ble offense; and, as to
_boots_, that rested upon a flagrant fact that could not be denied, so
that at first I was green enough to regard the boy as very considerate
and indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views or, if any doubts
remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty
to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems, I owed military
allegiance to _him_, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the
field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I being a cadet of my house,
owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that
twice in a year, on _my_ birthday, and on _his_, he had a right,
strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my
neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid among gentlemen--viz.,
"by the _comity_ of nations," it seems I owed eternal deference to one
so much older than myself, so much wiser, stronger, braver, more
beautiful, and more swift of foot. Something like all this in tendency I
had already believed, though I had not so minutely investigated the
modes and grounds of my duty. As a Pariah, which, by natural temperament
I was, and by awful dedication to despondency, I felt resting upon me
always too deep and gloomy a sense of obscure duties, that I never
_should_ be able to fulfill--a burden which I could not carry, and which
yet I did not know how to throw off. Glad, therefore, I was to find the
whole tremendous weight of obligations--the law and the prophets--all
crowded into this one brief command--"Thou shalt obey thy brother as
God's vicar upon earth." For now, if, by any future stone leveled at him
who had called me "a buck," I should chance to draw blood--perhaps I
might not have committed so serious a trespass on any rights which he
could plead: but, if I _had_ (for, on this subject my convictions were
still cloudy), at any rate, the duty I might have violated in regard to
this general brother, in right of Adam, was canceled when it came into
collision with my paramount duty to this liege brother of my own
individual house.

From this day, therefore, I obeyed all my brother's military commands
with the utmost docility; and happy it made me that every sort of
distraction, or question, or opening for demur, was swallowed up in the
unity of this one papal principle, discovered by my brother, viz., that
all rights of casuistry were transferred from me to himself. _His_ was
the judgment--_his_ was the responsibili