“NOW, BY GOD, we shall have the fight we have been waiting for. I kept Henrietta and the girls up all night making cartridges,” said Samson Tucker, taking a hefty swig of his tankard of Stewed Quaker. “Yes, by God, Washington has proved himself a general, has he not, Captain Gifford? Getting his tail out of that damn nest of Tories in New York and joining us here in New Jersey where men are ready to fight?”

“I wish he had done it six months ago,” Jonathan Gifford said.

“Ah, six months or six weeks, what difference does it make,” said. Samson, drawing a bead on an imaginary redcoat with an imaginary musket. “We are ready for’m one way or t’other.”

“I hope you are ready for this,” said Nathaniel Fitzmorris in the doorway of the taproom. “The Continentals are retreating.”

“Retreating,” said Samson dazedly. “Retreating where?”

“New Brunswick, they say. Mayhap Philadelphia, for all they know. I brought some beeves and a wagonload of flour to the commissary at Amboy not two hours ago. They flung money in my face and said they had no time to slaughter the cattle. They would run in the midst of their train to Brunswick.”

Fitzmorris turned to Jonathan Gifford. “How is Kate?” Natty was a married man, but Kate still owned a corner of his heart.

“She’s better, thanks,” Jonathan Gifford said. Not many people even bothered to ask about Kate. Everyone was absorbed by the war. They rode or walked to Liberty Tavern every day for the latest rumors and reports. For weeks it had been bad news piled on worse. The American army was reeling from defeat to retreat to defeat. But Fitzmorris’ news was the worst we had heard. About a thousand regulars had been guarding the coast against invasion between Elizabethtown and Sandy Hook. Our militia had been depending on them to bear the brunt of any British assault.

“Retreating,” cried Samson, and leaving us without an army? Leaving us to fight the Foot Guards and the Royal Welsh and the King’s Own? They’ll be ashore at Amboy before the week is up when they hear the place is undefended.”

“Unless we go down to stop them,” Jonathan Gifford said.

“We?” said Samson. “If you’re joking, Captain Gifford, ‘tis not the time for it. God’s bones, we don’t even have a cannon in the whole district. They will haul them line-of-battle ships against the shore and let loose a broadside that will blow us all to Burlington.”

Lemuel Peters burst into the taproom, fear pulsing in his bulging eyes and twitching mouth. “The Continentals. I just saw them on the road.”

“They are concentrating in New Brunswick,” Jonathan Gifford said. “I suppose Washington has no other choice. Abel Aikin tells me lie brought only three thousand men with him.”

“Washington should be court-martialed and shot,” Peters squawked. “The man is playing a traitor’s game. He gave New York to the British. Now he’s giving them New Jersey.”

“There is not much a general can do when his men won’t fight,” Jonathan Gifford said. “I read you that letter Kemble wrote after the rout at Kip’s Bay.”

“He should have shot those damn Connecticut cowards wholesale. That’s what a real general- would have done,” Peters said. “That’s what Hancock would have done. When I was at Harvard, I saw him drill the Boston Cadets - the best uniformed militia in America.”

“Uniforms don’t win battles,” Jonathan Gifford said. “You had better ride down and tell Colonel Slocum this news. I imagine they will be calling out the regiment.”

A half-hour later we stood in the tavern yard and watched the Continental troops trudge past us to New Brunswick. They looked dispirited and beaten. Among them were John Fleming and his Virginia regiment. Captain Fleming concentrated grimly on keeping his men in ranks and did not even glance in the direction of Liberty Tavern. He had heard about Kate.

Other officers were not so diligent. Dozens of stragglers drifted into the tavern for as much rum as they could gulp. They talked bitterly of being “sold” by Washington and the other generals.

The next day we heard from New Brunswick that when they reached that town they took over every tavern and got so disgracefully drunk they turned to rioting and rape. Only violent efforts on the part of their officers restored some semblance of order.

The same day, General Washington, backed by Governor Livingston and the legislature, issued a call for every man on the militia rolls in New Jersey to join the army at New Brunswick without a moment’s delay. Dispatch riders posted a copy of the proclamation on the door of Liberty Tavern. Few paid attention to it. In the evening Nat Fitzmorris stopped at the tavern with ten of his company - all he could persuade to follow him. Jonathan Gifford filled their canteens with rum and wished them luck. Colonel Slocum wore out two horses racing through the countryside in search of his regiment, but not even his most ferocious roars had much effect.

That night Slocum sat in Liberty Tavern’s taproom, exhausted, cursing everyone and everything, including Washington. “Not a captain besides Fitzmorris. Not even my old company will turn out,” he told Jonathan Gifford. “Goddamn Washington. Why won’t he stand at Amboy? The men would fight with their farms at their backs. But you can’t expect a man to walk off his property, leave his wife and children and livestock behind him, and put himself under the command of some damn general who knows how to do nothing but retreat. We may find ourselves on the far side of the Delaware in a week.”

Slocum poured a gill of stonewall down his throat. Barney refilled his mug. “I wish we had your son here, Gifford. They won’t turn out for Slocum. They want to be led by an aristocrat, goddamn them.”

“I don’t think that has anything to do with it,” Jonathan Gifford said. “Maybe they’re just using their common sense.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean they see there’s no point to militiamen fighting regulars.”

“That’s damn treason talk, Gifford,” Slocum shouted. “Is that what you’re telling people? No wonder I can’t turn out a man in this neighborhood.”

“I’m not saying anything I haven’t said since this war started.”

“You’ve changed the name of your tavern, Gifford, but you haven’t changed the color of your coat.”

Jonathan Gifford decided to ignore the insult. Slocum was drunk. Barney McGovern disagreed with his forbearance. “Why don’t you throw the bugger out on his head, Captain, or let me?”

“No. It’s better to let him talk.”

The next morning, Slocum rode off to New Brunswick with fewer than fifty men. He was back the following day. “We weren’t in camp two hours when the British appeared on the heights of Brunswick across the Raritan. Washington handed us axes and told us to chop down the bridge. He gave us a single cannon to keep the whole damned British army at bay. We get back to camp and find the order to retreat has already been given. Not a man of us would go with them. Why the hell should we march our feet off in the wrong direction?”

Never had Jonathan Gifford seen or heard a more discouraging example of the weakness of militia thinking - and America’s folly in depending on amateur soldiers like Slocum to win the war in 1776. Their viewpoint was hopelessly parochial. They simply did not understand the strategy Washington was evolving in the struggle for control of a continent. They could not think beyond their own little patch of America.

“I saw Putnam and the young squire,” Slocum said. “He looked poorly, your boy. The old soldier’s in a gloom. He thinks all this retreating is the ruin of us. He sends you a message. Your boy’s been sick. He’s all right now. But the General fears the worst. If he sickens again, he will send for you. The army’s doctors are butchers. They kill ten times what they cure.”

Jonathan Gifford nodded. The surge of emotion that struck him at the mention of Kemble helped him overcome his dislike of Slocum. He began trying to explain to the Colonel the strategic situation Washington was creating by his retreat across New Jersey. He was giving the British more and more American territory to fill up. But if that territory was pacified, if everyone cowered on their farms, the British would see no need to leave any troops behind them. This meant the full weight of the royal army would be thrown against Washington’s handful of regulars. In this new situation, it was vital for the militia to begin fighting a guerrilla war - partisan tactics, as they were called in 1776.

Colonel Slocum was not interested. “It’s easy for you to talk, Gifford,” he said. “You have trimmed your sails right through the storm. No matter what happens, your flanks are safe. Squire Skinner and his son will protect you for your daughter’s sake on the one hand, and your son will speak for you on our side.”

“Slocum,” said Jonathan Gifford, “I hope before long you will see that those words are as untrue as they are unfair.”

“We will see, Gifford, we will see.”

The next day, all of us had a chance to see. Clattering into the tavern yard from the Amboy road came forty British dragoons in red coats; huge cavalry sabers jutting from their saddles. In command was a young captain in his twenties. He introduced himself to Jonathan Gifford as Oliver De Lancey, Jr., of the 16th Regiment. Beside him was a far more ominous figure in a green coat - Anthony Skinner. As they dismounted in the tavern yard, Skinner pointed to the new sign. “You see what I mean,” he said, “Liberty Tavern? We ought to burn the damn place to the ground right now.”

“I am sure the General will tend to such matters in his own good time, Skinner. We have orders to treat everyone as a loyal subject, unless he demonstrates otherwise by his actions,” Captain De Lancey said.

“You don’t think that sign proves anything?” Skinner said.

“I rather like it,” said De Lancey. “After all, I’m in favor of British liberty, aren’t you?”

Jonathan Gifford pointedly ignored Anthony Skinner. He introduced himself to De Lancey and told the Captain how much he admired his father’s horses. The elder De Lancey’s steeds seldom failed to win most of the races run each year at Hempstead on Long Island. “I’ve made more than one pound betting on them.”

De Lancey smiled politely and asked if he and his men could spend the night at the tavern. They were prepared to pay hard money for everything they and their horses consumed.

“Of course you’re welcome. But I can’t guarantee the conduct of the neighborhood. There are a good many men around here who might be inclined to fight you.”

“I understand that,” De Lancey said. “We’ll have sentries well posted.”

“How is my old friend, Colonel Harcourt?”

“Well, thank you,” said young De Lancey, obviously startled to discover Jonathan Gifford was on speaking terms with his regimental commander.

“We served together under Wolfe at Quebec,” Jonathan Gifford said, casually adding that he had been a captain in the 4th Regiment. De Lancey’s politeness warmed to cordiality.

Anthony Skinner’s glower deepened. “Where’s Kate?” he asked.

“In her room.”

“Is it true what I heard, she was given thirty lashes by your damned militia judges?”

“She was.”

“And you stood by without saying a word in her defense?”

“You were the one person who might have helped her, Mr. Skinner,” said Jonathan Gifford.

“You mean that ridiculous advice you sent me in your letter? No one would have believed me in the first place – ”

Captain De Lancey was looking bewildered. There was no point in trying to explain the conversation to him. “I would be honored if you and your officers would join me for dinner, Captain,” Jonathan Gifford said to him, “but Mr. Skinner is not welcome in this tavern or in my house.”

“Gifford, I will go where I please and do what I please or you will find yourself in irons in the deepest dungeon the provost marshal can find in New York. I’m the colonel of the King’s loyal militia in this county and I am here to take command.”

“I call on Captain De Lancey to witness the threats you have made against me. I have the right to throw you or any other man off my property, if British law or British liberty means anything. This has nothing to do with rebellion, Captain De Lancey. Mr. Skinner has abused the affection and ruined the reputation of one of the finest girls in New Jersey. Now get out of here before I horsewhip you down the road like a common thief.”

I was a witness to this blazing confrontation. I have never seen anything that equaled its intensity before or since. Jonathan Gifford’s large head and thick shoulders were impressive, but his brow scarcely reached Anthony Skinner’s shoulder. It was not physical force that demolished Skinner. It was moral intensity, the ferocity with which Captain Gifford spoke the truth.

“Are you going to let him insult me this way?” Skinner asked Captain De Lancey.

“I really don’t see what I can or should do about it, my dear fellow. As Mr. Gifford says, he has every right to control his own property and the difference between you seems highly personal, to say the least.”

“You’re only five miles from your own house, Skinner,” Jonathan Gifford said. “You’ll get a good dinner there.”

“Would you like an escort?” Captain De Lancey asked.

“I need no escort, Captain. There isn’t a skulking coward in this state who has the nerve to challenge me now,” Skinner said.

He strode to his horse, sprang into the saddle, and galloped away. Jonathan Gifford repeated his invitation to dinner and soon sat down with Captain De Lancey and two of his lieutenants in a private room. Without seeming to ask questions, be had no difficulty leading the young officers into a discussion of British plans to finish the war. They were confident that Washington’s army would collapse around January 1. The Americans had made the foolish mistake of enlisting their regulars for only a single year. When the regulars quit, General Howe would probably push on to Philadelphia, occupy the American capital, and arrest as many members of the Continental Congress as he could catch. For the time being, young De Lancey thought Washington could scrape together enough men to make a stand on the west bank of the Delaware. The army would occupy all of New Jersey and restore royal government. Lord Howe in his role as peace commissioner would issue a proclamation offering amnesty to everyone who swore obedience and loyalty to the King within the next sixty days. Each would receive a certificate of protection which would guarantee him against prosecution or retaliation.

It was very shrewd. The Howes were using both the carrot and the stick to persuade the Americans to surrender. Young De Lancey, his tongue loosened by wine, told Captain Gifford about the arguments within the British high command. His father, as America’s most powerful loyalist, was heavily involved in them. The Howes had deliberately allowed Washington to extricate his army from Long Island and New York, to the vehement disappointment of the elder De Lancey and other loyalists. The Howes’ goal was not the annihilation of the Americans, but their eventual reconciliation. By persuading them to an early surrender, they hoped to win some sympathy for them in Parliament, and head off the confiscators and placemen who were eager to punish them in the same profitable style that they had developed practicing on the Scots and the Irish. As an American and a professional soldier, young De Lancey was thoroughly in favor of the Howes’ policy.

He expected Captain Gifford to agree with him and was surprised when he said, “There is only one thing wrong with the picture you draw. The Howes are not politicians. They have very little influence in Parliament. What happens if the Americans surrender and the placemen decide to punish them anyway?”

“That is a chance we must take,” De Lancey said with the nonchalance of a rich young man whose property would be safe in any event.

“These loyalists like Skinner,” said one of the lieutenants. “They are our biggest problem at the moment. They don’t want peace. They want revenge.”

“Them and the Germans,” said the other lieutenant

“Oh yes, the Germans,” said De Lancey with a grim smile. “If any of them come through here, I urge you to hide everything that might conceivably be portable. They were told they could make their fortunes in America, and they seem determined to do it.”

A few days later, De Lancey’s commander, Colonel William Harcourt, stopped at Liberty Tavern to shake his friend Gifford’s hand. He was a lean, handsome example of the British aristocracy at its best. His father was a member of the Opposition in Parliament, a frequent critic of the war. His son felt the same way. He was in America only because his regiment had been ordered to go, and as colonel, he felt he could not desert his men.

Over a glass of port, he made no attempt to conceal his fears, not of defeat, but of victory. “I am afraid we are going to win, Gifford,” he said. “I am afraid of what it will do to England. There are men in Parliament who would like to make it impossible for anyone ever again to criticize the government. They could use the army and the spoils they’ll win over here to get laws passed, making opposition a crime.”

They discussed the Howes’ carrot and stick plan to end the war. “If I was an American,” Harcourt said, “I wouldn’t trust anyone’s good intentions - and I’d trust even less a Parliament that unleashes German mercenaries on a free people.” He described in grisly detail the way the Germans had looted Long Island and Westchester County.

Harcourt rode back to his regiment. There were even fewer soldiers with his opinion in the British army than there were politicians in Parliament. But it is good to remember that not all Englishmen wanted to conquer America.

The next day Lord Howe issued his amnesty proclamation. It made even more doleful a letter Abel Aikin brought from Kemble - the last letter Abel delivered for some time. The American postal service in New Jersey had ceased to exist. The letter explained why. Washington’s army was too small to make a stand anywhere in the state. They were retreating to the west bank of the Delaware. “Where are the militia?” Kemble wrote bitterly. “If they turned out, we could hold the state against the entire British army. What has happened to all those fellows who cheered so madly for independence? I thought Americans were natural patriots. Now I begin to wonder if they are not natural cowards,”

Jonathan Gifford shook his head wearily. Was it typical of Kemble - or typical of youth in general - to plunge from extreme to extreme, from blind optimism to blind despair? He sat down and wrote his son a letter.

Dear Kemble,

I don’t know where or when I will get a chance to send this to you. Perhaps I will keep it here until you return. I hate to see you lose hope and pride in your countrymen. Most of them are neither cowards nor heroes but simply human beings with normal amounts of courage and honesty. I have led men into battle, and seen them break and run, rallied those same men and seen them perform feats of amazing bravery in the space of an hour. Every man, even the bravest, is prey to panic. Only a rare man will fight if be thinks he has no chance of winning. This is what has struck New Jersey - panic - a general belief that the Cause is lost. Can you blame the poor militiaman if he thinks this way, when the Continentals - the men presumed to be the best soldiers America can muster - have been trounced again and again? If General Washington wins a battle or two, our people will change their minds and take heart. But for the time being, New Jersey is as good as lost.

What Jonathan Gifford saw and heard in the next few days only underscored these words. The talk in Liberty Tavern was thick with defeatism and despair. Lord Howe’s offer was frequently discussed. But for the time being everyone seemed anxious to damn it as a British trick to seduce honest men. Leading the damners were our titans of the now defunct Committee of Safety, Lemuel Peters and Ambrose Cotter. Listening to them, Barney McGovern whispered behind his hand to Jonathan Gifford, “What’ll you bet me those two heroes will be among the first to throw in?”

“If you find any takers,” Jonathan Gifford said, “let me know. I’ll cover all bets.”

Early in the following week Anthony Skinner sent one of his family’s servants to Liberty Tavern with a note for Kate. She was still a semi-invalid. Her back was healing very slowly. Bertha, Black Sam’s wife, rubbed it every day with an ointment she had concocted from her herb garden. But she was dolefully certain that there would always be some scars there, and Dr. Davie confirmed this sad prediction. Kate accepted this fate with a stoicism that Jonathan Gifford found more troubling than a tantrum. She had begun to eat again, converse a little at dinner, but most of the time she was silent. She walked beside the brook and sat alone for hours staring at its frothy white water. Now she fingered her lover’s letter idly and set it aside. Not for a full day did she open it.

She knew what it contained. Bertha had told her how Jonathan Gifford had ordered Anthony Skinner off the property. It was precisely the sort of challenge Anthony needed - perhaps wanted - to force him into a proposal.

My dearest,

Your father has forbidden me to see you. He accuses me of being at fault in the beating given you by those rebel scum. As if he had nothing to do with it! He stood there, his hands in his pockets, and let you be scourged. My heart was torn to atoms when I heard the news that they had actually carried out the sentence. I could not believe they would ever be so low. I thought it was a ruse to tempt me to rescue you - which I had no hope of doing. The heroes I have the honor to lead are not much braver than their rebel brethren. I swear to God I’m glad I think of myself as more English than American, in spite of my father. If I was a full American I would be ashamed to show my face to a British soldier. The poltroonery of their conduct will make 1776 go down in English history as the year of the cowards.

Now our time has come to rule these people, Kate, rule them with the rod they deserve. I want you by my side. The way my father drinks, he cannot live longer than another year or two. This means that he will die without issue and Kemble Manor will revert to my mother and you and Kemble as your mother’s heirs. Kemble will lose his share, and my mother may well lose hers if she acts any further on her rebel principles. I am sure a bribe or two to the right parties will make you and me the owners of the manor. Won’t that be a laugh on those hypocrites who tried to deprive me of my just inheritance? With Kemble Manor and the other confiscated lands - you may depend upon it, all the leading rebels will lose their lands no matter what they swear to Lord Howe’s silly proclamation - I will have more than enough income to dress you like the queen you are.

In fact I am told the King intends to create an American peerage to equal the Irish one and guarantee a proper respect for class and rank henceforth. I can all but guarantee that you will be Lady Skinner before the decade is out.

Say but the word, Kate, and I will come to get you with enough men to make your father quiver for his tavern and his neck. Let me make you my wife in name as you already are in fact.

Forever yours,

Anthony

Kate suddenly remembered what Caroline had said to her about being displayed as a woman with a weak will and no understanding. With unexpected anger she told herself she was not too stupid to see why Anthony was so anxious to marry her. Aside from her half share of Kemble Manor, he obviously felt that his failure to rescue her impugned his honor. If she married him, it would be an act of public forgiveness on her part. For the first time, she confronted the avarice in Anthony Skinner’s commitment to the King. She threw his letter into the fire.

Watching the flames devour it, Kate suddenly found herself wishing she could thrust her hand, her, whole body into some magical flame that would consume the old Kate and permit a new one to step forth, purified of the bad temper, the violent willfulness she had inherited from her mother. That talk with her Aunt Caroline had been a shock of the mental or spiritual sort as violent as the one she had received from the whip. Slowly, painfully, over the past few weeks, Kate had accepted the harsh truth at the center of it. She had recklessly, brainlessly given herself away. She had paid a bitter price for it. She did not want to pay it again.

A few days after Kate discarded Anthony’s note, a full brigade of British infantry landed unopposed at Perth Amboy and marched up the road toward New Brunswick. At the head of the column, making Barney McGovern a prophet, was the 4th Regiment, the King’s Own. A major on horseback swung out of the column and dismounted. He had a round red face and a belly big enough to burst all the buttons off his waistcoat.

“Is this where a certain innkeeper named Gifford resides?” he thundered.

There were timid nods from a number of us on the porch. “Get him out here,” roared the Major. “I’m here to arrest the damn rascal.”

A shiver went through all of us. The British were launching a reign of terror. The Major’s threats and exclamations did nothing to dissuade us. “Get him out here,” he roared. “By God, I’ll have his rebel head on a block before morning. Liberty Tavern. The son of a bitch will dance on hot coals to the British Grenadiers or I’ll know the reason why.”

Jonathan Gifford appeared at the door. A smile leaped across his face. Were we all going mad? we wondered. The officer was grinning from ear to ear, too.

“Brother Jonathan,” he roared.

“Brother Billy,” cried Jonathan Gifford.

They flung themselves into each other’s arms like a pair of long-lost lovers.

“By God,” said the Major, “it’s worth three thousand miles of ship’s bread and salt beef to see you, I swear it.”

“That sounds like a British diet to me,” said Jonathan Gifford. “You’re in America now where a man can eat to his heart’s content.”

“Which is exactly what I’ve been doing,” said the Major, patting his paunch.

“And the wine cellar on wheels?”

“Right there,” said the Major, pointing to a big wagon in the road. “Here,” he roared to the driver. “Pull that in here and post sentries at the head and tail. If I find a bottle missing in the morning, they’ll get a hundred lashes each.”

Dr. Davie was standing in the tavern door watching all this. Jonathan Gifford waved him over and introduced him to Major William Moncrieff. He pointed to the wagon. “In there you will find the finest collection of wines in America. Possibly in Europe. Wherever Moncrieff goes, his wine cellar goes with him.”

“He won’t need to touch a drop of it tonight,” said Dr. Davie.

Captain Gifford smiled. “We have a few bottles downstairs that can challenge his best.”

“The devil you say, Gifford. You’ve got the palate of a peasant. But I am willing to try the experiment, provided we start off with the drink you fellows call rumfustian.”

Two hours later, after liberal quantities of rumfustian had been consumed, Major Moncrieff and his old friend progressed somewhat unsteadily down to the residence, where Kate joined them for dinner. It was a feast of pheasant, jugged hare, oysters from Raritan Bay, and lobsters from the Atlantic, the meat flavored by magnificent wine from Burgundy, the fish by a delicate product of the Moselle.

Moncrieff personified only part of that motto of the British officer, to live well and leave a fortune to his heirs. In his case, he lived so well there was no hope of a fortune or heirs for that matter. His conversation was replete with descriptions of magnificent dinners in England, Ireland, France, and Spain. He also talked freely about the war, which he called “a damn silly business started by fools on both sides.” As a professional soldier, he had no interest in politics and nothing but contempt for politicians. He soon concentrated on reminiscing about his days as a young officer with his friend Gifford.

“Ah, Havana, Gifford, there was a city. Remember those Spanish girls? Amazing how often their duennas turned out to be nearsighted or blind.”

“What?” said Kate archly. “I can’t believe my solemn father ever conducted himself as anything but an officer and a gentleman.”

“Whoa,” roared Moncrieff, almost choking on a lobster claw. “He was in a class by himself when it came to the ladies. Wild ones, they were his specialty. The wilder the better. After a week or two with Gifford, they were tamed for life.”

“Father, is it true?” Kate said.

Jonathan Gifford kicked Moncrieff in the shins. “You know how it is with old soldiers,” he said. “They tend to exaggerate everything, from their heroism to their - ”

“Damn me if I ever exaggerated a thing,” thundered Moncrieff. “But you don’t understand how it is with a soldier, my dear. Every day of a campaign he risks being laid low by a bullet. And for what? For King and country. So he says to himself, by God, since I take such risks, I deserve a few exemptions and if the King and the country don’t agree, why they can go to the devil.”

Kate looked at her father and could not believe what she saw. He was blushing.

“And what about Canada, Gifford? Those Frenchies. Remember that one who called herself Solange? By God, I almost challenged you when she dumped me for your damned Irish blarney. That’s why I never married, you know,” declared the Major, attacking a column of defenseless oysters. “This fellow was always getting the best-looking woman in sight. I consoled myself with the best cook. Before I knew it, I was too damned fat to interest girls your age - or any age. It’s all his fault.”

“What would you think of a woman who - lived like a soldier?” Kate asked.

“Why,” said the Major, “I’d think she was a shameless hussy. But I’d like to meet her.”

“I’m serious.”

“Now, my dear,” said Moncrieff, “I see you have some modern ideas. Women are not soldiers. That’s the only excuse we have to offer. Once a man settles down and marries I expect him to be as constant as the most virtuous wife.”

“But once a woman sins - I mean acts like a soldier - she can never be virtuous again.”

With no idea that the conversation was very personal for Kate, Moncrieff gave her his honest opinion. “A woman’s reputation is her stock in trade, so to speak. Like a soldier’s courage.”

“I think that is hypocrisy!”

“But a soldier doesn’t damn a man if he runs away at first then comes back to the fight. No more would he condemn a single fall from virtue in a woman. However, the way of the world – ”

“Is hypocrisy,” Kate said.

“Since when is that news?” Moncrieff said. He patted her hand. “Ah, my dear, I think you must be troubled by a friend who has been indiscreet with some young fellow in uniform. Don’t fret about it. People forget those things quickly in a war. So many other things happen, they haven’t got time to remember matters that would keep them indignant for ten years during a peace.”

“Do you agree with all this, Father?”

“Absolutely,” said Jonathan Gifford, momentarily bewildered by another aspect of war, the constant occurrence of the unexpected. Two days ago, if someone had told him that his old friend Wild Billy Moncrieff would turn into a moral philosopher and say precisely the things Kate needed to hear, he would have laughed in his face.

“I will leave you two veterans to your pipes and port and reminiscences of old conquests.”

Moncrieff studied Kate as she left the room. “A fine girl, Gifford. I could never picture you as a father. But from the way she looks at you, I guess you’ve made me eat my words again. It almost makes me wish I’d quit this damn business when you did.”

“I didn’t have much choice, Billy. I couldn’t march a mile on this knee.”

“Ah, with your blarney you could have talked your way onto a general’s staff if you wanted to stay. You were right, what you said that last night in Havana when we got drunker than two cormorants in a brewery. There’s no future for the likes of you and me in this army. It gets you like a crab apple in the belly, seeing pipsqueak viscounts and fake Irish lords with commissions their fathers bought them.”

For another ten minutes, Moncrieff savagely criticized the British army system of selling commissions and giving most of the promotions to noblemen and sons of noblemen who had the necessary cash and influence in London to shoulder aside professional soldiers like himself. Jonathan Gifford was amazed to recall in the voice of this old friend how sharp had been his antagonism to the British system, with its heavy emphasis on aristocracy. It was a bias that pervaded not only the army but all aspects of English life. It was startling to realize how much healthier, freer, America was without it.

When they talked about the war Jonathan Gifford was struck even more profoundly by how different his feelings were. Moncrieff talked of a quick easy conquest and rubbed his hands at the prospect of being rewarded with some choice American lands. Jonathan Gifford had no fault to find with Moncrieff for this attitude. It was the way a professional soldier saw a war in the eighteenth century. The profits should be as high as the risks. But he could muster no enthusiasm to match Moncrieff’s glee. It was his country, or at least the country of his son and daughter, that Moncrieff was talking about with such, lip-smacking ardor. When the Major said he would depend on his old friend Gifford to keep his eye peeled for one of the choicer rebel estates, he could not resist pointing out that Washington still had an army and the war was not over.

“By God, I think you’re half a rebel, Gifford. I thought you just changed the name of this tavern to keep it in one piece until we got here.”

Captain Gifford smiled, poured some more rumfustian into Moncrieff’s tankard, and the Major soon forgot politics. An hour later, after Wild Billy had staggered off to his room at the tavern, Kate came downstairs to find her father sitting in one of the two wing chairs before the dying fire, his face unusually solemn.

“I like your old friend,” she said.

“He talks too much.”

“No. No, Father,” Kate said, sitting down in the other wing chair. “For the first time I - I feel I know you as - as Jonathan Gifford. Not the man I call Father. It makes me feel a little easier about myself. A little more - forgiving. It’s strange, but at first I didn’t want you to forgive me. I wanted you to treat me like you treated Mother. But Aunt Caroline helped me see - how wrong I was how foolish. I realized you did forgive me - but I couldn’t forgive myself.”

“That’s the hardest thing to do, Kate.”

“Why couldn’t you forgive her, Father?”

“I don’t know, Kate. I tried. I said I forgave her. But in the end - I couldn’t do it.”

“She hurt you - that much?”

“I tried to put that other life behind me, Kate. It wasn’t nearly as good as old Moncrieff makes it sound. It was lonely, damn lonely. You’d wake up in the middle of the night, covered with sweat, wondering why you were scared. In Havana just after the siege ended I realized what was bothering me. An ensign in our company - he was only seventeen - was killed in the last night’s fighting. I was undone for weeks. I couldn’t sleep. I barely ate. I was mourning him - like a son. That’s when I understood those midnight sweats. It wasn’t getting killed that worried me. It was leaving nothing behind me, Kate. Nothing - nobody - but a few old drinking friends like Moncrieff.”

Jonathan Gifford took a poker and stirred the dying fire. It blazed for several moments and Kate could see the grief etched on his face as he continued.

“I thought I’d changed that - found the kind of life I wanted - with your mother. But little by little, she turned from me, Kate, and tried to take you and Kemble with her. She made me feel like a stranger again. I suppose some of it was my fault. There was some calculation in our marriage - your mother had quite a fortune - but it wasn’t the main thing. So help me. She made it the main thing by twisting it that way in her mind and heart. What happened at the Shrewsbury - was the end of it, not the beginning. I suppose that’s why I couldn’t - I had no feelings left for her, Kate.”

“But for me and Kemble you still - ”

“More than ever, I suppose, after I lost your mother.”

“Is it true that Viscount Needham - in Antigua - tried to send her back? He - he didn’t love her?”

“He told me that - in a letter. He swore he never encouraged her to - to go.”

“What will happen now, Father - in the war?”

“I don’t know, I still think the Americans can win. They are starting to panic. That could beat them. But Washington doesn’t look like a panicky man. He could make the difference.”

“Anthony says Americans are cowards.”

“Doesn’t that make you angry, Kate? You’re an American. They can talk all they want in London about English colonies. Americans are a separate people. Your people. I never tried to talk politics to you, Kate, but this goes beyond politics. Americans are fighting for their self-respect, their lands, their future - all the things the Irish have lost.”

“You know, Father, I think you are more Irish than you realize.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“And more American.”

“I wish - I hope that’s true.”

For another hour they sat there talking about Ireland, England, America, the war, what these large words meant to them as human beings, what they meant to others - Anthony Skinner, Charles Skinner, Kemble. Jonathan Gifford shared memories and feelings with Kate that he had never shared with anyone before. He told her about the day his mother got up from her sickbed and cooked a big meal while his father was at the law, courts. She put it in a basket and sent him down to one of Dublin’s back alleys to give it to her brother’s family. There were ten of them living in two rooms. It was his first glimpse of the savage, demeaning poverty in which the Catholic Irish lived. He told her how strange the Americans seemed to him at first, their wildness and lack of discipline, how long it took him to realize that this was part of their freedom. Gradually that wall of discretion and diffidence which so often frustrates honest speech between parents and children dwindled into insignificance. It would never entirely disappear, of course. Between Kate and Jonathan Gifford there would always be the distance of their very different generations. But that night in the fall of 1776 Kate and her father became friends. For the first time since her mother’s death she felt she could talk to him with perfect trust.

“I feel - like I’ve been on a long journey - and now - I’m home,” she said as she kissed him goodnight. “Not the same person. But the same home.”