?you shall not follow the matter further. As to the men, I cannot say with [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] certainty who they may have been. I had gone forth to visit Dame Clatworthy, who hath the tertian ague, and they [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] did beset me on my return. Perchance they are some who are not of my grandfather?€™s way of thinking in affairs of State, and who struck at him through me. But ye have both been so kind that ye will not refuse me one other favour which I shall ask ye??€™
We protested that we could not, with our hands upon our sword-hilts.
?€?Nay, keep them for the Lord?€™s quarrel,?€™ said she, smiling at the action. ?€?All that I ask is that ye will say nothing if this matter to my grandsire. He is choleric, and a little matter doth set him in a flame, so old as he [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] is. I would not have his mind turned from the public needs to a private trifle of this sort. Have I your promises??€™
?€?Mine,?€™ said I, bowing.
?€?And mine,?€™ said Lockarby.
?€?Thanks, good friends. Alack! I have dropped my gauntlet in the street. But it is of no import. I thank God that no harm has come to any one. My thanks once more, and may pleasant dreams await ye.?€™ She sprang up the steps and was gone in an instant.
Reuben and I unharnessed our horses and saw them cared for in silence. We then entered the house and ascended to our chambers, still without a word. Outside his room door my friend [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] paused.
?€?I have heard that long man?€™s voice before, Micah,?€™ said he.
?€?And so have I,?€™ I answered. ?€?The old man must beware of his ?€?prentices. I have half a mind to go back for the little maiden?€™s gauntlet.?€™
A merry twinkle shot through the cloud which hid gathered on Reuben?€™s brow. He opened his left hand and showed me the doe-skin glove crumpled up in his palm.
?€?I would not barter it for all the gold in her grandsire?€™s coffers,?€™ said he, with a sudden outflame, and then half-laughing, half-blushing at his own heat, he whisked in and left me to my thoughts.
And so I learned for the first time, my dears, that my good comrade had been struck by the little god?€™s arrows. When a man?€™s years number one score, love springs up in him, as the gourd grew in the Scriptures, in a single night. I have told my story ill if I have not made you understand that my friend was a frank, warm-hearted lad of impulse, whose reason seldom stood sentry over his inclinations. Such a man can no more draw away from a winning maid than the needle can shun the magnet. He loves as the mavis sings or the kitten plays. Now, a slow-witted, heavy fellow like [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] myself, in whose veins the blood has always flowed somewhat coolly and temperately, may go into [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] love as a horse goes into a shelving stream, step by step, but a man like Reuben is kicking his heels upon the bank one moment, and is over ears in the deepest pool the nest.
Heaven only knows what match it was that had set the tow alight. I can but say that from that day on my comrade was sad and cloudy one hour, gay and blithesome the next. [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] His even flow of good spirits had deserted him, and he became as di
s the first duty of government to prevent a separation of the territories governed; and whether, also, it has not been regarded as a point of honor with all nationalities to preserve uninjured each its own greatness and its own power? I trust that I may not be thought to argue that all governments, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] or even all nationalities, should succeed in such endeavors. Few kings have fallen, in my [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] day, in whose fate I have not rejoiced — none, [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] I take it, except that poor citizen King of the French. And I can rejoice that England lost her American colonies, and shall rejoice when Spain has been deprived of Cuba. But I hold that [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] citizen King of the French in small esteem, seeing that he made no fight; and I know that England was bound to struggle when the Boston people threw her tea into the water. Spain keeps a tighter hand on Cuba [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] than we thought she would some ten years since, and therefore she stands higher in the world’s respect.
It may be well that the South should be divided from the North. I am inclined to [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] think that [Ссылки могут видеть только зарегистрированные пользователи. ] it would be well — at any rate for the North; but the South must have been aware that such division could only be effected in two ways: either by agreement, in which case the proposition must have been brought forward by the South and discussed by the North, or by violence. They chose the latter way, as being the readier and the surer, as most seceding nations have done. O’Connell, when struggling for the secession of Ireland, chose the other, and nothing came of it. The South chose violence, and prepared for it secretly and with great adroitness. If that be not rebellion, there never has been rebellion since history began; and if civil war was ever justified in one portion of a nation by turbulence in another, it has now been justified in the Northern States of America.
What was the North to do; this foolish North, which has been so liberally told by us that she has taken up arms for nothing, that she is fighting for nothing, and will ruin herself for nothing? When was she to take the first
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