She took his arm, and he assisted her to the saddle, won into acquiescence by her graceful obstinacy, and, in fact, seeing but little harm the tufted hills rolled into one another like the waves of a swelling sea, their crests tipped with the slant rays of the descending sun, and their graceful slopes alternating among purple shadows and gleams of floating light.

“It is indeed so beautiful,” answered Harold, “that I should deem you might be content to live there as of old, without inviting the terrible companionship of Mars.”

“We do not invite it,” said the young captain.  “Leave us in peaceful possession of our own, and no war cries shall echo among those hills.  If Mars has driven his chariot into our homes, he comes at your bidding, an unwelcome intruder, to be scourged back again.”

“At our bidding!  No.  The first gun that was fired at Sumter summoned him, and if he should leave his foot-prints deep in your soil, you have well earned the penalty.”

“It will cost you, to inflict it, many such another day’s work as that at Manassas a month ago.”

The taunt was spoken hastily, and the young Southron colored as if ashamed of his discourtesy, and added: 

“Forgive me my ungracious speech.  It was my first field, sir, and I am wont to speak of it too boastingly.  I shall become more modest, I hope, when I shall have a better right to be a boaster.”

“Oh,” replied Harold, “I admit the shame of our discomfiture, and take it as a good lesson to our negligence and want of purpose.  But all that has passed away.  One good whipping has awakened us to an understanding of the work we have in hand.  Henceforth we will apply ourselves to the task in earnest.”

“You think, then, that your government will prosecute the war more vigorously than before?”

“Undoubtedly.  You have heard but the prelude of a gale that shall sweep every vestige of treason from the land.”

“Let it blow on,” said the Southron, proudly.  “There will be counter-blasts to meet it.  You cannot raise a tempest that will make us bow our heads.”

“Do you not think,” interrupted Oriana, “that a large proportion of your Northern population are ready at least to listen to terms of separation?”

“No,” replied Harold, firmly.  “Or if there be any who entertain such thoughts, we will make them outcasts among us, and the finger of scorn will be pointed at them as recreant to their holiest duty.”

“That is hardly fair,” said Oriana.  “Why should you scorn or maltreat those who honestly believe that the doctrine in support of which so many are ready to stake their lives and their fortunes, may be worthy of consideration?  Do you believe us all mad and wicked people in the South—­people without hearts, and without brains, incapable of forming an opinion that is worth an argument?  If there are some among you who think we are acting for the best, and Heaven knows we are acting with sincerity, you should give them at least a hearing, for the sake of liberty of conscience.  Remember, there are millions of us united in sentiment in the South, and millions, perhaps, abroad who think with us.  How can you decide by your mere impulses where the right lies?”