He broke into the confused chorus of their protests, silencing the interrupters by the stormy blare of his rejoinder. He was so terribly in earnest that they just had to hearken.
“I know nothing of this game you have essayed to play. Before to-day I never saw it played; and if this miserable exhibition by you is a sample of the game I hope never to see it played again. But I know courage when I see it and I know cowardice when I see it.”
He levelled his condemning finger at little Morehead and focused his glare upon that un-happy youth.
“Your name is Morehead! Your grandfather was a great governor of this great state. Your father was my companion in arms upon the field of battle—and no braver man ever breathed, sir. This historic inclosure bears the honoured name of your honoured line—Morehead Downs. You are the chosen leader of these companions of yours. And how have you led them to-day? How have you acquitted yourself of your trust? I ask you that—how?” He halted, out of breath.
“The other team is stronger. They've got us outclassed. Look—why, look at the reputation they've got all over this country! What—what chance have we against them?”
The confession came from little Morehead haltingly, as though he spoke against his own will in his own defence.
“Damn their reputation!” shouted Major Stone. “Your very words are an admission of the things I allege against you, and against all of you here. Concede that your antagonists are stronger than you, man for man. Concede that they outclass you in experience. Is that any reason why they should outclass you in courage and in determination? Your father and the fathers of more than half of the rest of you served in an army that for four years defended our beloved country against a foe immensely stronger than they were—stronger in men, in money, in munitions, in food, in supplies, in guns—stronger in everything except valour.
“Suppose, because of the odds against them, your people had lost heart from the very outset, as you yourselves have lost heart here today. Would that great war have lasted for four years? Or would it have lasted for four months? Would the Southern Confederacy have endured until it no longer had the soldiers to fill the gaps and hold the lines; or food for the bellies of those soldiers who were left; or powder and lead for their guns? Or would it have surrendered after the first repulse, as you have surrendered? Answer me that, some of you!
“These Northerners are game clear through; I can tell that. Their ancestors before them were brave men—the Southern Confederacy could never have been starved out and bled white by a breed of cowards. And these young men here—these splendid young Americans from up yonder in that Northern country—have the same gallant spirit their people showed forty years ago against your people. But you—you have lost the spirit of your race, that surely must have been born in you. You are going to let these Yankees run right over you—your behaviour proves it—and not fight back. That is what I charge against you. That is what I am here to tell you.”
“How about me?” put in one of the blanketed contingent of his audience. “My people were all Unionists.”