About two weeks later came the news of Sullivan's sweeping victory over the Six Nations of Indians under Sir John Johnson and the Indian Chief, Brandt. The Americans turned their country into a desert, and drove the whole people in headlong flight as far as Niagara. This Autumn also was rendered remarkable by the astonishing success of the American privateers; never had they been at once so troublesome and so fortunate. So that there was plenty for every one to talk about, if there had been neither lovers nor love-making in the land. But it seemed as if Love regarded the movement of great armies and the diplomacies of great nations, as the proper background and vehicles for his expression. While Medway was talking, or fishing, or hunting with Clinton, he was thinking of Maria. While Macpherson was inspecting his company, he was thinking of Maria. While Harry was traversing the woods and the waters, he was thinking of Maria. And while Neil Semple was drawing out titles, and making arguments in Court, he was always conscious of the fact that his happiness was bound up in the love of Agnes Bradley. On every side also, other lovers were wooing and wedding. The sound of trumpets did not sadden the music of the marriage feast, nor did the bridal dance tarry a moment for the tramp of marching soldiers. All the chances and changes of war were but ministers of Love, and did his pleasure. In the meantime John Bradley was stitching his saddles, and praying and working for Washington, the idol of his hopes, quite unconscious of how completely his home had been confiscated to the service of love and lovers. No house in all the restless city seemed less likely to be the rendezvous of meeting hearts; and yet quite naturally, and by the force of the simplest circumstances, it had assumed this character. It began with Maria. Her beauty and charm had given her three lovers, who were, all of them, men with sufficient character to find, or to make a way to her presence. But every movement, whether of the body or the soul, takes, by a certain law, the direction in which there is the least resistance; and the road of least resistance to Maria, was by way of Agnes Bradley. At the Semple house, Madame was a barrier Medway could not pass. She told Maria plainly, "no English lord should cross her doorstep." She could not believe in his good heart, or his good sense, and she asked scornfully, "how a close friend of General Clinton's could be fit company for an American girl? He has nae charm for touching pitch without being defiled," she said, "and I'll not hae him sitting on my chairs, and putting his feet on my hearth, and fleching and flattering you in my house while my name is Janet Semple. And you may tell him I said so."