Doesna King
George quarter his men in it? And havena you to feed and shelter them,
and to thole their ill tempers and their ill ways, morning, noon, and
night? You master in your ain house! You're just a naebody in it!"

"Dinna get on your high horse, madam. Things are coming to the upshot:
there's nae doot o' it."

"They've been lang aboot it--too lang."

"Do you really mean that you are going to set yoursel' among the
rebels?"

"Going? Na, na; I have aye been amang them. And ten years syne, when the
Stamp Act was the question, you were heart and soul wi' the people. The
quarrel to-day is the same quarrel wi' a new name. Tak' the side o'
honour and manhood and justice, and dinna mak' me ashamed o' you,
Alexander. The Semples have aye been for freedom,--Kirk and State,--and
I never heard tell o' them losing a chance to gie them proud English a
set-down before. What for should you gie the lie to a' your forbears
said and did? King George hasna put his hand in his pocket for you; he
has done naething but tax your incomings and your outgoings. Ask Van
Heemskirk: he's a prudent man, and you'll never go far wrong if you walk
wi' him."

"Ask Van Heemskirk, indeed! Not I. The rebellious spirit o' the ten
tribes is through all the land; but I'll stand by King George, if I'm
the only man to do it."

"George may be king o' the Semples. I'm a Gordon. He's no king o' mine.
The Gordons were a' for the Stuarts."

"Jacobite and traitor, baith! Janet, Janet, how can you turn against me
on every hand?"

"I'll no turn against you, Elder; and I'll gie you no cause for
complaint, if you dinna set King George on my hearthstone, and bring him
to my table, and fling him at me early and late." She was going to light
the candle again; and, with it in her hand, she continued: "That's
enough anent George rex at night-time, for he isna a pleasant thought
for a sleeping one. How is Van Heemskirk going? And Bram?"

"Bram was wi' them that unloaded the schooner and closed the
custom-house--the born idiots!"

"I expected that o' Bram."

"As for his father, he's the blackest rebel you could find or hear tell
o' in the twelve Provinces."

"He's a good man; Joris is a good man, true and sure. The cause he
lifts, he'll never leave. Joris and Bram--excellent! They two are a
multitude."

"Humff!" It was all he could say. There was something in his wife's face
that made it look unfamiliar to him. He felt himself to be like the
prophet of