"Yet when Peggy's aunt wrote it did not suit thee."
"I should say not. Such a letter! It was as well Christopher was dead, since he had brought such disgrace on the name, but Peggy might come back to her if she chose. Oh, but it was good to see the answer Peggy sent, and how she scorned aid or protection from any that doubted her brother's innocence."
"Perhaps Mistress Calvert feared a like rebuff, for she and Peggy did not part in love. Besides, thou must not forget that she has much to contend with. She is a Catholic and under the tutelage of Jesuit priests."
"'Tis well I know what their influence is. If I were Lord Baltimore, I would harry them all out of the province."
"Ay, but thou art not Lord Baltimore nor called upon for the Christian task of harrying out of the land a band of brave men."
"Thou dost defend them?"
"Nay, there be few things in which they and I think alike; but this I do say: There is no chapter in her history to which the Church has better right to point with pride than this work of the Jesuits here in the West. At privations they have smiled, at danger they have laughed, at torture they have stretched out hands of blessing over their torturers. And who are they who have faced all these things for their religion? Not hardy pioneers full of love of adventure like many of our Virginia cavaliers, but delicately nurtured students, men for the chief part who prefer the cloister to the world, but have cheerfully sought these western wilds, moved only by love of God and man."
"Humphrey, thou dost love to argue, but answer me one question, Dost thou put trust in them?"
Huntoon shrugged his shoulders.