"
Dan was amazed, and his better sense aroused. Why should this gentleman
step out of the rank of his birth, to talk in this way? Now and then Dan
himself had indulged in such ideas, but always with a doubt that they
were wicked, and not long enough to make them seem good in his eyes. He
knew that some fellows at "the Club" talked thus; but they were a lot of
idle strangers, who came there chiefly to corrupt the natives, and work
the fish trade out of their hands. These wholesome reflections made him
doubt about accepting Squire Carne's invitation; and it would have been
good for him if that doubt had prevailed, though he trudged a thousand
miles for it.
"What! Break down a fence, and then be afraid to enter! That is the
style of your race, friend Daniel. That is why you never get your
rights, even when you dare to talk of them. I thought you were made of
different stuff. Go home and boast that you shattered my fence, and
then feared to come through it, when I asked you." Carne smiled at his
antagonist, and waved his hand.
Dan leaped in a moment through the hanging splinters, and stood before
the other, with a frown upon his face. "Then mind one thing, sir," he
said, with a look of defiance, while touching his hat from force of
habit, "I pass here, not with your permission, but of right."
"Very well. Let us not split words," said Carne, who had now quite
recovered his native language. "I am glad to find a man that dares to
claim his rights, in the present state of England.
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