Mr. Swain’s affairs kept him in town the greater part of the twelve months, and Mrs. Swain and Patty moved to Annapolis in the autumn.  But for three years I was at Cordon’s Pride winter and summer alike.  At the end of that time I was fortunate enough to show my employer such substantial results as to earn his commendation—­ay, and his confidence, which was the highest token of that man’s esteem.  The moneys of the estate he left entirely at my order.  And in the spring of ’73, when the opportunity was suddenly offered to buy a thousand acres of excellent wheat land adjoining, I made the purchase for him while he was at Williamsburg, and upon my own responsibility.

This connected the plantation on the east with Singleton’s.  It had been my secret hope that the two estates might one day be joined in marriage.  For of all those who came a-courting Patty, Percy was by far the best.  He was but a diffident suitor; he would sit with me on the lawn evening after evening, when company was there, while Fotheringay and Francis Willard made their compliments within,—­silly flatteries, at which Patty laughed.

Percy kept his hounds, and many a run we had together’ in the sparkling days that followed the busy summer, when the crops were safe in the bottoms; or a quiet pipe and bottle in his bachelor’s hall, after a soaking on the duck points.

And this brings me to a subject on which I am loth to write.  Where Mr. Singleton was concerned, Patty, the kindest of creatures, was cruelty itself.  Once, when I had the effrontery to venture a word in his behalf, I had been silenced so effectively as to make my ears tingle.  A thousand little signs led me to a conclusion which pained me more than I can express.  Heaven is my witness that no baser feeling leads me to hint of it here.  Every day while the garden lasted flowers were in my room, and it was Banks who told me that she would allow no other hands than her own to place them by my bed.  He got a round rating from me for violating the pledge of secrecy he had given her.  It was Patty who made my shirts, and on Christmas knitted me something of comfort; who stood on the horse-block in the early morning waving after me as I rode away, and at my coming her eyes would kindle with a light not to be mistaken.

None of these things were lost upon Percy Singleton, and I often wondered why he did not hate me.  He was of the kind that never shows a hurt.  Force of habit still sent him to Gordon’s Pride, but for days he would have nothing to say to the mistress of it, or she to him.

CHAPTER XLVII

VISITORS

It was not often that Mr. Thomas Swain honoured Gordon’s Pride with his presence.  He vowed that the sober Whig company his father brought there gave him the vapours.  He snapped his fingers at the articles of the Patriots’ Association, and still had his cocked hats and his Brussels lace and his spyglass, and his top boots when he rode abroad, like any other Tory buck.  His intimates were all of the King’s side,—­of the worst of the King’s side, I should say, for I would not be thought to cast any slur on the great number of conscientious men of that party.  But, being the son of one of the main props of the Whigs, Mr. Tom went unpunished for his father’s sake.  He was not uncondemned.