CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF FONTENOY


My heart was thick with wrath as I walked up and down before Sir Peter
Halket's quarters and waited for Colonel Washington to reappear. I asked
myself again why I should be compelled to take the insults of any man. I
clenched my hands together behind me, and swore that Allen should yet pay
dearly. I recalled with bitterness the joy I had felt a week before, when
I had received from Colonel Washington a letter in which he stated that
he had procured my appointment as lieutenant in Captain Waggoner's
Virginia company. I had been ahungered to make the campaign, and had
donned my uniform with a light heart,--the same I had worn the year
before, now much faded but inexpressibly dear to me,--mounted my horse,
and ridden hotfoot to join the force here at Winchester. I had been
received kindly enough by my companion officers of the provincial
companies, many of whom were old friends. The contempt which the officers
of the Forty-Fourth felt for the Virginia troops, and which they were at
no pains to conceal, had vexed me somewhat from the first, yet it was not
until to-night at the officers' mess, to which I had foolishly accepted
Pennington's invitation, that this contempt had grown unbearable. I had
chanced to pull Pennington's horse out of a hole the day before, and so
saved it a broken leg, but I saw now that I should have done better to
refuse that invitation, courteously as it was given, and sincere as his
gratitude had undoubtedly been.