For the first time since the outbreak of hostilities, Hoppy felt inclined to coincide with the views of Jared Higgins, Winslow Knowles and other leaders of the anti-war party. It was easy enough to join in the patriotic indignation aroused by the acts of the British, but it was one thing to wax eloquent on the question at Crosby’s and another to be helpless in the hands of the enemy, forced to obey the orders of a bully like Dunton and obliged to play a part, the very thought of which brought the blush of shame to his cheek. There, a few miles away, were “his young barbarians all at play.” There were his neighbors, the playmates of his childhood and the companions of his youth and manhood. Peace, for the moment, hovered over the scene and in the absence of the warships there appeared nothing likely to disturb the seeming tranquility of the smiling land. But what of the morrow? The thunder of the enemy’s guns would bring terror to helpless women and children and many a happy home might suffer the loss of its brave defenders. Ruined rooftree and bloody corpse would testify to Britannia’s might, and all because the cradle-land of his race with cruel arrogance refused to the youthful and still weak American nation the rights which every free people must maintain or perish. So absorbed was the captive in these reflections that he did not notice the approach of Dunton until the latter’s voice brought him to with a start. “Taking in the scenery, Mayo? One would think you had never seen it before by the attention you seem to be giving it.” Hoppy took no notice of the sneering tone in which this was said. He had made up his mind to stand a lot from Dunton, but every insult would be stored in his memory and when the proper time arrived the Englishman would be amply repaid in a manner thoroughly satisfactory to the American. “It looks kind of pretty at this distance, Mr. Dunton.” “Seems to me you have a queer idea of prettiness, Mayo. A few heaps of sand and a few miserable patches of trees don’t make a pretty scene, to my mind. How sensible people can be content to live on such a sandbar is more than I can understand.” “Yet, Mr. Dunton, the men who first settled here were Englishmen and their descendants are still the owners of the land.” “That may be so, Mayo, but I have heard the first English in these parts were a set of cranks who left England because they could not get along with their own people.” “Then there must be quite a lot of that crankiness left in the blood,” answered Hoppy slyly. “The present inhabitants have no great welcome for their friends from the other side.” “Any Englishman who would leave his own country for this savage place must have something wrong with him. You have no aristocracy here, Mayo, and any country without an aristocracy can never rank as a great nation. What would England be without her aristocracy?” Hoppy was surprised to find Dunton in such a conversational mood and gave him every encouragement to talk.