“Oh, you're just the same,” he returned pettishly, “just the same.”
“But I don't steal your chickens, sir,” protested the girl, laughing.
The Major grunted and looked down at her in angry silence; then his face relaxed and a frosty smile played about his lips.
“You are young, my child,” he replied, in a kind of austere sadness, “and youth is always an enemy to the old—to the old,” he repeated quietly, and looked at his wrinkled hand.
But in the excitement of the next autumn, he showed for a time a revival of his flagging spirit. When the elections came he followed them with an absorption that had in it all the violence of a mental malady. The four possible Presidents that stood before the people were drawn for him in bold lines of black and white—the outward and visible distinction between, on the one side, the three “adventurers” whom he heartily opposed, and, on the other, the “Kentucky gentleman,” for whom he as heartily voted. There was no wavering in his convictions—no uncertainty; he was troubled by no delicate shades of indecision. What he believed, and that alone, was God-given right; what he did not believe, with all things pertaining to it, was equally God-forsaken error.
Toward the Governor, when the people's choice was known, he displayed a resentment that was almost touching in its simplicity.
“There's a man who would tear the last rag of honour from the Old Dominion,” he remarked, in speaking of his absent neighbour.
“Ah, Major,” sighed the rector, for it was upon one of his weekly visits, “what course would you have us gird our loins to pursue?”
“Course?” promptly retorted the Major. “Why, the course of courage, sir.”
The rector shook his great head. “My dear friend, I fear you recognize the virtue only when she carries the battle-axe,” he observed.