"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." "’’T is 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 flag of the Commonwealth floats over the Assembly hall at Jamestown, then—" "Then I will join myself to you as I have said, and I will bring with me those without whom your revolution would be but short-lived—the Puritan and Nonconformist element in the colony, gentle and simple." "That is sufficiently explicit," said Landless, "and I thank you."