“Dammy,” he said, “I’ll not budge for them!  I have thousands of acres, hundreds of tenants, farms, sugar-bushes, manufactories for pearl-ash, grist-mills, saw-mills, and I’m damned if I draw sword either way!  Am I a madman, to risk all this?  Am I a common fool, to chance anything now?  Do they think me in my dotage?  Indeed, sir, if I drew blade, if I as much as raised a finger, both sides would come swarming all over us—­rebels a-looting and a-shooting, Indians whooping off my cattle, firing my barns, scalping my tenants—­rebels at heart every one, and I’d not care tuppence who scalped ’em but that they pay me rent!”

He clinched his fat fists and beat the air angrily.

“I’m lord of this manor!” he bawled.  “I’m Patroon Varick, and I’ll do as I please!”

Amazed and mortified at his gross frankness, I sat silent, not knowing what to say.  Interest alone swayed him; the right and wrong of this quarrel were nothing to him; he did not even take the trouble to pay a hypocrite’s tribute to principle ere he turned his back on it; selfishness alone ruled, and he boasted of it, waving his short, fat arms in anger, or struggling to extend them heavenward, in protest against these people who dared urge him to declare himself and stand or fall with the cause he might embrace.

A faint disgust stirred my pulse.  We Ormonds had as much to lose as he, but yelled it not to the skies, nor clamored of gain and loss in such unseemly fashion, ignoring higher motive.

“Sir Lupus,” I said, “if we can remain neutral with honor, that surely is wisest.  But can we?”

“Remain neutral!  Of course we can!” he shouted.

“Honorably?”

“Eh?  Where’s honor in this mob-rule that breaks out in Boston to spot the whole land with a scurvy irruption!  Honor?  Where is it in this vile distemper which sets old neighbors here a-itching to cut each other’s throats?  One says, ‘You’re a Tory!  Take that!’ and slips a knife into him.  T’other says, ‘You’re a rebel!’ Bang!—­and blows his head off!  Honor?  Bah!”

He removed his wig to wipe his damp and shiny pate, then set the wig on askew and glared at me out of his small, ruddy eyes.

“I’m for peace,” he said, “and I care not who knows it.  Then, whether Tory or rebel win the day, here am I, holding to my own with both hands and caring nothing which rag flies overhead, so that it brings peace and plenty to honest folk.  And, mark me, then we shall live to see these plumed and gold-laced glory-mongers slinking round to beg their bread at our back doors.  Dammy, let ’em bellow now!  Let ’em shout for war!  I’ll keep my mills busy and my agent walking the old rent-beat.  If they can fill their bellies with a mess of glory I’ll not grudge them what they can snatch; but I’ll fill mine with food less spiced, and we’ll see which of us thrives best—­these sons of Mars or the old patroon who stays at home and dips his nose into nothing worse than old Madeira!”