“My Lord, Miss Meredith and I are engaged in a private conversation, and cannot but take your intrusion amiss.”

“Fudge, man, is not the night hot enough but ye must blaze up so?  Nor is the river-bank your monopoly.”

“Keep it all, then, and a good riddance to the society you enjoy it with.  Come, Janice, we’ll back to the house.”

At the doorway Philemon held out his hand.  “We ride away while you will be sleeping, but ’t is a joyous heart you let me carry.”

“I am glad if I—­if you are happy,” responded the girl, as she let him press her fingers.  Then, regardless of the sentry, she laid her free hand on Phil’s arm impulsively and imploringly, as she added, “Oh, Philemon, please—­whatever else you are, please don’t be hard and cruel to me.”

“I’ll try my best not to be, though ’t is difficult for a soldier to be otherwise; but, come what may, I’ll never pain or deny you knowingly, Janice.”

“’T is all I beg.  But be kind and generous, and I’ll love you in time.”

Rub-a-dub went the drums, sounding tattoo, and the beating brought several officers scurrying out of the house.  Philemon kissed the girl’s hand, and hurried away to his squadron.

Two days the army remained encamped at the Fork, then by easy marches it followed the river down to Richmond, where a rest was taken.  Once again getting in motion, it fell back on Williamsburg and halted, for it was now the height of summer, and the heat so intense that the troops were easily exhausted.  Finally, the British retired across the James River, and took up a position at Portsmouth.

In the month thus spent, not once was Major Hennion able to get a word with Janice, for Lafayette followed closely upon the heels of the invaders until they were safe over the James, and there was constant skirmishing between the van and rear and two sharp encounters, which kept Tarleton’s and Simcoe’s cavalry, when they had rejoined, fully occupied in covering the retreat, while the Merediths and other loyalists who had joined the army travelled with the baggage in the advance.

The occupation of Portsmouth was brief, for upon the engineers reporting that the site was not one which could be fortified, the British general put his troops on board of such shipping as he could gather and transferred them bodily to Yorktown.  Here he set the army, and the three thousand negroes who had followed them, leisurely to laying out lines of earthworks, that he might hold the post with the reduced number which would be left him after he detached the reinforcements needed at New York, and despatched a sloop-of-war to Clinton, with word that he but awaited the arrival of transports to send him whatever regiments he should direct.