“I know it’s not, honey!” he said in a different tone—and I wondered to hear him, so gentle was his voice. “I know it’s not.”
“If you were away altogether it would be different! If you kept away—”
“But I can’t keep away,” he answered mildly. “I must come and go. I can’t let the plantation go to ruin. Times are bad enough and hard enough—we may be burnt out any night. But until the worst comes I must keep things together, Con, you know that. It’s fortunate that we’re above King’s Mountain. After this Tarleton and his Greens—d—n the fellow, I wish he had been there to-day—will spread over the south side like a swarm of wasps flocking to the honey-pot. But they’ll be shy of pushing as far north of Winsboro’ as this—we’re too strong hereabouts. For the Englishman I’d send him to the cabins at once, but he wouldn’t be safe from our folks outside the house.”
She spoke up suddenly. “If they come for him,” she cried, “I warn you, father, I shall not raise a finger to save him!”
“Pooh! pooh!”
“I vow I will not! So now you know!”
“Well, I don’t think that they’ll come,” he replied lightly. “They know me, and—”
“To shelter a Britisher!”
“I’ve sheltered worse men,” he responded reasonably.
“At least you’ve had warning!” she retorted—and I heard the legs of a chair grate on the floor of the outer room. “If I have to choose, your little finger is more to me than the lives of twenty such as he!”