“Certainly, my dear major—­certainly, my dear Mr. Robert—­my old pupil, and, I hope, my friend—­all this is true enough, and very natural.  I allow captain Willoughby to wish the best for the king’s troops, while I wish the best for my own countrymen.”

“This is natural, on both sides, out of all question, though it by no means follows that it is right.  ‘Our country, right or wrong,’ is a high-sounding maxim, but it is scarcely the honest man’s maxim.  Our country, after all, cannot have nearer claims upon us, than our parents for instance; and who can claim a moral right to sustain even his own father, in error, injustice, or crime?  No, no—­I hate your pithy sayings; they commonly mean nothing that is substantially good, at bottom.”

“But one’s country, in a time of actual war, sir!” said the major, in a tone of as much remonstrance as habit would allow him to use to his own father.

“Quite true, Bob; but the difficulty here, is to know which is one’s country.  It is a family quarrel, at the best, and it will hardly do to talk about foreigners, at all.  It is the same as if I should treat Maud unkindly, or harshly, because she is the child of only a friend, and not my own natural daughter.  As God is my judge, Woods, I am unconscious of not loving Maud Meredith, at this moment, as tenderly as I love Beulah Willoughby.  There was a period, in her childhood, when the playful little witch had most of my heart, I am afraid, if the truth were known.  It is use, and duty, then, and not mere birth, that ought to tie our hearts.”

The major thought it might very well be that one child should be loved more than another, though he did not understand how there could be a divided allegiance.  The chaplain looked at the subject with views still more narrowed, and he took up the cudgels of argument in sober earnest, conceiving this to be as good an opportunity as another, for disposing of the matter.

“I am all for birth, and blood, and natural ties,” he said, “always excepting the peculiar claims of Miss Maud, whose case is sui generis, and not to be confounded with any other case.  A man can have but one country, any more than he can have but one nature; and, as he is forced to be true to that nature, so ought he morally to be true to that country.  The captain says, that it is difficult to determine which is one’s country, in a civil war; but I cannot admit the argument.  If Massachusetts and England get to blows, Massachusetts is my country; if Suffolk and Worcester counties get into a quarrel, my duty calls me to Worcester, where I was born; and so I should carry out the principle from country to country, county to county, town to town, parish to parish; or, even household to household.”

“This is an extraordinary view of one’s duty, indeed, my dear Mr. Woods,” cried the major, with a good deal of animation; “and if one-half the household quarrelled with the other, you would take sides with that in which you happened to find yourself, at the moment.”