The Reckoning

wn heart I knew that his Excellency could set no man a task unworthy of his manhood. Yet it were pleasanter had my duties thrown me with the army, or with Colonel Willett in my native north, whence, at his request, I had come to live a life of physical sloth and mental intrigue under the British cannon of New York--here in the household of Sir Peter Coleville, his secretary, his friend, his welcomed guest, the intimate of his family, his friends!--that was the hardest of all; and though for months at a time I managed to forget it, the recurring thought of what I was, and what they believed me to be, stabbed me at intervals so I could scarce endure it.

Nothing, not even the belief that God was with us, I fear, could have held me there when the stress of such emotion left me staring at the darkness in my restless bed--only blind faith in his Excellency that he would do no man this shame, if shame it was--that he knew as well as I that the land's salvation was not to be secured through t