stranger, might doubtless have prompted much of that violence on his part which had been so happily and in time arrested. Nor was there anything precipitate or uncommon in what the sergeant had done. Such exhibitions were frequent in the bitter and unscrupulous warfare of the south. The word and the blow, and usually the blow first, was the habitual mode of silencing, not treason merely, but all manner of opposition; and this was the injudicious course by which the British, regarding South Carolina as a conquered province, revolted the popular feeling from all sympathy with their authority, and provoked that spirit of determined resistance and hostility which, in a few weeks only after this event, blazed up throughout the whole colony, from one end to the other, and commenced that series of harassing operations, the partisan warfare, which, in spite of frequent defeats, cut off the foraging parties of the British army, destroyed its resources, diminished its exercise, contracted its sphere of operations daily, and in the end, drove the invader to the seaboard, and from thence to his departing vessels.
Old Humphries followed Davis to the door, and again renewed his exhortation. The landlord seemed to have a good feeling for his guest, who had probably been a crony of his own, and a favoured lover of his daughter, before the British army had made its appearance to compel a change of political sentiment in the one, or a British sergeant, in his red coat and round face, to effect as great a revolution in the bosom of the other. His object seemed to be to persuade Davis into a more cautious utterance, when speaking of the existing powers; and he warned him of the unhesitating nature of the enemy when punishing what they held rebellion, and of the severe kinds of punishment put in exercise on such occasions. But, whether it was that the youth really felt sorely, too sorely for calm reflection, the loss of his sweetheart—or whether the assault of the sergeant had opened his eyes to the doubtful tenure by which the American held his security under the rule that now prevailed throughout the land—may not well be said; but there was a reckless audacity in his replies to the friendly suggestions of the landlord, which half frightened the latter personage out of his wits.
"I'd rather eat acorns, now, Master Humphries, I tell you, and
