"I must go away, my good friends," she declared quietly, after she had thanked them for their service. "I must not put my friends in peril," she said, "but I am sure of your kind advice in my sad situation.
"We wait upon you to say that it would be best, Madam," said the judge plainly. "I hear that New Hampshire as well as Massachusetts has in consideration an act of great severity against the presence or return of Loyalists, and I fear that you would run too much risk by staying here. If you should be proscribed and your estates confiscated, as I fear may be done in any case, you are putting your son's welfare in peril as well as your own. If he be still living now, though misfortunes have overtaken him, and he has kept faith, as we who know him must still believe, these estates which you hold for him in trust are not in danger; if the facts are otherwise"--and the old justice looked at her, but could not find it in his heart to go on.
Madam Wallingford sat pondering the matter with her eyes fixed upon his face, and was for some time lost in the gravest thoughts.
"What is this oath?" she asked at last, and her cheeks whitened as she put the question.
The judge turned to Mr. Hill, and, without speaking, that gentleman took a folded paper from among some documents which he wore in his pocket, and rose to hand it to the lady.
"Will you read it to me?" she asked again; and he read the familiar oath of allegiance in a steady voice, and not without approval in his tone:--
"I do acknowledge the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to be free, independent; and sovereign states, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to GEORGE THE THIRD, KING OF GREAT BRITAIN: and I renounce, refuse, and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him; and I do swear that I will, to the utmost of my power, support, maintain, and defend the said UNITED STATES against the said KING GEORGE THE THIRD, his heirs and successors, and his or their abettors, assistants, and adherents, and will serve the said United States in the office ... which I now hold, with fidelity, according to the best of my skill and understanding."
As he finished he looked at the listener for assent, as was his habit, and Judge Chadbourne half rose in his eagerness; everything was so simple and so easy if she would take the oath. She was but a woman,--the oath was made for men; but she was a great land holder, and all the country looked to her. She was the almoner of her own wealth and her husband's, and it were better if she stood here in her lot and place.