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Leadem, Christopher

"Highland Ballad"

...."
She struggled. "They would not have been killed in the war."
"And if not for your
countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war.
"No," he continued, raising his hand to stop her. "Don't tell me that
you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The
strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature's unchanging law.
Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your
freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead."
Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out
the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to
rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before
her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every
grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth.
"You have an answer for everything. That doesn't make you right. In
the eyes of God---"
"God
?" he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. "You have
reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest
and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl.


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