ding that I remain with her on the plantation, she held me pressed
closely to her bosom while the tears ran down her cheeks unrestrained,
until I was grown so faint-hearted and so grieved because of having
involuntarily caused her suffering, that a feeling of timorousness began
to creep over me.

Fortunately, however, I succeeded in calling back some portion of the
courage which had fled before my mother's tears, and realized that if I
would do my full duty, as a boy of Virginia should toward the comrades
with whom he had bound himself, it was necessary I leave home without
delay, for verily I believe had I remained there until the next morning
I could not have summoned up spirit enough to venture into that town of
York where the king's soldiers, like a pack of ravening wolves, were
denned up after having committed upon a defenceless people all the
injury within their power.

Of the parting with my mother that noon I cannot speak, even at this
late day, so painful was it. I can see now her pale face as she stood on
the veranda watching me walk away, doing my best not to look back upon
that mournful picture, and yet turning my head again and again despite
all efforts to the contrary.

Unkind though it may sound for me to say so, I must confess to a feeling
of actual relief when a turn of the road shut out from my view the house
and the dear, mournful figure on the threshold.

Once that had been blotted from my vision by distance I quickened my
pace, and with every yard traversed on the road to York did my courage
revive, until when I had arrived where it was necessary to put on an
appearance of idle curiosity and total disregard as to the wasting of
time, I felt almost as if I could work out alone and unaided this plan
which we had formed to outwit the officer who represented the king.

It must seem strange to have one claim that at such a time, when my Lord
Cornwallis's army was penned up so thoroughly by the French fleet to the
seaward and Lafayette's forces to the landward, that a lad like me could
wander at will inside the encampment.

Soldiers not familiar with what was done in Virginia at that day, might
say it would be an absolute impossibility for even a lad like myself to
pass through the lines unchallenged, because Lord Cornwallis knew well
that a great number of us in Virginia were those whom he called rebels,
and I was of sufficient age and intelligence to carry information to the
Americans.

Yet it i