I could not resist his good humor and, depressed as I was, I returned his grasp with spirit. It was impossible not to admire what I had heard of him, and equally impossible not to like what I had seen of him. There was in him a sparkle and a gaiety as well as an indomitable spirit that explained the hold he had over his men, a hold that was firmest in the darkest days and when the Swamp Fox’s life was not more easy than his. “Certainly,” I said, “I will remember the duck-shooting, General. And if I can procure leave for you to reside on your plantation, of which I have no doubt we shall still be in possession, we may have the pleasure of shooting the ducks in company.” “Bah!” he cried laughing. “Long live the Thirteen States!” “Long live King George!” I answered. “A clement and—” “A very stupid sovereign!” he retorted gaily. He waved his hat, and I waved mine. I understood that he did not wish me to learn the strength of his party, or who were with him; and I made no attempt to follow him. The sun was shining through the mist as he went round the house and disappeared in the direction of the river. Alas, the passing gaiety with which his good temper had infected me went with him. For days I had lived upon excitement. The exhilaration of movement, of effort, of danger, had borne me on. Above all the presence of the girl, whose nearness set my pulses bounding, had filled my thoughts and buoyed me up. Now in a twinkling I stood stripped of all, and shivering. Excitement, exhilaration, danger, Constantia, all were gone and I stood alone, by this cursed morass. I faced a future as flat and dreary as the prospect before my eyes; and in the rebound, I could almost have found it in my heart to pitch myself into one of the pale channels which the sunlight revealed running this way and that across the moss. The gaunt house beside me was not more lonely than I felt; and ungrateful as we too often are to Providence—before whom I bow in reverence as I write—the thought that I had just escaped from a violent death went for little in my thoughts. I was digging a hole in the mud with my heel and thinking of this when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned sharply; who can measure the swiftness with which hope leaps up in the heart? But the steps were only Marion’s. He had appeared again at the corner of the house. He did not approach me but called to me from a distance. “Have you any message for my god-daughter,” he asked, “before I go?” She has sent him back, I thought, to cover her retreat. Something, she feels, is due to me; and this kind of left-handed message saves her face. I felt it, I felt it sorely, but I pulled myself together—was I to remind her of her debt? “To be sure,” I said as cooly as I could. “Be good enough to congratulate her. Say how glad I am to have been of use to her—along with others.” “I’ll tell her,” he called out. “Very good!” And he laughed. “Good-bye, then, till better times. And don’t forget the duck-shooting!”