Once in the journey did the Major make mention of a subject which had
troubled me.

"Davy," said he, "Clark has changed. He is not the same man he was when
I saw him in Williamsburg demanding supplies for his campaign."

"Virginia has used him shamefully, sir," I answered, and suddenly there
came flooding to my mind things I had heard the Colonel say in the
campaign.

"Commonwealths have short memories," said the Major, "they will accept
any sacrifice with a smile. Shakespeare, I believe, speaks of royal
ingratitude--he knew not commonwealths. Clark was close-lipped once, not
given to levity and--to toddy. There, there, he is my friend as well as
yours, and I will prove it by pushing his cause in Virginia. Is yours
Scotch anger? Then the devil fend me from it. A monarch would have
given him fifty thousand acres on the Wabash, a palace, and a sufficient
annuity. Virginia has given him a sword, eight thousand wild acres to be
sure, repudiated the debts of his army, and left him to starve. Is there
no room for a genius in our infant military establishment?"

At length, as Christmas drew near, we came to Major Colfax's seat, some
forty miles out of the town of Richmond. It was called Neville's Grange,
the Major's grandfather having so named it when he came out from England
some sixty years before. It was a huge, rambling, draughty house of
wood,--mortgaged, so the Major cheerfully informed me, thanks to the
patriotism of the family. At Neville's Grange the Major kept a somewhat
roisterous bachelor's hall. The place was overrun with negroes and dogs,
and scarce a night went by that there was not merrymaking in the house
with the neighbors. The time passed pleasantly enough until one frosty