As for Philip's gift of translating printed matter
into actuality, I remember how, when we afterward came to visit
strange cities together, he would find his way about without a
question, like an old resident, through having merely read
descriptions of the places.
But rank did not come unsought, or otherwise, to Philip's fellow
volunteer from the Faringfield house, Mr. Cornelius. The pedagogue,
with little to say on the subject, took the rebel side as a matter of
course, Presbyterians being, it seems, republican in their nature. He
went as a private in the same company with Philip.
It was planned that the rebel troops of New York province should
invade Canada by way of Lake George, while the army under Washington
continued the siege of Boston. Philip went through the form of
arranging that his wife should remain at her father's house--the only
suitable home for her, indeed--during his absence in the field; and
so, in the Summer of 1775, upon a day much like that in which he had
first come to us twelve years before, it was ours to wish him for a
time farewell.
Mr. Faringfield and his lady, with Fanny and Tom, stood in the hall,
and my mother and I had joined them there, when Philip came
down-stairs in his new blue regimentals. He wore his sword, but it was
not his wife that had buckled it on. There had been no change in her
manner toward him: he was still to her but as a strange guest in the
house, rather to be disdained than treated with the courtesy due even
to a strange guest.
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