whose position and interests lie in retaining the old order of things are catering to the rabble for a little temporary advantage. You see, the past few years, the Scotch-Irish immigrants have been pouring into the northwestern part of the colony. By nature and education they are hostile to rightful authority, are Dissenters and opposed to contributing in the way of taxes for the support of the established order.”

“I understand that the other side, the men who 8 are using these ignorant people for their purposes, have control of the House of Burgesses.”

“Fools! to think they can scare England by refusing to buy goods of her just because she wishes them to pay a small tax. I’ve just heard that Colonel Washington met Richard and Francis Lee at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg the other night after the governor, God bless him! had dissolved the Burgesses; that with Tom Jefferson and Patrick Henry they laid their plans for uniting with the rebels in the other colonies. I can’t understand of what such men as Washington are thinking. Treason, pur et simple, that’s what ’twill come to.”

“Henry is a wonderful orator, they say.”

“Words, words, and more words. Where he learns ’em all is a mystery, for he’d much rather talk than study. He’s infatuated young Jefferson, who’s yeoman on his father’s side, but who’s as smart as he is conceited. What do you suppose that young scamp is trying to accomplish? Nothing less than the ruin of the old families of this Dominion, sir. He would so change our laws that, instead of our estates descending to the eldest son and thus being kept up, they would be divided among the children, as is done in Massachusetts. And he would disestablish the church, he would, by gad, sir!”

The squire’s face, always florid from high living, was now so purple with passion that his wily nephew, fearing apoplexy, changed the subject.

“By the way, uncle, why don’t you send Lisbeth to 9 England to finish her education? She’s growing to be a handsome woman and surely, if you’ll pardon me, your broad acres can yield sufficient to fit her for the high position she’ll be called to occupy.”

“She’s but a girl, all I have. She’s like her dead mother and I––I can’t let her go.”

“But think what her mother would wish. Go over with her.”

“I can’t leave the estate. The slaves are only to be depended on when they have a capable overseer. Mine is not altogether trustworthy.”

“Excuse me but I don’t think it right for her to associate with servants and people like the Allisons. By the way, who are these Allisons? When riding this afternoon we met the boy and child, and Lisbeth made much of them. Surely they are not of our class.”

“Allison is a Scotchman. I happened to be at Norfolk when he landed from the old country. The captain told me the fellow had been brought on board unconscious and with a bad wound in his head. I liked the man’s face, and asked no questions. He never spoke of the matter. I paid the cost of his passage and let him work it out. He’s a good accountant.”

“An objectionable person, probably an escaped convict,” remarked Mogridge with the air of a judge.

“On the contrary he seems a most respectable man. To be sure he’s a Dissenter, but one has to expect that. I’ve always found him trustworthy. He has taught a 10 field school for years and the children make good progress under his instruction.”

“You can’t mean that you allow Lisbeth to go to such a school?”

“Well, you see,” replied the squire as if in excuse, “the school is a small one, confined to my neighbours’ children, otherwise I wouldn’t allow it.”

“So she associates with such boys as that Allison.”

“He’s a fine lad. His mother was a Tawbee, old Squire Tawbee’s daughter. She was a playmate of mine and lived at Greenwood till it had to be sold, after the squire’s death, to pay the debts.”

“But you don’t know about the father?”

“I said,” replied the squire, rather testily, “that he’s a decent man except for his revolutionary notions. He wants to say ‘amen’ every time Patrick Henry opens his mouth. That, I have no patience with. England has helped us fight our foes. This hullabaloo about no taxation without representation fills the ears of the ignorant. Why, fifty years ago the chronic growlers opposed the establishment of a postal service because the government, without consulting the colonies, charged postage on the letters.”

“It seems, however, that you are providing a living for a man who is a chronic growler and opposed to you.” There was the evident suggestion of a sneer in Mogridge’s voice.

“Well, I suppose I might look at it that way. I took him up when he hadn’t a friend.”

“Pardon me, but I do not see how one might look 11 at it in any other way. A fellow who will do as you say he is doing, is an ingrate.”

The squire frowned, but made no reply, and Henry Mogridge smiled unpleasantly, for he saw that his words were surely poisoning his uncle’s thoughts respecting the Allisons.

Mogridge’s sneers went to bed with the squire and arose with him in the morning. The thought that a man whom he had befriended was opposing him rankled deeply. And while in this irritable condition one of the first persons the squire met was David Allison, who had come early to work on the accounts.

“Good morning, Allison,” was the squire’s greeting, spoken gruffly.

“Good morning, Squire Danesford,” replied the Scotchman. “I thought I wad coom early an’ ha’ the work oot o’ the way.”

“So as to have time for carrying on your treasonable mischief, I suppose.”

“Excuse me, Squire, but I dinna think I understand.”

“D’ye think I don’t know that you go about preaching the pernicious doctrines of Patrick Henry and Tom Jefferson, who sports on his seal that sentiment of the demagogue: ‘Resistance to tyrants is obedience 13 to God.’ Who’s the tyrant? Why, our most gracious sovereign! That sort of talk is nothing short of treasonable. The purpose of it is revolution. Oh, I know!”

Allison looked at the squire in wonderment, which apparently served to further excite the squire’s rage, for he, without waiting for reply, exclaimed: “There soon will come a time when the traitors will have to eat their words. When she was ready, England put her powerful hand on the Indies, and they became hers. She reached out into Canada and, taking France by the coat collar, marched her out. When she feels like it, she’ll devote some spare half hour to knocking your heads together.”

The bent figure of the Scotchman straightened as he looked full in the face of his employer. “You misunderstand me, Squire; I only ask that England shall treat the colonists as she would treat Englishmen, for that is what we are. But for us she wad na’ found the task o’ running France out of Canada an easy one. I fought for England in that war as surely as I did for the colonies an’ I dinna intend to make talk that a self-respecting man should not.”

“That sounds well, but it means treason; and I for one will not harbour or support traitors,” was the angry response.

“And I,” replied Allison, with dignity, “will permit no man to control my thoughts or call me a traitor to the country for which I fought.”

Thus the kindly relations between the two men,