CAPITULATIONS.
I stood with Whitestone and saw the British lay down their arms, and,
of all the things I saw on that great day, an English officer with the
tears dropping down his face impressed me most.
We were not allowed to exult over our enemies, nor did we wish it; but
I will not deny that we felt a great and exhilarating triumph. Before
the war these Englishmen had denied to us the possession of courage
and endurance as great as theirs. They had called us the degenerate
descendants of Englishmen, and one of their own generals, who had
served with us in the great French and Indian war, and who should have
known better, had boasted that with five thousand men he could march
from one end of the colonies to the other. Now, more than five thousand
of their picked men were laying down their arms to us, and as many
more had fallen, or been taken on their way from Canada to Saratoga.
I repeat that all these things--the taunts and revilings of the
English, who should have been the last to cheapen us--had caused much
bitterness in our hearts, and I assert again that our exultation,
repressed though it was, had full warrant. Even now I feel this
bitterness sometimes, though I try to restrain it, for the great
English race is still the great English race, chastened and better than
it was then, I hope and believe.
Remembering all these things, I say that we behaved well on that day,
and our enemies, so long as they told the truth, could find no fault
with us.
There was a broad meadow down by the riverside, and the British,
company after company, filed into this meadow, laid down their arms,
and then marched, prisoners, into our lines. Our army was not drawn up
that it might look on, yet Whitestone and I stood where we could see.
Some women, weary and worn by suspense and long watches, came across
the meadow, but Kate Van Auken was not among them. I guessed that she
was by the side of the wounded Chudleigh. When the last company was
laying down its arms, I slipped away from Whitestone and entered the
British camp.
I found Chudleigh in a tent, where they had moved him from the cellar
that he might get the fresher air. Kate, her mother, and an English
surgeon were there. The surgeon had just fastened some fresh bandages
over the wound. Chudleigh was stronger and better than I had expected
to find him. He even held out his hand to me with the smile of one who
has met an enemy and respects him.
“I will be all right soon, Shelby,” he said, “so the doctor tells me,
if you rebels know how to treat a wounded prisoner well.”
“In a month Captain Chudleigh will be as well as he ever was,” said the
surgeon.
I was very glad on Kate’s account. Presently she walked out of the
tent, and I followed her.
“Kate,” I asked, “when will the marriage occur?”
“What marriage?” she asked very sharply.
“Yours and Chudleigh’s.”
“Never!”
“What!” I exclaimed in surprise. “Are you not going to marry Chudleigh?”
“No.”
“Are you not betrothed to him?”
“No. That was my mother’s plan for me.”
“Are you not in love with him?”
“No.”
I was silent a moment.
“Kate,” I asked, “what does this mean?”
“Dick,” she said, “I have told you twice what you are.”
Her cheeks were all roses.
“Kate,” I said, “love me.”
“I will not!”
“Be my betrothed?”
“I will not!”
“Marry me?”
“I will not!”
Which refusals she made with great emphasis--every one of which she
took back.
She was a woman.
THE END.