Rodman the Keeper: Southern Sketches

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"We are two to your one," answered Eliot: "that man beside you is for me."

Royce looked down with surprise upon his cousin, who still held his arm.

"No mistaken lenity now, Stephen," he said curtly, shaking his arm free. "I must have this man; he shot Allison."

"How are you going to do it?" said Eliot jeeringly, putting his hands deep down in his pockets and squaring his shoulders. "Even Honor here is a match for two Yankees."

"Miss Dooris, I will let you pass," said Royce impatiently. "Go up stairs. This is no place for a girl like you."

"Say lady!" cried Eliot. "She is a Southern lady, sir!"

"Bah!" said Royce; "you are a fine person to talk of ladies.—Are you going, Miss Dooris?"

Great tears stood in Honor's eyes; she did not stir.

"She will not go, John," said Wainwright, "because that man is her cousin—he is an Eliot."

"He is a murderer!" said Royce, filling up the doorway again, and measuring with his eye the breadth of his opponent's shoulders and muscle. "Now, then, are you with me or against me, Stephen? If against me, by Heaven! I will fight you both."