Page:The Partisan (revised).djvu/129

 own hold upon the invaders, whom nothing seemed to bind in the shape of solemn obligation. The promised protection was that of the wolf, and not the guardian dog; it destroyed its charge, and not its enemy; and strove to ravage where it promised to secure. As yet, it is true, none of these ills, in a direct form, had fallen upon Colonel Walton; he had suffered no abuses in his own person or family; on the contrary, such were his wealth and influence, that it had been thought not unwise, on the part of the conquerors, to conciliate and soothe him. Still, the colonel could not be insensible to the gradual approaches of tyranny. He was not an unreflecting man; and as he saw the wrongs done to others, his eyes became duly open to the doubtful value of his own securities, whenever the successes of the British throughout the state should have become so general as to make them independent of any individual influence. So thinking, his mind gave a new stimulus to his conscience, which now refused its sanction to the decision which, in a moment of emergency and dismay, he had been persuaded to adopt. His sympathies were too greatly with the oppressed, and their sufferings were too immediately under his own eyes, to permit of this; and sad with the consciousness of his error&mdash;and the more so as he esteemed it now irremediable&mdash;vexed with his momentary weakness, and apprehensive of the future&mdash;his mind grew sullen with circumstances&mdash;his spirits sank; and, gradually withdrawing from all the society around him, he solaced himself in his family mansion with the small circle which widowhood, and other privations of time, had spared him. Nor did his grief pass without some alleviation in the company of his daughter Katharine&mdash;she, the high-born, the beautiful, the young&mdash;the admiration of her neighbourhood, revelling in power, yet seemingly all unconscious of its sway. The rest of his family in this retirement consisted of a maiden sister, and a niece, Emily Singleton, whom, but a short time before, he had brought from Santee, in the hope that a change of air might be of benefit to that life which she held by a tenure the most fleeting and capricious.

He saw but few persons besides. Studiously estranging himself, he had no visitors, unless we may except the occasional calls of the commanding officer of the British post at Dorchester. This