The “little mite” was of such a substantial nature that I protested strongly against it.  I thought of Tom’s demands upon him.

“I could afford to give you double for what you have made off the place,” he interrupted.  “But I do not believe in young men having too much.”  He sighed, and turned to his work.

I hesitated.  “You have spent time and labour upon my case, sir, and have asked no fee.”

“I shall speak of the fee when I win it,” he said dryly, “and not before.  How would you like to be clerk this winter to the Committee of Correspondence?”

I suppose my pleasure was expressed in my face.

“Well,” said he, “I have got you the appointment without much difficulty.  There are many ways in which you can be useful to the party when not helping me with my affairs.”

This conversation gave me food for reflection during a week.  I was troubled about Mr. Swain, and what he had said as to not living kept running in my head as I wrote or figured.  For I had enough to hold me busy.

In the meantime, the clouds fast gathering on both sides of the Atlantic grew blacker, and blacker still.  I saw a great change in Annapolis.  Men of affairs went about with grave faces, while gay and sober alike were touched by the spell.  The Tory gentry, to be sure, rattled about in their gilded mahogany coaches, in spite of jeers and sour looks.  My Aunt Caroline wore jewelled stomachers to the assemblies,—­now become dry and shrivelled entertainments.  She kept her hairdresser, had three men in livery to her chair, and a little negro in Turk’s costume to wait on her.  I often met her in the streets, and took a fierce joy in staring her, in the eye.  And Grafton!  By a sort of fate I was continually running against him.  He was a very busy man, was my uncle, and had a kind of dignified run, which he used between Marlboro’ Street and the Council Chamber in the Stadt House, or the Governor’s mansion.  He never did me the honour to glance at me.  The Rev. Mr. Allen, too, came a-visiting from Frederick, where he had grown stout as an alderman upon the living and its perquisites and Grafton’s additional bounty.  The gossips were busy with his doings, for he had his travelling-coach and servant now.  He went to the Tory balls with my aunt.  Once I all but encountered him on the Circle, but he ran into Northeast Street to avoid me.

Yes, that was the winter when the wise foresaw the inevitable, and the first sharp split occurred between men who had been brothers.  The old order of things had plainly passed, and I was truly thankful that my grandfather had not lived to witness those scenes.  The greater part of our gentry stood firm for America’s rights, and they had behind them the best lawyers in America.  After the lawyers came the small planters and most of the mechanics.  The shopkeepers formed the backbone of King George’s adherents; the Tory gentry, the clergy, and those holding office under the proprietor made the rest.