not far north of Hastings is Dobbs Ferry, which was occupied by both armies alternately, during the Revolution. Further north is Sunnyside, Irving’s house, elaborated from the original Wolfert’s Roost, and beyond that are Tarrytown, where André was stopped and taken in charge, and Sleepy Hollow. Enchanted ground, all this, hallowed by history, legend, and romance.

The secret passage or passages of Philipse Manor-house have not been neglected by writers of fiction, history, and magazine articles. The passage does not now exist, but there are numerous traces of it. The different writers do not agree in locating it. The author of an interesting story for children, “A Loyal Little Maid,” has it that the passage was reached through an opening in the panelling of the dining-room, this opening289concealed by a tall clock. I think Marian Harland says that a closet in one of the parlors or chambers connects with the secret passage. Both these assumptions are wrong. Mr. R. P. Getty has pointed out in the northwestern corner of the cellar what seems to have once been the entrance to the passage. One authority quotes a belief “that from the cellar there was a passage to a well now covered by Woodworth Avenue,” and that this was to afford access to what may have been a storage vault. A man who was born in 1821 says that, when a boy, he saw, near the house, a dry cistern, from the bottom of which was an arched passage towards the Hudson, large enough for a man six feet tall to pass through. Judge Atkins says that the well was opposite the kitchen door, and had, at its western side, about ten feet deep, a chamber in which butter was kept. One writer locates an ice-house where Judge Atkins places this well, and says a subterranean arched way led northward as far as the present Wells Avenue. “The ice-house was formerly, it is said, a powder-magazine.” Many years ago, the coachman of Judge Woodworth used to say he had “gone through an underground passage all the way from the manor-house to the Hudson River.” Judge Atkins has written interesting legends of the manor-house, involving the secret passage and other features.

“That lonely highway now called Broadway.” A block of houses and another street now lie between that290highway and the east front of the manor-house. The building is closely hemmed in by the sordid signs of progress. Ugly houses, in crowded blocks, cover all the great surrounding space that once was thick forest, fair orchards, gardens, fields, and pastoral rivulet. The Neperan or Saw Mill River flows, sluggish and scummy, under streets and houses. A visit to the manor-house, now, would spoil rather than improve one’s impression of what the place looked like in the old days. Yet the house itself remains well preserved, for which all honor to the town of Yonkers. There is in our spacious America so much room for the present and the future, that a little ought to be kept for the past. It is well to be reminded, by a landmark here and there, of our brave youth as a people. A posterity, sure to value these landmarks more than this money-grabbing age does, will reproach us with the destruction we have already wrought. Worse still than the crime of obliterating all human-made relics of the past, is the vandalism of nature herself where nature is exceptionally beautiful. To rob millions of beauty-lovers, yet to live, of the Palisades of the Hudson, would bring upon us the amazement and execration of future centuries. This earth is an entailed estate, that each generation is in honor bound to hand down, undefaced, undiminished, to its successor. In order that a close-clutched wallet or two may wax a little fatter, shall we bring upon ourselves a cry of shame that would ring with increasing bitterness through the ages,—shall we invite the execration merited by such greed as could so outrage our fair earth, such stolid apathy as could291stand by and see it done? Shall an alien or two, as hard of soul as the stone in which he traffics, mar the Hudson that Washington patrolled, rob countless eyes, yet unopened, of a joy; countless minds, yet to waken, of an inspiration; countless hearts, yet to beat, of a thrill of pride in the soil of their inheriting? Shall some future reader wonder why Irving, deeming it “an invaluable advantage to be born and brought up in the neighborhood of some grand and noble object in nature,” should have thanked God he was born on the banks of the Hudson? I write this with the sound of the blowing up of Indian Head still echoing in my ears, and knowing nothing done by Government to protect the next fair Hudson headland from similar destruction.

It is probable that Colden served with his brigade when it fought in the South in the last part of the war. He was afterwards lost at sea, leaving no heir. He was of a family prominent in New York affairs, both before the Revolution and afterwards, and which was intermarried with other New York families of equal prominence, as may be seen in the “New York Genealogical and Biographical Record,” the “New England Genealogical and Historical Register,” and similar publications. It is probable that Sabine means this Colden when he mentions a Captain Colden, of the First Battalion of New Jersey Volunteers. That he was a major, however, is certain, from the official British Army lists published in Hugh292Gaines’s “Universal Register” for the years of the Revolution.

People curious about Harry Peyton’s military record may consult Saffel’s “Lists of American Officers,” Heitman’s “Manual,” and a large work on “Virginia Genealogies,” by H. E. Hayden, published at Wilkes-barre. To the reader who demands a happy ending, it need be no shock to learn that Peyton, having risen to the rank of major, was killed at Charleston, S. C., May 12, 1780. For a love story, it is a happy ending that occurs at the moment when the conquest and the submission are mutual, complete, and demonstrated. A love to be perfect, to have its sweetness unembittered, ought not to be subjected to the wear and tear of prolonged fellowship. So subjected, it may deepen and gain ultimate strength, but it will lose its intoxicating novelty, and become associated with pain as well as with pleasure. We may be sure that the love of Peyton and Elizabeth was to Harry a sweetener of life on many a night encampment, many a hard ride, in the campaign of 1779, and in the spring of 1780, and exalted him the better to meet his death on that day when Charleston fell to the British; and that to Elizabeth, while it receded into further memory, it kept its full beauty during the half century she lived faithful to it. Her sisters were married into the English nobility, gentry, and military, but Elizabeth died in Bath, England, in March, 1828, unmarried. Colonel Philipse had moved with his family to England when the British quitted New York in 1783. Many other Tories did likewise. Some went to England, but more to Canada,293the greater part of which was then a wilderness. Many of the Tory officers got commissions in the English army.

No Tory family did more for the King’s cause in America, lost more, or got more in redress, than the De Lancey family, which had been foremost in the administration of royal government in the province of New York. It had great holdings of property in New York City, elsewhere on the island of Manhattan, and in various parts of Westchester County, notably in Westchester Township, where De Lancey’s mills and a fine country mansion were a famous landmark “where gentle Bronx clear winding flows.” The founder of the American family was a French Huguenot of noble descent. The family was represented in the British army and navy before the Revolution. One member of it, a young officer in the navy, at the breaking out of the war, resigned his commission rather than serve against the Colonies, but most of the other De Lancey men were differently minded. Oliver De Lancey, a member of the provincial council, was made a brigadier-general in the royal service, and raised three battalions of loyalists, known as “De Lancey’s Battalions.” Of these battalions, the Tory historian, Judge Jones, says: “Two served in Georgia and the Carolinas from the time the British army landed in Georgia until the final evacuation of Charleston.” One of these, during this period, was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen De Lancey, the other by Colonel John Harris Cruger. The third battalion, during the whole war, was employed solely in protecting the wood-cutters upon Lloyd’s Neck,294Queens County, L. I. This General De Lancey’s son, Oliver De Lancey, Junior, was educated in Europe, took service with the 17th Light Dragoons, was a captain when the Revolution began, a major in 1778, a lieutenant-colonel in 1781, and, on the death of Major André, adjutant-general of the British army in America. Returning to England, he became deputy adjutant-general of England; as a major-general, he was also colonel of the 17th Light Dragoons; was subsequently barrack-master general of the British Empire, lieutenant-general, and finally general. When he died he was nearly at the head of the English army list. This branch of the family became extinct when Sir William Heathcoate De Lancey, the quartermaster-general of Wellington’s army, was killed at Waterloo.

The James De Lancey who commanded the Westchester Light Horse was a nephew of the senior General Oliver De Lancey, and a cousin of the Major Colden of this narrative. His troop was not “a battalion in the brigade of his uncle,” Bolton’s statement that it was so being incorrect; its operations were limited to Westchester County. It raided and fought for the King untiringly, until it was almost entirely killed off, at the end of the war, by the persistent efforts of our troops to extirpate it.

The members of this corps were called “Cowboys” because, in their duty of procuring supplies for the British army, they made free with the farmers’ cattle. Like the other conspicuous Tories, this James De Lancey was attainted by the new State Government, and his property was confiscated. Local historians draw an effective295picture of him departing alone from his estate by the Bronx, turning for a last look, from the back of his horse, at the fair mansion and broad lands that were to be his no more, and riding away with a heavy heart. He went, with many shipfuls of Tory emigrants, to Nova Scotia, and became a member of the council of that colony. His uncle went to England and died at his country house, Beverly, Yorkshire, in 1785. I allude to the case of this family, because it was typical of that of a great many families. The Tories of the American Revolution constitute a subject that has yet to be made much of. They were the progenitors of English-speaking Canada.

The act of attainder that deprived the De Lanceys of their estates, deprived Colonel Philipse of his. It was passed by the New York legislature, October 22, 1779. The persons declared guilty of “adherence to the enemies of the State” were attainted, their estates real and personal confiscated, and themselves proscribed, the second section of the act declaring that “each and every one of them who shall at any time hereafter be found in any part of this State, shall be, and are hereby, adjudged and declared guilty of felony, and shall suffer death as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy.” Acts of similar import were passed in other States. Under this act, Philipse Manor-house was forfeited to the State about a year after the time of our narrative. The commissioners whose duty it was to dispose of confiscated property sold the house and mills, in 1785, to Cornelius P. Lowe. It underwent several transfers, but little change, becoming at length the property of Lemuel Wells, who296held it a long time and, dying in 1842, left it to his nephew. The town of Yonkers grew up around it, and on May 1, 1868, purchased it for municipal use. The fewest possible alterations were made in it. These are mainly in the north wing, the part added by the second lord of the manor in 1745. On the first floor, the partition between dining-room and kitchen was removed, and the whole space made into a court-room. On the second floor, the space formerly divided into five bedrooms was transformed into a council-chamber, the garret floor overhead being removed. The new city hall of Yonkers leaves the old manor-house less necessary for public purposes. May the old parlors, where the besilked and bepowdered gentry of the province used to dance the minuet before the change of things, not be given over to baser uses than they have already served.

Allusion has been made, in different chapters of this narrative, to the Hessians who daily patrolled the roads in the vicinity of the manor-house. This duty often fell to Pruschank’s yagers, the troop to which belonged Captain Rowe, whose love story is thus told by Bolton: “Captain Rowe appears to have been in the habit of making a daily tour from Kingsbridge, round by Miles Square. He was on his last tour of military duty, having already resigned his commission for the purpose of marrying the accomplished Elizabeth Fowler, of Harlem, when, passing with a company of light dragoons, he was suddenly fired upon by three Americans of the water guard of Captain Pray’s company, who had ambuscaded themselves in the cedars. The captain fell from his297horse, mortally wounded. The yagers instantly made prisoners of the undisciplined water guards, and a messenger was immediately despatched to Mrs. Babcock, then living below, in the parsonage, for a vehicle to remove the wounded officer. The use of her gig and horse was soon obtained, and a neighbor, Anthony Archer, pressed to drive. In this they conveyed the dying man to Colonel Van Cortlandt’s. They appear to have taken the route of Tippett’s Valley, as the party stopped at Frederick Post’s to obtain a drink of water. In the meantime an express had been forwarded to Miss Fowler, his affianced bride, to hasten without delay to the side of her dying lover. On her arrival, accompanied by her mother, the expiring soldier had just strength enough left to articulate a few words, when he sank exhausted with the effort.” The room in which he died is in the well-known mansion in Van Cortlandt Park.

The incident of the horse, related in an early chapter, has a likeness to an adventure that befell one Thomas Leggett early in the Revolutionary war. He lived with his father on a farm near Morrisania, then in Westchester County, and was proud in the possession of a fine young mare. A party of British refugees took this animal, with other property. They had gone two miles with it, when, from behind a stone wall which they were passing, two Continental soldiers rose and fired at them. The man with the mare was shot dead. The animal immediately turned round and ran home, followed by the owner, who had dogged her captors at a distance in the hope of recovering her.

An Enemy to the King.

From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire. ByRobert Neilson Stephens. Illustrated by H. De M. Young.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the adventures of a young French nobleman at the Court of Henry IV., and on the field with Henry of Navarre.

The Continental Dragoon.

A Romance of Philipse Manor House, in 1778. ByRobert Neilson Stephens, author of “An Enemy to the King.” Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

A stirring romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in and around the old Philipse Manor House, near Yonkers, which at the time of the story was the central point of the so-called “neutral territory” between the two armies.

Muriella; or, Le Selve.

ByOuida. Illustrated by M. B. Prendergast.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

This is the latest work from the pen of the brilliant author of “Under Two Flags,” “Moths,” etc., etc. It is the story of the love and sacrifice of a young peasant girl, told in the absorbing style peculiar to the author.

The Road to Paris.

ByRobert Neilson Stephens, author of “An Enemy to the King,” “The Continental Dragoon,” etc. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

An historical romance, being an account of the life of an American gentleman adventurer of Jacobite ancestry, whose family early settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. The scene shifts from the unsettled forests of the then West to Philadelphia, New York, London, Paris, and, in fact, wherever a love of adventure and a roving fancy can lead a soldier of fortune. The story is written in Mr. Stephens’s best style, and is of absorbing interest.

Rose à Charlitte.

An Acadien Romance. ByMarshall Saunders, author of “Beautiful Joe,” etc. Illustrated by H. De M. Young.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

In this novel, the scene of which is laid principally in the land of Evangeline, Marshall Saunders has made a departure from the style of her earlier successes. The historical and descriptive setting of the novel is accurate, the plot is well conceived and executed, the characters are drawn with a firm and delightful touch, and the fortunes of the heroine, Rose à Charlitte, a descendant of an old Acadien family, will be followed with eagerness by the author’s host of admirers.

Bobbie McDuff.

ByClinton Ross, author of “The Scarlet Coat,” “Zuleika,” etc. Illustrated by B. West Clinedinst.

1 vol., large 16mo, cloth$1.00

Clinton Ross is well known as one of the most promising of recent American writers of fiction, and in the description of the adventures of his latest hero, Bobbie McDuff, he has repeated his earlier successes. Mr. Ross has made good use of the wealth of material at his command. New York furnishes him the hero, sunny Italy a heroine, grim Russia the villain of the story, while the requirements of the exciting plot shift the scene from Paris to New York, and back again to a remote, almost feudal villa on the southern coast of Italy.

In Kings’ Houses.

A Romance of the Reign of Queen Anne. ByJulia C. R. Dorr, author of “A Cathedral Pilgrimage,” etc. Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

Mrs. Dorr’s poems and travel sketches have earned for her a distinct place in American literature, and her romance, “In Kings’ Houses,” is written with all the charm of her earlier works. The story deals with one of the most romantic episodes in English history. Queen Anne, the last of the reigning Stuarts, is described with a strong, yet sympathetic touch, and the young Duke of Gloster, the “little lady,” and the hero of the tale, Robin Sandys, are delightful characterizations.

Sons of Adversity.

A Romance of Queen Elizabeth’s Time. ByL. Cope Conford, author of “Captain Jacobus,” etc. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

A tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when Protestant England and Catholic Spain were struggling for naval supremacy. Spanish conspiracies against the peace of good Queen Bess, a vivid description of the raise of the Spanish siege of Leyden by the combined Dutch and English forces, sea fights, the recovery of stolen treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of unusual strength.

The Count of Nideck.

From the French of Erckman-Chatrian, translated and adapted byRalph Browning Fiske. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

A romance of the Black Forest, woven around the mysterious legend of the Wehr Wolf. The plot has to do with the later German feudal times, is brisk in action, and moves spiritedly from start to finish. Mr. Fiske deserves a great deal of credit for the excellence of his work. No more interesting romance has appeared recently.

The Making of a Saint.

ByW. Somerset Maugham. Illustrated by Gilbert James.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

“The Making of a Saint” is a romance of Mediæval Italy, the scene being laid in the 15th century. It relates the life of a young leader of Free Companions who, at the close of one of the many petty Italian wars, returns to his native city. There he becomes involved in its politics, intrigues, and feuds, and finally joins an uprising of the townspeople against their lord. None can resent the frankness and apparent brutality of the scenes through which the hero and his companions of both sexes are made to pass, and many will yield ungrudging praise to the author’s vital handling of the truth. In the characters are mirrored the life of the Italy of their day. The book will confirm Mr. Maugham’s reputation as a strong and original writer.

Omar the Tentmaker.

A Romance of Old Persia. ByNathan Haskell Dole. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.50

Mr. Dole’s study of Persian literature and history admirably equips him to enter into the life and spirit of the time of the romance, and the hosts of admirers of the inimitable quatrains of Omar Khayyam, made famous by Fitzgerald, will be deeply interested in a tale based on authentic facts in the career of the famous Persian poet. The three chief characters are Omar Khayyam, Nizam-ul-Mulk, the generous and high-minded Vizier of the Tartar Sultan Malik Shah of Mero, and Hassan ibu Sabbah, the ambitious and revengeful founder of the sect of the Assassins. The scene is laid partly at Naishapur, in the Province of Khorasan, which about the period of the First Crusade was at its acme of civilization and refinement, and partly in the mountain fortress of Alamut, south of the Caspian Sea, where the Ismailians under Hassan established themselves towards the close of the 11th century. Human nature is always the same, and the passions of love and ambition, of religion and fanaticism, of friendship and jealousy, are admirably contrasted in the fortunes of these three able and remarkable characters as well as in those of the minor personages of the story.

Captain Fracasse.

A new translation from the French of Gotier. Illustrated by Victor A. Searles.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

This famous romance has been out of print for some time, and a new translation is sure to appeal to its many admirers, who have never yet had any edition worthy of the story.

The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore.

A farcical novel. ByHal Godfrey. Illustrated by Etheldred B. Barry. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

A fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age who are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth and its blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which possesses the value of setting backwards the hands of time. No more delightfully fresh and original book has appeared since “Vice Versa” charmed an amused world. It is well written, drawn to the life, and full of the most enjoyable humor.

Midst the Wild Carpathians.

ByMaurus Jokai, author of “Black Diamonds,” “The Lion of Janina,” etc. Authorized translation by R. Nisbet Bain. Illustrated. (In press.)

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

A thrilling, historical, Hungarian novel, in which the extraordinary dramatic and descriptive powers of the great Magyar writer have full play. As a picture of feudal life in Hungary it has never been surpassed for fidelity and vividness. The translation is exceedingly well done.

The Golden Dog.

A Romance of Quebec. ByWilliam Kirby. New authorized edition. Illustrated by J. W. Kennedy.

1 vol., library 12mo, cloth$1.25

A powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time of Louis XV. and Mme. de Pompadour, when the French colonies were making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of France.

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