"No, but close by; held in durance in the capital, with liberators so near. It seems to me very stupid of Beauregard not to have gone in and set you free."
"Free?" said I, smiling. "I was free."
"There will be no freedom in the country, properly speaking, until that Northern usurper is tossed out of the place he occupies."
"That will be soon," said my mother.
"In what sense is Mr. Lincoln a usurper?" I ventured to ask.
"He was duly elected."
"Is it possible Daisy has turned politician?" exclaimed my brother.
"He is not a usurper," said Mr. Marshall.
"He is, if being out of his place can make him so," said De Saussure; "and the assumption of rights that nobody has given him. By what title does he dare shut up Southern ports and send his cut-throats upon Southern soil?"
"Well, they have met their punishment," my father remarked. And it hurt me sorely to hear him say it with evident pleasure.
"The work is not done yet," said Ransom. "But at Bull Run rates - 'sixty pieces of splendid cannon' taken, as Mr. Davis says, and how many killed and prisoners? - the mud-sills will not be able to keep it up very long. Absurd! to think that those Northern shopkeepers could make head against a few dozen Southern swords."