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'ErMf“M%H‘j HA‘ y “H' lwuww VJ] INN‘ I l‘§Il
OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE


POWDER, PATCHES
AND PATTY


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S0 the letter 1s from Ma. or Andre"


POWDER, PATCHES
AND PATTY
BY
EMILIE BENSON KNIPE
AND
ALDEN ARTHUR KNIPE
Author of “T1-1|: Lvcx on Dxuswoon,“ “Bnvnuc: on Dlnlw0on,'
“Pas 0' .ran lune," "A Con.rmnrru. DOLLAR," em.
1LLUSTRATED BY
EMILIE BENSON KNIPE
\W//
ADE
/*/ml’§


r
THE CENTURY CO.
New York and London


Copyright, 1924, by
THE CENTURY Co.
PRINTED IN U. S. L


ll
ll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
S0 the letter is from Major André” . Frontispiece
IAOINQ
. PAGI
I but levy a tax on the d1s10ya1” . . . 32
“How do you spell ‘traitorous,’ Peg?” . . . I18
ll
It would pleasure me vastly to have his company,
ma’am”..........224


I
'I’
 1 ‘ —
1 ' I .
' 1‘t ll. I '


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY


I
:

F
1


POWDER, PATCHES
AND PATTY
CHAPTER I
IN sooth, you treat me as if I still wore pina-
fores!” I pouted. “I hear of your ﬁne
friends, but you never take me with you when you
visit them.” '
“There ’s a grain of truth in that,” Rosalie ac-
knowledged. “I like not to push you forward,
Patty, and see you old before your time.”
At her solemn words my ill humor vanished and
I burst out laughing.
“Have I not heard it said that ‘a woman is as
old as she looks’ ?” I giggled. “Faith, then, I ’m
as old as thee; for when my hair is ﬂoured, there
are few can tell one of us from t ’other.”
“ ’T is my knowledge of that which makes me
loath to throw you too much into society.” Ro-
salie sighed like a care-worn matron though she
3


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
was but a girl, not so many years older than I.
“You are such a child, Patty, and in your father ’s
absence I feel responsible-—”
My cousin Rosalie Roberts and I were visiting
our bachelor uncle, john Abbott, in Philadelphia.
I, because my father was gone on one of his jour-
neys to Europe in the interests of our needy Con-
gress; and Rosalie, because she had had no other
home since her Tory family abandoned their
country for England shortly after they accom-
panied the British in their ﬂight to New York.
We were more devoted to each other than most
sisters; yet it irked me a triﬂe that Rosalie could
not be brought to treat me as an equal in experi-
ence but rather insisted on her right as the elder to
decide what I should or should not do. So this
time I was bent upon getting my way, for Rosalie
was going to pay a call on her dear friend Mar-
garet Shippen, now the wife of General Benedict
Arnold and living at Mount Pleasant, the ﬁne
place he had bought her on the Schuylkill River;
and I was intent upon accompanying her, to see
the beautiful Peggy and be a witness to the
grandeur of her state, on which the gossips of the
town were never tired of enlarging.
4


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“I can assure you that Father would have no
objection to my going to General Arnold’s,” I
said quickly. “He hath a vast admiration for the
general; and now that Peggy is safe married to a
patriot, she ’ll be cured of her Toryish notions.”
“ ’T is not Peggy’s politics that worry me,”
Rosalie returned. “Her convictions were ever
like to be on the side of the coat that bore the
richest lace.”
“Now, what mean you by that?” I demanded.
“That Peggy would not have been caught by Gen-
eral Arnold had he not lived in the style so many
condemn him for ?”
“If I meant aught,” Rosalie replied thought-
fully, “it was that Peggy is a child, even as you
are, and like to be attracted by externals.”
“Then, if she is a child too,” I cried, ﬁrm in my
purpose, “take this child to see that one. We
should be well met.”
My cousin laughed at this sally.
“Persistency, thy name is Patty Abbott !” she
exclaimed. “I ’ll take thee, then, but on one con-
dition. Thou ’lt wear thy curls, and no powder
nor patches, and wilt behave exactly as if thou
wert gone a-visiting with my mother.”
5


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Now, this last was a hard condition indeed; for
Aunt Augusta, although own sister to my dear
father and Uncle john, was a very fearsome lady,
well calculated to take the joy out of the most
promising adventure. But I could scarce tell
Rosalie my thoughts on this point; and I skipped
off to make my simple toilet, well pleased at the
prospect, even though I was pledged to the most
missish behavior.
Not that I would have you think that I was a
wild or wayward maid; but I will leave it to any
girl in her young teens, if it is not hard to bow to
the wisdom of one who can boast of few more
years.
S0 it came about that Rosalie and I sat side by
side, my muslin crushed against her silks, in a
chaise that rolled out of the city to the Northern
Liberties, where was situated Mount Pleasant, the
beautiful mansion bestowed on his bride by Gen-
eral Benedict Arnold.
I was all a-twitter to reach our destination;
hence I grudged the momentary delay when we
met Nicholas Waln’s yellow chariot, and that
gentleman held up a hand to stay us.
6


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Art oﬁ‘ to Harrogate, Rosalie?” he asked;
then, observing her gay attire: “Nay, I see thou
art not for the farm. Satan within and satin
without.”
“But there you are mistaken. ’T is old Nick is
without,” Rosalie replied promptly, which pun on
his name drew a cackle of dry laughter from the
Quaker. “I ’m going to see Peggy Shippen.”
“That ’s right,” Friend Waln said. “She ’ll
have need of all her friends. But if another day
thee rides to Frankford, ride with a light purse,
as I do. ’T is said there is a most bold highway-
man who hath a special charge over the Frank-
ford Road.”
And, having given the news for which he had
stopped us, he waved us on our way.
“Now, what meant he by saying Mistress Ar-
nold would have need of her friends?” I asked.
“Surely, she seems to me to be Fortune’s favorite
child!”
“Perchance he is one of those who believe Mr.
Ioseph Reed’s charges against her husband to be
well founded,” Rosalie suggested gravely. “You
know such lavish expenditure as theirs is bound
7


POWDER, PATCHES' AND PATTY
to cause remark, when it is coupled with General
Arno1d’s loud complaints that money from Con-
gress is long overdue him.”
“Don’t you like General Arnold, Rosalie?” I
questioned in sudden surprise. “I thought he
was such a great soldier.”
“He is! He is !” Rosalie cried. “And I am
sure Peggy is quite, quite happy.” At once she
shifted the conversation to talk of my brother
Val, who is an ofﬁcer with Washington’s army,
and did not let it wander again till we came in
sight of Mount Pleasant.
Of all the stately mansions near to Philadel-
phia, I know of none that better deserves its
name. Mount Pleasant is indeed a pleasant spot.
.The house stands well above the Schuylkill River,
with a ﬁne view both up stream and down. Its
exterior is very digniﬁed, giving promise of the
spacious interior, an effect which is greatly en-
hanced by the two out-buildings for servants’
rooms and ofﬁces which are set one on each side,
at a distance where they do not crowd and yet
seem to support the main house.
When we drew up at the door, I was surprised
8


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
to see it standing open, and as we mounted the
steps we caught a vista of the wide hall, a door-
way at its far end framing a view of the river
and distant shore.
Two men-servants sprang up from seats with-
out the entrance and stood rigid to receive us as
we reached the top and announced our errand.
Two more lackeys opened the parlor door and
ﬂanked it until we had entered the room, when
it was closed noiselessly behind us.
I turned with almost a gasp and looked at
Rosalie, who had sailed serenely past the gorgeous
liveries as if they were not there.
“F our men~servants !” I ejaculated. “Saw you
ever the like? I wonder doth King George have
more attendants or more gaily clad!”
“ ’T is not mannerly, my child, to speak aught
but praise of the hospitality you are enjoying,”
my cousin said chidingly.
Whereat I could not refrain from crossing my
hands and replying with greatly overdone meek-
ness:
“Yes, Aunt Augusta; ’t will be my endeavor to
bear it in mind, ma’am.”
9


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
At that moment the door was thrown open and
the mistress of the house burst in like an excited
child, to cast herself upon Rosalie’s neck.
“ ’T is angelical of you to come this dusty way
in all the heat!” she cried. “Rosalie, thou art
a true friend. I have been dying for a dish of
gossip, well spiced and seasoned.”
“This is my little cousin, Patty Abbott,”
Rosalie said, by way of introduction, and Mrs.
Arnold greeted me sweetly, if without enthusi-
asm. I was too much of a bread-and-butter miss
to interest this woman of the world, and she
turned again to Rosalie.
“Cry me the news. Hast seen any of my fam-
ily—or the Willings—or any other friends?
There ’s naught too small to be of interest.”
Rosalie and she gossiped happily of this and
that, leaving me at liberty to admire the lofty
room and its luxurious ﬁttings.
When my ears awoke again to their converse,
it was to .hear Mrs. Arnold ask if Rosalie had any
word of their gay beaux of the year before, when
the British had ruled in Philadelphia.
“,There was more than one of our visitors was
hard hit,” she hinted slyly. “Faith, Rosalie, I
.._
10


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
could have sworn you would be ‘My Lady’ ere
this!”
“Nonsense!” said Rosalie. “No true English-
man would look my way, once my politics were
known. I assure you I have had no word from
the most fervid of my vastly deceived admirers.”
“ ’.T is a fact men prefer to be the deceivers,”
Mrs. Arnold said dryly. “But listen: if you have
not heard from our friends the enemy, I have!”
And in triumph she drew from her pocket a letter
the seals of which were already broken.
“Oh! whom is it from?” asked Rosalie, with
considerable excitement.
“ ’T is not from Fairbrook,” her hostess re-
plied, with a teasing smile, “but from another
admirer well nigh as ardent. In sooth, it is some-
what of a mystery to me why he singled me out,
after all these months of forgetfulness.”
“Doth not the missive disclose that ?”
“To me, this letter is more remarkable for what
it does not say than for what it does.” Mrs.
Arnold waved it in the air tantalizingly. “ ’T is
a vastly well-writ epistle; but since André’s pen
was ever as ready as his sword, ’t is a marvel to
me that he hath so long forborne from using it.”
11


POVVDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“So the letter is from Major André ?” Rosalie
exclaimed.
“Now, how did you guess it?” Peggy’s tone
was chagrined. “I had planned to hold you in
doubt till I reached the very signature.”
“Why, you told her yourself!” I could not re-
frain from saying, and Mrs. Arnold was forced
to laugh at her own heedless tongue.
“The general declares I am incapable of keep-
ing a secret,” she acknowledged; “but, as the mys-
tery is out, let ’s to the letter.
She spread it ﬂat, smoothing the creases with
a pretty, dimpled hand, and then began to read:
“Headquarters New York the I6 Aug., I779
MADAME,
“Major Giles is so good as to take charge of this
letter, which is meant to solicit your remembrance, and
to assure you that my respect for you and the fair
circle in which I had the honor of becoming acquainted
with you, remains unimpaired by distance or political
broils. It would make me very happy to become use-
ful to you here. You know the Mesquianza made me
a complete milliner. Should you not have rec’d sup-
plies for your fullest equipment from that department,
I shall be glad to enter into the whole detail of cap-
ll
12


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
wire, needles, gauze &c., and to the best of my abilities
render you in these triﬂes services from which I hope
you would infer a zeal to be further employed. I beg
you would present my best respects to your sisters, to
the Miss Chews, and to Mrs. Shippen and Mrs. Chew.
“With the greatest regard, I have the honor to be,
Madame, your most obedient and most humble servant,
“J01-IN ANDRE.”
Mrs. Arnold looked up at Rosalie sharply.
“And that ’s every line of it,” she said. “Not
one word about ‘the American Rose.’ ”
“Peggy,” Rosalie told her, “you are too bad!
Because you have married from the cradle does
not mean that every one hath your romantic dis-
position. jack André and I were playfellows,—-
naught more, I give you my word,—and if he
doth not ask for me, ’t is because that friendship
is a thing of the past. In truth, I know no other
man who would be so slow to forgive me for the
double part I played.”
This was a reference to a time when Rosalie,
who passed for a Tory because her family were
the king’s adherents, had used her position to aid
the American cause.
“No man takes a female’s politics seriously.”
13


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Mrs. Arnold assumed a matronly air of wisdom
which sat strangely on her fair young face. “My
husband—”
“Is here to speak for himself, my love.”
We all turned at sound of his voice, to see
General Arnold limp into the room. He was a
large man and not handsome, to my eyes, yet it
was evident his pretty Peggy thought him won-
derful in every way. His face was red, his tones
were gruff, and I soon saw reason to think his
manner overbearing, albeit he greeted Rosalie
cordially and had a polite word for me upon our
introduction. But he had not seated himself ere
his glance lit on the letter his wife held in her
hand and he addressed her abruptly:
“What ’s that I see? A letter?”
“That it is,” said Rosalie, quizzingly, “from
a most sincere admirer of Peggy’s, though she
hath tried to convince me for the past half-hour
that he adores me—for the good reason, forsooth,
that he never mentions my name !”
“Indeed,” cried Mrs. Arnold, gaily, “I have no
wish to hide that he and I were sworn allies. In
truth, I know no female of his acquaintance who
would deny his charm.”
14


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
At her light and jesting accents Arnold’s face
darkened perceptibly. He made an effort to keep
the tone the girls had set, but his words came
forth harshly:
“Who is this anonymous charmer, if I may
make bold to ask, who holds so high a place in
your esteem?”
To me it seemed that Peggy looked a triﬂe
frighted. She put out a hand toward her hus-
band and spoke hurriedly:
“ ’T is one of the British oﬁicers I knew before
.—before we met. See, here ’s his letter. ’T is
a most indifferent piece of politeness.”
Arnold took it from her hand, yet made no at-
tempt to read it.
“I gave orders that all letters were to be
brought ﬁrst to me,” he said.
“I—I met Martin bearing this and other des-
patches, to your ofﬁce; and seeing that this was
for me, I asked him for it,” his wife faltered.
“And you did well,” Rosalie cried, trying to
give the affair a lighter turn. “Faith, you must
not take the toast of two armies and put her
under martial law! Still, in the matter of the
letter, I ’ll whisper for your ear alone that Peggy
1s


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY-
and I have small need to quarrel over André ; for
’t is another Peggy—Peggy Chew, in fact-who
holdeth his regard or I am badly mistook.”
Her well-meant intervention was wasted on
Arnold, whose ear sifted out the only word that
might give offense.
“Andre!” he exclaimed, and started from the
room, the letter still in his hand. At the thresh-
old he turned, as if in sudden recollection of the
fact that some reply was due to Rosalie.
“Marital law also calls for obedience, as you
will learn some day, ma’am,” he said with a rather
sour smile, and closed the door behind him.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! Now he will blame
Martin, when the fault is clearly mine!” Mrs.
Arnold was twisting her handkerchief miserably
and looking with large eyes at the door which had
shut behind her husband.
“Run after him and make Martin’s peace,”
Rosalie suggested, rising. “W'e must go, in any
event. We have the ride back to town before us,
and Uncle john will fret if nightfall overtakes us
on the road.”
“Indeed must you go? But I would not have
16


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
you delayed so that you would not be let to come
again—” '
“Peggy,” said Rosalie, “waste not time and
politeness on us. Be off after General Arnold !”
But Peggy shook her head.
“No,” she said, “he likes me to maintain his
dignity—and I am so heedless. I might have
known how sensitive he would be about a com-
munication from the British camp to any of his
household while his detractors are busy and this
matter of the court martial is unsettled. . . . If
you would do me a kindness, Rosalie, as you go to
your chaise, will you tell one of the footmen to
inform his master that Mrs. Arnold begs him to
favor her in the parlor F”
We parted from our hostess then and there,
but before the footman had delivered his mis-
tress’s message and while we waited in the hall
for our chaise, which was standing at some dis-
tance in the shade of a great plane-tree, we could
not help overhearing General Arnold’s gruff
voice, even through the closed door of a room at
the far end of the hall.
“You thought!” it said in tones of scathing
17


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
contempt. “In the future, think only that I am
to be obeyed. Every letter, be it to a scullion in
the kitchens, is to be put into my hands before it
is opened. If not,-—-by Heavens !—it will be the
worse for—somebody!” And a sound reached
us as if he had struck his writing-table a heavy
blow with his ﬁst.
It was with a sense of relief that we left Mount
Pleasant, beautiful though it was, and as we de-
scended the slope I turned to Rosalie with a smile.
“I shall not tease you again to take me to see
your fashionable friends,” I told her. “I like not
so much pomp where there is so little pleasure.”
Rosalie hesitated for a moment before replying.
“I grant you that the scene we witnessed to-day
was unfortunate,” she said, “but I do not think
Peggy is unhappy in her marriage. The only
explanation that occurs to me, offhand, of the
great to-do General Arnold made over that most
innocent letter, is that he feels himself too old for
the child he has won and therefore is jealous of
her comrades who are nearer to her age.”
“That may be an explanation,” I retorted, “but
he knew her age ere he married her, and there-
fore should not blame her for it now. I know
18
""
i


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
naught our elders are so prone to throw in
our faces as our youth.”
Which last was a slap at Rosalie, and she
relished it without retort.
N011‘:: This letter from André was found among Arnold’s
papers after his perﬁdy was discovered.
19


CHAPTER II
AFTER Rosa1ie’s father and mother had ﬂed
from Philadelphia, in company with other
Tory refugees, at the time of its evacuation by
the British, their property was saved from conﬁs-
cation by virtue of their daughter's services to the
Colonial cause, and she had done her uttermost to
increase its productiveness in order to have money
to send to her parents, who had betaken themselves
to England, where neither of them could be happy
without the means to make somewhat of a display.
But times were hard in America, coin was
scarce, and the Continental currency was sadly
depreciated, so that it had become increasingly
difﬁcult to comply with the demands from across
the sea, and Rosalie had grown almost to dread
the sight of her mother’s spidery handwriting on
the letters which found their way to her, some-
times through one channel, sometimes through
another.
Coming down betimes one morning, I descried
2o


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
one of these epistles propped against my cousin’s
glass, and heaved an involuntary sigh at sight
of it, feeling sure it would bring her no good
news.
Mrs. Brisket, the housekeeper, bustling in with
a supply of hot buttered toast, shook her head at
it also, and then hid it beneath the plate.
“There ’s trouble for Miss Rosalie, but we’1l
let her eat ﬁrst,” she said commiseratingly.
“Drat that jimmy! I asked him why he had n’t
made shift to lose it on the road here.”
“Did it come from the ofﬁce?” I inquired in
some surprise.
“Aye. The old crow hath hit upon a way of
sending letters to meet the master’s ships in Hol-
land. ’T is little peace we can hope for, from now
on,” Mrs. Brisket murmured disrespectfully.
“But soft! Here comes Miss Rosalie.” She
busied herself straightening things on the side-
board, while I turned my attention to my neglected
breakfast as my cousin came into the room,
humming a gay tune.
“Good morning, Grandma Brisket,” she said
cheerfully. “Why did n’t jane wake me? I ’m
late again.”
21


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Your uncle would not have it,” Mrs. Brisket
replied. “He was off at daylight, not to be back
till to-morrow night at earliest. He said there
was no reason you two should lose your beauty
sleep on his account.”
“Uncle john spoils us,” Rosalie rejoined. “I
am not used to be so cosseted—are you, Pat?”
As she spoke she had shifted her plate a triﬂe
and so discovered the letter, sparing me the neces-
sity of an answer which, if truthful, must have
marked the difference between her upbringing and
my own, for my father had ever been too
indulgent.
“A letter—from my mother—” she said, and
broke the seals which closed it. It was sad to
see the color drain out of her face as she read it.
“Bad news ?” I ventured to ask.
“Nay, naught but the same old story,” she re-
plied. “They cannot believe that I send them
every penny-piece that comes my way. Their
idea is that I am crazed—a fanatic—and that
I rob them for my chimera of a Land of
Liberty.”
“They do not really think that,” I assured her.
“ ’T is but your m0ther’s way of spurring you on
22


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY’
to greater efforts in their behalf. What else says
she ?”
“Oh, the usual thing! British victory is as-
sured; and this time she believes it, for she bids
me to seek out the Letters of Protection given to
us all by Sir William Howe and forward them to
her. They are a danger, Patty, which I had not
dreamed of. It seems she did not take them with
her as we reasoned, but thinks she left them at
Harrogate, and if they are at Harrogate and were
to be found by our Continental troops, or any one
illy disposed toward the Roberts family, they
might be used to secure the sequestration of our
properties, in which case I could send my father
and mother naught.” She pushed back her chair
as she spoke. “So I am off to Frankford.”
“Not without your breakfast, Miss Rosalie.
Indeed, you have n’t eaten enough to keep a bird
alive!” Mrs. Brisket spoke in quick alarm, for
to go unfortiﬁed by an abundance of food, was,
in her code, to court disaster.
“Mrs. Brisket ’s right, Rosalie. You can’t
exist without eating, and while she packs us a
lunch and the chaise is got ready, you ’ve time
enough.”
as


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Thus urged, Rosalie again seated herself and
consented to pick at the tidbits Mrs. Brisket has-
tened to pile upon her plate; but her mind was
still engaged upon her letter, which must have
been couched in bitter terms, for she did not offer
to let me see it.
However, when the time came to set out, she
did not combat, as I had expected she might, my
intention of accompanying her; yet I made my-
self very small and said very little till we were
well under way, so fearful was I that she would
insist on going alone.
At last, when it was too late to send me back,
I could restrain myself no longer.
“Rosalie,” I said, “didst recall what Friend
Waln warned us of the other day—that there is
a highwayman at work on the Frankford road?”
“Nay,” was her reply, “that I did not, or jimmy
would be where you are now.”
“So” I thought,” I confessed, “and so I said
naught to you; but I left behind my own gewgaws
and bade Mrs. Brisket furnish the basket with
kitchen ware instead of the dining-room silver.”
“That was well thought of,” said Rosalie, with
24


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY;
think you ’t is a safe one? It would be no better
to lose your pendant on the highway than by the
hand of a robber.” .
“ ’T is as safe as upon my neck!” Rosalie re-
plied. “Short of losing the whole ﬂy-broom, it
cannot go.” So saying, she clucked to the horse
and we went on our way to reach the Roberts
place at Harrogate without mishap.
Rosalie sought out the overseer for the usual
consultation on ways and means; then we lunched
in the cool shade of the veranda, after which she
went within to ﬁnd the papers, anticipating a
search for them but being fortunate enough to
put her hand on them at once, in a drawer of her
father’s secretary.
The day was hot, and, knowing that Uncle john
was not at home to worry over us, we were in
no haste to set out for town, loitering in comfort
till the afternoon was well advanced; then, re-
luctantly enough, we made our preparations for
departure.
“I may as well wear my pendant,” Rosalie sug-
gested, but I stopped her when she would have
taken it from its hiding-place.
“I would n’t,” I said positively. “ ’T is safer
26


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
where it is. But how about those papers? Shall
we not burn them ere we go F”
.To my surprise, Rosalie negatived this sug-
gestion.
“That was my ﬁrst thought,” she confessed,
but I should prefer to consult Uncle john before
I take such a step against my mother’s express
command. Indeed, I should like best to send the
papers out of the country, and could I be sure
they would not be intercepted, they should go to
England without a moment’s delay; but it is the
chance of their seizure by some of our patriots
that I dare not risk. Bitterness against Tories
seems to grow, rather than to abate.” ‘
“Then why not destroy them?” I asked, com-
pletely puzzled.
“Patty,” Rosalie replied seriously, “hast thou
ever counted the chances against us in this enter-
prise? At home here, a divided country, for
’t is useless to shut our eyes to the fact that the
Tories are many and richer by far than the Pa-
triots. In Europe we have won the help of
France; but in previous wars who has conquered,
France or England?”
“Rosalie!” I cried indignantly. “Never did I
H
27


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I7
think to ﬁnd thee faint-hearted to our cause.
“Nor am I now,” Rosalie averred stoutly. “I
believe that were the odds against us even greater
than they are,—did they put in the ﬁeld one hun-
dred men to our one,—yet in the end must we win
because we ask only justice. We are pitted in
our poverty against the richest nation in the
world, yet we will humble it.”
“Then why this to-do over the papers? Get
ﬂint and steel and let ’s destroy them.”
“No!” Rosalie spoke positively. “If Uncle
John will put them in safekeeping for me, I will
beg him to hold them against the chance that
might may conquer right. My mother and
father are too old to learn a new way of life, and
it is true that if the British return here, even
temporarily, these papers may prove of inestima-
ble value.”
So we tucked them under the cushions, to keep
them from blowing away, and started for home.
We drove along happily for a mile or more,
chattering, as girls will, of merry triﬂes; when
Rosalie suddenly drew rein.
“An I mistake not,” she said, calmly, “our
highwayman awaits us at the next corner. Now,
28


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
what’s to do? Shall I try to turn and gallop
back to the farm ?”
“What makes you think any one ’s there ?” I
asked, craning my neck in an effort to see.
“A man whipped into the bushes at sight of us.
If you look to the left side, not the right, you
will glimpse a sorrel horse as well.”
“Then ’t is useless to run away, for on horse-
back ’t will be easy to overtake us.”
“That is my own conclusion,” Rosalie declared.
“We must stand and deliver. Moreover, as you
know, we afford but poor pickings.”
So we drove on slowly, ready for the order to
stop; but when it met our ears it was not couched
as we had expected.
“Halt!” came the stern command. “In the
name of General George Washington and the
Continental Congress !”
“Now, that we will do with a right good will,”
Rosalie said heartily, as she stopped our horse.
The man she had observed stepped forth from
the concealment of the shrubbery and looked us
over scornfully. He was not masked, but above
his eyebrows and across his nose and cheeks were
painted two broad bands of purple that curved
29


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY1
to meet on his temples. The effect was strange
and sinister, and to me it seemed more disguising
than any mask.
“ ’T is amusing,” he said bitterly, “yet I ﬁnd
that it is the Tories who are ever readiest to cry,
‘God save our army and our Government!’ in the
hope that I shall be moved to spare their
money-bags.”
“That may be,” Rosalie replied. “In fact, I
doubt it not. But I am no Tory; nor have I—
alas !—any money-bags.”
“I hear you talk,” the highwayman rejoined,
“but I have eyes in my head, and I know a lady of
fashion when I see one. Such ever have uncon-
sidered triﬂes of value which I levy upon in the
name of the cause.”
“For which you should think shame of your-
self,” I heard my voice saying indignantly, as it
seemed without my volition. “We patriots are
not robbers, poor though we be. Wherefore, an
you must steal, let it be in your own name, not in
your country’s.”
“Heyday!” exclaimed our strange assailant,
“ ‘We patriots’ indeed! Whom have we here ?”
“I am Patty Abbott, of Haddonﬁeld in the
30


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
jerseys,” I replied. “I ’ve a brother in our army,
and my father is overseas on an errand for Gen-
eral Washington.”
“For their sakes, then, will I tell thee that I am
a good Whig—a most respectable character and
no robber. I but levy a tax on the disloyal ; who,
else, would contribute naught to our great cause.
I have no quarrel with patriots and would gladly
say ‘Pass, Patty Abbott!’ did I not ﬁnd thee in
bad company. Wherefore I ask thee, why dost
thou, a maid of a family so well disposed, con-
sort with one of the Meschianza rabble? ‘Who
touches pitch will be deﬁled.’ A Whig should
keep Whiggish company.”
“I was not at the Meschianza,” Rosalie said
haughtily. To me she whispered in haste: “This
man is mad. I know not what to do.”
“My cousin, whom you are so misjudging, was
not a Meschianza miss,” I told the highwayman
as quietly as I could. “She was not even in
Philadelphia then. In fact, she had left in haste,
in company with my brother, to carry certain
valuable information to General Washington’s
army—” I stopped, despairing of making him
believe the story of which Rosalie was the heroine.
31


‘.
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Y 1“ ‘Qb$’:'


d1s
e
h
t
H
O
X
3
t
‘I but levy a
4


‘_’


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Out with you both, into the road! I ’ll search
your rig to my own satisfaction.”
Then, and then only, did I remember the Brit-
ish Letters of Protection and realize why Rosalie
had been so quiet since the strange character of
the robber had been disclosed.
I saw her cast one despairing look around as
she descended from the chaise, and I guessed her
thought to seize the papers, jump on the sorrel
horse and so escape with them; but the thief,
pistol in hand, was between us and his animal
and such an attempt was doomed to failure. . . .
We both stood in the dust of the road and watched
him lift the papers from beneath the cushion.
He said naught at sight of them and their
portentous seals, continuing his search till he was
satisﬁed that no money nor valuables were to
fall his prey; then he got out of the chaise and
looked us over contemptuously.
“So, my gentle patriots,” he said, “I ﬁnd you
armed with romances attesting your honesty and
Papers of Protection from the enemy, as well!
Were ye men, neither of you should stir from this
spot alive. I should feel it a privilege to rid the
land of two such traitors. As ye are females——”
33


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
he drew a knife and cut the harness through
here and there—“you shall trail your pride in the
mud of your King’s Highway and ﬁnd your way
back to town on Shanks’ mare.”
Whereupon he gave our horse a smart slap on
its ﬂank that sent it careering down the road,
mounted his own steed,—taking the papers with
him,—and made off, leaving us well nigh smoth-
ered in his dust.
“At all events, he did n’t get the pendant,” I
said, with a sigh. “But—oh, Rosalie !—shall we
ever be able to catch that horse? ’T is a long
trudge to town!”
34


CHAPTER III
WHEN ﬁrst I started to jot down in my
diary notes of what happened day by day
on our estate, known as “Springhill,” at Haddon-
ﬁeld in the jerseys, it grew to be but a record
of the number of pots of currant jelly and fruit
preserves I had had put up during the summer,
and the amount of homespun, both in linen and in
wool, that had come from our looms in winter.
Until one eventful night, when General Washing-
ton had visited my father to engage him as a
messenger for the cause, there had been little of
deeper interest to note, save when my brother
Val had gone off to join our patriot army. We
were good Whigs, one and all, but the war had
passed us by; and even the Hessians, who had
rioted elsewhere through our State, had not
molested us.
Such being the case, it is easy to understand
that my diary ceased to be faithfully kept; and,
as I ﬂick over the pages, I ﬁnd many dates blank,
35


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
and on others notes such as this: “The bees
swarmed from the large straw hive to-day, and
we were like to have lost the swarm; but all the
maids turned out to beat upon tin pails, where-
upon they came down and went so fast into their
new hive as to look like a ﬂood of molasses. I am
rejoiced that we did not lose them, as we cannot
have too much honey for our needs.” . . . “Wil-
liamson asks may he have second choice of
Queenie’s pups when Master Val hath had his
pick.” . . . “The hawks got two of the red hen’s
chicks this day.”
Interest revived after Father started on his ﬁrst
errand for General Washington. I went to Phil-
adelphia then, lived there while it was in the
hands of the enemy; and, with the idea that my
doings were of moment in Father’s eyes, I kept
a true record of all I saw, a habit which I have
never discontinued. Thus it is that I can now
set down exactly the account that follows of what
befell Rosalie and me.
Having explained this, I will waste no more
time, but will go on to the day when a strange
young man ﬁrst presented himself at my uncle
36


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
john Abbott’s door, asking to see Mistress Rosa-
lie Roberts.
This was months after our trip to Harrogate,
where our fellow-Whig had left us deep in dust
and many miles from home. Fortunately, ﬁnd-
ing no silver in it, he had spared our luncheon-
basket, and the salt left from our meal, sprinkled
on some bread, had ﬁnally tempted our steed to
return to us. We had repaired his harness as
best we might, with our ribbands and garters,
and had at last made our way into town in time
to relieve Mrs. Brisket’s anxiety, who was fast
working herself into quite a taking over our non-
return. We haled her out to show her our steed
adorned with bows and streamers in unexpected
places, and she had laughed till her plump sides
ached at the ﬁgure we must have made had we
driven through the city in broad day.
“ ’T is as well you were belated,” she acknowl-
edged, wiping her eyes, which had ﬁlled with tears
of mirth. “That solemn Dobbin so tricked out
must have brought a crowd to follow you.”
Then a memory came to her, and she held up her
hands in horror. “Good lack, Miss Rosalie!”
37


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
she said. “The creature got your pendant!
,T hat is a sad loss indeed.”
“But he did not get it,” Rosalie told her, as she
retrieved it from its hiding-place. “Patty’s re-
membrance of Friend Waln’s warning saved me
that. I would that it had also saved the papers,”
she sighed. “I blame myself greatly that I gave
no care to their protection till too late.”
“Waste not a thought on the papers, my
pretty,” Mrs. Brisket said. “Thy uncle’s niece is
scarce like to be meddled with.”
But Rosalie shook her head and refused to be
comforted.
“I had no right to touch them an I did not
mean to safeguard them,” she afﬁrmed moodily.
“I know only too well what interpretation my
mother will put upon such negligence; but how
could I think a highwayman would plunder what
was of no worth ?”
In truth, we all felt anxious now about the
stand which would be taken by the Continental
authorities; but, as time passed without our hear-
ing aught of the matter, we jumped to the con-
clusion that our highwayman was not the Whig
in good repute he claimed to be; and, when some
38


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY;
months had gone by, the matter clean slipped our
memories.
It was in early summer that Gilbert Sedden
lifted our knocker. My father had returned and
was gone again; for once he had started his work
for his Excellency, he proved too valuable a man
for General Washington to let go, and he was
scarce back from one errand ere he was off on
another, quite content to be so employed since I
had a safe home with Uncle john and a compan-
ion in Rosalie. My uncle was at his counting-
house and Rosalie was staying with the Peters
family at Belmont, so it was to me that Iinny, my
colored maid, brought news of the visitor.
“I done tol’ him she was n’t to home,” she
grumbled, “but he ’s a very highty-tighty young
gentleman. He say he ’s bound to know when
will she be home. He say ol’ Ma’am Roberts sent
him; but that ain’t true, ’cause she ’s done gone
away.”
“I had better see this insistent gentleman,” I
sighed, putting down a hunting shirt I was stitch-
ing for .Val and going to the glass to smooth my
hair.
“He don’ want to see you, nohow,” jinny an-
39


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
nounced. “I ask’ him would he like to see my
missus, please. And he say, ‘certainly not’—jus’
like that. Short and snappy like.”
“That ’s too bad, for he ’s going to see me,”
I declared, and made my way downstairs.
I entered the drawing-room with as stately an
air as I could contrive, and a young man standing
before the window bowed deeply. Straightening
his back, his eyes met mine, whereupon he stood
up stifﬂy and said:
“You ’re not Rosalie Roberts. You ’re too
young.”
Something in the manner of those simple words
angered me, and I replied curtly:
“You were told my cousin was not at home.
My serving-maid understood you to say you had
come from my aunt. If that is the case, cry me
your errand, and—an I think it of sufﬁcient
moment to justify it—I will send for Miss
Roberts.”
“It is of moment,” he said positively. “But I
can wait more readily than I can open up Mis-
tress Roberts’s private affairs to another.”
“In that case I will bid you good-day,” I said,
curtseying and motioning him to the door. .
40


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
“I have told you I can wait,” he declared, mov-
ing as if to invite himself to a chair.
“We do not take lodgers,” I informed him, not
troubling to hide a certain amusement at his
discomﬁture.
“Lodgers!” he exclaimed, astounded. “I
thought Mistress Roberts would be back.”
“She will,” I replied. “Assuredly she will re-
turn; but not to-day, nor perchance to-morrow,
nor the next day. In fact, I have no exact idea
when she will come home.”
This was clearly a facer for the visitor, and he
stood for a moment turning his hat in his hands;
then, as if he had made up his mind about some-
thing, he looked me in the eye and said:
“What know you of certain British Letters of
Protection ?”
It was my turn to be confounded. Was this
—could it be the highwayman in person? Or
was it some agent of his, sent to make, from the
sale of the papers, the money he had failed to
ﬁnd when he stopped us on the road? I tried to
picture this young man with two purple bars
painted across his face; and, thinking of him thus,
I seemed to discern something sinister in his
41


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY"
aspect. He was about the height of the robber,
but our assailant had had a more provincial
accent, which, doubtless, had been assumed. In
sooth, I now made sure the two were one, and
drawing a deep breath, I answered his question
with another:
“What know you of those papers?”
Ere he had opened his lips to reply, a voice
sounded through the house.
“Patty! Patty!” it called. I ran to the door,
intent upon warning Rosalie away; but I was too
late.
“I pray you say you ’re glad to see me back !”
she cried. “You seem far from overjoyed.
=Yet, an you don’t welcome me for my own sake,
you must for my companion’s; that I ’ll wager.”
“This is Mistress Rosalie Roberts.” The
visitor rather made a statement than asked a
question, and Rosalie looked at him in sudden
surprise.
“Yes,” she began, but I interrupted.
“He comes with some rigmarole of British
.Papers of Protection,” I said hurriedly, intent
on warning her ere she spoke.
Rosalie raised her eyebrows at this.
42


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“You wish to see me, sir, on this business?”
she asked.
“I am sent by your mother as her business
representative. My name will be unknown to
you, but it is Gilbert Sedden. I have here a let-
ter from her and yet others from friends of yours
in New York. I have been assured by those in
that city that re-occupation of Philadelphia is no
part of the present military plans and, as your
mother has authorized me to take over her inter-
ests, I think it right that'you should not be
endangered within the Continental lines by pos-
session of such papers and am prepared to assume
the charge of them from now on.”
“ ’T is vastly thoughtful of you,” Rosalie re-
turned, and who could say whether she spoke in
earnest or in irony. “An you will give me the
letters, I will take the whole matter under advise-
ment and let you hear from me. You will readily
understand that I am not prepared to answer off-
hand in so momentous a matter.”
The young man bowed and shortly took his
leave, having told us he was to be found at the
City Tavern until he secured a more homely
lodging.
43


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
With her packet of letters in her hand, my
cousin turned to me.
“What thought you of this emissary of my
mother’s ?” she asked.
“He needed but the purple stripes to be the
image of our highway1nan!” I declared.
“Stuff, child! This was no more than a boy,”
my cousin laughed. “That other was a man.”
“He would scarce go about such business un-
disguised,” I insisted.
“Nonsense, Pat! This is but a child. Inno-
cent as a kitten whose eyes are just opened, and
vastly proud of his important errand. Though
why my mother chose such an one--”
“N one the less, for all his innocence, he means
to make you pay dearly for those missing papers,”
I told her dryly.
Rosalie gave no heed to this, having seated her-
self and begun to run through her letters. There
were several delicately wafered epistles, evidently
from ladies. One was in her mother’s scrawl.
Another in Rebecca Franks’s hand. And of two
unmistakably masculine, one which was sealed
with a great seal that seemed vaguely familiar
to me, Rosalie slipped into her pocket unread,
‘44


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
even while she knit her brows over her mother’s
scratchy lines.
“At all events, that is clear enough,” she said,
drawing a deep breath. “It lacks only my
father’s signature to leave me no recourse. I
am to sell all we own in town and country and,
if I will not go to join my parents, I must turn
the proceeds over to this Gilbert Sedden, who is
their duly appointed messenger and ‘a right-
thinking youth, worthy of all trust.’ ”
“How know you this is Gilbert Sedden, at all ?”
I asked peevishly. “I am positive he is our high-
wayman who, belike, hath waylaid the real mes-
senger and, taking his letters, is personating him
to lay his hands on your fortune.”
“Patty,” cried Rosalie, “you should write
romances like Fanny Burney’s ‘Evelina,’ or
dramas for the Southwark theater! jack André
would pale with envy at your imagination, an he
could hear you.”
I was annoyed at this, so I said:
“Then, on three or four smooth words and the
possession of a letter that may be stolen, you
propose to throw your whole fortune into this
man’s hands?”
45


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY'
“Nonsense!” rejoined Rosalie. “The young
man must convince Uncle john that he hath the
authority he claims, before I give him a penny-
piece. However, I am not ill pleased to have him
here if the properties must be sold. ’T will pre-
clude the question of any of the money being
diverted to our army’s necessities.” She gath-
ered up her scattered belongings and prepared to
go upstairs. “You don’t seem interested in the
guest I brought with me,” she turned to hint,
teasingly.
“I am not interested,” I vowed. “I have no
thought for aught save this scamp’s purpose.”
“Then keep out of the garden,” she called back
over her shoulder. “He drove from headquar-
ters with Mr. Richard Peters, and I thought it
best to return here with him.”
“He? Who ?” I demanded.
“Your father,” Rosalie laughed. .“He went
to leave the horses.”
But I was gone without waiting for further
words.
As was only too usual, my father had no more
than come to say good-by and was off again the
46


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY2
next day; however, I was the happier for having
seen him.
He and Uncle Iohn talked over with Rosalie
the questions brought up by young Sedden’s ar-
rival, the three agreeing that the papers he carried
were undoubtedly authentic and that there was no
reason for supposing their bearer other than he
represented himself. No argument could con-
vince me of this, but the only concession I ob-
tained, who was for sending this man to the
right-about, was that Uncle john would be in no
hurry to sell the Roberts family’s holdings, and
meanwhile would keep an eye on the new-comer;
although Rosalie was all for haste, having ever
the recollection of the Papers of Protection
and the use they might be put to in hostile
hands.
That he might be the more easily observed,
Sedden was invited to the house now and again,
and soon it became only too plain to me that he
was doing his uttermost to ingratiate himself
with Rosalie and inﬂuence her to return to her
mother’s side, although she had never received
any pardon for her overt acts against the British,
and we had no reason to suppose she would be
47


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
safe within their lines. Sedden dwelt upon
Madam Roberts’s advancing years and need of
her daughter’s loving care, and to me it seemed
that he was making headway; wherefor I grew
to hate him so that I could scarce bring myself to
speak to him with civility. In addition, I still
held to my suspicions, although I had ceased to in-
sist that he was our highwayman, ﬁnding him no
less sinister because I was alone in my doubt of
him.
In my diary are countless notes of sayings and
doings of his, all of a nature to conﬁrm the sus-
picion I held him in, which was not weakened by
his success in pleasing the others of the household.
Thus matters rested until Val, on leave, came to
make us a visit.
My brother is a young ofﬁcer of great promise,
and has had much to do with the efﬁciency of our
Secret Service, himself at times taking risks that
are no part of his duties; hence he has tales to tell
of happenings that do not reach the ears of the
rabble, and, on the ﬁrst evening of his visit, Uncle
John, Rosalie and I sat around the library table,
over dishes of walnuts and early apples, agape
for any news he might see ﬁt to pass on to us.
48


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
But Val said naught save that the apples were
good, and Rosalie grew impatient.
“Cry us your doings, Val,” she said. “Who
giveth you useful tidings now that poor E. P. U.
is silent ?”
“The boot is on the other foot,” Val said
slowly. “For the ﬁrst time are we out-generaled
in this department.”
“What ’s that you say?” Uncle john spoke
hastily, for him. “I thought our Secret Service
was the one branch that had not been starved.”
“True enough,” said Val. “When needful, his
Excellency the Commander-in-Chief hath fed it
from his private purse. Nor do I mean now
that we are not informed about our enemy. My
complaint is that they have equally early and
exact information of our every move.”
For an instant there was silence about the
table; then Rosalie said:
“That must be stopped!” .
“Aye,” Val agreed, “but how ?”
“I have an invitation from Becky Franks to
visit her in New York.” Rosalie and Val eyed
each other; but he shook his head even before
Uncle john had uttered an explosive “No!”
49


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Val,” I asked, leaning across the table, “how
long has this welcome information been reach-
ing the British?”
“For a month at least,” Val answered.
“Then I know who sent it !” I exclaimed ex-
citedly. “I was sure from the ﬁrst that he was
a villain.”
“I like not your choice of words, Patty,” said
Val. “Both Rosalie and I have gathered infor-
mation for our country, nor thought ourselves
villainous because of it.”
“But that is different,” I said lamely. “You
never tried to betray another; and this man, I am
well assured, is bent upon leading Rosalie within
the British lines. No doubt,” I added as an
after-thought, “he is to be well paid for his
trouble.”
“Patty,” cried Rosalie, “you are too bad! In-
deed, you are a very Indian for prejudice where
you take a dislike.”
“I don’t know,” I said; “I ne’er took one be-
fore. But I am certain I can tell a rascal when
I see one.”
“Who is the man Patty hath in mind?” Val
asked.
SO


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ll
A mere boy. My mother’s messenger. Re-
becca Franks, w.ho met him on his way here,
writes him down a ‘dear, delightful dunderhead.’
And ’t is thus I myself would rank him. More-
over, he hath no facilities for obtaining informa-
tion,” Rosalie declared.
“Whereis he?” Val asked. “Faith, he should
at least beentertaining if two girls hold such di-
verse opinions of him.”
“As to his facilities for obtaining information,
we have no knowledge of them, I confess; yet
remember, when you were E. P. U., none knew
how you obtained the information you published.
However, I am ready enough to write Master
Sedden down a dunderhead if that will pleasure
you,” I said aside to Rosalie, tossing my curls.
“Then he is not my man,” Val vowed, “for,
believe you me, the one who is eyes and ears for
the British to-day is no lack-wit.”
“At all events, I ’ll send for him, Val,” Uncle
john said. “It will be of interest to see how you
judge him.”
In less than half an hour Gilbert Sedden was
ushered in and sat down to a plate of our simple
refreshment.
1 ..
51


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“You have but lately come from New York,”
Uncle john began. “What do you think of my
niece’s project to go there on a visit ?”
Master Sedden’s eyes wandered to mine in
some surprise.
“Not I,” I said. “I ’ll set no foot there till it
is freed from tyranny.”
“I ’m more poor-spirited,” laughed Rosalie.
I confess that I like the gaiety of headquarters.
The dances, the plays and—yes, the ofﬁcers too,
even though they are our enemies.”
“ ’T is a liking they reciprocate,” Sedden de-
clared. “When I said I was for Philadelphia, I
was loaded down with messages, as you knoW.”
“Then you fancy, an I were to venture there,
I should not be punished for a naughty child ?”
!Rosalie questioned jestingly. “I confess I gave
some small trouble hereabout, last year. Think
you they would be minded to put me in a—closet,
for my contumacy ?”
“An they did, it needs must be one big enough
to entertain all the ofﬁcers of the army,” Sedden
said with a smile. “I supped at the club one
night, and you were the toast of the evening.
.Sooth, at the last. they drank your health in broken
ll
52


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
glass, vowing that they would run no risk that
cups so honored should fall to lowlier use.”
“Now what say you to that, Patty?” Rosalie
cried, her eyes sparkling.
“I say the loss falls heaviest on the lady who
owned the glasses,” I told her tartly. In truth,
though hospitality prevented outspokenness, I
credited no word of young Sedden’s story, and
was amazed that the others swallowed aught so
improbable.
“There speaks the thrifty housewife,” Val
hurried to gloss over my brusqueness, for Sedden
had reddened at my curt words. “I wonder,
Master Sedden, to change the subject of a sud-
den, are you related to Gustavus Sedden ?—a
noted man, nowadays.”
Now there was no man of that name that ever
I ’d heard of, and I guessed at once that there was
more in the question than appeared on the sur-
face; so I pricked up my ears for the answer
which came, simply enough:
“I have not a relation in the world save an un-
cle in England, and he is on the distaff side.”
No more was said; yet I felt Val was satisﬁed.
Rosalie again began to talk of ways and means
53


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
\-
of accomplishing her purpose to visit New York,
vowing she would never be content till she had
been there and keeping up her chatter until at last
Master Sedden took his leave.
As Val lit our candles our cousin said to him:
“And so those troublesome despatches are
signed ‘Gustavus’ ?”
Val nodded agreement, while I thought admir-
ingly how much quicker she was than I to appre-
hend and seize upon the point of his remarks.
“I ’ll either stop the letters there or send you
word whom they are from, ere I ’ve been a week
in New York,” she laughed as she started up the
stairs.
Val shook his head, for he knew the risk she
would run, who was already marked as one clever
enough to trick our enemy; yet I followed her
sore at heart. I was no patriot such as they
were. I was only a loving little girl, well aware
that either of those two so dear to me would
count their lives as of no weight in the scale
against a possible service to the cause.
54


CHAPTER IV
TO my surprise, even my uncle had taken a
a fancy to Gilbert Sedden. The young
man had a way of seeming very frank and simple,
which set me on my guard the more but seemed
to satisfy both Rosalie and Uncle john; and
when he talked of his regret at the delay in the
settlement of the Roberts family’s affairs because
of the added expense his longer stay entailed, Un-
cle john offered him occasional employment of
one sort or another. Thus months wore by, and
at last an errand to New York engaged young
Sedden, and I heaved a sigh of relief when I knew
that he had actually set out on business that would
require some weeks’ absence and, for a while,
would rid me of the annoyance of his presence.
Meantime Rosalie had by no means abandoned
her project of a visit to the larger city. She was
in correspondence with Val, and, assuredly, on
that subject; but naught more deﬁnite had been
said of her going, and I hoped that Val would
discourage the trip, for his opinion would carry
55


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
weight with her as' perchance no other’s would.
“VV hat do you say to making another call at
Mount Pleasant, Patty?” she suggested one ﬁne
day.
I made a wry face.
“I pray you hold me excused,” I said. “I love
not General Arnold. Indeed, were all our ofﬁcers
like to him, I ’d be tempted to turn Tory.”
“The general will not be there,” Rosalie as-
sured me. “Since the court martial is over and
General Washington’s reprimand, which he was
ordered to make by that court, proved to be more
eulogy than reprimand, Arnold is again bent upon
furthering his own fortunes and has asked his
Excellency for an active command.”
Still I shook my head.
“Mrs. Arnold scarce looks at me,” I pouted.
“She treats me as a tiny child. Almost I expect
to hear her talk to me in baby-talk.”
“Run put your hat on,” my cousin commanded
me. “If you care not to see Peggy, at least you
want to see her baby. It groweth very knowing.”
Thus it came about that once more, after almost
a year, we two rode to Mount Pleasant.
Talking by the way, Rosalie gave me further
56


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
7
information of the reasons for Arnold s absence,
her intimacy with his wife never having waned.
“His wounds are all healed,” she said, “and he
vows he ’s bent on active service. He ﬁrst asked
his Excellency for command of the navy, which
naturally was refused. Such refusals, even when
necessary, prey upon his mind and make him ex-
ceeding bitter and morose. In truth, such is his
opinion of his abilities that I doubt not he thinks
himself ill used when he does not get exactly what
he wants. But now he has been given command
of the left wing of the army, a post of honor, and
I expect to ﬁnd Peggy very happy over this satis-
faction after the humiliations he has endured.”
Mount Pleasant looked much as it had when we
visited it before; yet to my eye there was a certain
air of neglect observable. The drives and bor-
ders were not so trim. The men’s liveries seemed
tarnished. Still, the same state was maintained,
and lovely Peggy was as lovely as ever.
“You shall see my son, but he hath a rash upon
his head that troubleth me,” she said with a pretty
air of motherly solicitude, “especially as we have
just received instructions to join the general.”
“To join him in the ﬁeld—with an infant ?” Ro-
57


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
salie exclaimed. “Oh, Peggy! do not attempt it
till the babe is older!”
“No, no! General Arnold is not with the
Army of the Left,” Peggy assured her. “Had
you not heard he hath been given command of the
.post at West Point?”
“But I understood that he desired active: service
above all else,” Rosalie said thoughtfully.
“I, too, thought so,” Mrs. Arnold replied in a
puzzled tone, “but I know he asked for this ap-
pointment.”
“Perchance he could not stand the fatigue of
the saddle,” Rosalie suggested.
“It can’t be that. He had spent weeks in prov-
ing himself ere he undertook his journey to New
England, and I have had despatches assuring me
that he was quite whole again.”
Mistress Hannah Arnold, the general’s sister,
here interrupted the conversation by bringing in
the baby, a lusty, towardly child, which absorbed
my attention from then on, so that it was not till
we were on our way home that I learned what
further had passed between these friends.
“Two new gowns I must have,” Rosalie said
positively, as we turned toward town.
58


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
the British the news that checks and hampers all
our efforts in the ﬁeld, so I must go. ’Tis a duty
that will not be denied.”
“You are the last one to go. If you make any
attempt to circumvent a spy on us from within
the British camp, your very life will be in jeop-
ardy. Do you not see that you will be the ﬁrst
to be suspect if aught goes wrong ?”
“Nay, that I do not! On the contrary, I count
on their thinking I would never venture within
the 1ion’s jaws unless I meant to give no excuse
for their snapping shut.”
“If Val has failed, how can you hope to suc-
ceed ?”
. “I have a suspicion, Patty, that the needed clue
is already in my hands.”
“Tell Val of it. He-—”
“That I cannot do as yet. The happiness of
my dearest friend is tied up in this affair, and no
one else will handle it so tenderly as I.”
' Again she whipped the horse; and as he jumped
forward she seemed to wish to dismiss the matter,
but I would not have it so. She had said too
much or too little.
60


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY‘
“Then I ’ll tell him,” I declared boldly. “I ’ll
write that Peggy Shippen is mixed up with it,
and he will ﬁnd out the rest.”
Rosalie turned and looked at me, then she shook
her head. '
“You will never be so cruel, Patty, even were I
not about to tie your hands by conﬁding in you.”
“I want no conﬁdences. I ’ll put my ﬁngers in
my ears,” I said childishly, but Rosalie stopped
me sternly, and I think I realized then for the ﬁrst
time that she was much older than I.
“Unless you listen, and give me your word not
to meddle, I will leave for New York to-day, be-
fore you have a chance to get word to Val.” .
She meant exactly what she said, and with an
ill grace I gave in.
“This is a matter of a man’s life and honor,
Patty, and one in which I should have no hope,
did I not bear in mind his great love for his wife
and children. An I can get into my hands posi-
tive proofs of what are now scarce more than con-
jectures, I shall try to make him realize their posi-
tion should he be caught—as caught he must be
sooner or later. I may fail to bring him back to
6:


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
right thinking, but I can do no less than make the
attempt.”
“Rosalie, thou art absolutely reckless!” I ex-
claimed. “A man in such case hath no honor,
and must be desperate. He would simply make
way with you. It would not be risking your life;
it would be throwing it away.”
“Nonsense, child,” Rosalie explained patiently.
“I shall not go to him with my proofs in my hand.
_Those will be in safe keeping, and any ill done to
me would at once release them for use against
him.”
' A sudden thought came to me at this moment,
and I put my hands to my head.
“Am I crazed?” I asked. “At ﬁrst I thought
you were assuredly talking of General Arnold,
but now I know that cannot be.” Even as I ut-
tered the words her face told me that this was
Rosalie’s suspicion, and my voice died on my lips.
“How can it be?” I whispered. “My father says
he is one of the greatest of our generals. Surely
such an one could not stoop—”
Rosalie held up her hand and stopped me.
“He has stooped low already,” she declared. “I
62


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
learned much I was sad to hear, when last I was
at Belmont. Setting aside the matters for which
he was tried, Mr. Peters hath other accusations
against him which he declares are proven up to
the hilt, and he is a lawyer, little like to mistake
the value of evidence, Patty. Indeed, he goes so
far as to state openly that ﬁfty thousand dollars
which he left in Arnold’s hands to pay for needful
supplies for our soldiers, when ﬁrst we took over
Philadelphia, were applied on the purchase of
Mount Pleasant. General Washington is so
noble that he cannot believe ill of his officers, a
fact which Arnold trades upon. For all his lav-
ish expenditures, ’t is lack of money that has ever
been his undoing. Only recently it came to my
ears that he had begged a loan from the French
king, through the good oﬂ'ices of Monsieur de la
Luzerne.”
“Did he get it ?” I asked, horriﬁed at the im-
pression the high-minded French gentleman must
have received on such a request from one of our
ofﬁcers. .
“Nay,” said Rosalie. “The French Ambassa-
dor told him, in effect, that he was no money-.
63


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY!
lender; and that when, indeed, the envoy of a
foreign power lends money, it is to corrupt him
who receives it.”
“That might have put into his mind the idea of
trading with the enemy,” I suggested.
T 0 this Rosalie said: “No,—it began long be-
fore that.”
But once more I suffered a revulsion of
feeling.
“It can’t be true! I ’m sure it can’t!” I cried.
“You have naught to base such a terrible suspi-
cion on. ’T is far more likely the culprit is Gil-
bert Sedden, this stranger who hath forced him-
self among us.”
“Save your breath, Patty,” Rosalie advised.
“I already have some proofs of what I say.
Moreover, this informing began before ever that
lad landed on our shores.”
“Give me one proof then,-—-just one,—and I ’ll
be convinced.”
“Before I go on, I must remind you that you
are pledged to silence,” Rosalie said. “I have
three arrows in my quiver. First, I shall try
to move Arnold by the thought of his older boys
and Peggy and her son. Failing there, I shall
64


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY'
endeavor to substitute false news for that he
sends, to make him ridiculous and discredited by
our enemy—which should be easier than it
sounds. My last recourse will be to denounce
him. I cannot shield Peggy at the expense of
the cause.”
“Yes, yes, I see that!” I returned impatiently;
“but the proof! You give me no proof at all.”
“Do you remember a letter that came from the
British camp when ﬁrst we went together to
Mount Pleasant?”
“.To be sure I do,” I said. “I never could for-
get it. General Arnold made a ﬁne fuss over
nothing.”
“General Arnold made a ﬁne fuss over some-
thing, that I ’ll grant you,” Rosalie declared.
“But he had his reasons. That letter was not
meant for Mistress Peggy’s eyes.”
At this I burst out laughing.
“Rosalie,” I shouted, “pray, who is prejudiced
now? ’T is a most amusing idea that Major An-
dré should write kindly to a fellow-soldier, if an
enemy, to offer to buy for him what he may need
in millinery supplies and cap-wire.”
“You may laugh, Patty,—I only wish I could,
55


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
—but where a letter is intended to deceive ’t is
safer to talk of needles than of bayonets.”
This silenced my ill-timed mirth.
“You truly think that Arnold is in communica-
tion with the British?” I asked, agape.
“I have no doubt of it,” Rosalie said. “And
perchance the saddest thought of all is that it is
john André’s doing. I had not believed he
would stoop to corrupt another.”
66


CHAPTER V
ROSALIE had taken a copy of General Ar-
nold’s instructions to his wife, knowing that
Uncle 1john would have to be satisﬁed as to the
practicability of the enterprise ere he would be
content to see her set out with Peggy Shippen
on such a trip; and as I read it over that evening,
I could not fail to be impressed by Arnold’s care
for Mrs. Arnold’s comfort and safety, he having
arranged every detail of the journey, how many
miles she should travel each day, and where she
should stop each night. He had even thought of
such small matters as her need for her own sheets
and a feather-bed to sit on in the light wagon
which was to provide a change from the close
carriage.
Rosalie was right about his tenderness for his
pretty Peggy; could she be equally right in her
suspicion of him? To me, it again seemed that
she must be mistaken. Such a good husband
would be incapable of bringing disgrace upon his
family.
67


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I had folded up the paper as I came to this con-
clusion and laid it down on the table.
“What think you of this junket, Patty ?” my
uncle asked.
“I like it not at all,” I replied frankly.
“But if go she must, the trip to West Point at
least is safe, or General Arnold would not allow
his wife to attempt it with her young children.”
“The youngest stepchild is to stay with his
aunt. The older boys are at school,” I muttered.
My uncle looked at me in some surprise.
“Even so,” he said, “it doth not alter the case.
If it is safe for Mrs. Arnold, it is safe for Ro-
salie.”
“ ’T is safe enough on the road, doubtless,” I
agreed with an ill grace. “ ’T is when she leaveth
the Arnolds and goeth into New York that she
will be in danger.”
“Nonsense,” cried Rosalie, briskly. “Think
you my friends would urge me to visit them an
there was aught to fear? Patty values too highly
my small efforts for the cause. I am well as-
sured that even Sir William Howe, were he still
in command, must ere this have forgot my very
name.”
68


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY'
“I cannot say that you ’re forgotten,” Uncle
john told her, with a smile. “But I set some
small inquiries afoot when you began to talk of
this adventure, and I am of the opinion that you
are safe enough, so long as your errand is not
political.”
Aye, there was the crux of the matter; and
I could scarce restrain my tears at my inability
to blurt out to Uncle john my well-founded fear
that Rosalie meant once again to pit her wits
against the enemy’s. But she had most suc-
cessfully tied my hands, and I was forced to sit
silent while all the details of her going were
arranged.
“And as to money,” Uncle john said, when we
had lit our candles and were ready for bed, “save
not expense. You go as a Continental lady, and
the British must be made to realize the falsity of
their claim that we have not a piece of gold left
in our coffers. Horace hath orders to pay your
bills and give you supplies ample for your needs.”
With which he bolted from the room, forgetting
even to say good night, so fearful was he of
thanks.
We two girls looked at each other, and even I
69


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
could not forbear to smile, the words and action
were so characteristic of our uncle.
“He is a pet!” declared my cousin. “I cannot
see why some sweet lady did not marry him out
of hand when he was younger.”
“Did you not know he was in love with my
mother when she was a girl?” I asked.
“Nay,” said Rosalie, “I ne’er heard that tale
before; but I always felt he had a special tender-
ness for you, Patty.” .
“He loves us both.”
“But he loves the younger more than he does
aught else, I fancy.” A saying that pleased me
vastly, for I had tried to win Uncle john’s love.
When jinny, who acted as maid for both of us,
had been dismissed, I reverted to the subject of
my cousin’s visit to New York.
“Rosalie,” I said, “there ’s one question we have
never touched on. You cannot go on this jour-
ney without a waiting-woman—a young maid like
you.”
“Good lack!” cried Rosalie. “I see that I
shall have to ﬁnd me a husband so that my
comings and goings may be proper and in order.
70


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Sure, Peggy is married and can play propriety,
and her maid can wait on the two of us, even as
Iinny does on you and me.”
“But when you leave Peggy and go into the
city?” I pressed the point.
“Becky Franks must have some one,” Rosalie
returned indifferently. “Leave the door ajar,
Patty dear. ’T is going to be a hot night.”
But I would not allow her to dismiss the matter
until we had come to some conclusion.
“You could take jinny, of course,” I said, with
wrinkled brow, “but she would be worse than use-
less in a crisis. What I would like is a settled
woman who would have the wit to get word to
Val or Father or Uncle john if aught went
amiss.”
“Patty,—” Rosalie looked at me with an indul-
gent smile,—“you remind me of naught so much
as a hen with a duckling who is bent on going
swimming in the nearest puddle. I love you for
it; but, truly, the plunge is not so full of danger
as it looks to you.”
“I don’t believe General Arnold has done aught
amiss,” I told her miserably.
71


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“So much the better,” Rosalie declared.
“Once I satisfy myself of that, my mind will rest
easy.”
“I wish I thought so,” I cried. “Your next
move will be to go into the city, and ’t is there you
will meet with some mishap. Alone, and with no
one to aid you—”
“I thought you were arranging to send a gov-
erness with me. ‘A settled woman’ was what you
said.” There was laughter in Rosalie’s voice, but
she could not ridicule me out of my position.
“You must not go alone,” I reiterated, “and I
know the very person to send with you. Sarah
Craig.”
This was Mrs. Brisket’s married daughter,
who, with her little girl, stayed at my uncle’s dur-
ing the periods of her husband’s enlistments. He
had been out for a year and had come home, only
to re-enlist when Washington called for more
troops; so that now she and little jane were with
us again and I had no doubt that Sarah could be
counted on in every way, as a patriot loyal to the
cause and a woman devoted to each member of
our family.
“That being settled,” returned Rosalie, snug-
72'


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY_
gling her head into the pillow, “blow out the candle
before every mosquito in Philadelphia cometh to
the feast.”
Our next days were full of shopping, for, with
Uncle _Iohn’s wishes in mind, Rosalie did not stop
at the modest outﬁt of two dresses and one hat
which she had at ﬁrst proposed. Indeed, before all
was done my ﬁngers were sore from pulling bast-
ings, and I was nigh as tired as she was from
standing to be ﬁtted—a business we took turns at,
being of the same ﬁgure, and I thus able to re-
lease her when she had other matters to see to.
In good time, all was done and she was ready for
Mrs. Arnold to set the day for their start.
At last Thursday, September the sixth, was
determined on, and Rosalie could scarce conceal
her impatience.
Uncle john sent a messenger from the
counting-house on Tuesday, to give Rosalie a
heavy purse and bring him back a change of cloth-
ing, he having been called from town of a sudden
for a few days.
“Saw you ever the like ?” Mrs. Brisket scolded
affectionately, as she gave the messenger the
packed bag and shut the door on him. “The
73


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
wayman had been met, a little nervousness made
me anxious to be past the spot as quickly as
might be, so I called to Rosalie who was a pace or
two behind me, “I ’ll race you to the next mile-
stone.”
Her answer was to cut her horse with her whip.
Being an animal of some metal, he leaped into
the lead; my beast also broke into a gallop but had
not the speed of her steed, so that I was quickly
distanced. Rounding the corner, she turned in
her saddle and gaily waved her hand in triumph
as she passed from my sight behind the screen
of trees and bushes.
A moment later I heard a crash and a scream,
and involuntarily drew rein, then instantly urged
my nag forward again.
75


CHAPTER VI
THOUGHTS must be swifter than speech.
It took me but a few seconds to round the
clump of “trees and undergrowth which hid Rosa-
lie from me; yet in that space of time I thought
of twenty things that might have happened to her,
and none of them the right one.
I began to pull in my horse ere I reached the
turn, and it was as well I did, for my cousin
was lying crumpled in the ruts of the road, with
her poor beast, all scraped at the knees, standing
trembling beside her. I slipped from my saddle
and ran to her, to ﬁnd that she was quite uncon-
scious. How had the accident occurred? I
could not tell. Not that it mattered; it had hap-
pened, and my task was not to solve the mystery
of it but to fetch help for Rosalie.
I tethered the two horses, who had shown no
disposition to stray, and then went back to where
my cousin lay upon the ground. If I was to leave
her to seek help, I must ﬁrst manage to place her
76


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY:
out of danger of being run over by the next rig
that came that way. As I reached her side I
heard a sob, and my heart leaped with joy.
Tears might mean pain, but would also mean life;
yet when I bent over her there was no ﬂicker of
consciousness. Her limbs seemed strangely limp
and crumpled, and her face set as if carved from
wax.
I straightened up in disappointment. The
natural thing to do was to put my hands under
her arms and drag her to the roadside; but in my
ignorance I dreaded lest in some way I should
worsen her condition. Help was what I wanted;
yet if I rode on to Harrogate to fetch it, it might
come by on the road while I was away. Nor did
I like the idea of leaving Rosalie at the mercy of
strangers.
There was however a little mound on one side
of the highway from which I might be able to
look over the country for some distance and see if
any aid were in sight. I had left the road, in-
tending to scramble up this hillock, when once
again I heard a sob, and this time unmistakable
whispers.
“Hold thy hand across thy mouth! Dost wish
77


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
to be hanged?” Such were the words that met
my ear, and in a moment I had pounced upon the
speaker.
This was the younger of two lads who crouched
in the tangle of undergrowth by the roadside with
a frayed rope winding at their feet.
This rope was the answer to my question of the
manner of the mishap. The why of it was still
not clear to me, or at the time did I care aught
about it.
“You must help me, both of you,” I said im-
periously. “Give over that crying !—give over
this instant!”
I held the younger boy, who had not shed a
tear, by the collar as I spoke, and at once the elder
fell upon his knees, lifting up his hands implor-
ingly.
“ ’T was no fault of his,” he sobbed. “Let him
go his way, miss, and take me to the hangman.
I am the elder, and I invented the play. We but
pretended to be the highwayman, who used this
corner before the military caught him. We had
tied this rope across the road, and when we heard
the horses, the knot fouled so that we could not
loose it, and—and—that befell.”
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.POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
The child was pitiful in his self-blame; but I
had no time to sympathize with him.
“What ’s done is done,” I said crisply. “Now
help must be brought quickly. Where do you
live ?”
“Half a mile over yonder, across the ﬁelds.
You can see the smoke from our chimney hanging
in the air. ’T is past that wood there a bit.”
.T he younger lad pointed.
“Is there no road to it ?”
“Not that way; but go to the cross-roads and
there the ﬁrst turn to the left turns again into our
lane.”
There was no help in this. It would be scarce
farther to the Roberts place at Harrogate where
I should be sure of skilled aid, for the overseer’s
wife had been a trusted servant in the Roberts
household before she married.
“Can you ride ?” I asked.
“Our old Dapple. I ne’er had leg over a
strange horse, miss,” the little boy said, making a
frightened effort to back away.
“I can ride, miss.” The older lad had ceased
his tears. “I ’ll do aught I can, an you ’ll but tell
me she is not dead.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTYT
Alone with Rosalie, I sat on the ground and
pillowed her head on my knee, beginning vaguely
to wonder why I did not cry. I was conscious of
a great weight of apprehension; but I, who could
cry easily enough over little things, now sat dry-
eyed, with despair at my heart.
I think now that waiting with naught to do is
a sore test of hardihood. Had I had blood to
stanch even, it would have alarmed me less than
this white, changeless mask at which I looked so
fearfully, scarce recognizing my own cousin in its
set features.
It seemed an endless time until I again heard
the clatter of hoofs and the lad leaped to the
ground at my side.
“They ’re coming!” he cried triumphantly. “I
rode ahead to tell you, miss. Where ’s johnny
gone? An he left you by your lone, I’ll lam-
baste him—”
“He ’s doing my bidding, watching for me
down the road,” I explained, and soon the rattle of
the wagon brought me a measure of relief.
Hannah Mince was the ﬁrst out, and in a sec-
ond knelt by my side, taking Rosalie from me.
“Let ’s see the lamb,” she said, in her cheery
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
voice. “Stunned, to be sure. Well, perchance
that ’s just as well if there are bones to be set.
Bring the mattress, Ira.”
“Then she is n’t dead ?” I gasped.
“Dead? Not she, praise God!” Hannah re-
plied, and at her welcome words a ragged and not
overclean little boy and I fell on each other and
wept loudly on the Frankford Highway.
With inﬁnite care Mrs. Mince felt Rosalie over,
having composed her upon the mattress, to give
it as her opinion that a badly sprained and dis-
located ankle were all the damage to be discov-
ered; after bandaging which hurt she proceeded
to bathe her young mistress’s forehead and to
force a little spirits between her lips. Almost at
once Rosalie opened her eyes; but Mrs. Mince
kept her hand over them.
“Lie still a space,” she said; “the hoofs will
pass.”
“How knew you I ’d see hoofs ?” asked Rosalie
in a strained whisper.
“I ’ve see a mort of hunting accidents in the old
country,” Mrs. Mince told her, “and I ’ve had a
fall or two myself.”
“I was n’t hunting.” Rosalie’s tone was puz-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
zled, but her voice sounded more natural, and of
a sudden recollection came to her. “Oh, I re-
member,” she said. “Did I win, Pat ?”
I managed to check my sobs to reply.
“We neither of us won, for the mile-stone is
still some rods ahead, but you were in the lead,
I must acknowledge.”
“Good!” said Rosalie. “I ’ll race you again
when I come back from New York. I ’d do it
now, but I feel sadly shaken.”
At her words a sudden and most welcome pos-
sibility ﬂashed into my mind. Surely the New
York trip must be abandoned; and something to
that effect had almost passed my lips, when I
choked it back. The sight of Rosalie’s white face
warned me that this was not the time to open up
an argument with her. Instead, I turned to Han-
nah Mince.
“Had we not better set about getting Miss Ro-
salie to Harrogate ?” I asked.
A startled look from Rosalie and a hurried ef-
fort to sit up showed again that she had not yet
realized her condition.
“Get me to Harrogate,” she asked as if in puz-
zlement. “Faith, I’ll get myself there in short
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
order.” But she turned dizzy at the effort, and
Hannah Mince had no difﬁculty in pressing her
down on the mattress.
“We ’ve a cart here, Miss Rosalie, dearie,” she
said in her calm tones. “You ’ve twisted your
foot a bit in the stirrup. If you ’re for a journey
’t is as well you do naught to worsen it; so lie
you still, and the men will lift you in in a jiffy.”
Rosalie made another effort to sit up; then she
confessed defeat by falling back with shut eyes.
“ ’T was lucky you happened by, Hannah,” she
sighed, “for things go ’round and ’round before
my eyes as if I were engulfed in a whirlpool.”
Hannah put a ﬁnger to her lips to silence any
who might have been minded to point out that
her coming was no happy accident. Then she
motioned to the men to lift the mattress.
“We ’ll take you home. After a good rest in
your own bed you ’ll feel more like yourself.”
“I must,” Rosalie muttered. “I have business
toward that will not brook delay.”
It was a melancholy cortége that turned into
the drive at Harrogate. The cart moved at a
foot pace in order not to jar Rosalie; and Ira,
leading her limping horse, was able to keep up
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
with it. Knowing the nature of the accident, I
should not have been surprised had that poor
beast’s legs been broken, but the men assured me
that the rotted rope and a road, soft after rain,
had saved it from serious damage.
It was not till Hannah and I had undressed Ro-
salie, settling her in her own room and leaving
her to nap a little an she could, that I found time
for a private word with the woman.
“What is her condition?” I questioned anx-
iously.
“You saw as well as I,” Mrs. Mince replied.
“Her foot caught in the stirrup and gave her
ankle an ugly wrench. To my mind, such a hurt
is oft-times more troublesome than a clean break.
Then, too, she hath had a shock. To-morrow
she will be so stiff and sore she will not be able
to lift her head from her pillow.”
“And the day after?” I asked. “She looked
quite herself once she was in bed.”
“The day after she will be still worse,” Hannah
Mince said calmly; “but after that she should be-
gin to mend; although I warn you ’t will be slow.”
“The day after to-morrow she planned to start
on her ride to West Point with Mistress Arnold.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“You should send the lady word of my young
mistress’s mishap,” Hannah declared. “Belike
she counteth upon her company, and will need
time to arrange new plans.”
“You mean Miss Rosalie cannot go ?” I hesi-
tated. “When shall I say she may undertake the
journey?”
Hannah shrugged her shoulders.
“Said I not that it would be slow? She won’t
walk on that foot for three weeks, that I ’m as-
sured of. Perchance it may be double that time.”
“ ’T will make small difference, so far as Mis-
tress Arnold is concerned,” I told her. “She
hath an escort of servants, and her journey is
arranged with military precision. I doubt if she
would dare to put it off by one day, even.”
As I talked to Hannah I realized that here was
the very thing I had hoped for, an impediment
sufﬁcient to keep Rosalie at home; but, strange to
say I was not as pleased as I thought I should be,
for, an she could not go, who was there to circum-
vent the spy?
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CHAPTER VII
I SENT a boy to town with a note to Mrs.
Brisket, saying that we would stay the night
at Harrogate. After serious thought I had de-
cided that Mrs. Arnold’s plans being in no way
dependent upon Rosalie, the next day would be
time enough to notify her of my cousin’s accident.
By then I hoped that Rosalie would be equal to
writing to her friend herself; or if not that, at
least she could dictate .a few lines to me.
Hannah had arranged a couch for herself in
Rosalie’s room and had given my cousin a
sleeping-potion, so that she was resting easily,
and when night came I was quite ready to go to
bed, leaving all my troubles to the morrow for
solution.
Wednesday was a ﬁne day, and I was early
awakened, whether by the sun pouring into my
windows or a knock on my door I could not tell.
“ ’T is Hannah, Miss Patty,” a voice said, and
I called to her to come in.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Another time her skimpy bed-gown of striped
cotton, and sundry red ﬂannel rags which tied
her hair in curls, might have moved me to
laughter, for Hannah Mince was scarce one to be
suspect of vanity; but this early visit frighted
me for Rosalie’s sake.
“What is it?” I asked breathlessly. “Is she
worse ?”
“Nay,” Hannah answered, “she is just as was
to be expected, but she will work herself into a
fever an you can’t quieten her, and that I should
be loath to see. I ’ll go to my own room to dress
and do you run in to her, Miss Patty. I have no
idea what it is that is preying on her mind, but
you must set her at rest, at all hazards. Her
poor brain was sadly joggled yesterday, and to
ease it of all anxiety now is needful.”
I helped myself to a chintz powdering-cover
that probably belonged to Aunt Augusta,
wrapped in which I slipped into the hall and on
to Rosalie’s room.
She was lying ﬂat on her pillows, but her
cheeks were red and her eyes brightened at sight
of me.
“’T is good you ’ve come, Pat,” she said.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
The only member of the family who did naught
for our great cause? I was at the age when one
is a little girl so long as one wears ﬂowing curls
and childish clothing; but with my hair up and
powdered even lightly as it would be for the road
I was as old, to all appearances, as was Rosalie,
and there was a likeness between us that was
marked enough to befool all save our nearest
relations.
“I ’ll go with Peggy Shippen,” I declared
boldly. “I ’ll ﬁnd out all I can. Meanwhile, you
lie still till you ’re mended, then perchance we
shall think of some way for you to take my place
or, an that is not possible, I ’ll send you word of
all I learn and you can determine what use is to be
made of it. But once again I tell you that I be-
lieve your suspicions are groundless.”
“ ’T is just as well you do,” Rosalie said.
“Where one doubts a man, he can scarce turn
his eyes to one side or the other without increas-
ing suspicion. Now, if you ﬁnd aught amiss in
Arnold’s politics ’t will be against your will; and
I would have it so. I am not desirous to make
the general out a villain, and would welcome all
proof to the contrary.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
She lay for a moment or two, thinking deeply,
then her face clouded.
“Uncle john and your father—will they ever
forgive me?” .
“They would scarce want me to be a craven,”
I said stoutly. “Moreover, you vowed there was
no danger. The risk to me is no greater than to
you!”
“Save in one particular,” Rosalie agreed.
“There ’s Peggy. What will you do an she ﬁnds
you out?”
“She won’t,” I declared boldly. “On the jour-
ney I shall wear a complexion mask against the
sun. Moreover, she is so taken up with the baby
and thoughts of her husband that she will scarce
trouble to glance my way at all searchingly. Not
knowing of your hurt, she will never suspect the
substitution. However, should she ﬁnd me out,
I ’ll tell the true tale of your injury, vowing that
I could not resist the chance of going a-junketing
in your place but feared she would fancy me too
young to burden 'herself with, were I to ask her
leave in my own proper person; which, in sooth,
you know would surely be the case.”
“You will need some coaching about our mutual
Q2


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
friends,” Rosalie remarked thoughtfully.
“Neddy Burd, her brother-in-law, you have met,
and Tench Tilghmen. You know her sisters, and
the names of many of the rankest Tories, who
were her daily associates during the occupation.
You know André danced the Meschianza with
Peggy Chew, and favored her, I think, over all
others. He lived in Doctor Franklin’s house,
and never tired of playing with the dear doctor’s
musical glasses and electrical apparatus.”
“Whom did Peggy Shippen dance with?” I
asked, going back to the Meschianza.
“With nobody,” Rosalie asserted. “She and
her sister were engaged to dance, she with Lieu-
tenant Winyard, her sister Mary with Lieutenant
Sloper. But certain Quaker friends of their
father visited him to protest the unseemliness of
the Turkish dress they were to wear, and brought
him to their way of thinking. The girls were
forbid to go and ne’er set foot in Walnut Grove
that night. In fact, they stayed at home in a
dancing fury instead.” She ended with a laugh.
“You surprise me,” I said. “I always thought
the Shippen beauties were the belles of that great
occasion.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ll
Nay, mention it not to Peggy,” Rosalie advised
me. “They were much humiliated to disappoint
their friends, the English ofﬁcers, at the last
moment. But Becky Franks was there. Cap-
tain Watson, her escort, led the Knights of the
Burning Mountain against the Knights of the
Blended Rose.”
“I ’ll keep the talk to teething-rings and the use
of rolled starch for prickly heat,” I said, foresee-
ing pitfalls. “Methinks I can always make the
baby a shield, if needful.”
“Patty,” said Rosalie, and it seemed to me her
color wavered a little, “Peggy hath an idea—that
is, she hath a foolish habit— She hath taken it
into her head that when this war ends Lord Fair-
brook and I are bound to make a match of it.
She will surely talk to you of him.”
“I know him right well,” I declared cheerily.
I helped to strap up a cracked skull for him once,
and later he and Major Tarlton were quartered
on Uncle john while I was there.”
“So they were!” cried Rosalie. “Now, that is
fortunate. You can talk of him without re-
straint.”
“Aye,” I replied, “but an I sing his praises,
ll
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
shall I be singing your tune? That ’s what I
want to know.”
“I like him right well, save for his uniform,”
Rosalie replied, with an indifference which I could
not tell whether to class as real or assumed.
“You must waste no more time with me,” she
went on hurriedly, perchance to be rid of a deli-
cate subject. “I was engaged to pass this night
at Mount Pleasant with Peggy, in order that our
start might be early; but I will despatch her a
note saying I have met with unlooked-for trouble
here, which is sadly true, and promising that she
shall not be delayed nor disappointed in the morn-
ing. . . . ’T will mean rising before daybreak for
you, Pat; but once you are on the road together, I
doubt if Peggy will have the heart to turn you
back even if she recognizes you.”
“We ’ll not risk that, an it can be helped,” I re-
plied. “Moreover, if it is needful to go into New
.York, you were invited there, not I, and all the
papers we have secured are in your name. I
must be Rosalie Roberts, not Patty Abbott, when
day dawns to-morrow.”
“There is one danger we have not considered,”
Rosalie spoke earnestly.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
“What ’s that?”
“ ’T is Sarah Craig. Think you she will re-
member not to let your name slip past your lips?”
I pondered this point for a moment; then I
laughed.
“There ’s no chance of betrayal there. Sarah
never names us, but calls each of us ‘Miss’ in-
differently.”
“That ’s true,” Rosalie acknowledged, after she
too had searched her memory, “and Sarah is
stanch. I ’m right glad she is going with you.
Another thing. You must take my pendant.
Nay, Patty,—” she held up her hand as I began to
protest that I wanted naught of such value by me
on my travels, when either highwaymen or Hes-
sian marauders might be met,—“I ’m not think-
ing of your pleasure. It will surely cause remark
an you have it not. All who know me know that
pendant. Having naught else of value, I have
made something of a point of my liking for it, and
it is familiar to every one who knows my face.
’T is an essential part of your disguise.”
“Then I suppose I must wear it,” I agreed
unwillingly.
“You ’ll ﬁnd it, with the purse Uncle john gave
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
me, in a drawer on the left of my dressing-mirror.
Now, don’t protest the purse!” She stopped the
words on my lips. “You know it was given not
to me but to the cause, and ’t is for that we ’ll use
it.”
Thus, detail by detail, all was arranged between
us, and by the time I left Harrogate I was well
coached in the part I was to play.
In the city, however, I met determined opposi-
tion. Mrs. Brisket was satisﬁed that Rosalie
could take care of herself, and of Sarah Craig as
well, but in me she had no such conﬁdence. I was
a child, and it was her ﬁrm belief that Uncle john,
could he be found, would forbid my going on any
such long journey. To be sure, I had made it out
to be naught more serious than a desire to see the
world that urged me on to go, but she was a
shrewd old woman and while she never so much as
looked suspicious, I know now that all the time she
was well assured that some deeper motive was
moving me.
She even went so far as to send to his ware-
house for word of my uncle’s whereabouts; but
Horace, his clerk, knew not whither he had gone
nor when he would return, save that it would not
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
be before Friday, and she was forced to give up
hope of his intervention.
When I went to bed that night, it was with my
luggage ready corded for the start on the morrow.
I scarce thought I should sleep, for I had an un-
easy fear that Mrs. Brisket would gladly see me
too late to go (in which suspicion I did her an in-
justice, for she it was who wakened me betimes),
yet my head was scarce on the pillow ere my eyes
were shut and I cannot lay claim to so much as a
dream to warn me of all that was to befall me ere
I rested in that bed again.
When morning dawned, ’t was Mrs. Brisket
and not Sarah who came to my side, capped and
shawled for the journey.
“But where is Sarah?” I asked, staring at her
in surprise.
“Sarah is in the kitchen,” Sarah’s mother re-
plied. “I take the road with you, miss. Your
uncle must get on as best he can till we come home
again. I know, without his telling me, that he
would never trust you with the likes of Sarah.
Married she may be, but giddy she is, and no more
than a child herself to his mind.”
Which was scarce a fair summing up of
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Sarah’s qualiﬁcations, who was verging on thirty
and a very settled, staid woman. But, an her
mother was willing to go with me, there was no
doubt which of the two was my choice, and I said
so without hesitation.
Her face a mask, Mrs. Brisket met me eye for
eye.
“Aye, Miss Rosalie,” she said, purposely giving
me my cousin’s name to show she knew her part,
“I ’m thinking an old head may prove of use to
you ere we are home again.”
99


CHAPTER VIII
ROSALIE, thou art a good child to reach here
so betimes. Dost think the weather will be
fair? Wilt have a cup of chocolate ere we start?
Is the dust deep on the city road? Take off that
smothery mask while you may. Think you I too
should don one for the journey?”
“Stay, stay, Peggy !” I laughed. “One ques-
tion at a time. Thank you, I will have a cup of
chocolate. The dust is not bad, and, if you would
reach the general your sweet self, not reddened
like a farmer’s wench or a painted Indian, you
will most assuredly wear at least a heavy veil.”
I fear my ﬁngers trembled as I removed my
mask in the breakfast-room at Mount Pleasant.
Here was the test of whether or not the likeness
we thought so strong, between my cousin and me,
would serve to deceive this intimate; and while I
had hoped to delay this moment I dared not now
draw down suspicion by showing any hesitancy.
However, Mrs. Arnold, vastly excited by the
1OO


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
prospect of the journey and her approaching
reunion with her husband, was not observing
me.
“Pour for yourself. The servants will bring
you hot chocolate if that is chilled. An I ’m to
wear a mask, I must show myself in it to my son.
I would not have the boy frightened by the
strangeness of it.” So saying, she ran off, leav-
ing me to the enjoyment of the good chocolate
with whipped cream a-plenty piled on a-top, which
I was child enough to relish hugely, having been
too afraid some chance would prevent my going,
to do justice to the breakfast set before me at
home.
As I ﬁnished Peggy was back, elated.
“I made a play of it,” she cried, in triumph.
“I put the mask on and cried ‘Cuckoo’ at him;
and, as I took it off and peeped from behind it,
he smiled at me and then laughed aloud. His
father will be proud that he is so forward, and he
not yet six months old.”
As she prattled on, I felt reassured. My secret
was safe from her. My words to Rosalie were
truer than I had known. Mrs. Arnold was too
full of her own affairs to give more than the most
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
casual attention to aught that did not immediately
concern her.
Through no fault of mine, we were late in start-
ing, the horses standing at the door ﬁdgeting at
their bits for full half an hour. Peggy, who was
ever heedless, had left this and that till the last
minutes, and even once we were olf, sent a man
back a quarter of a mile to fetch a big turkey-
feather fan for each of us, which of a sudden,
she conceived we might need.
However, at length we were on the road, and
behind my mask I felt secure, settling myself in
my corner prepared to enjoy to the full the change
the journey afforded. Every little bridge we
rattled over, every fertile ﬁeld we passed, served
in my mind to mark a step upon the way planned
out for me; and as the hours slipped by, my task
of imitating Rosalie seemed to set more naturally
upon my shoulders.
We took our noon meal at our ease in the shade
of a great walnut tree. We had brought provi-
sion for both man and beast, from Mount Pleas-
ant, and thought it wiser on the babe’s account to
lay up through the midday heat. During this
rest I noted Peggy looking at me ﬁxedly, and my
102


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I
heart seemed to skip a beat, for I feared my secret
was out; but I bethought me of a certain way
Rosalie had of holding‘ her knife and, on my mim-
icking it, Peggy laughed outright.
“Dost remember, Rose,” she said, “when Fair-
brook, watching you, declared he was sure you
were as dangerous with weapons as without them?
I vow I would need but to see your hands to know
you among a thousand.”
“Lord Fairbrook is ever pleased to appear sil-
lier than he really is,” I declared pettishly.
“Cure him of it, then.” Peggy’s tone was mis-
chievous. “I ’m right sure he would gladly ac-
cept your tutoring and would change aught that
displeased you.”
“Aught save his coat,” I replied, and thought
my answer clever, for it almost silenced her.
“You are a real patriot, are n’t you, Rosalie ?”
Peggy sighed wistfully, then .busied herself with
her baby, while I returned, with the tenderness
this little lady aroused in all who knew her:
“And you are a real mother, Peggy dear,”
which I now see was a truer characterization than
I then realized.
We dozed through the heat, but it was not op-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY:
pressive, and we set out ere long for Bristol, which
marked the ﬁrst stage of our journey. Here we
stopped at Mr. Coxe’s, where we were glad of
General Arnold’s advice to carry our own sheets,
for those offered us were coarse and stained, if
not actually soiled.
Our next day’s stage to Trenton was so short
that there was no need to be early upon our way.
Peggy and I rode in the light wagon, having found
it preferable to the closed carriage where the high-
way was as passable as this one.
It was scarce more than ten miles to Trenton,
and the only event which marked the journey
thither was that, following her husband’s com-
mands, Mrs. Arnold made us all descend from
our equipages while crossing the ferry. Large
bridges, too, he had warned her were dangerous,
and Peggy and I had many discussions as to the
size of bridge it was advisable to attack on foot.
I, being lazy about walking and misliking the sand
of the jerseys, scarce ever acknowledged a bridge
to be of a bigness demanding such precautions;
while Peggy, docile and sure of her husband’s
superior wisdom, would have had us out at every
little runlet that had a plank or two laid across it.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
In truth, as I look back upon this journey, when
we stopped in turn at Brunswick, Newark, Para-
mus, and judge Coe’s, it seems there is little to
relate. . . . The baby soon became a seasoned
traveler, we were spared any great heat that
might have tired us all, and the weather was ﬁne.
At Paramus we were received by a Mrs. Pro-
vost, who was a friend of that strange man Col-
onel Aaron Burr. He had every reason to be
grateful to the Shippen family, for as a child he
had lived and been cared for at Dr. William Ship-
pen’s, yet later he spread a story abroad that was
small proof of gratitude or even human feeling.
, On the seventh day we arrived at King’s Ferry,
where General Arnold awaited us, and Peggy was
vastly triumphant at having successfully con-
ducted her party to the meeting-place, pluming
herself openly upon her leadership.
It was here that I saw her husband in his pleas-
antest light. He was so proud of his son and his
wife, so indulgent of the latter’s childish pleasure,
and so happy to have her with him that there
seemed no cloud in his sky. Yet that he was not
quite content, I was soon to discover.
We were conducted to his barge in state, but as
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
it left the shore I was conscious of a shock.
There in the stream, in plain view, a war-vessel
rode at anchor, and the ﬂag it ﬂew was not our
ﬂag but England’s.
General Arnold had included me in his pleasant
greetings, vowing that Mistress Roberts grew
younger and lovelier each time they met, which
remark served to set me on my guard who in the
last few days had almost forgot I had a part to
play.
As our boat began to make headway up-stream,
he leaned toward me.
“ ’T is some time since you saw that ﬂag, Mis-
tress Rosalie,” he said coolly, pointing at it but
looking at me keenly the while.
“I thought we had the British bottled up in New
York city,” I confessed.
“That ’s none so easy where they have com-
mand of the sea.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“But who knows? Had I been given charge of
the navy, as I requested, I had plans that might
have ended this war.” He sat, forgetful of my
presence, frowning down river at the British sloop
of war; and discontent graved deep lines in his
face that any might read. Yet here he had been
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
accorded exactly the command he had begged for,
one of great honor and responsibility, for it was
at West Point that the supplies of ammunition
bought with the French loan were safeguarded.
Would naught satisfy this man’s ambitions?
Something within me answered, “No.” Were he
commander-in-chief, he would wish himself king.
As king he would plot to be emperor; my mind
centered on the word “plot.” VVhy was it that
I thought of plots in connection with Arnold?
Had Rosalie’s suspicions infected me? I deter-
mined that I would not foster in my mind any
criticism of Peggy’s husband, and changed the
subject almost feverishly.
“Are not Peggy and the babe wonderful ?” I
said. “The roads were but tolerable, yet they are
both as fresh as when we started.”
This should have served to set him off on the
subject of his family, but he passed it by.
“The Vulture, there, hath its claws in our ﬂesh.”
He nodded down-stream toward the war-ship.
“When our commander-in-chief is ready, he ’ll
make it loose its grip,” I rejoined cheerily.
“Meanwhile we suffer the humiliation of seeing
its ﬂag!” Arnold spoke bitterly.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“ ’T is no humiliation,” I replied boldly. “Not
so long ago it ﬂoated over our whole land. Now
we are astonished when it meets our eyes.”
The general turned on me as if to refute my de-
duction; then he shrugged his shoulders and
glanced away again.
“You are a patriot,” he remarked. “Do not
let patriotism blind you to the signs of the
times—”
What further he might have said, I know not,
for Peggy, having settled the baby for a nap,
slipped a hand within his arm.
“Wouldst rather talk of politics with Rosalie
than of—other things with me ?” she asked in
pretended annoyance. “You patriots are all alike.
You care for naught but the cause.”
“And you for naught but your babe and your
husband.” I smiled at her. “Scold her for a
little traitor, General, while I watch this mar-
velous river. Our Delaware cannot match it.”
“Nay, I ’m no traitor, Rose,” Peggy cried as I
turned away, “but, for the very life of me, I can’t
see that it matters who ruleth us. We did very
well under the king and, were there no war, doubt-
less should be equally happy under a Congress.'
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
In sooth, all I ask of either are my husband and
my babe, at peace in our own dear home.”
The general and his lady now dropped into in-
timate converse, while I almost forgot them in the
noble prospect unrolled before me as we pro-
gressed up the river.
The ﬂag I had seen ﬂying above the Vulture
was less easy to forget. It and the vessel it
ﬂoated over were reminders of the power that
would rule us by might, not right. This country
was our own, won from the wilderness by our
forebears who had ﬂed to it, sacriﬁcing much that
they might be freed from oppression, and I,
though but a girl, exalted by the grandeur of the
land which was ours, felt that our blood was well
spent if it preserved our heritage.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“I deny nothing. I refuse to commit myself,”
I replied lightly.
“Yet surely you thought Tarlton handsome—
and Major André! Was there ever a merrier
smile? And Fairbrook—I ne’er saw a coat set
as does Fairbrook’s.”
“I thought we ’d come to Fairbrook’s coat if we
waited long enough,” I returned teasingly. “Why
name it, when I ’ve told you repeatedly that red
hath the same effect on me that it hath upon a
bull!”
“An that ’s the case,” Peggy countered swiftly,
“stay on with me. I ’ll miss you sorely. The
general hath so much business on hand, I needs
must remind him, ever and anon, that he also
hath a wife.”
“I ’m in no haste to quit you,” I replied; “but
even so warm a welcome may be worn out.”
“Not yours, .Rose,” Peggy answered; “yet I
must confess that I am a partizan of Fairbrook’s.
,Though you tell me naught, I ’ve heard through
others that he is a faithful lover. Stay with me
as long as you can, but do not disappoint him of
this visit.”
I laughed to myself at this, knowing that it was
1 1 1 .-


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
my cousin, not me, that F airbroook longed to see,
and answered:
“My going to New York would be the sorest
disappointment, I fear.”
Peggy threw down the goldenrod and colored
leaves she was fashioning into bouquets for the
vases, and stamped her foot at me in a small rage.
“Rosalie !” she exclaimed, “an you let politics
interfere in a love affair—”
“Yet you married a patriot,” I reminded her.
“That had naught to do with it,” she returned
with promptness. “I married the man. It would
have mattered not to me what uniform he wore.
In truth,” she went on, with a giggle, “I dare say
I should have married him had he worn paint and
a blanket like an Indian brave. Yet, an you
argue it all out, our cases are much the same; for
if I had a leaning, it surely was to the king’s
side.”
“Your politics shall not be held against you,” I
laughed.
“Indeed no,” Peggy replied in all seriousness,
“for I see now that I must have been quite wrong,
since General Arnold is so true a patriot.”
But was he so true a patriot? The longer I
1 I 2


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
stayed in his house, the more uneasy I grew on
this point.
His chosen intimate was one joshua Hett
Smith, who was of a most doubtful loyalty. This
man joined us at dinner now and then, and on the
ﬁrst occasion his remarks were so offensive that
the ofﬁcers at the table could scarce restrain them-
selves; that is, with the exception of Arnold, who
smiled blandly on his guest and seemed not to
feel the insult of his disloyalties.
At our next meal together the ofﬁcers took oc-
casion to comment pointedly on Smith and his un-
savory reputation. If this was intended to serve
as a warning to their general, it failed of its effect,
his choler rising until I thought the great veins on
his forehead would surely burst. An explosion
of anger was averted only by Peggy’s managing
in some way to change the subject—how, I could
scarce say.
Nor was that the last of the matter. Mr.
Smith, whose welcome, save from General Arnold,
could not have been called warm, came again to
the house at the dinner-hour. Colonel Lamb also
was a guest; and with so many extra the butter
gave out. Upon Peggy’s ordering the servants
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
to fetch more, she was told the last was eaten‘
whereupon the general was reminded of some
olive-oil he had on hand, and suggested that we
try that with our ﬁsh, saying:
“It should be of the best. I paid eighty dollars
for it.”
“You mean eighty pence,” Smith declared. “A
dollar is worth no more than one good British
penny.”
In an instant there was an uproar, as this was
more than a Continental ofﬁcer could or should
endure; and Colonel Varick, striking the table
with his clenched hand, said:
“That is not true, Mr. Smith, and you know it
is not !”
A turmoil now began in which Arnold took a
doubtful part, considering his position, although
I made some excuse for him in my mind, in that
this man Smith was his guest; but all the other
ofﬁcers present were against him, and where the
matter would have ended without Peggy, I know
not.
“Gentlemen! gentlemen, I beg of you !” she said.
“This dispute gives me much pain. For my sake
114


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
"I ask that you desist, nor bring this matter up
again.”
And for her sake silence fell upon the table.
Shortly thereafter Smith left, vowing business
called him away, and the general escorted him to
the door with signal honor. His guest gone, he
returned to the dining-room, to stand in his place,
looking darkly at his ofﬁcers. When he spoke, it
was to Major Franks, although Colonel Varick
had been the prime offender.
“I ’ve this to say, and it had better be said
now.” As he talked, his big jaws worked
strangely, and his wife, as if frightened, rose
from her chair, to drop back into it when the gen-
eral made a gesture of ‘command toward her.
“I ’m the head of this house, and also your com-
manding ofﬁcer, and I ’ll have you know that if I
ask the devil to dine with me, the gentlemen of my
family shall be civil to him.” He lowered his
head and looked around threateningly from under
beetling brows, daring any to dispute him.
Major Franks rose from his seat and made very
grand bows to Mrs. Arnold and to me.
“With apologies to the ladies, I will tell you,
1 1 5


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
General Arnold, that had Smith not been at your
table, he would long ere this have had the bottle
at his head and thereafter been treated as the ras-
cal he is. Such being my opinion, I now ask my
discharge from service as your aide.”
Arnold nodded stifﬂy, and Franks, with another
bow to his hostess, walked out of the room.
. Colonel Varick now took the matter in hand.
. “The man Smith insulted Mrs. Arnold by mak-
ing his remarks in her presence,” he said, and
then, as if moved thereto by his sense of duty, he
went on: “Moreover, sir, I must urge it upon
your consideration that association with a man
who is a trimmer, if not a Tory, cannot fail to
injure your standing in this State. When we
came here as members of your family, it was with
the understanding that our every effort was to be
exerted to extend our inﬂuence and increase our
prestige—”
“Enough!” Arnold shouted at the top of his
voice. “I am ever willing to be advised by the
gentlemen of my family; but, by Heavens, I will
not be dictated to by them—”
What further he might have said was inter-
rupted by the entrance of an orderly with let-
116


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ters of moment, demanding Varick’s immediate
attention.
I don’t know how Peggy felt to see him depart
hastily about this business, leaving Arnold in
possession of the ﬁeld; for my part I was glad to
have the encounter over. It was painful in every
way, and when the general wheeled and left the
room without a word further to any one, I
breathed deeply as if relieved of a heavy op-
pression.
And yet I was really relieved of naught. I do
not know what Rosalie might have accomplished,
had she been there in my stead, but I had been un-
able to discover aught of the matter she was most
concerned with. There was a constant coming
and going of couriers bearing despatches in every
direction, any one of which might have been of
interest—or might not. How was I to set about
inspecting even one such message? It was evi-
dent to me that my wits were unequal to the task
imposed upon them.
However, Rosalie would be interested in the.
late fracas; but dared I write of it? What surety
had I that letters sent back from here would not
pass through the general’s hands before leaving?
117


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Nay, rather, remembering the affair of André’s
letter, could I not be sure they would do so? Fi-
nally I determined to write, and, if the chance
came to send the letter by some safe hand, I should
be ready to seize upon it. It should not go out in
the general’s letter-pouch. On that I was deter-
mined.
The meal over, Peggy had gone to take the boy
while her woman hurried below-stairs for her
food. Thus I now had the opportunity to write,
and I seated myself at the secretary in the parlor
and dashed off page after page. It was not a
letter that would have won me commendation
from my governess, for there was more than one
blot from a quill that was badly cut and splutter-
ing, and I was pondering over the spelling of a
word when I heard some one behind me. Sup-
posing it to be Peggy, I asked:
“How do you spell ‘traitorous,’ Peg? Is it ‘er’
or ‘or’ ?”
There was a silence in which I blamed myself
for a tactless miss, to have reminded Peggy of
the late discussion; but no answer coming, I
turned to see the reason for it.
General Arnold stood in the doorway, his very
1 18


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“How do you spell ‘traitorous,’ Peg?"


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
eyes seeming suffused with red. Why I had not
heard his harness rattle, I cannot say. Indeed,
the slight limp which still showed in his gait was
usually enough to apprise any of the household
of his advent. However, this time he had come
upon me silently, and I could scarce have hit upon
a more unfortunate remark with which to wel-
come him; but there was naught for it save to
brazen it out.
“Oh, please, General Arnold,” I said, “I ’m
writing to my little cousin in Philadelphia, and
I’ll ne’er hear the end of it an there ’s aught
misspelt. How is ‘traitorous’ spelt?”
“ ’T ’is a word I have not in my vocabulary,” he
answered me, each syllable coming out slowly and
as if it was only with an effort he forced his
tongue to shape it.
“Oh, dear!” I sighed. “Oh, dear! Then I
shall not dare to use it—although ‘faithless
hearts’ is not the same at all.” I pouted and
looked at my letter. “I think I shall write ‘trai-
torous hearts’ and put a little blot after the second
‘t’ to conceal the letter that follows.” I suited the
action to the word, then looked at the result with
my head on one side.
119


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
The sentence I had been writing began on an-
other sheet with the words ‘the general’s record
in Philadelphia was not’ and was to have gone on,
‘so happy that we can still traitorous suspicions.’
Instead, the sheet I now held read ‘so happy that
we can still traitorous hearts, Patty dear.’ This
sounded like conﬁdences in love difﬁculties, and I
jumped up with it and showed it to the general.
“Think you this will pass muster?” I asked.
“For, while it saves my own pride, I cannot tell
my cousin that one of our greatest generals was
as unlettered as I.”
A compliment to his soldierly qualities always
carried weight with Arnold, and with some light-
ening of his grim displeasure he read what I
placed before his eyes.
“I will be sending off some despatches in about
an hour,” he said, “an it is ready in time, your
letter can go with them.”
I thanked him politely as he turned away, and
at ﬁrst was minded to send naught by his courier;
then it occurred to me that his suspicions, al-
ready roused, must be lulled, and I wrote a long
farrago of nonsense about an imaginary love-
120


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
affair to include the sentence he had read, wafered
it, and had it in readiness.
As I stood in the hall with this in my hand,
Major Franks passed down the stair and stopped
to bid me good-by.
“Have you a letter there that I can set on its
way ?” he asked politely. “I am for Newburg.”
This was a man I knew I could trust.
“Not—not this one,” I told him in a whisper.
“I have here a letter I would give much to be sure
would remain untampered with; but you are go-
ing in the wrong direction.”
“None the less, I can despatch your letter for
you,” the major declared, and then he added sig-
niﬁcantly, “I promise you no eye here shall rest
upon it.”
In a moment I had whipped it out of my pocket
and he had whipped it inside his tunic, an ex-
change which was effected none too soon, as Gen-
eral Arnold appeared from his ofﬁce in haste.
He paid no more heed to Franks than if he were
a statue, and that ofﬁcer, saluting punctiliously,
went on his way; whereupon the general ad-
dressed me:
I21


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Your letter—is it ready?”
I handed the sham epistle to him with a murmur
of thanks, and he limped off with it, but not before
'Major Franks from the end of the hall had sent
me something strangely resembling a wink, ere
he passed from the house.
I stood transﬁxed in the doorway, pondering
on many things. On the obvious fact that Gen-
eral Arnold was fast losing the respect of his
ofﬁcers; on what Rosalie would think when she
got the silly letter now in his hands; '( which need
not have worried me at all, for it never reached
her) ; on Peggy’s future, which to my eyes looked
very precarious; on what hold joshua Smith had
on the commander of West Point that he allowed
him at his table. My thoughts buzzed in my head
and ﬂew hither and yon like bees in a hive, so that
once again I was surprised by some one coming
upon me at unawares.
It was Peggy, the unfortunate scene at the
dinner-table quite forgotten.
“Oh, Rose!” she cried excitedly, her eyes spar-
kling and her lovely color coming and going,“I ’ve
such news! Never will you believe how we are
to be honored. In sooth, I care not for gaiety
122


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
for myself, who am an old married woman, but
for your sake I am delighted that we are to have-
visitors.”
“Who is coming?” I asked. “Have we cap--
tured Fairbrook and André and DeLancy and all.
the eligible swains in New York?”
“Nay, nay!” she replied laughingly. “I did‘.
not mean to raise such high expectations-
There ’s no such good luck happened us poor
females. ’T is only that his Excellency, General
Washington, with Mr. Hamilton and the Marquis,
de Lafayette purpose favoring us with a visit.”
But this was news enough for Patty Abbott,
masquerading as Rosalie. General Washington
had been a guest at my father’s house, and the
Marquis de Lafayette I had met in Philadelphia.
What were they like to think of my new name?
Could I manage to tell them all and persuade.
them not to betray my secret?
123


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“How do they ﬁnd it there? Were they
warmly received, and was their loyalty re-
warded ?”
“I ’ve not been told so,” I replied. “They com-
plain that they are valued not for their sacriﬁces
but for the show they are able to make.”
“ ’T is the same all the world over !” Arnold ex-
claimed bitterly. “The length of a man’s purse is
the measure of his merits. No one should permit
himself to forget that.”
I had ready arguments a-plenty to disprove‘
this, for many of our most esteemed patriots were
not men of property; but I forced myself for once
to hold my tongue, and Arnold did not pursue the
subject further but, of a sudden, asked me about
.Val.
“Your cousin is a very promising young ofﬁ-
cer,” he said.
Now, Val is my only brother, and my pride in
him almost made me drop my disguise.
“Val is not—” I began, onthe road to saying,
“Val is not my cousin, he is my brother,” and
caught myself just in time.
“ ‘Val is not,’ what ?” Arnold took me up
quickly.
125


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
u ' ' ' 1:
Not very communicative about himself, I
amended hastily. “We hear little from him of
his career as an ofﬁcer.”
“You know he is very energetic in the organiza-
tion of our Secret Service?” Arnold ﬂashed a
keen glance at me from the corners of his eyes.
“Oh, yes,” I told him with assumed indifference.
“He is such a boy! He likes the sport of it.”
“I wonder—” and it seemed to me the general
spoke with badly suppressed eagerness, “if you
chance to know the names of any of his trusted
agents in New York. The information we get
from there is very sure; yet there are one or two
points I am anxious to have cleared up that are
never touched upon. An—an I could have the
names of such worthy men I might secure the
news I need much more quickly.”
So this was what he wanted from me! It was
all I could do to hide my recoil from him. He
had taken my letter in good faith, and, judging me
to' be as simple as it seemed, he thought to obtain
from me names that if he wanted them for a legit-
imate purpose he could assuredly secure from the
proper authorities. Try as I might to trust
126


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
(4 $7 ' ll 7 h‘
Aye, I said, ﬁrmly, I m sorry for 1m.
Sorrier for his family and his friends who must
suffer in his downfall.”
“How know you the man hath a family? In-
deed, how know you it is a man at all? Meseems
I have heard tales of female spies.” His voice
rang harshly, and again his head was lowered
and he looked at me from beneath his brows like
an angry bull.
“I know naught,” I answered with a shrug,
“but, man or woman, there are few so lonely that
they fall alone. And if a family is involved, ’t is
the members of it will pay the most enduring pen-
alty, for the ﬁnger of shame will be pointed at
them wherever they go.”
I had ended, but ere the echo of my voice was
stilled Arnold had whirled on his heel and left me.
This was on Saturday, and Sunday passed with
naught out of the ordinary to mark it. It was on
Monday that the honor of a visit from his Ex-
cellency General Washington was expected, and
Peggy and I were both in a ﬂutter over it, for
different reasons.
I had determined to do all in my power to make
myself appear older and, with the years that had
128


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
passed since we had met, it was possible that my
identity would never be questioned. So I bade
Mrs. Brisket give my hair an extra dusting of
powder after she had pomatumed it to subdue the
curls and dressed it'high. Thus it was a very
stately lady who went to join Peggy and go to
breakfast with her.
At sight of me Mrs. Arnold held up her hands.
“You look as if you were ready for a ball,” she
cried.
“This is but chintz,” I said, lifting my gown
between thumb and ﬁnger.
“But your hair, my dear—you have made very
free with the powder.”
“Is it too much ?” I asked. “I argued that for
our commander-in-chief and titled guest we could
scarce be too ﬁne.”
“There ’s something in that,” Mrs. Arnold
agreed. “Think you you could whiten me a triﬂe
more, an I lean well forward ?”
“Aye, surely,” I replied; “but throw a towel
around your shoulders in case I spill a grain or
two.”
A moment later Peggy looked at her reﬂection
in the mirror, well pleased.
129


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
His rising was the signal for the breaking up
of the party. Mrs. Arnold followed her husband
from the room, which occasioned me no surprise,
as it was her habit to take charge of her baby
while the servants ate. The officers accompanied
me to the parlor, and we were in merry converse
again when I thought I heard Peggy scream.
Excusing myself hastily, I ran to the hall in time
to see General Arnold come down the stairs as
rapidly as his halting gait permitted.
‘“Is aught wrong with Peggy?” I called in
some anxiety, and he turned his face to me and
said:
“Nay, she ’s with the boy.” Then he went out
at the front door where I noted a strange ofﬁcer
standing.
With a word to him, the general took his horse
and, passing through the gate, left the road and
plunged madly down the hillside.
I, too, ran to the door, where, spellbound, I
watched him, expecting each moment that the
animal would fall and carry him to destruction.
He reached the river-bank in safety, and a few
moments later I saw his barge put out from shore.
Why I did not then go back to our guests, I know
1 32


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
not; but still I stood in the doorway, watching,
until the boat turned and, instead of crossing the
river as it must have done to reach West Point,
went down-stream as fast as the men at the oars
could drive it.
It was then I went back into the house, to meet
Colonel Varick descending the stairs.
“Do you know why General Arnold has gone
down-stream ?” I asked, breathlessly.
“General Washington is on his way here,” he
replied with seeming irrelevance. “His servant
has come, announcing his immediate arrival, and
I notiﬁed General Arnold of it some moments
since.” .
“None the less he has gone,” I told him, then
with one accord we turned to the strange officer
at the door.
This was a Captain Hogland of the militia, but
he would or could tell us little. A man had been
taken, one john Anderson by name, whose papers
seemed out of order, but who had been allowed
by Colonel jameson to write to General Arnold.
He scarce thought that had aught to do with the
errand which had set the general olf in such haste.
Mindful of the hospitality of the house, I sug-
133


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
gested that Colonel Varick tell the servants to see
to Captain Hogland’s breakfast while I went to
advise.Mrs. Arnold his Excellency was near. If
her husband was not there to receive him, it was
doubly important that she should be; and, on the
colonel’s agreeing with this, I mounted the stair.
Silence met me at the door of the nursery. I
looked in, to ﬁnd the baby in his cot but no sign
of his mother. He wrinkled his face at sight of
me as if not sure whether to laugh or cry. Sud-
denly alarmed for Peggy, I waited not to pet the
child but ran to her room and knocked on the
door.
Again there was no answer.
“It is as silent as the dead,” I muttered, to
shudder the next moment at the ill-omened words.
134


CHAPTER XI
IN that instant when I stood without the door
of Margaret Arnold’s chamber, something
warned me that I was face to face with a great
disaster. I did not knock again. I was sure it
would be useless. Instead I turned the knob and
walked boldly in.
I know not why, but I had expected to ﬁnd the
room in the wildest disarray. Instead all was
neat and orderly and, at ﬁrst glance, empty.
Where, then, was Peggy? I took another step
inside the door and looked about me in bewilder-
ment, to catch a better sight of what I had taken
to be a dressing-wrapper, thrown across the bed
at its foot. A second glance revealed the pat-
tern of Peggy’s gown and I ran to her, calling her
by name.
She lay there, her face buried in the coverlet,
and of a sudden I knew that General Arnold had
lied to me. I had heard Peggy scream.
I tried to turn her over, but it was too much for
135


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
my unaided strength, especially as her teeth were
set in the bedclothes as if to still her lamentation.
Therefore I abandoned my efforts and rushing to
the bell-pull, I jerked it so forcibly that it tore
away in my hands.
A woman came in answer to my summons and
I sent her in haste for Dr. Eustis, Mrs. Brisket,
and some one to mind the baby, who by this time
was bawling lustily, being unused to neglect.
Ere Mrs. Brisket came, I had found a bottle
of toilet-water and had sprinkled this on Peggy’s
head, chaﬁng her hands and murmuring tender
words to her deaf ears.
With the arrival of the doctor and the women
she was taken out of my charge, her servant as-
suring me that she had seen Mrs. Arnold faint
more than once before, and knew right well what
to do for her.
Mrs. Brisket looked grave, and I could see that
she was too experienced to count this an ordinary
faint; but when I asked if I could be spared for
a moment, as there were guests below stairs and
General Washington was momentarily expected,
she nodded me to go:
“ ’T is as well there should not be too many
1 36


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
here when Mistress Arnold comes to,” she said,
promising to call me if I could be of use, where-
upon I ran downstairs in search of Colonel Var-
ick, and as he was not to be found I hastened back
to our guests, who must have been wondering at
their strange desertion.
A few words telling of Mrs. Arnold’s seizure
set that matter right ; and then, somehow, the time
dragged by, till Colonel Varick entered in haste
to say that Dr. Eustis begged I would go again
to Mrs. Arnold.
“His aides assure me that General Arnold can-
not be summoned back,” the good doctor told me,
with averted eyes. “In truth, Miss Roberts, I
fear for Mrs. Arnold’s reason, if not her life, in
his continued absence.” '
Indeed, she was recovered from her swoon but
quite distraught, asserting wildly that there was
a plot against her son and that she was friendless
and alone in the world.
I vowed that I was her friend, to be met with
a blank stare and the words: “You are not Rosa-
lie, and no friend of mine!” So that for a mo-
ment I thought that she had found me out, which
was not the case, for she next declared that her
137


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
own woman was a stranger to her and would let
no one save Mrs. Brisket touch the babe. In-
deed, she went from bad to worse, running to the
stair-head en déshabillé until we had to summon
more help to restrain her.
Thus it was that I was detained, and missed
General Washington’s arrival. He, on hearing
that the mistress of the house had suffered a seiz-
ure, decided to go on at once to West Point, os-
tensibly to inspect that fort which was our Gib-
raltar, the most important point in our whole sys-
tem of defense; but really to relieve the house-
hold of any embarrassment his presence might
occasion in a domestic crisis. Moreover, Gen-
eral Arnold had said that he was called to the post,
and naturally the commander expected to ﬁnd him
there.
Scarce had his Excellency been set across the
river, however, when another messenger from
Colonel Iameson arrived. This man had been
sent to intercept General Washington on his way
from Hartford, and he carried the papers taken
from “john Anderson’s” stockings, as well as the
astounding news that the prisoner now confessed
1 38


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Washington would ride to the rescue in person
were West Point threatened?
Unable to do aught to ease poor Peggy’s mind,
and fearful lest I was neglecting the duties that
had devolved upon me as hostess, I had slipped
downstairs in time to see Colonel Hamilton rip
open this packet and run through the papers it
contained. Ordinarily a mild-mannered, gentle-
spoken young man whose blue eyes looked as soft
as a girl’s, he turned to Colonel Varick, with
something menacing in his manner, his hand go-
ing to his sword.
“You will accompany me to West Point, sir, at
once,” he rapped out. No request was this, but
a command, and for a moment I thought Colonel
Varick would resent it; but his anxiety was too
great to balk at triﬂes.
“You are our guest, Colonel Hamilton,” he said.
“You have but to request, and I am at your dis-
posal; but, as one loyal ofﬁcer to another, I pray
you tell me what has gone amiss.”
“Have you no suspicions?” Hamilton’s voice
was still stern.
“Suspicions! Aye, plenty of them,” said Var-
ick, frankly. “For days we ’ve lived in a fog of
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
suspicions, and now that poor creature upstairs
has told me her husband does not love her and
has left her forever. . . . But can a man move
against his superior oﬂicer upon naught more than
suspicion ?” '
“No,” Hamilton agreed. “No! But we waste
time here. These should be on their way to his
Excellency. The villain who wrote them should
not be at large for one moment longer than can be
helped, and there will be measures to be taken.”
The men turned to fetch their hats, and their
eyes lit upon me.
“You ’ll not catch him,” I said, “and for
Peggy’s sake I ’m glad.”
“Why?” Hamilton asked, and Varick struck
one hand into the other.
“Mistress Roberts is right !” he exclaimed.
“The general went south, not west. He will be
with friends long before we can come up with
him.”
“We ’ll have a try at it at least, by water and
by land,” Hamilton said grimly, but he had not
explained the case to Varick and I remained in
ignorance of the extent of Arnold’s. baseness till
that evening, by which time General Washington
141 .


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
had ridden over the whole circuit of the works,
detecting and correcting all the artfully contrived
arrangements which were to make certain the
downfall of the fortress, and had sent for such
reinforcements as insured its safety against any
attack the British were capable of launching.
Dr. Eustis had remained in close attendance on
Peggy, and at ﬁrst had had high hopes from a
soothing draft he had administered; but just be-
fore the return of the distinguished guests she
seemed to make a determined effort to ﬁght off
the sleepiness it had induced.
“I know! I know !” she sobbed. “He is gone,
gone forever, and if I sleep my babe will be gone
too !” Again she fell into a frenzy, and Dr. Eu-
stis had to call for help to hold her lest she do her-
self a mischief; but when this was past she did in
truth sleep for a little while.
It was during this interval of quiet that I went
to the parlors once more, my sense of duty strong
upon me, to see how it fared with our guests.
The days were shortening and candles had been
lit for some time when I opened the door and
went in.
The two men whom I dreaded to see were there
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
When she wakens, I must go back to her. Mean-
while I come to ask if there is aught I can do for
your comfort.”
“Thank you, all our needs are attended to,” his
Excellency replied gravely. “I pray you have
no anxiety for us. You are burdened heavily al-
ready in caring for Mistress Arnold, and we are
old campaigners, well ﬁtted to look after our own
wants, which are quite simple.”
This should have been my dismissal, but still
I hesitated, and, courteously, General Washington
set a chair for me.
“You must be tired,” he said, just as my father
might have said it, and suddenly I knew that I was
tired almost to the point of faintness, and I slipped
into the chair with gratitude.
“You have not eaten. I can see, so.” General
Lafayette’s young voice broke in, and mechani-
cally I spoke to him in French; for when we had
met before his English had been very limited.
“That is true. I have not eaten since break-
fast.”
At the sound of my French I saw the marquis
start, but if he had recognized me he said nothing.
Slipping from the room, he returned in a few
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
moments with some bread and meat and a glass of
milk.
“Eat, then,” he said. “Soon will you feel your-
self again.”
“And while you eat,—” it was’General Wash-
ington who spoke,—“I have a message to give you
for Mrs. Arnold. “Tell her that though my duty
requires that no means should be neglected to ar-
rest General Arnold, I have great pleasure in ac-
quainting her that he is safe on board a British
vessel.”
At this news I sprang to my feet to run with it
to Peggy, then, remembering that she slept, I sank
back into my chair again and continued my im-
promptu meal.
“Your Excellency,” I began, having eaten all I
could, while the two gentlemen talked to each
other to relieve me of the necessity of conversing
with them, “don’t you remember me ?”
“To be sure I do,” was the prompt reply.
“But you don’t at all,” I wailed despairingly.
You think I am my cousin, who is a very clever
girl. I ’m only Patty Abbott, and if I had n’t
been so stupid, perchance this trouble need never
have come about.” Then in a jumble of words
lI
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
that it took two very wise men to make sense out
of, I explained the whole situation—Rosalie’s far-
sighted suspicions, and how I had tried to take
her place and had failed.
For the double part I had played, I expected I
don’t know what of reproof and scorn. Instead,
the commander-in-chief put out his hand and
placed it over mine.
“I think your brave cousin will say you have
carried her name well,” he said. “I ’m glad
Arnold had some one to point out where his base-
ness led.”
“For Arnold I don’t care that!” Lafayette
snapped his ﬁngers. “He tried to get from me,
too, the names of my agents in New York, doubt-
less to send them to their deaths. And from you,
man général, he plotted for a white ﬂag to cover
this affair with André. But that most unhappy
of women, his wife, is fortunate to have so good
a friend as mademoiselle at hand. I know you
at once, even before I hear that so beautiful
French which you say.”
“Then you don’t think I ’m a traitor or any-
thing awful?” I faltered, on the verge of tears.
“God forbid, my child,” said Washington, sol-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
emnly. “Though we are told there are other
judases among us, we have no doubt of you.”
“But,” I stammered, “if there are other trai-
tors, you—you must ﬁnd them before they deal us
some treacherous blow.”
“That is easier said than done.” General
Washington sighed.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I declared, quite carried
out of my shyness by a scheme that .had popped
into my head, and not realizing that I was con-
tradicting the greatest man in the world. “I
know just how to do it. But please, sir, I hope
you won’t send Val; because the English are ac-
quaint with him, and so is General Arnold, and
he ’d never believe Val a traitor.”
“Who is this Val?” asked the marquis.
“My brother,” I told him. “Val Abbott, in our
Secret Service.”
“To be sure,” said Lafayette. “Of course I
should know.” Then he went to the door, looked
without and, shutting it again, stood with his hand
on the knob and his ear to the crack. “Now,
what is your plan?”
“Some one else must follow Arnold’s example
and desert to the British,” I suggested boldly.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
ll
Such a man could soon send us word of any
among us of doubtful loyalty.”
Beside the closed door the Marquis de La-
fayette, that ﬁne young Frenchman. executed a
little dance that ended in a pirouette.
“Your Excellency,” he cried, “in my next war
every ofﬁcer shall be marry and carry his wife
with him. Where would we be without women’s
wits?”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ﬁnd a suitable agent, a task he did not seem to
consider easy.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear !” I sighed. “I fear I am
a very cowardly patriot, that I cannot make up
my mind to ask you to let Val go.”
“You need not blame yourself for that,” Gen-
eral Washington told me. “In this crisis, none
of my gentlemen would be willing to give even the
appearance of disloyalty, nor could I ask them to
put such a strain upon their honor.”
“Then whom can you ask?” I inquired.
“There are ambitious and faithful men in the
ranks, who yet are not of our brotherhood of
ofﬁcers,” Washington returned. “Such an one
must be found.”
“Among the Virginians,” said Lafayette,
eagerly, “there are many such, who are doubly tied
to your Excellency—”
Steps in the hall notiﬁed us that some one was
coming, and Lafayette moved aside as Dr. Eustis
entered, accompanied by a young officer with a
letter for General Washington.
“Mrs. Arnold is awake, and seems more ra-
tional,” the doctor said gravely.
“I’ll run to her at once.” I rose to go upstairs.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“If she is capable of understanding you, Mis-
tress Roberts,” General Washington spoke and,
with a start, I noted that he gave me Rosalie’s
name, a signal that he thought it best I should con-
tinue to be called by it, “will you advise the poor
lady that I have here a letter from her husband,
written after he had reached the Vulture? It
protests her ignorance of his affairs, and asks that
she be allowed to join him in New York, unless
she prefers to take shelter with her own family
in Philadelphia. It is for her to choose. I will
make all necessary arrangements.”
Tears sprang to my eyes at such generosity.
Surely there were few men who in their own bitter
anxiety would have spared the time for tender
care of their enemy’s deserted family.
“I will tell her, sir, at once. It may be that it
will ease her mind.” Curtseying deeply, I left
the room.
I found Peggy in bed,"seeming quite herself
again, although very weak and exhausted.
“ ’T is a sad end to a gay party, Rose,” she said
gently. “You must wish you had never come
a-visiting.”
“Nay,—” I smoothed her covers,—“I ’m glad
1 5 1


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
you were not here alone. His Excellency is below
stairs,” I went on, thinking it might be balm to her
poor heart to know her husband had held her in
remembrance; and then I gave his messages,
which started her weeping, but so quietly that I
was much relieved.
“I should like to thank his Excellency,” she
sobbed. “I pray you ask him, as I am too ill to
wait upon him, if he will honor me.”
Mrs. Brisket, who was seated at her side with
the babe in her arms, shook her head vehemently
in the negative, and I said, hesitantly:
“Rest content till morning, Peg. You have had
a tiring day.”
That Mrs. Arnold was not so calm as she
seemed was immediately apparent, for she started
to jump from her bed.
“An you won’t bring him to me, I needs must
go to him,” she declared, with a force I should
have thought her incapable of, a moment earlier.
“I ’ll bring his Excellency,” I promised, and at
once ran down with her request.
General Washington was prompt to accede to
it; yet when he reached her room she had again
taken a turn for the worse, raving that she did not
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
know aught of him save that he had come
to murder her babe. Dr. Eustis was needed be-
fore we could calm her, and ﬁnally we all retired
to seek what slumber we might, the good doctor
on a pallet made up for him in the hall outside
his patient’s door.
The next day was less distressing. Mrs.
Arnold received both Alexander Hamilton and the
Marquis de Lafayette, who were moved almost
to tears by her plight; and a little later she notiﬁed
us of her determination to start back to Phila-
delphia on the following day.
I had no thought but to accompany her, when,
to my surprise, she called me to her side and
begged me not to give up my visit to New York.
“But, Peggy, I protested, “I cannot bear that
you should take that long journey alone.”
“I must get used to being alone,” she made an-
swer. “I have a life of loneliness before me,
most like.”
I knew not how to meet this. Mrs. Brisket it
was who struck the right note.
“Eh now, you ’re not alone,” she remarked
cheerily, dancing the baby till he chuckled.
“You ’ve got this ﬁne mannie, here, who ’ll soon
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
be big enough to have a care over you. And,
after all, what ’s a trip to Philadelphia? ’T is
just naught, and we ’ll be glad to go into New
ork, won’t we, miss?” She frowned at me to
give me a clue to her meaning, but I was not
quick to take it.
“Indeed,” I murmured perplexedly, “ ’t is some-
what for your sake, Peggy, that I want to go with
you; yet will it not disappoint me at all to give up
visiting New York.” This last being no more
than the truth. With the Arnold affair at an
end, I was eager to come to the ﬁnish of my
masquerading and to be Patty Abbott again.
This wish was denied me, for Peggy, clasping my
hand between her fevered palms, whispered:
“ ’T is for my sake you must go there, Rose.
This uncertainty will kill me. I beg you to go
into the city and let me know how General Ar-
nold is received. I ask no political information.
Nothing that you cannot tell with propriety.
Only, is he welcomed kindly? Doth he look well
or ill? And—and—doth he miss his wife and
babe?” With these words she burst into tears,
and I was fain to give her the instant comfort of
my promise.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“I ’ll go. To be sure I ’ll go!” I cried. “Gen-
eral Washington would be the ﬁrst to say you
must be granted that much consideration.”
“In truth,” Peggy sobbed, “you do him no more
than justice. He even sent not long since to make
certain that I was supplied with money for my
necessities.”
Preparations for her journey on the morrow
kept us all busy, and later in the day I was sur-
prised to be informed that arrangements had been
made for my immediate departure for New York.
I had expected to see Peggy off; but, when I con-
sidered the matter, I realized that it was natural
I should be sent away ﬁrst.
I was furnished with passes through our own
lines, and from our outposts was to go on under
a white ﬂag, protected by the British Papers of
Permission granted Rosalie some time before, at
Rebecca Franks’s request.
It all promised to be plain sailing, and I assured
myself that my stay within the enemy lines should
be a short one. I wanted more than aught else
in the world to be a little girl again,--one Patty
Abbott at home in Philadelphia or Haddonﬁeld,
—and only regretted leaving the Robinson man-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
sion before poor Peggy lest she should be lonely
when I was gone. However, she was so anxious
for the news I might have for her that she bade
me good-by with almost a smile.
Even Mrs. Brisket, upon whose motherly care
she had seemed to rely, she parted from readily
and without apparent regret. It was this good
soul who voiced my feelings, as, closely followed
by the escort with which we had been provided,
we rode out of the Robinson gate.
“God comfort her!” she said. “’T is more
than any mortal can.”
We had a long stage to Colonel Henry Lud-
dington’s at Carmel. This was on the north bor-
der of the so-called Neutral Ground, and I knew
enough of Val’s business to be sure that Colonel
Luddington was no novice in the game of out-
witting the British.
We got to Carmel after dark had fallen, and
both Mrs. Brisket and I were tired and stiff; but
the two Luddington girls were wild to know what
I could tell of the happenings at West Point;
while, on their part, they were able to piece out
the little I had heard of Major André’s capture,
their father being the commander of the militia
. 156


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
who policed that region, repressing the “Cow-
boys and Skinners,” and intimidating foraging
gangs from the city.
I gathered from them that André had been
taken while riding alone north of Tarrytown by
three militiamen who were idly playing cards near
the roadside. One of these men had been a
prisoner of war in New York, escaping but three
days before in the uniform of a Hessian chasseur,
which he still wore. He had been the ﬁrst to
meet André, who, thinking himself among
friends, had produced his papers from Clinton.
When he discovered his mistake, he showed
a pass from Arnold, declaring he was on business
for that general which would not brook delay;
but it was too late. He had shown the wrong
pass ﬁrst. The militiamen suspected him of
being a spy, and upon his trying to buy his free-
dom they declared they would not take ten thou-
sand guineas for him, although they were poor
men.
Such a stirring tale was calculated to keep my
eyes open, tired as I was; but when it was told,
politeness was hard put to it to stiﬂe my yawns,
seeing which Sybil jumped to her feet.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
“We ’re wearying our guest beyond endur-
ance,” she said. “ ’T is long past time we lighted
our candles and were off to bed.”
“Take Miss Roberts to her chamber,” Rebecca
suggested. “I must make the rounds. With
Father away, ’t is well to be sure all is safe ere
we go above stairs.”
Sybil hesitated. S-he was plainly uneasy about
leaving her sister alone, and I was not so ex-
hausted that it was necessary.
“We ’ll all go together,” I proposed, which
pleased them both mightily.
“It would advantage us little to go peaceably
to bed only to be awakened by the house burning
around our ears,” Rebecca explained. “The Tor-
ies hereabout are a pestilential crew, badly in need
of a lesson—”
“An I mistake not,” Sybil interrupted her,
“that clump of bushes is thicker than it should be;
and over there, beyond the hedge, there are no less
than six—nay, seven men.”
“We were simpletons to send Mistress Rob-
erts’s escort into the village,” Rebecca said.
“Well, go get your uniform on, Syb, and call the
women. I ’m sorry. She turned to me. “ ’T is
1 58


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
useless for you to go to bed yet. You ’d per-
chance ﬁnd yourself disturbed.”
“Dost think I ’d leave now?” I cried indig-
nantly, my fatigue forgotten. “What ’s your
plan ?—for I know you have one.”
“We ’ll do what we ’ve done before,” Rebecca
explained. Keep the household stirring and
showing lights, while Syb and I put on soldier’s
coats and mount guard without, here.”
“Is there naught I can do?”
“Can you ﬁre a gun?” Sybil had come out in
a long coat and a cocked hat, shouldering a
musket.
“I could ﬁre one,” I answered, “but I fear I
should hit naught. Val says I should shoot
to more purpose an I shut my eyes after I had
shot.”
“In this case, most like, there ’d be naught for
you to hit,” Sybil said, “but if we ’re attacked
here in the front, it might surprise these villains
if three shots were ﬁred from pistols at the rear,
as though in signal.”
“That much I can surely do,” I cried .heartily,
glad to have a hand in the martial proceedings.
Rebecca, who had gone to don her soldier
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
clothes, now came back with two muskets which
she leaned against the lintel, setting a powder-
horn beside them; and, leaving her on guard,
Sybil took me to a little window in a buttery at
the back of the house. There was no light here,
but by this time those without must have thought
there was an assemblage within, for all the in-
mates of the mansion were passing quickly from
room to room, to give the men watching it an
exaggerated idea of their numbers.
There were three pistols on the window-sill, as
well as bullets, wadding, and a powder-horn.
“Dost know how to re-load ?” Sybil asked un-
der her breath.
“Aye,” I answered. Then, having had time to
think: “Who are these men? Scarce soldiers
from New York? ’T is a long march from the
city.”
“They ’re no soldiers!” Sybil spoke contemp-
tuously. “They ’re Tories, stirred up again by
this happening yesterday. They ’re always hop-
ing to catch my father off his guard; yet if they
so much as hear his voice, they scamper like
mice. They ’d love to see ﬂames rising from our
roof-tree, but to-morrow half of them will be
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY1
ll 7!
No more than the rest of ye, his companion
rejoined simply. “There ’s none of us keen to
face the colonel.”
“At least we ’ll see those ﬁne misses of his
dancin’ an honest Tory dance for once,” a burly
by-stander muttered. “Here, give me the ﬂint
and steel. I ’ll have a blaze in a moment.”
“See thou dost not dance on air for it, then,”
a wiser man admonished him. “I ’m off. I ’m
no Mohawk, to burn women and children in their
beds.” "
The others cursed him for a faint-heart, and
made ready to kindle the pile of rubbish they had
collected beneath the kitchen porch, whence they
now tore away a lattice to add to the heap. As
I saw the tinder take ﬁre, I knew that I had waited
long enough. Never before had I wanted to in-
jure a fellow-being; now I felt that I must ﬁre
close to them indeed if they were to be prevented
from executing their savage designs. And, re-
membering what Sybil had said, I pointed hastily
and piglﬁgd the trigger. Dropping that pistol I
seizediiifother, shooting it and then the third.
When the smoke had cleared away, I found
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
r
myself ‘craning out of the window to make sure
of the carnage—with my eyes tight shut.
In a moment I had nerved myself to open them,
but no one was there. Had it not been for the
little pile of rubbish, I should have thought it all
a dream, but that and the broken lattice spoke too
plainly to be doubted.
163


CHAPTER XIII
THE Luddington girls made quite a to-do over
my success in driving off the rabble that
had invested the house, though in truth I had done
no more than any boy who squibs off a cracker
on Guy Fawkes Day. I .had made a loud noise-
and, by good luck, our enemies were so cowardly
that it furnished all that was needed to set them
running. Once started, it was a case of sauve
qui peut; for no one of our assailants trusted any
of the others.
Wherefore it was that the echo of my shots
was not silenced ere the whole crew had taken to
their heels, and thereafter we were assured of a
quiet night. Such cravens cannot drive them-
selves twice upon an adventure that has proven
dangerous.
The early morning saw Mrs. Brisket and me
on the road again, as we had a long stage to make
that day. But ere we left Carmel, Sybil came to
me, holding something in her hand.
“Here ’s proof of your prowess !” she cried.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“I beg you to show this to your brother when
next he scoffs at your marksmanship,” and she
held out to me a pewter tinder-box with a dent
in it where a scrap of the lead of my bullet still
clung. “You ﬁred at the ﬂash and hit it,” she
explained. “One of our best sharp-shooters
could not do more. I am vastly proud of my
pupil.” '
And so it is that to this day I treasure a very
common pattern of tinder-box with ﬂint and
steel complete, Sybil having picked up those ar-
ticles where they had been scattered by my ﬁrst
shot.
There were many happenings of interest on
the ride to the city, which I shall not try to re-
count, as naught of real importance occurred un-
til we were actually within the town and had
stopped to inquire the way to the Franks resi-
dence. Then a rabble went by, following a num-
ber of soldiers with a prisoner.
I recognized the uniform the man wore as be-
longing to our forces, but as his eyes met mine,
I told myself with a sigh of relief that this was
none of my business. The man was a stranger
to me.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
The crowd had no more than passed when the
honest shopkeeper whom Mrs. Brisket had called
out to ask our way, spat into a puddle at his feet.
“The dirty villain!” he said between his teeth.
,Then, doubtless aware that it was scarce wise to
show his sentiments too plainly to strangers
whose politics were not likely to be his, he strove
to explain away what he had let out.
“And no offense intended to any one,” he con-
tinued, with a sly glance at Mrs. Brisket as if
to probe her opinions. “ ’T is this Virginia
deserter there ’s been such a to-do over. They
are taking him now to the great General Arnold,
to see what he can make of him. . . . I know
not how it strikes you, ma’am, but an honest
man ﬁnds it hard to stomach renegades from
either side.” He maundered on, but with a start
I had turned and followed with my eyes the little
crowd now some distance away.
“A Virginia deserter!” What was it General
Lafayette had said? “Among the Virginians
. . . are many doubly tied to your Exce1lency.”
This man was no deserter slinking along
ashamed of the company he was in. His eyes
had met mine proudly, and I knew as surely as
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
when she stopped the night at Paramus she
boasted of how she had befooled all your great
men, from the commander-in-chief to your cher-
ished marquis and little Hamilton.”
“She befool them! What mean you?” I
asked in genuine puzzlement.
Rebecca shrugged her shoulders.
“She made them think she was no party to her
husband’s scheming, while all the time her sole
quarrel with it was that it missed ﬁre. At
least Aaron Burr has written that she so told
Mrs. Provost, her intimate friend.”
“Then he is a base man!” I said. “Peggy
ne’er saw Mrs. Provost till we rested at Paramus
on our way north. Bethink yourself. Didst
ever hear her speak of this intimate? Moreover
I, who was with her, tell you her husband’s
villainy drove her near to death’s door.”
I was anxious to stop this slander ere it gained
credence, but again Rebecca shrugged her
shoulders.
“I know not, nor do I greatly care. All that
.concerns me is that john André, whom I count
my friend, is like to be the sacriﬁce. But come,
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
we ’ll put such gloomy thoughts away. I ’m
minded to dress a doll to send to Sister’Abbie
when you go, showing her our fashions; so let ’s
to Hanover Square to buy the silks.”
That night there was a play given at the The-
atre Royal in john Street. In Philadelphia,
plays were like to be frowned on; .but here every
one went who could get in, and although our
tickets were secured in advance, servants were
sent at half after four o’clock to hold our places
till we followed at seven.
Usually such performances were gala affairs,
and this was no exception to the rule. We
traversed the sixty feet between the sidewalk
and the entrance, ﬂanked by rows of gaping by-
standers from the humbler ranks of life, and once
we had passed the portal to make our way to the
loge reserved for us, we knew ourselves to be in
the height of the fashion and envied of many.
Yet, for all the gaiety of attire, sheen of silks,
and glitter of jewels, the audience that night was
not a happy one. The ofﬁcers playing the various
parts seemed spiritless, the applause half-hearted.
Only once, when the rising curtain disclosed an
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
empty stage, was there a moment of enthusiasm,
the whisper going around that Major André had
helped to paint that scene.
Between the acts we were besieged by visitors,
and for one who was not interested in politics
Becky was very eager as she asked the first
comer:
“What news, Colonel ?”
“Bad,” he replied. “The only exchange they
will consider is Arnold himself.”
“Were I Sir Henry, I ’d give him up !” Becky
exclaimed. “What use is he to us? He ’ll sell
us to the French next.”
“He ’ll get no chance,” her friend muttered,
“but our honor demands that we protect him.”
What more was said, I know not, for my very
heart stood still. Making his way toward me
was Gilbert Sedden, whom I had treated most
cavalierly in Philadelphia on more than one occa-
sion. That he would now be at evens with me by
denouncing me as the impostor I was, I made no
doubt, and I wondered dazedly what would hap-
pen to me when I was unmasked in the face of
that British company, already keyed to a high
pitch of loyalty by Major André’s plight.
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CHAPTER XIV
IN that short space when I saw Gilbert Sedden
eye to eye I had time to realize that it was one
thing to accuse myself of impersonating Rosalie,
as I had done to .General Washington and the
Marquis de Lafayette, and quite another thing
to have an enemy expose me before the world,
and I then and there made up my mind to befool
him an it was in my power. So, sweeping my
skirts aside to make room for him, I said in Rosa-
lie’s very tones:
“Be seated, I pray you, and cry me all your
news since you left Philadelphia. I am famished
for a dish of gossip with naught political in it.”
Sedden made me no answer, and I thought that
my deception had failed; yet I rattled on:
“You shall share my bench with me; but has-
ten and take the seat, for here comes Lord Fair-
brook to dispute it with you. Am I Patty that
you have need to fear me ?”
As Sedden slipped down on the bench beside
1 72


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
me, Fairbrook indeed entered the box. He
constituted another danger, but, knowing his
generous nature, I feared him not at all. He was
not one to take a woman in politics seriously,
and should he chance to recognize me, he would
laugh at the deception and only regret that he
could not impart my secret to a select few, in
order to bet upon so sporting an event as my
ability to escape detection.
“And now, sir, fan me, while you tattle of this
and that.” I handed Sedden my fan as I spoke,
and he took it mechanically. As yet he had said
no word, and I had not dared to risk meeting his
eyes again in an effort to discover if he were
puzzling over my impersonation or had realized
my identity at the ﬁrst glance.
With a pettish gesture he began to wave my
painted fan, bought on our shopping expedition
that day. '
“Why doth she always treat me so despite-
fully?” he burst out.
“She? Who?” I asked. ‘
“Who but Miss Patty Abbott,” he returned.
“No other in your friendly land hath been less
than kind.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
Even then I was not sure he was really be-
fooled. I thought he was playing with me like
a cat with a mouse; yet there was naught for it
but to delay the moment of my unmasking.
“Oh, Patty ’s but a child,” I said carelessly.
“What she does carries no weight.”
“All the same, I relish it not,” Sedden
grumbled. “I ’ve never born arms against her
beloved Colonials, nor given her cause to feel me
an enemy. . . . But here comes Fairbrook and I
have a word for your ear ere he drives me from
this corner.
“I wrote your mother, as you asked me to,
telling her that Tories who had done naught
openly to merit harsh treatment were unmolested
in the possession of their properties. That, in
the few cases where mobs had attacked their
houses, the authorities had invariably sided with
the Tories. In ﬁne, that I thought it quite safe
for Mr. and Mrs. Roberts to return to Philadel-
phia to take personal charge of their affairs. I
ended by saying the very worst that could happen
would be their being paroled within the town,
or certain wider boundaries, as Mr. Edward
Shippen had been, without hurt.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
best acting was this side of the footlights, for
many who had known Rosalie well spoke with
me that night, and no one of them doubted that I
was she. Somehow the evening passed.
While I was keyed up by the excitement of my
necessities, I carried it off well enough, but once
returned and alone with Mrs. Brisket, I threw my-
self on my bed in a very ague of nervousness.
“What is it, my lamb? What is it?” she asked
anxiously, hovering over me like a hen who sees
a hawk threatening her chicks. “Don’t ye trem-
ble so. Naught shall harm you, that ’s sure.”
“I want to go home,” I sobbed. “I ’m frighted,
and I ’m doing no good here. I want to go home.”
“And so ye shall; but ﬁrst there ’s this I must
tell you. There was a man came here at dusk
to-night,” Mrs. Brisket said cautiously, lowering
her voice to a whisper. “He asked for you, and
they sent me to him because I was your
woman.”
“A man asking for me ?” I said in surprise, sit-
ting up and forgetting my nervous fears on the
instant. “What did he want of me ?”
“That he would not tell.” Mrs. Brisket’s tone
was mystery itself. “His name, he said was
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
john Champe, declaring the while you knew him
not. He told me, too, that he had been made Gen-
eral Arnold’s recruiting sergeant. ’T was the
very man we saw brought in the day we came,
missy.”
Now, here was food for thought, indeed! I
straightway abandoned all idea of trying to secure
permission to leave town the next day.
Champe might, and probably had, some mes-
sage to deliver which Arnold hoped I could be in-
duced to convey to his wife. I had wondered
greatly that the general had made no effort to
communicate with me, finally coming to the con-
clusion that he preferred not to be associated in
the eyes of the British with one whose opinions
were known to favor the patriot cause. Mayhap
I was about to have something better worth
smuggling through the lines to Peggy than the
meager news I had sent so far. On the other
hand, if the man was Washing-ton’s emissary,
there was just a chance that Rosalie Roberts had
been mentioned before him in a way to suggest
that I might prove a help. I could not go back to
Philadelphia till I had discovered whether either
of these guesses was right.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Soon poor André’s fate was no longer in doubt.
At his trial he had swept away all subterfuges,
had declared that he knew the character of his er-
rand and its penalty; and while Sir Henry Clin-
ton ‘had done all in his power and Arnold had gone
so far as to send a letter to General Washington,
threatening reprisals on certain Southern pris-
oners in the event of Major André’s execution,
there were no grounds for clemency. Arnold
alone could have saved him by giving himself up;
but this the traitor had not the generosity of na-
ture to suggest.
So André perished and his friends mourned.
It was not considered modish to give any en-
tertainments for a few days thereafter, and Re-
becca and I lived for the time without excitement,
amusing ourselves by dressing rag-babies to carry
the fashions to her sister Mrs. Hamilton at the
Woodlands. Rebecca declared our town to be far
behind the style, though she did consent to cut a
pattern for her own use of one of Rosalie’s newest
and most intricate gowns, which it had taken three
skilled needlewomen many days to complete, while
"Becky had not the patience needful for needle
wisdom.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I
I had heard nothing more of john Champe, and
was somewhat at a loss to know what steps I
should take in the matter. I should have sent
Mrs. Brisket to him, but she had already seen the
man, who had refused to say his say to her, while
I myself could scarce go to No. 1 Broadway, the
residence assigned to Arnold, to ask for an in-
terview with his recruiting sergeant; so the matter
rested, and again the desire to go home grew
upon me.
Becky and I were alone in the parlor one after-
noon, waiting for the inﬂux of beaux who were
wont to drop in for a quiet dish of tea, when of
a sudden the double doors were thrown open and
Rosalie’s mother, my Aunt Augusta Roberts,
stood revealed. I know of naught that could have
astonished me more and naught that could have
been more unwelcome.
“Rosalie, my darling child,” she said, holding
out her arms; and mechanically I moved forward,
although I knew that here, at last, was one who
could not be tricked by any imitation I was ca-
pable of giving.
I had all but reached her extended arms when
she stopped me.
. 179


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“What is the meaning of this, Rosalie?” she
asked.
By that time I had made up my mind as to the
only course of action open to me. The Franks
family had left Philadelphia under something of
a cloud. It would not do for them to be suspect
of aught irregular in New York as well. I could
see that in the present crisis it would be only too
easy to stir up feeling against any one of dubious
loyalty among either party, so I spoke promptly
and earnestly.
“It means,” I told her, “that my pleasant visit
with you is at an end. I thank you heartily for
your hospitality; but I shall go back at once to
Uncle john unless Madam Roberts so contrives
it that I am not allowed to leave.”
“Madam Roberts!” Rebecca spoke with raised
eyebrows, and I noted that she stared at me ﬁxedly
as if to penetrate any disguise I might be wearing,
while I smiled at her in amusement.
“You would not have me so mean-spirited as to
claim a mother who repudiates me ?” I said. “Nor
have I any way to prove such a claim, for I have
neither birth-mark nor blemish that any one could
swear by, and therefore I shall not make it. But
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
I have one thing that you may take as proof,
an you so desire.” I showed her something held
within my hand, and on the instant her manner
changed.
“Rose,” she said, “you scared me sorely. I
knew not for a moment whom I had been enter-
taining.”
“You don’t know now,” I told her merrily, sure
that this would set her opinion the more ﬁrmly.
“And so I mean to be off to Philadelphia, leaving
an interesting mystery behind me.” .
Rebecca thought for a moment; then she shook
her head in the negative.
“By the time your permit is taken to be counter-
signed, be quite sure Madam Roberts will have
been beforehand,” she said. “No, the thing for
you to do, is to stay quietly here until the dust
she ’ll stir up hath had time to settle again. Then,
if a pass seems difﬁcult to get, we ’ll ﬁnd a way to
smuggle you out of town. ’T is done daily.”
But I was equally determined.
“Not here,” I vowed. “I shall not stay here.
I know not what accusations she may make, and I
do not propose to involve your family in any
trouble on my account. I think you are right in
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
saying that I should wait for a few days, if it is
only that I would not seem to run away. Now,
an you are my good friend, as I believe you are,
tell me of a quiet lodging where I can stop without
bringing trouble on you and yours.”
Becky hesitated for a moment, then she met my
glance frankly.
“We cannot afford to be suspect, even ground-
lessly,” she acknowledged. “Why should I deny
it? And I know of just the place for you. My
mantua-maker keeps a very decent house, and her
parlor ﬂoor has just been vacated. She asked
me only yesterday, when I took your pattern to
show her, to recommend her to some one who
would pay her honestly, as her last tenant left in
the night, owing a pretty bill.”
In ﬁne, Rebecca’s practicality and good sense
helped me over a difﬁcult situation, and before
nightfall I was comfortably established in the
house of a very respectable body, not unlike Mrs.
Brisket in manner, although as thin as the latter
was plump.
Miss Farmer—for our landlady was a maiden
—was told that my stay would probably not be a.
long one; but she was eager to accommodate any
183


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
be noticed looking at General Arnold’s house,
there ’s naught extraordinary in it. Seeing that
you waited on his poor wife in an illness, ’t is
natural that you should be curious about his rank
and standing in his new—allegiance.” Mrs.
=Brisket nodded understandingly.
ll 9 ' )1
I ll ﬁnd the sergeant, and no to-do over it, .-
she assured me. “Did I not tell you ere I left
home that a time would come when you would
find an old head useful?” She left the house on
her errand, in a great bustle of importance.
185


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
At this I was hard put to it to conceal a grin,
and to cover my amusement I assumed a pettish-
ness I did not feel. '
“ ’T is scarce respectful to make a lady the sub-
ject of wagers.”
“Oh, Lud! these British would bet about their
own grandmothers and see no disrespect in it!
’T is a habit with them; a favorite vice. They
say a small fortune changes hands at the club each
rainy day, in wagers on the raindrops coursing
down the window-pane.” .
“Where do they think I ’ve gone ?” I asked, to
lead the subject from the British ofﬁcers, who
scarce interested me as they did Becky.
“I feigned surprise that they did not know your
visit was drawing to an end. I fancy your
mother hath taken some steps to discredit you in
high places; hence this hint hath got about of an
impostor masquerading in your likeness. I fear
we shall not secure a passport for you without
opposition.”
“Do not attempt it,” I told her hastily. “When
the time comes, I ’ll ﬁnd a way to slip past their
guard-boats.”
“ ’T is done every night by way of Staten Is-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
land and Elizabeth Town Point,” Rebecca said,
with seeming carelessness. Yet I knew right well
that she was intentionally giving me information
that might prove serviceable. “We heard, not
long since, that your authorities liked not the open
trafﬁc in lumber and commodities that is a-foot
betwixt here and the jerseys, and were about to
stop it; but naught hathqbeen done, and it goeth
on as usual. I know, because I got a ham and
sundry other triﬂes, by that very route, only
yestereve.”
I forbore to thank her for this new informa-
tion, and she went on:
“Was it not a good thought to settle you here?
Had I taken to calling almost daily at a strange
house, it must have occasioned remark; but a
fashionable female needs no explanation of visits
to her mantua-maker.”
When Becky left the house, Mrs. Brisket came
in. From her triumphant expression I knew,
without her telling me, that she had met our man.
But ere she had had a chance to out with her tale,
2. thundering rat-tat sounded on the knocker and
she was forced to go and open the door.
It was Gilbert Sedden who stood on the top
188


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
step and quickly pushed inside, closing the door
behind him.
“Mistress Roberts,” he cried, “I pray you par-
don this intrusion! I thought you had left town
and regretted that I had had no opportunity to
explain.” “
“To explain what, Master Sedden ?”
“To explain my involuntary part in bringing
this unpleasantness upon you.” He looked about
the narrow hall in which we stood, then lowered.
his voice. “Is there no place I can have a word
with you in private?”
I was far from anxious that our conversation
should reach the ears of Miss Farmer or her
other lodgers, of whom there were two; a young
man in the chandlery trade, and an old lady who
had seen better days, and spent her time, when
she was not mourning her vanished splendor, in
playing with a young and fuzzy poodle on which
she lavished the affection of a lonely heart.
“Come this way,” I said brieﬂy, and, motioning
to Mrs. Brisket to accompany us, I stepped back
into my little parlor. “Now I will hear you.”
Bethinking me in time that I was not free to dis-
play Patty Abbott’s humors, who had ever dis-'
189


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
liked young Sedden, I hastened to make my wel-
come more gracious: “Pray be seated and tell
me what you have in your mind.”
We settled ourselves, but Gilbert seemed to ﬁnd
some difﬁculty in explaining his errand. At last
he began abruptly:
“I should ﬁrst say that since yesterday I am no
longer in your mother’s employ.”
I lifted my eyebrows in Rosalie’s way but said
naught, and seeing that I did not mean to speak
he went on:
“When last I met you, I advised you that I
had urged her return as you had asked me to do,
but I scarce thought the response would be so
immediate, without word to me of her intent.
Nor did I think that after such an absence
Madam Roberts would return with her politics
unchanged.”
“England is scarce the land to choose for the
reform of a Tory,” I suggested, a thought dryly.
“Nay, I should not say that, for my reform
was begun ere ever I left that shore,” Sedden
cried. Again I lifted my eyebrows.
“Your reform?” I queried. “I ne’er heard of
this great event before.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I stooped myself till I must have looked an old
woman, and, though I ’m a grandmother, miss,
Major Tarlton is not one to have forgot that I
have kept my ﬁgure.” She smoothed her apron
complacently.
“Where, then, is your luck ?” I asked with some
impatience.
“’T was that if he had a suspicion, he was
stopped from following me to verify it,” she ex-
claimed. “Along came a very grand gentleman
with much gold lace and Master Tarlton was held
at the salute long enough for me to slip away.”
“Now, that was clever of you,” I told her, but
my praise was half-hearted. It seemed to me that
my difﬁculties were closing around me until I
felt myself caught as in a net.
Moreover, knowing Tarlton, I was by no means
as sure as was Mrs. Brisket that he had not recog-
nized her; and, if he had, he was no simpleton.
Assuredly she had been followed, and my retreat
was no longer a secret.
196


CHAPTER XVI
NEEDLESS to say I waited most impatiently
for the arrival of Sergeant-Major Champe,
nor did he keep me long in suspense. Mrs.
Brisket ushered him in, and I rose to greet him.
He was a man of more than the average height,
indeed most soldierly appearing, and at sight of
me he saluted politely.
“Mistress Rosalie Roberts?” His tone was a
question, and I greatly disliked to deceive him in
anything; but having no certainty that his er-
rand was what I thought it, I had no alternative.
“I am she you are seeking,” I said, “but I warn
you at the outset, Sergeant Champe, that I am
a good patriot.”
“ ’T is that hath brought me here, no less,” he
returned with bluff and transparent honesty.
“We heard great praise of you in our army, Mis-
tress Roberts, and know how you were situate in
Philadelphia. And ﬁnding this among General
Arnold’s letters, I conceived it to be safer in your
197


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
hands than in his, and part of my duty to return
it to you.” With which words he produced a
document which proved, to my amazement, to be
the Papers of Protection stolen from Rosalie and
me by the Whig highwayman on the Frankford
road so long before. I can think of few things
that would have astounded me more.
“How—how came you by this?” I stuttered.
“I found it among General Arnold's effects,
which my present service calls on me to examine.
Read how it is docketed. ’T will give you a hint
of the sneaking hound’s intentions.”
He handed me a slip of blue paper, which evi-
dently had been passed around a packet contain-
ing various documents and there pinned in place.
The notation read: “Taken from the Whig
highwayman on his capture by Sergeant jasper
and party. The Roberts Permission can be made
proﬁtable.” There was no signature, but the
handwriting was unmistakably Arnold’s, and I
could discern between the lines somewhat of his
intention to drain the Roberts pockets through
his possession of this evidence of British good-will
toward them.
“Sergeant Champe, you have done me a great
198


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
service,” I said. “Is there any chance that I can
return it by being of help to you in your present
task ?”
The man started at my words and looked at me
keenly.
“What know you of my task, ma’am ?” he
asked.
“Only what I guess,” I replied. “The Virginia
Light Horse men are not deserters.”
“There you are right,” the man muttered.
The job would have been more to my taste had it
not become necessary to take this afflicting step
of re-enlisting with the traitor.”
I was not mistaken. I had picked the right
man, and now I addressed him earnestly:
“Sit down, I pray you, and tell me your tale.
You will know my eagerness to hear it when I
say that ’t was I who suggested the subterfuge to
his Excellency.”
At times it is a vast relief to ﬁnd some one to
talk to, and this man had been alone among ene-
mies for days. Quite simply he accepted my in-
vitation to be seated and began his story.
“Then I need not tell you how Major Lee came
to me with the proposal to desert to the British.
IS
199 '


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
guards thrown out beyond the place called Liberty
Pole, and, as luck would have it, I met Captain
Carnes with a party shortly after I left camp and
they challenged me. There was naught for it
but to put spurs to my good old Rip. I ’ve heard
since, no matter how, miss, that Major Lee tried
to make light of the matter, saying that it was
but some one gone a-pleasuring, who would be
back in the morning; but Captain Carnes talked
of Arnold and his treachery and ﬁnally the Legion
was assembled, the roll was called, and I was
missed. This delay should have given me a good
long start, but I was obliged to zigzag to avoid
Irregulars and I was none too far on my road
when the pursuit set out, and a fall of rain made
it possible for them to pick up the track of old
Rip’s shoes and follow me surely.”
“But how could they tell it was not some other
horse?” I was full of curiosity.
“Our shoes are made by our regimental far-
riers, ma’am, with a private mark on the fore
shoes, which was often useful in showing us
where a track was that of our own dragoons.
No other horse had gone toward Paulus Hook,
and when day broke it was easy to follow my
201


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
trail. . . . They were bent on taking me, for my
going was a stain on the honor of the Legion, and
they did not spare their animals. So when they
came to a hill, near to Three Pigeons, north of
Bergen, I was but a scant half-mile ahead and
they sighted me at once. There is a short cut
through the woods to the bridge below Bergen,
and I did not forget it; nor, as I expected, did
Cornet Middleton, who was in command of the
pursuit party, for ’t was our usual road. I made
a sudden decision not to try for Paulus Hook, but
to seek refuge with the two British galleys off
Elizabeth Town Point. This way I slipped be-
tween Middleton’s men, for he had divided his
forces and sent one party by each road to take
me betwixt them at the bridge. They lost my
trail for a while on the traveled streets of Bergen;
else they would have had me for sure. The
dragoons spread out around the town and soon
picked it up again, for I had wasted time tying
my valise to my back, ready to swim for it. At
last, when they were gaining fast, and were al-
most within pistol-shot of me, I left my horse and
made a dash through the marsh, calling on the
galleys for aid. The dragoons shot after me but
202 .


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
missed; then I was safe under the guns of the
galleys.”
“The British surely had to accept you as a de-
serter after that!” I exclaimed. “You were
chased into the very jaws of the lion.”
“Yes, miss; I don’t think they ever had any
doubts. You see I only said I was tired of war
and wanted to be well out of it. I made them
coax me to join them; so, as an inducement, they
made me General Arnold’s recruiting sergeant,
with access to his house and papers—where I
found these.” He pointed to Howe’s permis-
sions, “and so I know the tales of other faithless
ofﬁcers are but British lies.”
“And now what are your plans ?”
“I still mean to take Arnold back with me
across the river. I have helpers whom I may not
name. The general walks in the garden at No. 1
Broadway each night, and it is arranged to seize
and gag him there, hale him out through a hole
in the palings and down to the river and to Ho-
buck, where we ’ll be met. If we encounter any
who question us, we are taking a drunken soldier
to the guard-house. The plan is both safe and
sure.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
It seemed so to me, too, and shortly we parted.
I was eager to help, but Sergeant Champe could
see no way to make use of a girl’s feeble strength.
Granting this, I longed selﬁshly to ask him to
ﬁnd room for Mrs. Brisket and me in his boat;
but I never opened this subject with him, fearing
that we would prove an additional complication
and one almost sure to embarrass him. With his
life at stake, I was not minded to increase his
difficulties.
After his departure I sat me down to think over
his situation and my own, and in truth I did not
ﬁnd either prospect ﬂattering. It did not take
long reﬂection to prove that to me, and I jumped
up again, for it was useless to sit moping over
what could not be helped.
A bold rat-tat-tat sounded on the knocker, and
the shufﬂing tread of Afﬂiction, Miss Farmer’s
negro wench, on her way to wait on it, kept me
listening. I scarce hoped for visitors; yet the
time was passing very slowly. A moment later,
Afﬂi.ction opened the door of my parlor without
the compliment of a tap. A good-natured grin
displayed her ﬁne teeth as she said, evidently de-
lighted to convey such pleasing news:
" 204


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“What is it you are suggesting? A new game of
puzzles?”
“ ’T is no puzzle to you, Miss Patty,” he re-
turned gravely. “You do not ask because you do
not need to ask.”
“Now you are dealing in conundrums in good
earnest,” I declared, lifting my brows after Rosa-
lie’s manner. “And sir, I ’ll tell you shortly that
I do not deal in pet names. I am Mistress Rosa-
lie Roberts to you.”
“Egad, I like your spirit, Mistress Abbott,”
Tarlton exclaimed admiringly. “And I do not
blame you for your plot, even though ’t is my duty
to balk it.”
“My plot!” I cried in honest surprise, for I
was free of all plotting, since there was no way I
could think of to make myself useful. “I ’m in-
terested to hear what I am scheming.”
Tarlton laughingly raised his hand to me in a
salute.
“I vow you do the innocent surpassing well; but
since I know both you and the object for which
you scheme, ’t is useless to deny it.”
“I pray you bear witness that I have denied
206 .


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
naught; nor shall I until I know of what I stand
accused.”
“Will you acknowledge that General Benedict
Arnold and his affairs had aught to do with bring-
ing you into the city?”
“I ’ll deny naught that is true,” I answered
steadily, “and that is the truth. I was at West
Point with Peggy Arnold during these late un-
happy days, and she begged me to come here and
give her news of her husband’s reception.”
“You were at West Point? You?” For a
moment my statement had shaken Tarlton’s cer-
tainty. He had known Peggy Shippen and Rosa-
lie Roberts as inseparables during the British oc-
cupation of Philadelphia.
“Aye! I was at West Point, and came here
little minded for gaiety, in the circumstances.
Gladly would I have given up my visit to Becky
Franks and gone home with Peggy and her baby;
but she would not have it so. Moreover, this af-
fair of her husband’s had so shaken her wits that
it was dangerous to oppose her. Even Mrs.
Brisket acknowledged ’t was best I should come.”
I had mentioned Mrs. Brisket purposely. I
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
was conﬁdent that Tarlton had seen her and I
had ready an explanation of her attendance upon
Rosalie that I hoped would serve.
“Ah ha!” At once his suspicions rushed back
upon him, as I knew they would. “And with
Mrs. Brisket here, you think I will believe that
you are Rosalie Roberts rather than Patty
Abbott?”
“You have my cousin’s name very pat, sir,” I
said coldly, “but, an you know it not, I ’ll inform
you that since her mother and father left for
Europe Rosalie Roberts hath lived with her uncle
john Abbott in Philadelphia, where Mrs. Brisket
is an old and valued attendant.”
At this Tarlton scratched his head in open puz-
zlement, then he sprang to his feet.
“Come!” he exclaimed. “I challenge you to
meet me face to face in the light of that window.
Then I ’ll know which of the two you are.”
This was a test it was useless for me to try to
evade. To do so was to conﬁrm him in his sus-
picions, so I rose and, facing him, curtsied deeply.
“I ’m at your service, sir,” I said, raising my
eyes to his, “though ’t will embarrass me greatly
should you decide that I am not I.”
' 208


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
made a wry face as he brought out the words and
I could not forbear a laugh.) “I confess,” he
said, with the ghost of a smile in answer to mine,
“that the man is not popular in our army. The
manner of his joining us was too—irregular—”
“So that ’s your name for selling a post en-
trusted to your honor and trying to sell the person
of your greatest benefactor, your commander-in-
chief? That is a phrase I shall endeavor to re-
member,” I cried hotly. “ ‘Too irregular,’ for-
sooth!”
It was Tarlton’s turn to laugh. In truth, I had
let my abhorrence of Arnold run away with me.
“Call it what you will, it will not hurt my feel-
ings,” he said good-naturedly. “Be the man what
he is, those highest in our councils have allied
themselves with him; and, however hard it is to
stomach it, our honor now forces us to defend
him with our lives. . . . Wherefore I must warn
you that any who plot against Arnold’s life or
liberty are on the road to the gallows.”
I thought of Champe, and it may well be that
my cheeks blanched at these words. At all
events, Tarlton strove at once to press his ad-
vantage.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
based on a mistaken conviction that I, being my
cousin, am preparing an attempt on General Ar-
nold. That I assure you I am not. I confess I
would gladly see him punished if it were not for
Peggy. For her sake I am willing—nay, anxious
——to have him go scot-free now that poor Major.
André is past being saved by his surrender.”
“Then, in that case, there is naught to prevent
you from going home. I beg you to take your-
self off before others are seized by the same sus-
picions that grip me.”
At this I shook my head most positively.
“What! Run away under ﬁre? Not I! I ’m
innocent of wrong-doing, and General Arnold
himself would, I am sure, satisfy any doubters
that I love his wife too well to wish him ill now.”
“Was the man who was here, just now, a mes-
senger from Arnold, by any chance ?” Tarlton
spoke in a tone of puzzlement. ’
Here was another loophole of escape. Champe
was Arnold’s recruiting sergeant, and he might
very possibly have been sent on an errand to me.
But the fact was that Arnold had n’t sent him.
Far from it. And I shook my head in the neg-
ative.
2.13


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ll
You mean the British soldier who was here
before you came? He was no messenger of Ar-
nold’s.”
“Why was he here, then?”
“Oh, he brought me something he had found.”
“VVhy bring it to you?” Tarlton spoke suspi-
ciously.
“Because it bore the name ‘Rosalie Roberts’;
the name you deny me, good sir,” I told him de-
murely. “You see, there are others more in-
dulgent.”
Tarlton sank into a chair near the table and
buried his head in his hands, shaking it from side
to side as if to stir the brains about.
“Zounds, I would rather handle twenty men
than one woman!” he fretted. “With a woman,
she ’ll twist and turn till you ’re fair dizzy.”
Then he rose and began to buckle on his sword.
“I see ’t is the man I shall be forced to deal with
in this case,” he said ominously, “and I may as
well set about it.”
“What do you mean to do?” I asked, scarce
expecting him to answer me.
“I ’m off to have your late visitor watched and
to take other measures for General Arnold’s
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
sheepishly, for General Arnold was a great, beefy
man, scarce such an one as a slim slip of a maid
could put in her pocket.
I rang my bell, and Mrs. Brisket appeared with
surprising alacrity; for, in truth, she had been
within hearing all the time.
“Eh, now, ’t is the major!” she cried, with
hands uplifted. “The pity that I ’ve in store
none of those little cakes he liked so well! ’T is
glad I am to see you, sir,” she went on respect-
fully. “ ’T is since you ’ve gone, and I ’ve learned
what some of the other houses suffered, that I can
thank you for the protection you were to us.”
“Yet you did n’t seem so glad to see me earlier
to-day,” Major Tarlton hinted darkly.
Mrs. Brisket was a match for him:
“The major knew me again! Now, what do
you think of that, miss? ’T is the compliment of
my life that I ’ve aged so little in two years. . . .
I could scarce force myself upon your notice, sir,
when you stood in converse with so grand a
gentleman.”
“ ’T was Sir Henry Clinton himself,” Tarlton
acknowledged, his suspicions lulled again.
“And that will be something to brag of when
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY.
“Such a to-do!” I exclaimed airily. “If one
poor American girl is held so dangerous, ’t is a
miracle to me you bring your men to face our sol-
diers at all.”
He passed this taunt by.
“I mean to safeguard Arnold,” he said stub-
bornly, and was gone.
“And I mean to safeguard Champe,” I said to
myself just as stubbornly, for the life of a true
man was in my hands.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
In my need a plan came to me and I hastened
to put it into execution before Mrs. Brisket re-
turned from the kitchen, whither she had gone to
wash the tea things, for I knew full well she
would refuse to let me sally forth alone.
I ran upstairs and knocked lightly on the door
of my fellow-lodger, old Mistress Caroline Ver-
planck, the owner of the frisky poodle pup I
mentioned earlier.
“Come in,” she called, and I entered, shutting
the door behind me. “ ’T is you, Miss Rosalie,”
the old lady remarked pleasantly; “you must not
speak to Sudsy. He is being punished. He ’ll
be vastly humiliated to have you a witness to it,”
she added in a lower voice. In truth, the little
dog was standing in a corner and seemed to have
an air of shamefacedness, looking at me sidelong
nor making any attempt to greet me boisterously,
as was his wont. 
“Oh, I am sorry,” I said. “Soapsuds is usually
so good a dog, and so wise.”
“He is too wise,” his mistress afﬁrmed with
open pride, “but now I gave him his tea-cake and
told him that was all, whereupon he leaped upon a
chair and helped himself from the dish!”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Soapsuds and cards were Mistress Verplanck’s
two passions.
“My love, that would be delightful!” she cried
warmly. “I wonder if it would be too much to
ask that you give Sudsy the pleasure of accom-
panying you? I ’ve had a strange pain in my toe,
with some swelling. No, no! My doctor assures
me ’t is not gout. I am much too young for that,
though he does wish me to keep my foot elevated
on a gout-stool; but you ’ll perceive that my dis-
ability has deprived poor little Sudsy of his
accustomed exercise, which is, perchance, the
reason he so transgressed against good manners
just now.”
“Indeed, it would pleasure me vastly to have his
company, ma’am,” I told her heartily, and this
was no more than the truth, as exercising her
poodle for Mistress Verplanck, who had a lame
foot, was to furnish my excuse were I stopped
and questioned.
There was some further delay occasioned by
Mistress Verplanck’s difﬁculty in deciding
whether yellow ribbons or pale blue were the more
ﬂattering to Soapsud’s beauty. At last she de-
clared for yellow, as I was wearing an unpreten-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
tious russet gown, she placed Sudsy’s leash in my
hands, and we were off.
I greatly feared that the puppy’s joyous bark-
ings would bring Mrs. Brisket down upon us, but
she had stayed for tea and gossip with Miss Far-
mer and we escaped from the house without being
detected. Once on the street I breathed more
freely, stopping before I reached the Broadway
to roll the note I had written and tie it to the leash,
where I held it concealed in the palm of my hand.
Then I was ready, and went briskly forward to
my destination; but at ﬁrst it looked as if my luck
was to be no better than Mrs. Brisket’s, who had
watched long ere she had met the man face to
face.
I passed and repassed General Arnold’s house
again and again, until I feared the sentries at the
door would begin to remark me. I even made my
way to the rear and found a point of vantage
from which I could glance into the garden. I did
each and every thing that suggested itself to me,
but still without sight of Sergeant-Major Champe.
Standing on the Battery, looking out at the
water, I asked myself if there was aught else I
dared do. Could I take the letter directly to the
224


I
H’


ma’am’
have his company,
O
t
me vastly
“It would pleasure


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
house and leave it for him? Or could I go there
and demand speech with him? Reason answered,
“No,” to both these queries.
No letter would be safe from Benedict Arnold’s
prying eye, and the mere fact that I found it nec-
essary to have speech with Champe would assure
Major Tarlton of a conspiracy. Moreover, so
much time had now elapsed that there was little
doubt Champe was already under surveillance.
My only chance, then, was to meet him as I had
planned and carry out my prearranged purpose;
and I started back toward the Bowling Green, dis-
couraged and more than a little weary, to see him
coming toward me between two soldiers. '
For a moment I thought he was already under
arrest, then I heard their jovial voices and set
about putting my scheme into execution.
To this end I began to play with Sudsy, looping
his leash over him and exciting him to jump at it;
which was not hard to do, he not being out of his
puppyhood. As we drew nearer to the men he
was leaping high in the air and could not fail to
attract their attention to us, which was exactly
what I wanted. Once Champe knew that I was
there, alone, at dusk, I was certain he would di-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
vine that I was not out for a pleasure-walk but
had some weightier motive urging me to my un-
usual promenade.
just as I drew level with the men I feigned to
drop the leash by accident, and Soapsuds, relieved
of my tug upon his collar, ran madly off.
Immediately I laid a hand upon the arm of one
of the strange soldiers, detaining his successfully
although he knew it not, while Champe started
after the puppy.
“Oh!” I said tremblingly; “please, please catch
him for me! His mistress will ne’er forgive me
an he ’s lost.”
“We’ll catch him all right, never fear,” the
man said, and then to his fellow, signiﬁcantly:
“Be off after him, jock, and see that he does n’t
give you the slip."
I had no doubt that this referred to Champe
rather than to Soapsuds, and that in truth the two
had been set to watch over him; but, to make me
sure of this, the second man said sullenly:
“Oh, he ’s all right enough. Here he comes
now. And who are you to give me orders in
front of a lady? ’T is no more my duty than
yours to keep close to the man.” The two ex-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
changed angry glances as Champe came up carry-
ing the poodle, but had opportunity for no more
words.
The sergeant-major gave Soapsuds over into
my arms, where I held him tightly, much to the
little dog’s annoyance, who had enjoyed his taste
of liberty too greatly to relish ﬁnding himself so
constrained.
“I ’ll carry him all the way home,” I said.
“There ’s no need to do that, ma’am,” Champe
returned. “Give the leash a good twist round
you hand—like this—and he ’ll not escape you
again.”
He picked up the end of the leather leader as he
spoke and looped it around his hand in such a
way as to show me the letter was gone.
My heart felt lighter than air while I thanked
him and gave him a threepenny bit for his trouble,
explaining that it was from the dog’s mistress,
not from me. This he had the wit to accept with
a perfunctory salute and the words:
“Your thanks.are enough, young woman; but,
an your mistress’s pouch is full of such, ’t is more
than mine is, and I ’m grateful for her bounty.”
Then I took myself back to my lodgings, no
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“No sir. Not I, sir!”
At this Tarlton suppressed a start and turned
to the other man, half angrily.
“An you? You know her surely. What ’s
your word ?”
“Naught different,” the man stuttered, his eyes
bulging. “This—this like 0’ lady does n’t speak
to common soldier-men like we uns. The girl we
told you of was a simple, taking little wench.
She was scarce more than a child, but I ’d thought
to ask her to walk out with me an I ’d had half a
chance.”
Tarlton was so crestfallen at the collapse of his
case against me that it was all I could do not to
laugh outright; however, it was vastly important
that I should not lose one iota of my icy dignity,
and I again addressed him directly.
“Major Tarlton, this is the second time you
have intruded here without invitation, on the pre-
tense of business. You talk of my politics as if
you thought them of consequence, and, moreover,
some concern of yours, till my patience is strained
to the breaking point. I tell you plainly that I
will suffer no more of your interference.”
“I tell you equally plainly that I know you and
\
2 32


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
your cleverness, and I am prepared to conﬁne you
until I ﬁnd the proof of my words.”
At this I curled my lips in scorn. .
“How British! How very British!” I ex-
claimed. “You will imprison me while you man-
ufacture what you need in the way of proofs. It
is too bad to disappoint such friendly intentions,
but think you I would linger in your clutches were
I not amply safeguarded?”
I walked across the room and drew from a
drawer the British Papers of Protection which
Champe had returned to me in time to be vastly
useful. _
“Here is a Protection which I am sure you will
ﬁnd in order.”
Tarlton took one look at it. Then he waved it
aside.
“But you are not Miss Rosalie Roberts !” he
declared.
At last I permitted myself a smile.
“There the burden of proof will rest upon you.
I can bring many to testify that I am Rosalie
Roberts,” I said. “Now, may I bid you good
night? Even my friends are not welcome at this
hour.”
233


CHAPTER XIX
I LAY late in bed the day after my encounter
with Major Tarlton, ﬁnding myself of a sud-
den as tired as if I had come off a long journey.
I'was more than anxious to set out for home,
but felt sure it would be wise to wait a few days,
until I knew the outcome of the Champe affair
and whether any suspicions still attached to me.
There had been no word the night before to en-
lighten me as to the course pursued where
Champe was concerned. I had faith that, with
my warning in hand, he would take care to avoid
the appearance of aught suspicious; and, as I
had said truthfully to Tarlton, so long as Major
André was past help I could not wish to see Gen-
eral Arnold receive his deserts, for the reason
that Peggy, who was innocent of his misdeeds,
would suffer more than he. This left no room
in my mind for regrets for the failure of
Champe’s plan, and I was quite happy in my lazi-
234


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ll
Naming no names, my dear, as I am told they
are unwelcome, let me say that you have grown
into a most charming young lady since we last
met,” he said. “My time here is short. I’ve
come to beg a small favor of you.”
Somehow, for all his elegance,—his gold-
mounted quizzing-glass and cane, his powder and
patches, his gaily embroidered waistcoat, and all
that went up to make the perfect picture of a beau
that he presented,—there was something wistful
in my uncle’s look and voice, and for the ﬁrst time
I felt my heart go out to him. I placed my free
hand over the ﬁngers that held mine and said
sincerely:
“If there is aught I can do for you, you have
but to name it.”
“Thank you, my dear.” He released my hand,
to take a pinch of snuff with some elaboration.
Then seeing that I waited for him to speak, he
went on: “Perchance distance and time are
needful to enable some to judge of events dis-
passionately; at least in my case that has proven
true. In England I resented that my country
was spoken of as a chattel, a possession that the
only interest was to exploit. I misliked the fact
236


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
that those of our refugees who had suffered for
her—not I, my dear; I personally have suffered
naught—were valued for their sacriﬁces but for
the gold they brought into the island. In ﬁne, my
dear, I found myself what I had never thought
to be, a patriot.”
“Oh! Rosalie will be glad!” I exclaimed, and
at once looked sidewise at my slip.
’_ Uncle Roberts smiled at me, well pleased.
“I ’ll keep your secret if you will keep mine,”
he nodded. “I dare not discover my sentiments,
for it would break your aunt’s heart to know that
she stood alone in her family. You see, with her,
loyalty to the king is a--a religion, almost.”
“But that is not the favor you came to ask,” I
said in bewilderment, “you couldn’t know I should
be so stupid as to betray myself.”
“Nay,” he acknowledged, “I am come about
those pestilential Papers of Protection which I
hear you have discovered to the authorities. I
pray you hide them. Stow them safely away.
Don’t let your aunt get her ﬁngers on them. Carry
them to Philadelphia, for I know of naught else
that will induce her to go there—-and I am sick for
home and Rosalie.”
/
237


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Uncle Roberts put up a hand to hide a trem-
bling lip.
After dinner, mindful of my promise to Mis-
tress Verplanck, I took Sudsy for a run, being
very careful to avoid that part of the town where
I was like to meet Tarlton or his soldiers, and com-
ing safely back without seeing a soul I knew or
who knew me, to ﬁnd Gilbert Sedden loitering near
the doorstep of my lodgings.
At sight of me he hastened forward, hat in
hand.
“In the face of your prohibition I dared not
intrude,” he explained, “but have been hoping to
see you or your woman. I have a word for your
ear.”
“Then you ’d better step inside,” I said, none
too well pleased to see the young man.
Once within, I took off my hat and threw it on
the table pettishly.
“Now what ’s your errand?” I asked curtly.
Gilbert’s eyes widened.
“What have I done to annoy you?” he inquired,
instead of answering my question. “Faith, you
sounded just like your cousin when you spoke just
238


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
now, and she, as well you know, hath never a civil
word for a poor young Englishman like me.”
This warned me to change my tune, and I mo-
tioned him to be seated as if we were the best of
friends.
“I had not thought to sound peevish,” I told
him; “but in sooth I am tired of New York and
all its cross-purposes. Forgive me, and say your
say.”
His face cleared at my apology; then it clouded
again.
“ ’T is hard to put into words, now that we are
face to face,” he admitted, “and ’t is I who must
crave your forgiveness, for I have come to warn
you against your own mother— Nay, hear me
out,” he went on hastily, as if I had attempted an
interruption, which in truth I had not, not know-
ing what to say in my .character of Rosalie, al-
though Patty would have words ready to ﬁt to her
Aunt Augusta. “My coming here is the less ex-
cusable because I have no facts to give you. Only
vague suspicions that recent events have strength-
ened Madam Roberts’s hand, until now she is pre-
paring to play her cards ruthlessly.”
I thought this over and nodded my head in
239


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
understanding. There was no doubt the news
that I had the papers with me would have been
most welcome to Aunt Augusta.
In this warning was seeming evidence that
Master Sedden was kindly disposed to Rosalie.
Could it be that I had misjudged him all the time?
I turned to him abruptly. '
“How came you to take service with Madam
Roberts to coerce her daughter ?” I asked without
preamble.
Sedden’s eyes looked his astonishment.
“But you know all that already!” he exclaimed.
“Perchance I do and perchance I don’t,” I re-
plied calmly. “At all events, tell it to me again
from the very beginning. It may be that I have
missed the one point that will give me a cue to
what to expect now.”
So it was from Gilbert Sedden’s own lips that
I heard the story that follows.
240


CHAPTER XX
() N the very day that Rosalie and I had our
encounter with the Whiggish highwayman
a skilled worker was stooped over his task in his
shop off The Poultry in London. A magnifying-
glass was screwed into one eye, and his back,
rounded by years of such toil, seemed to express
a certain stubborn indifference to all that was not
immediately connected with his occupation.
His shop was a strange place, full of interest
for any student of the arts of the past. Due
partly to the London use of pit-coal, the smoke of
which obscured the sun, it seemed at ﬁrst glance
an ill-lit and dingy room, crowded with useless,
often decrepit furniture and outworn ornaments.
But there was naught there that could not be
mended, and that, ministered to by David Bart’s
clever ﬁngers, would not in time again change
owners, to become, perchance, the pride of some
collector or the chief adornment of a lady’s
drawing-room.
Gothic oak sat cheek by jowl with gold and
241


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
marquetry from the France of the Great Louis.
Sevres and Lowestoft nudged Chinese sang-de-
boeuf. Glass from Italy, delicate as soap-bubbles,
had been pushed aside to make place for gold-
inlaid steel from Toledo, or pistols crusted with
lumps of coral and turquoise which came from
India or Damascus. Over all there lay a gray
ﬁlm of dust which served to disguise and render
invisible even the cream color of carved ivory and
the glow of enamels from Limoges.
Whether this was by accident or design, no
customer could say with positiveness. There
were those among them who credited David Bart
with great shrewdness. Such vowed he culti-
vated the neglected look of the place, holding it a
foible of the true collecter to value highly that of
which he himself was the ﬁrst to discern the
worth.
Bart had been known to reply to the inquiry as
to a price: “Yestere’en I might have let it go
for two guineas [or ten or more, as the case might
be], but now that it pleases your Excellency’s
critical taste, I know right well that ’t is worth
double that, and that ’s my price to-day.”
His simplicity in such cases seemed blandly
242


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
childlike; yet once his ﬁgure had been stated, he
never changed it and it was useless to argue with
him.
“I pray your Excellency not to buy it an you
hold the price to be unfair,” he would say
anxiously, turning back to his work with a trou-
bled air. “After all, ’t is not like the bread and
meat that waste away my paltry gains. You have
no vital need for this, which feasts naught save
the eye.”
In truth, the man seemed to have no liking for
that part of his business which must have shown
him the most proﬁt, and was happiest when days
passed without customers and he was left free to
employ his time in the delicate repair work at
which he was so adept.
Hearing the jingle of the bell announcing the
opening of the shop door, Bart took the glass from
his eye and made as if to rise, but a familiar voice
warned him that it was unnecessary.
“ ’T is I, Uncle David,” Gilbert Sedden said.
“I want to talk with you on business.”
“I ’ve told you not to ‘uncle’ me,” Bart mut-
tered. “’T is not ﬁtting from a man of your
rank to one of mine.”
243


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
I‘
pose to be stayed; this lady hath no inclination
to either side. Let her judge between us, an she
will be so good.”
Madam Roberts, an imperious woman, found
something agreeable to her in the position of ar-
bitrator, but Bart turned to his work-bench
heavily.
“I have said that for me this matter was ﬁxed,
once and for all, ere you had a tooth in your
head or knew how to wag your tongue,” he grum-
bled. “You but waste your breath; nor is it to
my taste to bare private quarrels to the gaze of
a stranger. So, an your ladyship hath no busi-
ness to discuss with me, I ’ll back to my task
ere light fades from the sky.”
Madam Roberts felt her curiosity stirred.
“I ’ll hear the lad,” she said graciously. “There
will be time enough to take up my affair with you
later.” She turned expectantly to the boy before
her. “Your age?” she asked. “And then your
story.”
“I ’m nearing twenty,” Gilbert replied. “My
name is Gilbert Sedden. Because I have a strain
of noble blood, my uncle holds that work will soil
my hands. I am bid to sit idly by while he toils
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
U ' ' !!
Yet that seems a very suitable suggestion,
Madam Roberts declared. “There is no shame in
serving our great and good king.” She paused
and glanced at Bart, whose hunched shoulders
gave a clue to what was passing in his mind, so
stubborn and determined did they look; seeing
which Madam Roberts grew warmer in her ad-
vocacy of the 1ad’s cause. “You should be
proud,” she said, “that young Sedden is so well
disposed and loyal. I come from a land where
all are not blessed with such children. Across
the seas people who love their king have had the
unspeakable sorrow of seeing their offspring turn
against him and them. To my distress, I have
witnessed that very thing in my own family, and
can therefore the more heartily commend and ap-
preciate this right-minded young man. I should
think you would be happy to see him wear the
colors of the crown.”
“As an ofﬁcer, yes,” Bart said shortly, adding
after a moment, “I swore to his mother that I
would make a gentleman of him, and I ’ll not break
my oath.”
Madam Roberts was prepared to argue longer,
but Bart rose. '
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(I
I will bear your case in mind. It may be that
I shall hear of some honorable employ that your
uncle would permit you to accept.”
Gilbert thanked her as he handed her to her
chair; although he built no hopes on her careless
promise, he was grateful to any one who showed
sympathy and understanding of his point of view.
He stood bareheaded in the street as her sedan-
chair swung off, its poles seeming to sag under
her weight, and the chairmen in their many-caped
coats to go with caution, as if assured that any
misstep would receive scant forbearance from
their passenger.
Until they turned the corner Gilbert never
moved; but once they were out of sight he went
into the shop, to ﬁnd his uncle again at his work-
bench, all thought of early closing forgotten.
The lad opened his mouth as if about to begin
"their controversy anew, but one good look at those
:strong and stubborn shoulders discouraged him
:and, with a disheartened shrug, he passed on into
the house.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
The lad dressed himself in his simple best, and
walked to jermyn Street. He was surprised
when he came to the number given, to ﬁnd it
scarce so elegant as he had expected. In truth,
the house had an air of shabbiness, and the parlor
he was shown into was almost dingy, with not
one piece of furniture in it for which his uncle
would have given a ﬂorin.
There was a ﬁre alight, although the day was
warm for London, and before it shivered a small
.and wiry man, dressed in the extreme of fashion.
To Gilbert’s amazement, this gentleman leaped to
his feet agilely as he entered, and made him a
most profound bow.
“ ’T is Madam Roberts’s young friend, I doubt
not,” he said suavely. “She will be here anon.
Meanwhile draw up to the ﬁre, I pray you, and
join me in execrating the weather.”
“In truth, I thought it fair and vastly pleasant
to-day,” Gilbert said cheerfully, as he took a seat
at some distance from the coals which Mr. Rob-
erts was ever coaxing into a brighter blaze.
“Fair! Fair !” that gentleman now fretted.
“You may call it fair in this town of fog and
smuts.” He delicately ﬂicked his coat with a
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
their blood, you mean!” Mrs. Roberts spoke
from the doorway, and at once advanced into the
room, removing, as she came, a scarf she wore.
“I saw Mrs. Oswald,” she went on, turning again
to her husband even as she held out her hand in
greeting to Gilbert. “She knew naught of Phila-
delphia.” There was a cadence in her tone
that betrayed a longing for news. Mr. Roberts
visited his disappointment on the ﬁre, which he
poked mercilessly.
“No—ah—no word of—Rosalie ?” he asked,
with something perilously close to a sniff.
“Naught of our ungrateful child!” Mrs.
Roberts said sternly; then she turned her whole
attention to Gilbert.
“I think it best to tell you,” she began, “that
I have made some inquiries as to your character
and estate. Are you, in truth, he about whom
this is writ?”
She held out for his inspection a sheet of coarse
paper printed with the words of a ballad under a
title set out in large letters, “The Penniless Peer.”
Gilbert waved it away from him in evident
distaste. It was not the least of his crosses that
his story had in some way become public and had
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
to our good king. Last winter, while our troops
were quartered in Philadelphia, there were many
strange and mysterious happenings, all tending to
give aid or comfort to our enemy the rebels. No
one can say how great was the help given, and
every effort was made to discover who was the
perpetrator of these outrages. Our whole army
was on the alert, and at last, just as it had been
determined, from motives of policy, to withdraw
the British forces from Philadelphia for a time,
the discovery was made that it was my daughter,
my Rosalie, who was at the root of the trouble.”
“ ’T is impossible!” cried Gilbert. “Impos-
sible! How could a young girl befool grown
men? Be sure some one is using her as a screen
to hide behind.”
“I said much those same words to Sir William
Howe,” Madam Roberts averred grimly. “To be
told that Rosalie was cleverer even than he had
thought her; for she had not only befooled the
British Army, she had befooled me !”
What sounded very like a chuckle came from
the ﬁreplace. Gilbert glanced around, to see Mr.
Roberts, sunk into his ﬁne clothes and apparently
half asleep, looking very like a bird with rumpled
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
feathers; but Mrs. Roberts went on, unmindful
of aught but her own story:
“She had escaped into the Provincial lines, in
company with a scapegrace cousin who had
always been a malignant Whig. And now I will
go fetch the letters and papers I wish you to see.”
The lady swept from the room, and Mr. Roberts
opened one eye and beckoned with a claw-like
ﬁnger. When Gilbert reached his side, the gentle-
man drew him down and whispered: ’
“It ’s all true. She diddled them, my little girl
did! She snapped her ﬁngers in the faces of the
whole condemned British Army. ’T was out-
rageous, of course, but funny, egad! Hist,
Madam ’s coming back,” and in another instant
this good Colonial Tory was again, to all appear-
ances, dozing before the ﬁre.
Gilbert also slipped back to his place, carrying
with him a confused and surprising impression
that he had been talking to a sick bird who yet
was proud of a very disloyal daughter.
Madam Roberts displayed no such ill-judged
pride. She explained brieﬂy that the supreme
Executive Council of the Provincial Rebels had
put Rosalie in command of the family estates,
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
which were extremely valuable, and, if sold, would
enable them to live in luxury, “even though
London is a sad lickpenny where one can scarce
breathe the vital air without expense.” She
added that the family had Protections from Howe
which would conﬁrm them in their possessions
should the British again be in control of Phil-
adelphia. Thus there was nothing in the way of
Rosalie’s disposing of all their holdings at once
and bringing, or sending, them the money, as
Madam Roberts had been given every assurance
that her daughter would be kindly received did
she show a properly repentant spirit and come
into the British lines of her own accord. How-
ever, should Rosalie refuse to rejoin her parents,
she might continue to reside with her Uncle john
Abbott at his expense.
“He can well afford to pay her as his house-
keeper, and her father and I are tired of sharing
our income with the ragged rabble the Americans
call an army.”
Gilbert could not be sure that he was not mis-
taken, but it seemed to him that the crumpled ﬁg-
ure by the ﬁre lifted an eyelid and treated him to
an owlish wink.
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Mr. Roberts never opened his mouth again, but
by the time Gilbert left Madam Roberts, he was in
possession of much information reﬂecting the
baseness of the Provincial cause, the ingratitude
of a certain pampered daughter, and her delusions
as to what constituted patriotism which had led
her fond mother at last to conclude that in all like-
lihood her child’s brain was unsettled, and to
arrange for the despatch of a trusty messenger
who would see to it that her commands were
obeyed and the resulting moneys brought safely
to her hand.
“This is no ordinary errand, Gilbert,” Madam
Roberts said; “in truth, I think ’t is one your
uncle himself will hold to be an honorable employ,
for ’t is plain I could repose such a trust in none
save a gentleman. At all events, ask his consent
and let me have his answer as quickly as may
be.”
Gilbert trod back to The Poultry on air. It
seemed to him that at last he was to have an
opportunity to be something more than a mar-
ionette. To go into the new world, to make an
iindutiful child see reason, to bring back to her
allegiance one who was disloyal, to help one loyal

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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
to the king to recover her rights—all those things
sounded vastly ﬁne to him, and he was bursting
to tell his uncle what had befallen him. But
when he threw open the door and rushed into the
shop, David Bart was not alone.
By his side sat a stout, swarthy, Iewish-looking
man whom it never occurred to Gilbert to class
as young. He turned to Bart inquiringly, as the
lad entered, and Bart nodded grimly.
“ ’T is my Lord Lacklands himself,” he said
with some asperity; “you can tell him in person
what you have said to me.”
The stranger got to his feet and placed a hand
on Gilbert’s shoulder.
“I knew your father when I was a little lad,”
he said, in a singularly charming voice. “He
was kind to me, and I liked him right well.”
“I never knew him,” Gilbert returned, more
than a little put out that his great news must be
delayed because of the presence of a prosy
stranger. “And he was far from kind to me, in
that he robbed me of all that should by rights be
mine.”
“Aye, he joined his father to break the entail,”
the visitor agreed; “but he was scarce more than
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
a lad himself at the time and he did his best later
to retrieve something for you from the wreck,
only to fail miserably.”
“I know naught of that!” Gilbert’s tone was
stubborn.
“Nor care, I see,” the new-comer said. “Lis-
ten, then. Your father left friends who would
have helped your mother, but she disappeared
and, as naught was heard of her or you, all sup-
posed she had perished and, as is the way of the
world, she shortly was forgotten. You see, I ’m
not trying to palliate their careless heartlessness.
. . . At all events your existence has recently
become a matter of public knowledge—”
“Those hateful ballads !” Gilbert interrupted
under his breath. "
“Aye,” acknowledged the stranger; “ ’t was the
ballads woke us up. Inquiries were made, and I
set about to get you some small patronage and
position—as is your due.”
“And who are you?” asked Gilbert. “And
why should I be beholden to you?”
“I?” The visitor had a fat and merry chuckle.
“This is a tale to tell at White’s! I ’ll wager ten
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
guineas there will not be three men found there
to believe it. They think that the very stones of
London know Charles james Fox.”
“Charles james Fox!” Gilbert spoke heatedly.
“So that ’s who you are. Think you I ’d take a
favor from an enemy of our king? Nay, Uncle
and Mr. Fox, I ’ve no need of favors. I ’m off
to America, in a position of great trust for a very
right-minded and loyal lady, Mrs. Roberts of
Philadelphia.”
Charles Fox made no effort to combat this
decision. Instead, he stroked his lip to hide a
smile and asked:
“And is this loyal Mrs. Roberts of Philadelphia
by any chance the mother of one Miss Rosalie
Roberts?”
“So you ’ve heard of her,” said Gilbert, truc-
ulantly. “A most contumacious miss! My er-
rand is to her.” .
“Aye, I ’ve heard of her,” Fox replied; “and if
you will do a favor for one who is not above
receiving one, you will present to her my most
respectful homage and admiration. Moreover,
young man, I prophesy that you and I shall be
265


POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
better friends when you have seen America than
we are to-day; and if ever you should want me
you will doubtless be able to ﬁnd me.”
With a friendly nod to David Bart, the gentle-
man left the shop.
“There,” said David as his visitor passed his
window, “goes a great man. Such men see
farther than the like of us.”
“I do not think it,” Gilbert sniffed.
“I know you don’t,” his uncle answered; “but,
at twenty, even you have a suprise or two in
store.”
266


CHAPTER XXII
GILBERT SEDDEN, gentleman at large,
leaving his title behind him and armed with
countless letters of instruction and introduction
from his patrons, arrived in New York in the
hard winter of I 780.
Madam Roberts had told him to be in no haste
to hurry to Philadelphia, being ﬁrm in her convic-
tion that the British must shortly re-occupy that
town, in which case it might be better advised for
him to wait until their army was established there
once more. So it was that he lingered in the
older city, interested and astonished by much that
he saw and heard. Some of the letters which he
had presented brought him invitations to sup or
drink a dish of tea—invitations which he gladly
accepted, to be vastly surprised at the character of
his entertainment.
To be sure, he knew himself ignorant of Eng-
lish society; yet he had seen ﬁne ladies in London
and it seemed to him that these Provincial dames
would bear comparison with any.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
He went one day to a tea-drinking at Lady
Mary Watts’s, where there was a most fashion-
able assembly, the ladies entering the drawing-
room with formal curtsies, to be as formally
received and handed to places reserved for them
at card-tables, or seated and plied with tea and
cake by attendant cavaliers.
Gilbert made his greetings to his hostess grace-
fully enough; then he stood against the wall some-
what at a loss what to do next, for he saw no
acquaintances in the room.
Lady Mary, however, had not forgotten him
and in a moment or two bore down on him,
accompanied by a girl with a clever face lit by
dancing black eyes.
“As a stranger among us, you must have
a guide,” Lady Mary announced. “Miss Franks
will tell you who ’s who, and all our tangled
politics.”
Then she swept away, leaving him face to
face with this strange young woman, whose
penetrating glance put him completely out of
countenance.
With an effort Gilbert conquered his diﬁidence.
“May I fetch you a dish of tea?” he asked.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
A chuckle at her shoulder made her whip
around. A merry-faced young man in British
uniform bent in a profound bow as she recognized
him.
“Lord Fairbrook!” she exclaimed. “I thought
you were helping to win the war in the South.”
“You read the Tory papers,” Fairbrook re-
joined with a laugh. “ ‘The South, war-weary,
ready to welcome a British Army.’ I read it
myself.”
“Is it your meaning that you were not wel-
come?”
“Far from it,” F airbrook returned. “We were
welcomed warmly—with shot and shell.”
“Then we have won no victories there ?”
Miss Franks’s spirits were plainly dashed.
“Oh, if it ’s victories you want—yes,” Fair-
brook replied. “Egad, we always win,—or almost
always,—but where ’s the use when we can’t hold
what we win? The minute we pass by, the
wretches are back; and if we return, the ﬁghting
is all to do over again.”
' “I thought you promised that this was to be a
short and merry war,” Miss Franks said moodily.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
Gilbert and F airbrook, who had taken a liking
to the lad, remained together on the outskirts of
this group, listening to the light talk and gossip
which was bandied back and forth; and when
ﬁnally Gilbert felt it time to bid his hostess fare-
well the officer was still at his side.
“We shall not see you here again, I fear,” Lady
Mary said kindly. “Mr. Watts is tired of city
life, and hath rented Mrs. Richard Montgomery’s
farm for two years; so this is in the nature of a
farewell party. If there is aught we can do for
you before we leave, I am sure you have only to
advise Mr. Watts of it.”
As the two young men strolled out of the
house side by side, Fairbrook gave his sudden
chuckle.
“Vastly polite to us is the Lady Mary; but ’t is
well known that they are leaving the city to be rid
of British tyranny.”
“That I do not understand,” was Gilbert’s com-
ment. “They surely are people of the better sort.
Now, in England I was told this was but a rebel-
lion of the ragged rabble.”
“In England one is told many things tuned to
the ears of those in power,” Fairbrook said.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“When last I was home, I heard that fevers raged
in Philadelphia; Boston was starving; the rebel
army would not ﬁght—”
“And will they, sir ?”
“Like demons, an the odds are not twenty to
one. If they run then, ’t is what a private was
given legs for,” [Fairbrook afﬁrmed sturdily.
“Were I asked, I’d say ’t would be a crime to
break so pure a spirit; but a soldier’s opinion is
of no worth, you understand.”
“Our ways part here, I fancy,” Gilbert said as
they paused at a corner, “but this I should like to
say: An you are not paid to think, you have at
least given me much to ponder over.”
“It would pleasure me if you would sup with me
to-night,” Fairbrook suggested, a shade of embar-
rassment showing on his boyish face. “If you
are bent upon leaving us for Philadelphia, I can
set you in the way of it, so far as a safe-conduct
through our lines is concerned, and Mr. Watts,
an you ask it of him, will surely arrange a Con-
tinental pass for you, so long as your errand is
non-political.”
ll 7 ' ' 77
T1s purely business, Gilbert declared. “I
am interested in the politics of the country only
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
young ofﬁcers, and she held up her hands in laugh-
ing dismay.
“I know not all the details,” she protested, “but
our victories have been great. I hear the prize
money for each ofﬁcer will reach astounding
ﬁgures. In truth, I saw a cartload of table silver
driven up from the dock just now.”
“Pirate plunder!” I exclaimed, which I think
made some among my visitors uneasy, for one
young man protested.
“Nay, Mistress Rosalie, you ’ll not deny the
victor his spoils?”
“An army’s spoils are cannon, gunpowder, and
the stores of the enemy,” I declared, my eyes ﬂash-
ing. “The gentlemen of Mr. Washington’s com-
mand would not stoop to rob Tory families of
their plate.”
“Yet General Arnold seemeth to have had a
kind consideration for his purse,” one of my
visitors pointed out with an affected laugh.
“General Arnold was one among many, sir,” I
retorted. “He evidently knew where to seek
congenial company, and we spare him to you
right gladly.”
I expected to be beset by the whole party for
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
this, but Becky leaped into the breach to save me.
“Touché !” she cried. “And no more than your
deserts, sir, for crossing swords with a lady!
Have I not said again and again that you could
not judge the wit of Americans by the fair of
New York? Our Philadelphia damsels are taught
repartee in their cradles.”
So the matter was passed off, but Gilbert
Sedden drew close to me, whispering in my ear:
“You ’re right! Such plundering would stain
any uniform.”
Madam Roberts next addressed me, speaking
with the utmost blandness:
“My child, I have secured rooms for you and
Martha at our lodgings. I have instructed her to
pack, and will send porters for your luggage.”
So that was her object! I was to be her “child”
until she got me in her power and secured Howe’s
Letters of Protection. It was the news that I
had those papers which had brought me this
prompt visit, as I had suspected from the moment
I heard her voice.
“It is not worth while for me to move,” I said,
keeping my eyes downcast. “My visit here is
drawing to a close.”
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POWDER, PATCHES .AND PATTY
ll
Now that I am here, I can see no reason
for your returning to Philadelphia.” Madam
Roberts spoke tartly.
“I promised to go back, and Uncle john will be
expecting me,” I murmured.
“We will send word to him that you have
rejoined us,” Aunt Augusta insisted. “You can
manage that, Gilbert, I doubt not ?”
“I can, of course,” Sedden said hesitatingly,
“but ’t is natural that Miss Roberts should wish to
go home, not having made arrangements for
aught but a short visit.”
“Nonsense!” Aunt Augusta spoke harshly.
“She is not going! Philadelphia will soon be
attacked from the south; and when it is in our
hands again it will be time enough to talk of
visiting it.”
“Pray cease to argue the point,” I said, pos-
itively. “ ’T is necessary for many reasons that
I return to Philadelphia and, such being the case,
I shall not leave these lodgings.”
“Since you refuse me obedience, there ’s naught
for me to do but take my leave.” Madam Roberts
rose ponderously. “Give me Sir William Howe’s
Papers of Protection and I will go.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
“Those I must refuse to part with,” I said, hard
put to it to keep the tremble out of my voice,
“so long as they are necessary for my own
safety.”
“You mean you refuse me my property ?”
Madam Roberts, who was a ﬁne, portly woman
seemed to tower over me. “Thank fortune, this
is a British town and a parent still hath authority
over a minor child!”
283


CHAPTER XXIII
HERE I was, in a cleft stick. As Rosalie I
could scarcely refuse to go with my mother;
while if I declared myself Patty, the Papers of
Protection from Howe were of no use to me.
Moreover, I knew not just what penalties I might
have incurred by coming into an enemy’s city
under another’s name and with a pass granted
to my cousin. But I found that I feared the
British less than I did my aunt. At all hazards,
I should not go with her, so I shook my head
smilingly.
“How shall you set about having your parental
authority enforced, madam? You can scarce
have changed your mind since last we met, when
you declared me no child of yours but an impudent
impostor.”
Becky Franks clapped her hands softly.
“I can testify to that!” she cried. “I heard it
with my own two ears. ’T is a most amusing
situation.”
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
more than looks. She and I have ever been
friendly disposed toward each other, while with
Mistress Abbott I am at daggers drawn, not from
lack of good will on my part but because the lady
sees in me her pet aversion.”
“There ’s one passing the house who should
know Rosalie Roberts,” one of the young officers
cried. They were all, by now, vastly excited over
the outcome of this controversy, and without wait-
ing for permission he threw open the window,
calling shrilly: '
“Hi! F airbrook! You ’re wanted within.”
An instant later Lord Fairbrook was bowing to
the company, but at sight of Tarlton he forgot
all else and walked up to him, holding out his hand
in mock seriousness.
“I am overjoyed to ﬁnd you here,” he said im-
pressively. “I was on my road to the commander
to ask if there was not some elegant triﬂe in the
way of a medal or a gold snuff-box which he could
see his way to bestow upon you.”
“Algernon, cease your rattling. Your opinion
is wanted upon a most serious matter.” Tarlton
spoke testily, being in no mood for his friend’s
chafﬁng.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
ment, tapping the ﬂoor impatiently with her cane.
Now she stepped forward to take advantage of
this turn in’ her favor. But before she could
speak I had realized the mad foolishness of my
display of pique, and had determined to retrieve
it. I knew not for sure how things stood between
him and my cousin. I suspected that Lord Fair-
brook only awaited the end of hostilities to lay
himself and all he had at her feet; so now I gave
him the fellow of one of Rosalie’s arch glances
from out of the corners of my eyes and said:
“I pray you spare me your protestations here-
after, since you know not whether I am I when
I stand beside you.”
“Zounds,” cried Fairbrook, “no other in the
world is like to you! You have but to name my
penance and I ’ll perform it gladly. In truth, my
sudden shift is a compliment to your command
over me, in that you can make me think exactly
what pleaseth you.”
“Then tell all present plainly who I am,” I
ordered, tapping the ﬂoor with my foot even as
Aunt Augusta tapped it with her cane.
Fairbrook turned obediently to the company.
“This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mistress Rosa-
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
77 ll
like a sheep, Fairbrook said. You can prove
naught here, because there ’s naught to prove.
Half the army will be laughing at you an you
stick it.”
Rosalie slipped through the door as he spoke.
“Oh, I pray you do not deprive the British
Army of a jest on my account,” she murmured
lightly. “I know not of what crime I stand ac-
cused, but your soldiers here have so few causes
for merrymaking that I would willingly sacriﬁce
myself in some small degree to give the poor crea-
tures an excuse for smiling.”
No one replied to this sally, for while Aunt Au-
gusta seemingly was ready to take my part behind
my back, I had never known her to do it before
my face, and therefore, after a pause, Rosalie
went on:
“As to this controversy over a likeness betwixt
my cousin and me, it so chances that there is op-
portunity to end it for all time. I have a visitor
here from Philadelphia. Come forth, Patty; I ’m
sure this company is ready to make you welcome.”
At her words I stepped to her side and we stood
linked arm in arm, while all looked at us in an
amazement they troubled not to conceal.
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POWDER, PATCHES AND PATTY
It was very sweet to watch Rosalie’s joy at
being with her parents again; and, since I had seen
into both their hearts, I could never consider
either of them contemptible, as once I had.
“Ere ’t is decided what we are all to do,” I
said, “I am about to break a promise, or perchance
it was but a bargain between us, from his share in
which he is absolved. I told Uncle Roberts that,
so long as he hid the fact that I was Patty, no one
should know from me that England had taught
him patriotism. He wished to conceal this be-
cause he feared it would grieve you, Aunt Au-
gusta; but since you are of one mind with him, ll
think he will forgive me for that broken vow.
There is no need for you to go on deceiving each
other. He loves the country of his birth as you
do, above any other.”
There were glad tears a-plenty after that and
Uncle Roberts summed the matter up when he
said that Rosalie, being younger and more teach-
able, had learned for herself what it had taken
sundry hard lessons to drive home to her parents.
“And now,” he added, “I would have naught
to ask for if there was even a distant hope that
we could some day go home.”
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POWDER, PATCHES’ AND PATTY
“But that is what I ’ve come for,” Rosalie de-
clared joyfully. “ ’T is all arranged. You are
to be admitted to parole, and I have permission
for you to occupy the house at Harrogate.
Uncle john, through various channels, has made
everything safe; and once the change in your
sentiments is established, I am sure the city house
will be permitted to you as well.”
“Then the sooner we go, the better,” I said.
“It will at least be a great relief to Major Tarl-
ton to see the last of us. While we are here to-
gether I ’m sure he will set half the British army
to watch the other half, lest we steal it away.
He will rejoice to say good-by.”
“I ’m not so certain of that,” Rosalie mur-
mured, with a funny look at me. “I ’ve an idea
he is fond of—children. At all events, I ’ve our
safe-conducts in hand, through the courtesy of
both armies, and we need not linger. There are
horses and a traveling carriage waiting at
Elizabeth Town.”
“Traveling with Peggy, I learned that the
pleasantest riding was on a bed in a light cart,”
I said, importantly.
“Poor Peggy !” Rosalie spoke sadly. “What
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