"Look, Oran," said the youth, manfully, "I will not take the commission, nor will I trust your commander's promises. You have served him from the beginning; and none have served him better. How has he rewarded you?—You are still a captain of refugees!"
A shadow of humiliation passed over the face of the renegade; but he answered without emotion.
"I sought nothing better, nor am I fit for promotion. My station is where my habits and inclinations put me,—among the free rangers. But you have learning, youth, ambition; and are capable of training into discipline."
"I will not take the commission," said Hyland, with increasing resolution. "I have been enough with our people,—with the Americans,—to know that their cause is just, and holy, and is prevailing. Nay, you must know, that, at this moment, commissioners are deliberating over the preliminaries of negotiation, and that peace must soon be concluded."
"It is false," said the refugee, fiercely; "a trick of the ministers,—a common stratagem."
"True, or false, then, yet am I resolved to shed no blood in the quarrel; and, certainly, I will take no commission to distress the people of this neighbourhood. Oran, I am resolved; I will not fight; and I adjure you by the last wish of our poor father, and by your own hopes of future quiet, that you give up your schemes of blood, and leave this fatal valley for ever. Disband your followers; and take heed you be not suddenly deserted by your employers."
"Boy!" said the outlaw, "you are not white-livered, or you would not say these things to me! Look you, I know your folly: it is not for me,—not because you love liberty and peace,—not because you have laid to heart the dotish words of a half crazed father,—that you are so cold and shameless; but because you have set your eyes on the baby face of a girl, who will laugh at you, when the last fit of your folly is over. Hark you,—read me this knavish letter, and see what is already said of you."
"I have read it," said the young man, faltering.
"Ay, but read it again: let me know how far your madness has been talked of." And Hyland, summoning courage, took the letter and read it, though his embarrassment increased at the paragraph concerning himself, which had caused Oran to snatch it so suddenly from the hands of the volunteer. This paragraph, couched in the coarsest terms, expressed a knowledge of his affections, which had alarmed him at first excessively, though, it was probable, it was nothing more than the shrewd guess of a keen observer; and it concluded by showing how easily he might be 'nabbed, while at his gallivanting.'
"And this, then," cried the refugee, "it is that makes you so tame, so spiritless! Poor fool, could you look on none but the betrothed of a Falconer? Look you, boy, you are in a bear-trap, and the log will soon be on your back: with this baby fancy, shameful and dishonourable, you are gulling yourself into perdition."