Seth Mills came over that afternoon to have a last talk with his obdurate neighbor.
“It won’t do any good, Rhett,” he declared. “They’re bound to git ye sooner or later, dead or alive. Now what’s the use o’ bein’ so confounded pigheaded an’ contrary? Why don’t you jest make up your mind to go like a man an’ hev done with it, fer your wife’s sake, an’ your children’s sake, an’ your country’s sake, by cracky! That’s what I say.”
And Bannister replied:—
“I would be less than a man, Seth, if I yielded principle and pride, and humbled and stultified myself like a coward, in order to make it easy for my family and myself. No matter what the outcome of this awful struggle may be, no matter what becomes of me in this crisis, I intend that my children and my children’s children shall say of me, in the days to come: ‘He kept his judgment and his conscience clear.’ I will not yield, Seth, I will not yield.”
And that ended the argument, and Seth Mills limped back home, discouraged, saddened, angry, that his neighbor, whom he loved for his many kindnesses and sterling character, should be so blind to his own interests, so obstinate, so childish, so utterly unreasonable.
That night, some time after midnight, Bob was wakened from a troubled sleep, more by the feeling that something was going wrong than by any actual noises that he heard. He sat up in bed and listened, and, from somewhere outside the house, the sound of low voices came distinctly to his ears. He leaped to the floor, thinking that at last the provost-guard had come to apprehend his father, and had chosen the night-time for their errand, thinking the more easily to find him. Hastily slipping on his shoes and trousers, he started down the hall. By a ray of moonlight which fell through the hall-window he discovered his mother standing at the door of her room, fully dressed.
“Oh, Rob,” she whispered, “be still! be still!”
When he came closer to her he saw that she had been weeping and that her face was white with fear.
“Where’s father?” he asked.