He blushed like a girl at that, and for a little space only puffed the harder at his pipe.

“I did go out with the Minute Men in ’76, if you must know, and smelt powder at Moore’s Creek.  When my time was done I would have ’listed again; but just at that my father died and the Jennifer acres were like to go to the dogs, lacking oversight.  So I came home and—­and—­”

He stopped in some embarrassment, and I thought to help him on.

“Nay, out with it, Dick.  If I am not thy father, I am near old enough to stand in his stead.  ’Twas more than husbandry that rusted the sword in its scabbard, I’ll be bound.”

“You are right, Jack; ’twas both more and less,” he confessed, shamefacedly. “’Twas this same Margery Stair.  As I have said, her father blows hot or cold as the wind sets, but not she.  She is the fiercest little Tory in the two Carolinas, bar none.  When I had got Jennifer in order and began to talk of ’listing again, she flew into a pretty rage and stamped her foot and all but swore that Dick Jennifer in buff and blue should never look upon her face again with her good will.”

I had a glimpse of Jennifer the lover as he spoke, and the sight went somewhat on the way toward casting out the devil of sullen rage that had possessed me since first I had set returning foot in this my native homeland.  ’Twas a life lacking naught of hardness, but much of human mellowing, that lay behind the home-coming; and my one sweet friend in all that barren life was dead.  What wonder, then, if I set this frank-faced Richard in the other Richard’s stead, wishing him all the happiness that poor Dick Coverdale had missed?  I needed little:  would need still less, I thought, before the war should end; and through this love-match my lost estate would come at length to Richard Jennifer.  It was a meliorating thought, and while it held I could be less revengeful.

“Dost love her, Dick?” I asked.

“Aye, and have ever since she was in pinafores, and I a hobbledehoy in Master Wytheby’s school.”

“So long?  I thought Mr. Stair was a later comer in Mecklenburg.”

“He came eight years ago, as one of Tryon’s underlings.  Madge was even then motherless; the same little wilful prat-a-pace she has ever been.  I would you knew her, Jack.  ’Twould make this shiftiness of mine seem less the thing it is.”

“So you have stayed at home a-courting while others fought to give you leisure,” said I, thinking to rally him.  But he took it harder than I meant.

“’Tis just that, Jack; and I am fair ashamed.  While the fighting kept to the North it did not grind so keen; but now, with the redcoats at our doors, and the Tories sacking and burning in every settlement, ’tis enough to flay an honest man alive.  God-a-mercy, Jack!  I’ll go; I’ve got to go, or die of shame!”

He sat silent after that, and as there seemed nothing that a curst old campaigner could say at such a pass, I bore him company.