She settled the fuel about herself with her own
hands, so that the flames should reach her quickly; and nobly said,
with her last breath, that she had obeyed the sacred command of God,
to give refuge to the outcast and not to betray the wanderer."
(Charles Dickens's _History of England._)
Note, I am not speaking of rebel to rebel, or loyalist to loyalist, or
comrade to comrade, or clansman to clansman in trouble--that goes
without saying--but of man and woman to man and woman in trouble, the
highest form of clannishness, the clannishness that embraces the whole
of this wicked world--the Clan of Mankind!
French people often helped English prisoners of war to escape to the
coast and across the water, and English people did likewise by the
French; and none dared raise the cry of "traitors." It was the
highest form of patriotism on both sides. And, by the way, it was,
is, and shall always be the women who are first to pity and help the
rebel refugee or the fallen enemy.
Succour thine enemy.
There must have been a lot of human kindness under the smothering,
stifling cloud of the "System" and behind the iron clank and
swishing "cat" strokes of brutality--a lot of soul light in the
darkness of our dark past--a page that has long since been closed
down--when innocent men and women were transported to shame, misery,
and horror; when mere boys were sent out on suspicion of stealing a
hare from the squire's preserves, and mere girls on suspicion of
lifting a riband from the merchant's counter.
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