“You forget, Mademoiselle,” he replied, “that we also were of your kin and that you drew your swords against us. Moreover, Master Simon was as loyal a subject of Queen Elizabeth and the first King James as am I, of King George. Did not his father, Robin Radpath, die in the effort to bear the great Queen’s message to the Emperor of Cathay? And I think you do not understand,” he went on more earnestly, “that we who came over to America in the King’s army had no very real knowledge of the cause in which we were fighting. Many such as I came up from the counties far from London, heard that beyond the seas was a company of ungrateful rebels who wished to make over our Parliament’s laws to suit themselves, and so threw ourselves headlong into our country’s service. We were amazed, later, to find that we were facing a spirited people who fought for a splendid cause, one that they, and even we ourselves in the end, knew was a just one. We had little taste for our task, most of us, before much time had passed; this I tell you freely since now I lie here wounded with no great chance of fighting again before the war is over. But I tell you also that, once having sworn allegiance to the King’s service, we will not turn traitors and betray his side to the enemy. His officers will fight on until a chance comes to withdraw honourably—we are not turncoats like Andrew Shadwell.” “You are a good lad and a loyal soldier,” said Stephen, holding out his hand to clasp his cousin’s heartily. “A brave heart is a brave heart on whichever side it stands.” “Had you ever had to do with Andrew Shadwell before?” inquired Clotilde, for she noticed his tone of extreme bitterness when he spoke of their Tory neighbour. “That night my companions surrendered to the Colonial soldiers, and I managed to escape,” Gerald answered, “Andrew Shadwell hid me in his barn from midnight until dawn. Then he came out to say that he had decided to swear allegiance to the American cause, since fortune seemed to be against the English, and so he turned me out into the growing daylight. Nor would he even give me information as to the road, lest it should be held against him that he had given aid to the enemy. Later, when the tide of success seemed to have set in our direction again, he changed his party once more and clamoured for rescue so loudly that the British Commander, in return for some information that he had given, was obliged to comply with his request. The traitorous fellow had the grace to stammer and turn red when he saw who it was that had been sent to save him. Had he remained, he would have been a loyal citizen of the United States again, by now, I do not doubt.”