All but Amy had visited the spot before, and Burt explored the place with
her while the rest prepared for lunch. She had asked Gertrude to
accompany them, but the latter had sought refuge with Maggie, and at her
side she proposed to remain. She scarcely dared trust herself with Burt,
and as the day advanced he certainly permitted his eyes to express an
interest that promised ill for his inexorable purpose of constancy.
It had become clear to Miss Hargrove that he was restrained by something
that had occurred between him and Amy, and both her pride and her sense
of truth to her friend decided her to withdraw as far as possible from
his society, and to return to the city.
She and Burt vied with each other in gayety at lunch. When it was over
they all grouped themselves in the shade of a clump of cedars, and looked
away upon the wide prospect, Webb pointing out objects of past and
present interest. Alf and Fred speedily grew restless and started off
with the gun, Johnnie's head sank into her mother's lap, Miss Hargrove
and Burt grew quiet and preoccupied, their eyes looking off into vacancy.
Webb was saying, "By one who had imagination how much more could be seen
from this point than meets the eye! There, on the plain below us, would
rise the magnificent rustic colonnade two hundred and twenty feet long
and eighty feet wide, beneath which Washington gave the great banquet in
honor of the birth of the Dauphin of France, and on the evening of the
same day these hills blazed with musketry and rolled back the thunder of
cannon with which the festivities of the evening were begun. Think of the
'Father of his Country' being there in flesh and blood, just as we are
here! In the language of an old military journal, 'He carried down a
dance of twenty couple on the green grass, with a graceful and dignified
air, having Mrs. Knox for his partner.' In almost a direct line across
the river you can see the Beverly Robinson house, from which Arnold
carried on his correspondence with Andre. You can look into the window of
the room to which, after hearing of the capture of Andre, he hastened
from the breakfast-table. To this upper room he immediately summoned his
wife, who had been the beautiful Margaret Shippen, you remember, and told
her of his awful peril, then rushed away, leaving the poor, terror-stricken
woman unconscious on the floor. Would you not like to look through the
glass at the house where the tragedy occurred, Miss Hargrove?"
At the sound of her name the young girl started visibly, and Webb saw
that there were tears in her eyes; but she complied without a word, and
he so directed the glass that it covered the historic mansion.
"How full of sensibility she is!" thought innocent Webb, taking her
quickly suppressed emotion as a tribute to his moving reminiscences.
"Oh, Webb, have done with your lugubrious ancient history!" cried Burt,
springing up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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