CHAPTER XXVI.
_My Lord Cornwallis_ And so the departure of my Lord Cornwallis was necessarily deferred.
The packet upon which he had engaged passage, and which had actually received his baggage, sailed without him.

It would be some days before he would grace the court of St.James with his handsome person, and a long time would elapse before he would once more rejoice in the sight of his beloved hills; when he next returned it would not be with the laurels of a conqueror either! He was to try conclusions once and again with the gentleman he had so assiduously pursued through the Jerseys; and this time, ay, and in the end too, the honors were to be with his antagonist.

The Star and Order of the Bath, which his gracious and generous Britannic majesty had sent over to the new Caesar, General Howe, with so much laudation and so many words of congratulation, was to have a little of its lustre diminished, and was destined to appear not quite so glorious as it had after Long Island; in fact, it was soon to be seen that it was only a pyrotechnic star after all, and not in the order of heaven! Both of these gentlemen were to learn that an army--almost any kind of an army--is always dangerous until it is wiped out; and it is not to be considered as wiped out as long as it has any coherent existence at all, even if the coherent existence only depends upon the iron will of one man,--which is another way of saying the game is never won until it is ended.
There was mounting in hot haste in New York, and couriers and orders streamed over the frozen roads, and Lord Cornwallis himself galloped at full speed for Princeton.

The calculations of a certain number of his majesty's faithful troops were to be rudely disturbed, and the comfortable quarters in which they had ensconced themselves were to be vacated forthwith.

Concentration, aggregation, synthesis, were the words; and this time the reassembled army was not to disintegrate into winter quarters until this pestilent Mr.Washington was attended to, and attended to so effectually that they could enjoy the enforced hospitality of the surly but substantial Jerseymen through the long winter nights undisturbed.