"It ain't what people think of you--it's what you are that counts," replied General Forrest. I have thought of this homely saying hundreds of times, and it rings truer every time I repeat it to myself. It covers the whole ground of conscience and morals.
As I was going out, Jane Ryder being in advance, the General said to me again, "Don't make no mistake about what I mean. You are responsible to me for the safety of that young lady. I believe in you, but I may be wrong. If I am wrong you'd just as well go out and hang yourself and save me the trouble."
"You needn't worry about me, General. I can take care of myself," declared Jane Ryder. We went out of the house and came to where Whistling Jim was holding the horses. I dismissed him then and there, and told him to put his horse in the stable and have plenty of feed for mine. But Jane Ryder, for reasons of her own, preferred to walk, so that Whistling Jim went away with the two horses and we were left to ourselves.
I remember that I said very little during that long walk, and all the burden of the conversation fell on the young woman. She was not at all elated over the narrow escape she had had, and preferred to make light of it, but I knew that, under different circumstances, she would have been put in prison in Richmond, and I think that her nature would have succumbed to close confinement.
"You have had your way, after all, but I am not sure that I like it," she said. She waited for me to make some reply, but none was forthcoming. "I hope you don't think you have won a great victory. If I had been a man, perhaps the victory would have been the other way."
"I didn't compel you to come with me," I remarked.
"You mean I came of my own accord. If I did, it was to avoid a scene before my mother--the lady you saw at the house. I didn't want her to hear you bluster and threaten; and, besides, I wanted to tell you what I think of you. We have both had our way. My mother thinks you are a gentleman in a way, and I know what I know."
I trudged along by her side silently; I had no relish for an argument in which I was sure to get the worst of it. In some matters a man is no match for a woman: he cannot cope with her in a war of words. Nor will silence discomfit them. At least, it had no such effect in this instance, for the more I was silent, the louder and faster she talked, and, apparently, the angrier she became.