rom here to the Saint Lawrence or
Georgia. As I am an old soldier, they have elected me colonel. What more
natural? Come, brother, let us trot on; dinner will be ready, and Mrs.
Fan does not like me to keep it waiting." And so we made for his house,
which was open like all the houses of our Virginian gentlemen, and where
not only every friend and neighbour, but every stranger and traveller,
was sure to find a welcome.

"So, Mrs. Fan," I said, "I have found out what game my brother has been
playing."

"I trust the Colonel will have plenty of sport ere long," says she, with
a toss of her head.

My wife thought Harry had been hunting, and I did not care to undeceive
her, though what I had seen and he had told me, made me naturally very
anxious.

CHAPTER LXXXIX. A Colonel without a Regiment

When my visit to my brother was concluded, and my wife and young child
had returned to our maternal house at Richmond, I made it my business to
go over to our Governor, then at his country house, near Williamsburg,
and confer with him regarding these open preparations for war, which
were being made not only in our own province, but in every one of the
colonies as far as we could learn. Gentlemen, with whose names history
has since made all the world familiar, were appointed from Virginia as
Delegates to the General Congress about to be held in Philadelphia. In
Massachusetts the people and the Royal troops were facing each other
almost in open hostility: in Maryland and Pennsylvania we flattered
ourselves that a much more loyal spirit was prevalent: in the Carolinas
and Georgia the mother country could reckon upon staunch adherents, and
a great majority of the inhabitants: and it never was to be supposed
that our own Virginia would forgo its ancient loyalty. We had but few
troops in the province, but its gentry were proud of their descent from
the Cavaliers of the old times: and round about our Governor were swarms
of loud and confident Loyalists who were only eager for the moment when
they might draw the sword, and scatter the rascally rebels before them.
Of course, in these meetings I was forced to hear many a hard word
against my poor Harry. His wife, all agreed (and not without good
reason, perhaps), had led him to adopt these extreme anti-British
opinions which he had of late declared; and he was infatuated by his
attachment to the gentleman of Mount Vernon, it was farther said, whose
opinions my brother always followe