"
"I implore you to hear me patiently," I cried. Then I told him what I
had learned in the Carolinas and at the outland farms. "You yourself
told me it was hopeless to look for a guinea from the Council. I was
but carrying out your desires. Can you blame me if I've toiled for the
public weal and neglected my own fortunes?"
He was scarcely appeased. "You're a damnable kind of busybody, sir, the
breed of fellow that plunges states into revolutions. Why, in Heaven's
name, did you not consult me?"
"Because it was wiser not to," I said stoutly. "Half my recruits are
old soldiers of Bacon. If the trouble blows past, they go back to their
steadings and nothing more is heard of it. If trouble comes, who are
such natural defenders of the dominion as the frontier dwellers? All I
have done is to give them the sinews of war. But if Governor Nicholson
had taken up the business, and it were known that he had leaned on old
rebels, what would the Council say? What would have been the view of my
lord Howard and the wiseacres in London?"
He said nothing, but knit his brows. My words were too much in tune
with his declared opinions for him to gainsay them.
"It comes to this, then," he said at length. "You have raised a body of
men who are waiting marching orders.
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