This damaging item in her idol's character Maria brought out with deprecating apologies and likelihood of change, "not a bad Whig, uncle; she is so gentle, and she hates war, and so she feels so sorry for the poor Americans who are suffering so much, because, you know, they think they are right. Then her father is a Tory, and she is very fond of her father, and very proud of him, and she will now be under his influence, and of course do what he tells her – only – only – "
"Only what, Maria? You think there is a difficulty; what is it?"
"Her lover. I am almost certain he is a rebel."
"Has she a lover? She is very young – you must be mistaken?" He spoke so sharply Maria hardly knew his voice, and she considered it best to hesitate a little, so she answered in a dubious manner:
"I suppose he is her lover. The girls all thought so. He sent her letters, and he sometimes came to see her; and then she seemed so happy."
"A young man?"
"Yes, a very young man."
"A soldier?"
"I think, more likely, he was a sailor. I never asked Agnes. You could not ask Agnes things, as you did other girls."
"I understand that."
"He wore plain clothes, but all of us were sure he was a sailor; and once we saw Agnes watching some ships as far as she could see them, and he had called on her that day."
Neil did not answer her conjecture. He rose and stood silently on the hearth, his dark eyes directed outward, as if he was calling up the vision of the sea, and the ships and the girl watching them. For the first time Maria realized the personal attractiveness of her uncle. "He is not old," she thought, "and he is handsomer than any one I ever saw. Why has he not got married before this?" And as she speculated on this question, Neil let his eyes fall upon the dead fire and in a melancholy voice said:
"Maria, my dear, it is very late, I did not remember – you have given me two pleasant hours. Good-night, child."
He spoke with restraint, coldly and wearily. He was not aware of it, for his mind was full of thoughts well-nigh unspeakable, and Maria felt their influence, though they had not been named. She went away depressed and silent, like one who has suddenly discovered they were no longer desired.
Neil speedily put out the lights, and went to the solitude his heart craved. He was not happy; but doubt and fear are love's first food. For another hour he sat motionless, wondering how this woman, whom he had not in any way summoned, had taken such possession of him. For not yet had it been revealed to him, that "love is always a great invisible presence," and that in his case, Agnes Bradley was but its material revelation.
CHAPTER III.
LIFE IN THE CAPTIVE CITY
At this time in New York, John Bradley Was a man of considerable importance. He was not only a native of the city, but many generations of Bradleys had been born, and lived, and died in the wide, low house close to the river bank, not far north of old Trinity. They were originally a Yorkshire family who had followed the great Oliver Cromwell from Marston Moor to Worcester, and who, having helped to build the Commonwealth of England, refused to accept the return of royalty. Even before Charles the Second assumed the crown, Ezra Bradley and his six sons had landed in New York. They were not rich, but they had gold sufficient to build a home, and to open near the fort a shop for the making and repairing of saddlery.
Ever since that time this trade had been the distinctive occupation of the family, and the John Bradley who represented it in the year 1779, had both an inherited and a trained capability in the craft. No one in all America could make a saddle comparable with Bradley's; the trees were of his own designing, and the leather work unequalled in strength and beauty. In addition to this important faculty, he was a veterinary surgeon of great skill, and possessed some occult way of managing ungovernable horses, which commended itself peculiarly to officers whose mounts were to be renewed frequently from any available source. And never had his business been so lucrative as at the present date, for New York was full of mounted military during the whole period of the war, and enormous prices were willingly paid for the fine saddlery turned out of the workshop of John Bradley.
Contrary to all the traditions of his family, he had positively taken the part of the King, and at the very commencement of the national quarrel had shown the red ribbon of loyalty to England. His wife dying at this time, he sent his daughter to a famous boarding-school in Boston, and his son to the great dissenting academy in Gloucester, England; then he closed his house and lived solitarily in very humble fashion above his workroom and shop. In this way, he believed himself to have provided for the absolute safety of his two children; the boy was out of the war circle; the thundering drum and screaming fife could not reach him in the cloistered rooms of the Doddridge School; and as for Agnes, Mrs. Charlton's house was as secure as a convent; he had no fear that either English or American soldiers would molest a dwelling full of schoolgirls. And John Bradley could keep the door of his mouth; and he believed that a man who could do that might pursue a trade so necessary as his, with an almost certain degree of safety.
In appearance he was a short, powerful-looking man with tranquil, meditating eyes and a great talent for silence; an armed soul dwelling in a strong body. Some minds reflect, shift, argue, and are like the surface of a lake; but John Bradley's mind was like stubborn clay; when once impressed it was sure to harden and preserve the imprint through his life, and perhaps the other one. His Methodism was of this character, and he never shirked conversation on this subject; he was as ready to tell his experience to General Howe or General Clinton as to the members of his own class meeting; for his heart was saturated with the energy of his faith; he had the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
On politics he would not talk; he said, "public affairs were in wiser hands than his, and that to serve God and be diligent in business, was the length and breadth of his commission." His shop was a place where many men and many minds met, and angry words were frequently thrown backward and forward there; yet his needle never paused an instant for them. Only once had he been known to interfere; it was on a day when one of De Lancey's troop drew his sword against a boyish English ensign almost at his side. He stopped them with his thread half drawn out, and said sternly:
"If you two fools are in a hurry for death, and the judgment after death, there are more likely places to kill each other than my shop," and the words were cold as ice and sharp as steel, and the men went out rebuked and checked, and washed away their hot temper in wine instead of blood. For the vision of death, and the judgment after death, which Bradley's words and manner had evoked, was not to be faced at that hour. Yet, withal, Bradley was rather a common-looking man, ill-mannered and rough as hemp to the generality; but not so where childhood or calamity appealed to his strength or forbearance. In other respects, General Howe had, not inaptly, described him as "very unlike other men when at chapel, but not much so, when among horses in the stable, or selling saddles in the shop."
This was the man who came up from the waterside early one morning in the beginning of July, singing Dr. Watts' lyrical dream of heaven:
"There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign."
His voice was strong and melodious, and it was evident that Agnes had inherited her charming vocal power from him. He did not cease as he entered the house, but continued his hymn until he was in the little sitting-room, and Agnes finished the verse with him:
"And see the Canaan that we love,
With unbeclouded eyes."
He sat down to breakfast with the heavenly vision in his heart, and reluctantly let it pass away. But his spiritual nature had hands
