I could scarcely accept it as being a true prophecy. I was not disturbed by it. The quarreling between colonies and the mother-country was an old story. Hiding my skepticism I asked, "When will it begin?" "It began in 1763, when the English Ministry decided to collect revenues from the colonies," was the quiet reply. "It will soon be open war. I verily believe I am entertaining in my humble home to-day the last royal governor of Virginia." ----- [3] The Quebec Bill, to take effect in 1775, was approved June 22, 1774, or before Colonel Lewis and Morris had their conversation. CHAPTER V LOVE COMES A CROPPER "I am speaking of a war with England." These words of Colonel Lewis rang in my ears as I rode to Salem. They had sounded fantastic when he uttered them. Now that I was alone they repeated themselves most ominously. The flying hoofs of my horse pounded them into my ears. War with England was unthinkable, and yet the colonel's speech lifted me up to a dreary height and I was gazing over into a new and very grim world. For years, from my first connected thoughts, there had been dissension after dissension between England and America. My father before me had lived through similar disputes. But why talk of war now? Many times the colonies had boiled over a bit; then some concession was made, and what our orators had declared to be a crisis died out and became a dead issue. To be sure another "crisis" always took the place of the defunct one, but the great fact remained that none of those situations had led to war. Perhaps if some one other than Colonel Lewis had indulged in the dire foreboding it would have made less of an impression. At the time he spoke the words I had not been disturbed. Now that I was remembering what an unemotional level-headed man he was the effect became accumulative. The farther I left Richfield behind and the longer I mulled over his sinister statement the more I worried. As I neared Salem my meditations continued disquieting and yet were highly pleasing. I was on my way to meet Patricia Dale. I was born on the Mattapony and left an orphan at an early age. I had gone to Williamsburg when turning sixteen, and soon learned to love and wear gold and silver buckles on a pewter income. In my innocence, rather ignorance, I unwittingly allowed my town acquaintances to believe me to be a chap of means. When I discovered their false estimate I did not have the courage to disillusion them. My true spending-pace was struck on my eighteenth birthday, and inside the year I had wasted my King William County patrimony.