“As long as the cub we came for has fled, let us on, Bates. We have no war with dotards and children.” The others murmured surly assent, and bidding Dicey and her father beware how they harboured traitors, the whole party withdrew.
It took Dicey scarce a moment to fly to the door and bar it, and then hurry back to her father, who was lying back in his chair, pale with the excitement and the peril which they had undergone, and only too thankful that one among the company had respected his grey hairs and Dicey’s youth.
For many a day they lived in hourly fear of their lives, even after Bloody Bates had taken himself off on his raids and the neighbourhood was comparatively peaceful.
Did Dicey undergo any more special perils, you ask?
Yes; once again she faced grave danger, being met by a scouting party as she was coming from a trip to the nearest town. They questioned her as to the whereabouts of her brothers and other Whigs in the vicinity, but she refused to tell what she knew. The leader threatened to shoot her, but she faced him bravely, crying,—
“Well, here am I; shoot!” opening her neckerchief at the same time. He was ashamed apparently, for the band rode on, leaving her to make her way home.
She lived to see all her brothers but one return from their duties in the army, and by her loving care and devotion made her father’s life a happy one. She was only a little Southern girl living in a lonely spot, and long since dead; but her courageous acts live on and shine, as do all “good deeds in a naughty world.”
The Maid of Zaragoza
1808
