“There are times when we are all fools,” I said gloomily.
“Suppose I make you a prisoner?” he suggested.
“You would be a mean cur, General Marion, if you did!” I cried. For the moment I was alarmed. Then I saw that he was smiling.
“Peppery as that are you?” he said. “I don’t wonder that my lord was for putting you under arrest. But don’t be afraid. You’ve set us a good example and we are going to follow it. Your fault, Major, is that you think you are the only gentlemen in the world. Whereas we are of the same blood or better!” He drew himself up, a heroic little figure, not untouched by vanity. “Of the same blood or better!” he repeated. “And if there are no gentlemen south of the Potomac River, then believe me, sir, there are no gentlemen anywhere in the world.”
“Granted,” I said cordially. “But the misfortune is that you are not all of a pattern.”
“No, nor you,” he riposted sharply. “There are good and bad, fine and mean in every country, sir, and some day we shall understand that, and shall cease to set down the faults of the few to the account of the many. War is tolerable, Major; war between you and me! It is the abuse of war that is intolerable. But I must go, or may be you will be making me a prisoner. My compliments to Tarleton when you see him—a good man but over sharp; over sharp, Major! Tell him that the Swamp Fox will give him many a run yet, and will not be the first to go to ground if I can help it.”
We had walked a little way from the mill, and while we talked a couple of men had led out the horses. I had a glimpse of them as they vanished round the corner of the building. Marion held out his hand.
“If we meet again, Major,” he said, “we will shoot at one another in all good fellowship—all soldiers of the right sort are comrades in arms. Meantime I wish you good fortune. And if, when the war is over—I expect that by that time you will be once more a prisoner on parole—you have a fancy for a little duck-shooting, there is none better than on the Marion Plantation in St. John’s Parish.”
I could not resist his good humor and, depressed as I was, I returned his grasp with spirit. It was impossible not to admire what I had heard of him, and equally impossible not to like what I had seen of him. There was in him a sparkle and a gaiety as well as an indomitable spirit that explained the hold he had over his men, a hold that was firmest in the darkest days and when the Swamp Fox’s life was not more easy than his. “Certainly,” I said, “I will remember the duck-shooting, General. And if I can procure leave for you to reside on your plantation, of which I have no doubt we shall still be in possession, we may have the pleasure of shooting the ducks in company.”
“Bah!” he cried laughing. “Long live the Thirteen States!”