I. Forget
it, and we quarrel. Hey! fill that tall Italian glass for a toast. I
give you the family, George. May they keep tight hold on what is theirs
through all this cursed war-folly. Here's to the patroons, God
bless 'em!"

Forced by courtesy to drink ere I had yet tasted meat, I did my part
with the best grace I could muster, turning the beautiful glass
downward, with a bow to my host.

"The same trick o' grace in neck and wrist," he muttered, thickly,
wiping his lips. "All Ormond, all Ormond, George, like that vixen o'
mine, Dorothy. Hey! It's not too often that good blood throws back; the
mongrel shows oftenest; but that big chit of a lass is no Varick; she's
Ormond to the bones of her. Ruyven's a red-head; there's red in the rest
o' them, and the slow Dutch blood. But Dorothy's eyes are like those
wild iris-blooms that purple all our meadows, and she has the Ormond
hair--that thick, dull gold, which that French Ormond, of King Stephen's
time, was dowered with by his Saxon mother, Helen. Eh? You see, I read
it in that book your father left us. If I'm no Ormond, I like to find
out why, and I love to dispute the Ormond claim which Walter Butler
makes--he with his dark face and hair, and those dusky, golden eyes of
his, which turn so yellow when I plague him--the mad wild-cat that
he is."

Another fit of choking closed his throat, and again he soaked it open
with his chilled toddy, rattling the stick to stir it well ere he
drained it at a single, gobbling gulp.

A faint disgust took hold on me, to sit there smothering in the fumes of
pipe and liquor, while my gross kinsman guzzled and gabbled and
guzzled again.

"George," he gasped, mopping his crimsoned face, "I'll tell you now that
we Varicks and you Ormonds must stand out for neutrality in this war.
The Butlers mean mischief; they're mad to go to fighting, and that means
our common ruin. They'll be here to-night, damn them."

"Sir Lupus," I ventured, "we are all kinsmen, the Butlers, the Varicks,
and the Ormonds. We are to gather here for self-protection during this
rebellion. I am sure that in the presence of this common danger there
can arise no family dissension."

"Yes, there can!" he fairly yelled. "Here am I risking life and property
to persuade these Butlers that their interest lies in strictest
neutrality. If Schuyler at Albany knew they visited me, his dragoons
would gallop into Varick Manor and hang me to my barn door! Here am I, I
say, doing m