“Pooh!” scoffed Lee. “’T is pretty to talk of, but ’t is another thing to bring it off, and I make small doubt that ’t will be no more successful than the damned ingenious manoeuvres of Brooklyn and Fort Washington, which have unhinged the goodly fabric we had been building.  I tell you we shall be in a declension till a tobacco-hoeing Virginian, who was put into power by a trick, and who has been puffed up to the people as a great man ever since, is shown to be most damnably weak and deficient.  He ’s had his chance and failed; now ’t is for me to repair the damage he’s done.”

Brereton clinched his fist and scowled.  “Do I understand that you refuse to obey the positive orders of his Excellency?”

“’T is necessary in detachment to allow some discretion to the commanding officer.  However, I’ll think on it after I’ve finished the sleep you’ve tried to steal.”  The general dropped back on the pillows, and drew up the bedclothes so as to cover his nose.

The aide, muttering an oath, stamped noisily out of the room, slamming the door with a bang that rattled every window in the house.

“I read failure in your face,” remarked Eustace, still crouched before the fire.

“Failure!” snapped the scowling man, as he, too, stooped over the blaze.  “Nothing but failure.  Here, when the people have been driven frantic by the outraging of their women and the plundering of their property, and want but the smallest encouragement to rise, one man dishes all our hopes by his cursed ambition and disobedience.”

“How so?”

Too angry to control himself, even to Lee’s aide, Jack continued his tirade.  “Ever since the general was put into office his subordinates have been scheming to break him down, and in Congress there has always been a party against him, who, through dislike or incapacity, clog all he advises or asks.  With the recent defeats, the plotters have gained courage to speak out their thoughts, and your general goes so far as to refuse to obey orders that would make possible a brilliant stroke, because he knows that ’t would stop this clack against his Excellency.  Instead, he would have Washington sit passive and freezing on the Delaware while he steals the honours by some attempted action.  And all the while he is writing to his Excellency letters signed, ‘Yours most affectionately,’ or ’God bless you,’—­cheap substitutes for the three thousand troops he owes us.”  The aide went to the cupboard and helped himself to the apple-jack.  “Canst get me a place to sleep, for God knows I’m tired?”

“Thou shalt have my bed, and welcome to thee,” offered Eustace, leading the way upstairs.  “Thou’lt not mind my getting into my clothes, for ’t is not shirt-tail weather.”

“Sixty miles and upward I’ve come since five o’clock yesterday morning, and I’d agree to sleep under a field-piece in full action.”  Brereton took off his cap and wig to toss both on the floor, unbuckled his belt, and let his sabre fall noisily; then sitting on the bed, he begged, “Give me a hand with my boots, will you?” Those pulled off without rising he rolled over, and, bundling the disarranged bedclothes about him, he was instantly asleep.