my idle
questions."

Landless bowed gravely. Betty bent her pretty head, and with a hasty, "I
am going, father!" in answer to an impatient movement on the part of the
Major, vanished from the room.

Carrington waited until the last light footfall had died away, and then
said, "Our interview is over. Are you satisfied?"

"At least, I understand your position."

"Yes," said Carrington, thoughtfully, "it is as well that you should
understand it. It is simple. I wish you well. I am in heart a
Commonwealth's man. I love not the Stuarts. I would fain see this fair
land freed from their rule and returned to the good days of the
Commonwealth. And I may as well acknowledge, since you have found it out
for yourself,"--a haughty smile,--"that I have my ambitions. What man
has not?" He rose and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind
him, his handsome head bent, his rich robe trailing upon the ground
behind him.

"I could rule this land more acceptably to the people than can William
Berkeley with his parrot phrases, 'divine right,' and 'passive
obedience.' I know the people and am popular with them, with Royalist
and Churchman as well as with Nonconformist and Oliverian. I know the
needs of the colony--home rule, self taxation, free trade, a more
liberal encouragement to emigrants, religious tolerance, a rod of iron
for the Indians, the establishment of a direct slave trade with Africa
and the Indies. I could so rule this colony that in a twelvemonth's
time, Richard Verney or Stephen Ludlow, hot Royalists though they be,
would be forced to acknowledge that never, since the day Smith sailed up
the James, had Virginia enjoyed a tithe of her present prosperity."

"'Tis a consummation devoutly to be desired,'" said Landless, dryly. "In
the mean time, like the cat i' the adage--"

"You are insolent, sirrah!"

"When a stripling I served under one who took the bitter with the sweet,
the danger as well as the reward, who led the soldiers from whom he took
his throne."

"Cromwell, sirrah," said Carrington sternly, "led soldiers. You would
require Miles Carrington to lead servants, to place himself, a gentleman
and a master, at the head of a rebellion which, if it failed, would
plunge him into a depth of ignominy and ruin proportionate to the height
from which he fell. He declines the position. When you have won your
freedom he will treat with you. Not before."

"Then," said Landless slowly, "upon the day on which the