return you thanks for blows, and homage for chastisement. Believe so—it is quite as well. But you have seen the beginning only. Reserve your triumph for the end."
"Do the ladies of Carolina all entertain this spirit, Miss Walton? Will none of them take the aid of the gallant knight that claims service at their hands? or is it, as I believe, that she stands alone in this rebel attitude, an exception to her countrywomen?"
"Nay; I cannot now answer you this question. We see few of my countrywomen or countrymen now, thanks to our enemies; and I have learned to forbear asking what they need or desire. It is enough for me that when I desire the arm of a good knight, I can have him at need without resorting to that of an enemy!"
"Indeed!" replied the other, with some show of curiosity—"indeed, you are fortunate; but your reference is now to your father?"
"My father? Oh, no! although, as now, I not unfrequently claim his aid in preference to that of my foe."
"Why your foe, Miss Walton? Have we not brought you peace? There is no strife now in Carolina."
"Peace, indeed! the peace of fear, that is kept from action by chains and the dread of punishment! Call you that peace! It is a peace that is false and cannot last. You will see."
"Be it as you say. Still we are no enemies—we who serve your monarch as our own, and simply enforce those laws which we are all bound in common to obey."
"No monarch of mine, if you please. I care not a straw for him, and don't understand, and never could, the pretensions of your kings and princes, your divine rights, and your established and immutable systems of human government, humanity itself being mutable, hourly undergoing change, and hourly in advance of government."
"Why, this is to be a rebel; but we shall not dispute, Miss Walton. It is well for us, as I have said before, that such are not the sentiments of your warriors; else, stimulated, as they must have been, by the pleadings of lips like yours, they must have been invincible. It will not indicate too much simplicity, if I marvel that their utterance hitherto has availed so little in bringing your
