the field to be the nearer to the general when
my time should come, I missed the mark completely. It so chanced that as
the parade was ended my Lord and his suite were at the extreme right;
and when the regiments broke ranks I was forced to skirt the entire camp
to come into the road. By this time those I sought were gone into the
town, so I must needs turn about and follow, with the thing I had to say
still unspoken.

I need not drag you back and forth with me on the search I made to find
Lord Cornwallis again. 'Tis enough to say that after missing him here
and there, I ran him to earth at the court house, where, it was told
me, my Lord was sitting in council with his staff officers.

Thinking it worse than useless to try to force my way into the council
chamber, I waited in the raff of soldiery without, cursing the delay
which gave my despairing resolution time to cool. When I had closed the
door of my dear lady's chamber behind me I was resolved to fling myself
upon that fate which needed but a word from me to make my calling and
election to a gibbet swift and sure. Had I found my Lord Cornwallis in
his bed-room the word would have been spoken; but now the iron of
resolution cooled in spite of me.

'Twas not that I was less willing to pay the price of expiation; that
must be done in any case. But I had seen the enemy, and all the soldier
in me rebelled at the thought of dying like a noosed bullock in the
shambles. Could I but strike that one good blow.

The old court house of our greater Mecklenburg was such as some of you
may remember; a stout wooden building raised upon brick pillars to leave
a story underneath. In the time of the British occupation this lower
story served as a market house, and the public entrance to the court
room above was reached by steps on the outside. In my boyhood days this
outer stair was the only one; but now in wandering aimlessly through the
market-place beneath I found another flight in a corner; the "jury
stair," they called it, since it provided the means of egress from the
jury box above.

The sight of this inner stair set me plotting. Could I make use of it to
come unseen into the council chamber of Lord Cornwallis and his
officers?

The market-place was well thronged with venders and soldier buyers; the
patriotic Mecklenburgers were not averse to the turning of an honest
penny upon the needs of their oppressors, as it seemed. I watched my
chance, and when there were no pry