I came away wishing it were not so hard to hate him.  The second with whom I at length conferred—­for our duties permitted not a prompt despatching of the affair, and moreover Captain Falconer’s disposition was to conduct it with the gentlemanly leisure its pretended unimportance allowed—­was Lieutenant Hugh Campbell, one of several officers of that name who served in the Highland regiment that had been stationed earlier at Valentine’s Hill; he therefore knew the debatable country beyond Kingsbridge as well as I. He was a mere youth, a serious-minded Scot, and of a different sort from Captain Falconer:  ’twas one of the elegant captain’s ways, and evidence of his breadth of mind, to make friends of men of other kinds than his own.  Young Campbell and I, comparing our recollections of the country, found that we both knew of a little open hollow hidden by thickets, quite near the Kingsbridge tavern, which would serve the purpose.  Captain Falconer’s duties made a daylight meeting difficult to contrive without exposing his movements to curiosity, and other considerations of secrecy likewise preferred a nocturnal affair.  We therefore planned that the four of us, and an Irish surgeon named McLaughlin, should appear at the Kingsbridge tavern at ten o’clock on a certain night for which the almanac promised moonlight, and should repair to the meeting-place when the moon should be high enough to illumine the hollow.  The weapons were to be rapiers.  The preliminary appearance at the tavern was to save a useless cold wait in case one of the participants should, by some freak of duty, be hindered from the appointment; in which event, or in that of a cloudy sky, the matter should be postponed to the next night, and so on.

The duel was to occur upon a Wednesday night.  On that afternoon I was in the town, having carried some despatches from our outpost to General De Lancey, and thence to General Knyphausen; and I was free for a few minutes to go home and see my mother.

“What do you think?” she began, handing me a cup of tea as soon as I had strode to the parlour fire-place.

“I think this hot tea is mighty welcome,” said I, “and that my left ear is nigh frozen.  What else?”

“Margaret has gone,” she replied, beginning to rub my ear vigorously.

“Gone!  Where?” I looked around as if to make sure there was no sign of her in the room.

“With Ned—­on the Phoebe.”

“The deuce!  How could you let her do it—­you, and her mother, and Fanny?”

“We didn’t know.  I took some jelly over to old Miss Watts—­she’s very feeble—­and Madge and Ned went while I was out; they had their trunks carted off at the same time.  ’Twasn’t for an hour or two I became curious why she kept her room, as I thought; and when I went up to see, the room was empty.  There were two letters there from her, one to me and one to her mother.  She said she left in that way, to save the pain of farewells, and to avoid our useless persuasions against her going.  Isn’t it terrible?—­poor child!  Why it seems only yesterday—­” And my good mother’s lips drew suddenly down at the corners, and she began to sniff spasmodically.