They said that the Boers would certainly shoot any Englishman who might be sufficiently defenceless.
But the old man would not listen.
"I am an Englishman--_civis Romanus sum_," he said in his sturdy fashion, "and I do not believe that they will touch me, who have lived among them for twenty years.

At any rate, I am not going to run away and leave my place at the mercy of a pack of thieves.

If they shoot me they will have to reckon with England for the deed, so I expect that they will leave me alone.

Bessie can go if she likes, but I shall stop here and see the row through, and there's an end of it." Whereon, Bessie having flatly declined to budge an inch, the loyalists departed in a hurry, metaphorically wringing their hands at such an exhibition of ill-placed confidence and insular pride.

This little scene occurred at dinner-time, and after dinner old Silas proceeded to hurl defiance at his foes in another fashion.