“And in that way runs the road!” exclaimed the General, full of leniency and amusement. “The preachers are becoming better politicians every day. Major, you and I must look to our lines, or some dominie may yet turn our flanks.”
Then I gave the General what Peg had told of her attitude, like a diminutive iceberg, towards the Reverend Campbell and his magpie partner.
“They have done Peg no actual harm,” I said. “They passed her by one day, like the Levites they were and are; and now she revenges herself.”
“One can always hear the savage stirring about in Peg,” commented the General; “and I like her the better for it. I love your re-vegeful soul—he who has a long knife, a long memory, and will go a long trail to his feud.”
“And that is an excellent observe,” I said, teasing him a bit, “and you a Christian and a president!”
“The observe, as you phrase it,” retorted the General, “is not only excellent but earnest. Revenge is the fair counterpart of gratitude. They are off the same bolt of cloth. Find me a soul for revenge, and I'll find you a soul to be grateful. What are revenge and gratitude, when one goes to the final word, but just a man paying his debts?”
“Who is this Doctor Ely?” I asked. “The Reverend Campbell described him as your friend.”
“Doctor Ely is no more than an acquaintance, and hardly that. I met him years ago in Philadelphia; and I've heard him preach. He is a showy, fashionable figure of man; not deep, yet musical and fluent. The women, I remember, liked his discourses right well. There were a beat and a march to his periods; and albeit, while he talked, the wise ones went to sleep, others with music-boxes for minds, and who mistook sensation for sense, sat bolt upright, feeling the liveliest delight.”
“I've met the latter sort,” I assented; “the gentry who prefer rhyme to reason.”
“Somehow,” observed the General, following an interval of silence, “I ever fear I'll be unfair to your preachers. My inclination is to judge them too harshly—estimate them below their worth. It has been ever the fault of military men to do this, and, for myself, I would guard against it.”