You are wealthy, and avail yourself of your good fortune to buy yourself out of a danger to which the poor man must submit. By what right would you escape from and evade your duties, when he, as a citizen, having the same, must submit to their performance! His conscience, like your own, teaches him that to fight for his country and against her invaders is his first duty. You evade your duty by the help of your better fortune, and leave him, as in the present instance, either to perish hopelessly in unequal contest—unequal through your defection—or to take up arms in a battle to which his principles are foreign. Such is the effect of this most unpatriotic reservation, which, on the score of your money, you have presumed to make. You sacrifice your country doubly, when you contribute to violate the conscience of its citizens. The duties of the rich man—the leading, influential man—are those chiefly of example. What is our safety, and where would be the safety of any nation—its freedom or its glory—if, when danger came, its rich citizens made terms with the invader which sacrificed the poor? Such is your case—such your proceeding exactly. There is now, thank Heaven, but one alternative that Clinton's proclamation has left you."
"That is the sword—I know it, I feel it, Robert."
"Touch it not, touch it not, dear uncle, I pray you. Forbear the sword—the bloody smiting sword. Submit rather to the oppression. Touch it not."
Such was the adjuration of the feeble girl who lay gasping on the sofa. Her eyes were illuminated with a holy fire; her cheeks, pale, almost transparent, shone, white and glittering, with a spiritual glory, from the pillow on which her head was resting; while one of her long, taper fingers was stretched forward with an imploring earnestness. She had been a silent listener with the rest to the warm and deeply important dialogue which had been going on. The novelty of the difficulty—for they had not heard of the proclamation before—had kept them dumb until that moment, when Colonel Walton, as one having come to a settled conclusion, had referred to the sword as a last alternative. The gentle spirit of Emily Singleton, quick, sensitive, though frail and fleeting, then poured forth its feeble notes, in order to arrest the decision.
