Theodore Winthrop

“ I say man of the world, because the gambling scenes of nominal gentlemen are often just as hateful, if more decorous, than those of that night. I walked slowly off toward camp, sorrowful and sick at heart. Baseness and vulgarity had never seemed to me so base and vulgar till now.
I suddenly heard a voice in the bushes. It was Larrap. He was evidently persuading his comrade to some villany. I caught a suspicious word or two.
“Ah!” thought I, “you want our horses. We will see to that.”
I walked softly by. Brent was seated by the embers of a camp-fire, cowered in a heap, like a cold Indian. ”

“ A more vigorous being had mingled its life with hers. Or perhaps the stern history of her early days had taught her to forge the armor of self-protection. She seemed to have all her father’s refinement, but she used it to surround and seclude herself, not to change and glorify others. Godiva was not more delicately hidden from the vulgar world by the mantle of her own golden hair, than this sweet lady by her veil of gentle breeding.
As she took her father’s arm to lead him away to the camp, I could read in her look that there were no illusions for her. ”

“ She held out her hand to me.
“Dear lady,” said I, taking her aside a moment while Brent spoke to Mr. Clitheroe, “we are acquaintances of to-day; but campaigners must despise ceremony. Your father has told me much of your history. I infer your feelings. Consider me as a brother. Nothing can be done to aid you?”
“Your kindness and your friend’s kindness touch me greatly. Nothing can be done.” ”

“ Of what use was our loyalty to woman? What vain words those unuttered words of our knightly vow to succor all distressed damsels, — the vow that every gentleman takes upon himself, as earnestly now, and wills to keep as faithfully, as any Artegall in the days gone by, when wrong took cruder and more monstrous form! ”

“ She says she only dares to endure. Day by day they both wear away. Day by day her father’s bright hope dwindles away. Day by day she perceives the moment of her own danger approaching. She could not speak to me of it; but I could feel by her tone her disgust and disdain of Sizzum. ”

“ She had not seen her father so cheerful, so like himself, since they had left England.”
“What a weary pilgrimage they must have had, poor errant souls!”
“Wade, Wade! how this tragedy of theirs cures me forever of any rebellion against my own destiny. A helpless woman’s tragedy is so much bitterer than anything that can befall a man.”
“Must we say helpless, John?”
“Are we two an army, that we can take them by force? She has definitely closed any further communication on our part. She said that I could not have failed to notice how Elder Sizzum disliked our presence. ”

“ Horse-stealing, since the bad example of Diomed, has never gone out of fashion. Fulano and Pumps were great prizes. I knew that Larrap hated Brent for his undisguised abhorrence and the ugly words and collision of to-day. ”

“ I must promise her not to be seen with them in the morning. Sizzum would find some means to punish her father, and that would be torture to her. It seems that villain plays on the old man’s religious superstitions, and can terrify him almost to madness. ”