“So you have traced me on a back trail for a thousand miles—­from habit,” I said, not exactly pleased.

“A thousand miles—­by your leave.”

“Or without it.”

“Or without it—­a thousand miles, sir, on a back trail, through forests that blossom like gigantic gardens in May with flowers sweeter than our white water-lilies abloom on trees that bear glossy leaves the year round; through thickets that spread great, green, many-fingered hands at you, all adrip with golden jasmine; where pine wood is fat as bacon; where the two oaks shed their leaves, yet are ever in foliage; where the thick, blunt snakes lie in the mud and give no warning when they deal death.  So far, sir, I trail you, back to the soil where your baby fingers first dug—­soil as white as the snow which you are yet to see for the first time in your life of twenty-three years.  A land where there are no hills; a land where the vultures sail all day without flapping their tip-curled wings; where slimy dragon things watch from the water’s edge; where Greek slaves sweat at indigo-vats that draw vultures like carrion; where black men, toiling, sing all day on the sea-islands, plucking cotton-blossoms; where monstrous horrors, hornless and legless, wallow out to the sedge and graze like cattle—­”

“Man!  You picture a hell!” I said, angrily, “while I come from paradise!”

“The outer edges of paradise border on hell,” he said.  “Wait!  Sniff that odor floating.”

“It is jasmine!” I muttered, and my throat tightened with a homesick spasm.

“It is the last of the arbutus,” he said, dropping his voice to a gentle monotone.  “This is New York province, county of Tryon, sir, and yonder bird trilling is not that gray minstrel of the Spanish orange-tree, mocking the jays and the crimson fire-birds which sing ‘Peet! peet!’ among the china-berries.  Do you know the wild partridge-pea of the pine barrens, that scatters its seeds with a faint report when the pods are touched?  There is in this land a red bud which has burst thundering into crimson bloom, scattering seeds o’ death to the eight winds.  And every seed breeds a battle, and every root drinks blood!”

He straightened in his stirrups, blue eyes ablaze, face burning under its heavy mask of tan and dust.

“If I know a man when I see him, I know you,” he said.  “God save our country, friend, upon this sweet May day.”

“Amen, sir,” I replied, tingling.  “And God save the King the whole year round!”

“Yes,” he repeated, with a disagreeable laugh, “God save the King; he is past all human aid now, and headed straight to hell.  Friend, let us part ere we quarrel.  You will be with me or against me this day week.  I knew it was a man I addressed, and no tavern-post.”

“Yet this brawl with Boston is no affair of mine,” I said, troubled.  “Who touches the ancient liberties of Englishmen touches my country, that is all I know.”