“For mercy’s sake, husband, do what they ask,” interposed his wife, who had been an anxious listener in the adjoining room.
“I must do it,” groaned the squire, speaking the truth almost for the first time in forty-eight hours. “Alas! where is our boasted liberty of speech!”
“Fudge! squire,” replied Captain Barney, contemptuously. “If your friend Jeff Davis should come to Massachusetts to-morrow, to preach a crusade against the North, and to raise an army to destroy the free institutions of the country, I suppose you think it would be an outrage upon free speech to put him down. We don’t think so. Up with the flag, squire.”
“Fred, you may hang the flag out at the front window up stairs,” said the squire to his son.
“All right, squire. Now a few words more, and we bid you good night. You may think what you please, but if you utter another word of treason in Pinchbrook during the term of your natural life, the party outside will carry out the rest of the programme.”
By this time Fred Pemberton had fastened the flag to one of his mother’s clothes poles, and suspended it out of the window over the porch. It was hailed with three tremendous cheers by the multitude who were in waiting to discipline the squire, and exorcise the evil spirit of treason and secession.
The work of the evening was finished, not wholly to the satisfaction, perhaps, of a portion of the younger members of the assemblage, who would gladly have joined in the work of pillage and destruction, but much to the gratification of the older and steadier portion of the crowd, who were averse to violent proceedings.