I See Daisy and the Old Home Once More.

I rode beside Colonel Elias Dayton one forenoon some ten days later, up the Valley road, my pulses beating fast at the growing familiarity of the scene before us. We had crossed the Chuctenunda Creek, and were within sight of the gray walls of Guy Park. Beyond rose the hills behind which lay Fort Johnson. I was on the very threshold of my boyhood\'s playfield--within a short hour\'s walk of my boyhood\'s home.

The air was full of sounds. Birds sang with merry discordance all through the thicket to our right, flitting among the pale green tangle of spring\'s foliage. The May sunshine had lured forth some pioneer locusts, whose shrill cries came from who could tell where--the tall swale-grass on the river edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brown broom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear the squirrels\' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishers along the willow-fringed water--the indefinable chorus of Nature\'s myriad small children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our ears took in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds of armed men\'s feet, tramping in unison upon the road before us, behind us, at our side.

For my second return to the Valley was at the head of troops, bringing violence, perhaps bloodshed, in their train. I could not but contrast it in my mind with that other home-coming, four years before, when I sat turned to look eastward in the bow of Enoch\'s boat, and every soft dip of the oars timed the glad carol in my heart of home and friends--and the sweet maid I loved. I was so happy then!--and now, coming from the other direction, with suggestions of force and cruel purposes in every echo of our soldiers\' tread, I was, to tell the plain truth, very miserable withal.

My talk with Colonel Dayton had, in a way, contributed to this gloomy feeling. We had, from choice, ridden side by side for the better part of two days, and, for very need of confiding in some one, I had talked with him concerning my affairs more freely than was my wont. This was the easier, because he was a contemplative, serious, and sensible man, whose words and manner created confidence. Moreover, he was neither Dutchman nor Yankee, but a native Jerseyman, and so considered my story from an equable and fair point of view, without bias.

It was, indeed, passing strange that this man, on his way to seize or crush the Johnson clique, as the case might be, should have been the one to first arouse in my mind the idea that, after all, the Tories had their good side, and were doing what to them seemed right, at tremendous cost and sacrifice to themselves. I had been telling him what a ruffian was Philip Cross, and what grounds I had for hating him, and despitefully describing the other chief Tories of the district. He said in reply, I remember:

"You seem to miss the sad phase of all this, my friend. Your young blood feels only the partisan promptings of dislike. Some day--soon, perhaps-- you will all at once find this youthful heat gone; you will begin to walk around men and things, so to speak, and study them from all sides. This stage comes to every sober mind; it will come to you. Then you will realize that this baronet up yonder is, from his own stand-point, a chivalrous, gallant loyal gentleman, who imperils estates, power, peace, almost life itself, rather than do what he holds to be weak or wrong. Why, take even this enemy of yours, this Cross. He was one of the notables of these parts--rich, popular, influential; he led a life of utmost luxury and pleasure. All this he has exchanged for the rough work of a soldier, with its privations, cold, fatigue, and the risk of death. Ask yourself why he did it."

"I see what you would enforce," I said. "Your meaning is that these men, as well as our side, think the right is theirs."

"Precisely. They have inherited certain ideas. We disagree with them; we deem it our duty to silence them, fight them, drive them out of the country, and, with God\'s help, we will do it. But let us do this with our eyes open, and with the understanding that they are not necessarily scoundrels and heathen because they fail to see things as we see them."

"But you would not defend, surely, their plotting to use the savages against their neighbors--against helpless women and children. That must be heathenish to any mind."

"Defend it? No! I do not defend any acts of theirs. Rid your mind of the idea that because a man tries to understand a thing he therefore defends it. But I can see how they would defend it to their own consciences--just as these thrifty Whig farmers hereabout explain in their own minds as patriotic and public-spirited their itching to get hold of Johnson\'s Manor. Try and look at things in this light. Good and bad are relative terms; nothing is positively and unchangeably evil. Each group of men has its own little world of reasons and motives, its own atmosphere, its own standard of right and wrong. If you shut your eyes, and condemn or praise these wholly, without first striving to comprehend them, you may or may not do mischief to them; you assuredly injure yourself."

Thus, and at great length, spoke the philosophical colonel. I could not help suspecting that he had too open a mind to be a very valuable fighter, and, indeed, this proved to be true. He subsequently built some good and serviceable forts along the Mohawk, one of which to this day bears his name, but he attained no distinction as a soldier in the field.

But, none the less, his words impressed me greatly. What he said had never been put to me in clear form before, and at twenty-seven a man\'s mind is in that receptive frame, trembling upon the verge of the meditative stage, when the presentation of new ideas like these often marks a distinct turn in the progress and direction of his thoughts. It seems strange to confess it, but I still look back to that May day of 1776 as the date of my first notion that there could be anything admirable in my enemies.

At the time, these new views and the tone of our talk helped to disquiet me. The swinging lines of shoulders, the tramp! tramp! in the mud, the sight of the guns and swords about me, were all depressing. They seemed to give a sinister significance to my return. It was my home, the dearest spot on earth--this smiling, peaceful, sunlit Mohawk Valley--and I was entering it with soldiers whose mission was to seize and despoil the son of my boyhood\'s friend, Sir William. More than one of my old play-mates, now grown to man\'s estate, would note with despair our approach, and curse me for being of it. The lady of Johnson Hall, to whom all this would be horrible nigh unto death, was a close, warm friend of Daisy\'s. So my thoughts ran gloomily, and I had no joy in any of the now familiar sights around me.

The march up from Schenectady had been a most wearisome one for the men, owing to the miserable condition of the road, never over-smooth and now rendered doubly bad and difficult by the spring freshets and the oozing frost. When we reached the pleasant little h............