"I shall fall young," he said, "if fall I must, my motives misconstrued,
and my actions condemned, by those whose approbation is dearest to me.
But the sword of liberty and patriotism is in my hand, and I will neither
fall meanly nor unavenged. They may expose my body, and gibbet my limbs;
but other days will come, when the sentence of infamy will recoil against
those who may pronounce it. And that Heaven, whose name is so often
profaned during this unnatural war, will bear witness to the purity of
the motives by which I have been guided."
Upon approaching Milnwood, Henry's knock upon the gate no longer
intimated the conscious timidity of a stripling who has been out of
bounds, but the confidence of a man in full possession of his own rights,
and master of his own actions,--bold, free, and decided. The door was
cautiously opened by his old acquaintance, Mrs Alison Wilson, who started
back when she saw the steel cap and nodding plume of the martial visitor.
"Where is my uncle, Alison?" said Morton, smiling at her alarm.
"Lordsake, Mr Harry! is this you?" returned the old lady. "In troth, ye
garr'd my heart loup to my very mouth--But it canna be your ainsell, for
ye look taller and mair manly-like than ye used to do."
"It is, however, my own self," said Henry, sighing and smiling at the
same time; "I believe this dress may make me look taller, and these
times, Ailie, make men out of boys.
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