"You'll rot on the way, first. You'll drown in a mudhole.
You--you--Britishers!"
The last word, explosive, intensive, had strained the limits of her
vituperation. If that would not stir these men, what could? Tommy's
neck ran red again, but he kept his tongue between his teeth. Dick's
eyes mellowed. He had the advantage over Tommy, for he had once had a
white woman for a wife.
The blood of five American-born generations is, under certain
circumstances, an uncomfortable heritage; and among these circumstances
might be enumerated that of being quartered with next of kin. These men
were Britons. On sea and land her ancestry and the generations thereof
had thrashed them and theirs. On sea and land they would continue to do
so. The traditions of her race clamored for vindication. She was but a
woman of the present, but in her bubbled the whole mighty past. It was
not alone Molly Travis who pulled on gum boots, mackintosh, and straps;
for the phantom hands of ten thousand forbears drew tight the buckles,
just so as they squared her jaw and set her eyes with determination. She,
Molly Travis, intended to shame these Britishers; they, the innumerable
shades, were asserting the dominance of the common race.
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