The Captain, taken by surprise, as bluntly declined. Then ashamed of his bluntness, explained: “You know Dorothy is of gentle birth as are you on your father’s side. Your mother’s people for generations have been preachers or teachers, they are of an old family though not of the nobility, and she is as good a woman as ever lived. My objection is not to your family; and I know you would make Dorothy a good husband; but you have been educated for and expect to be a Presbyterian minister. As such you will not make a living sufficient to support Dorothy. Your father and I are no longer rich men, having given all except our lands to the cause of the Colonists. I am a Presbyterian, but I want Dorothy to marry a lawyer, or a planter—not a minister. I doubt if a minister in this new country should marry; he is almost a creature of charity. If you will go to Lexington or Danville and practice law or to the ‘cane country’ and with your father’s and my help buy a thousand acres and improve it, in two or three years I will give my consent. If not, in my opinion, you should remain unmarried. It is the church or Dorothy for your bride. Son, it is up to you.” John did not answer but walked out into the night. When Captain Fairfax went into the partly finished house and told his wife what had occurred, she burst into tears and upbraided him for showing an unchristian spirit, saying: “No good will result from your decision. John is just the husband I would have chosen for Dorothy. I had hoped that they would marry.” She left the room, looking for Dorothy and sent her to find John. Though the moon was full and one could see quite distinctly it was sometime before she found him in the shadow of a great elm near the creek. She came up as though it were accidental. “Why in the shadow and so pensive when we were so happy today? Let us walk in the moonlight or sit on that great rock at the head of the riffle and watch the moonbeams play with the running water.” John, before answering, took her by the hand and led her to a seat on the great boulder. Then he said: “Your father refuses. He looks at the matter from a different view point and his may be the correct one. Whether he or I am right rests with you; not upon your decision but your nature. If we do not marry it may mean a happier life for you, though for me a necessary sacrifice. I offer very little more than my love and fidelity; offsetting this, as he puts it, is a life of privation, hardship and sacrifice—if service can be so called. What he expects for you to have is what you have been brought up to expect—and I can never give.”