“Do you dare stand there and tell me that? Do you tell me to my face that you are not ashamed?”
“Anything that I have done I would do again,” declared the boy, boldly.
“Oh, I see,” the planter’s sneer returned. “You are saturated with the radical teachings of the mob yonder there in the city. And with your head full of their accursed doctrines you have dared to raise your hand against the king.”
“I have dared to raise my hand against a tyrant,” cried Tom, forgetting caution in his ardor for the cause. “If King George does not know how to govern a free people it’s high time he was learning.”
The Tory’s face grew dark with wrath; but before he could speak, a boy, who seemed a few years Tom’s senior, stepped through the doorway.
“Just a moment, father,” said he. “Don’t speak while you are angry; it will only create ill blood between relatives, and that should not be.”
This was Mark Harwood, the planter’s only son; he was a thick-set youth with a far from prepossessing face, and a sly manner. His father looked at him for a moment, in surprise; he must have seen something in the glance which was directed secretly at him, for he held his peace, though the anger did not die out of his face.
Mark Harwood descended the steps, with outstretched hand.
“Tom,” said he, with great cordiality in his voice, but a lurking look of craft in his eyes that the other did not like, “I’m very glad to see you.”
Tom took the offered hand.