But a new feeling soon stirred within him.

He remembered with a pain intolerable that he had allowed the word of so despicable a creature as Mop Cheatley to shake his faith in his mother's courage.

Indignation at the wretched creature who had maligned her, but chiefly a passionate self-contempt that he had allowed himself to doubt her, raged tumultuously in his heart and drove him in a silent fury through the dark until they reached their own gate.

Then as his mother's hand reached toward the latch, the boy abruptly caught her arm in a fierce grip.
"Mother," he burst forth in a passionate declaration of faith, "you're not a coward." "A coward ?" replied his mother, astonished.
The boy's arms went around her, his head pressed into her bosom.

In a voice broken with passionate sobs he poured forth his tale of shame and self-contempt.
"He said you were a Quaker, that the Quakers were cowards, and would never fight, and that you were a coward, and that you would never fight.
But you would, mother, wouldn't you?
And you're not a real Quaker, are you, mother ?" "A Quaker," said his mother.