These descendants of the
Covenanters, now,--Presbyterian elders and their wives,--going down to
camp to bid their boys good-bye, devoted them to death with just as
stern integrity, as partial a view of the right, as their ancestors did
theirs at Naseby or Drumclog: their religion loved its friends and hated
its enemies just as bitterly as when it scowled at Monmouth; the "boys,"
no doubt, would call themselves Roundheads, as they had done in the
three months' service. Paul Blecker, who had seen a good many sides of
the world, laughed to himself: the very Captain here, good, anxious,
innocent as a baby, as he was, looked at the world exactly through
Balfour of Burley's dead eyes, was going to cure the disease of it by
the old pill of intolerance and bigotry. No wonder Paul laughed.
The sobered Quaker evening was making ready for night: the yellow warmth
overhead thinning into tintless space; the low hills drawing farther off
in the melancholy light; the sky sinking nearer; clouds, unsteady all
day, softened at last into a thoughtful purple, and couching themselves
slowly in the hollows of the horizon; the sweep of cornfields and woods
and distant farms growing dim,--daguerreotype-like; the tinkle of the
sheep-bells on the meadows, the shouts of the boys in camp yonder, the
bass drone of the frogs in the swamp dulling down into the remoteness of
sleep.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145