The Devil's Disciple Paperback - 2006

From the publisher

Book Excerpt: self-denial.This conception is easily extended to others--denial, and finallygeneralized as covering anything disagreeable. So Mrs. Dudgeon, being exceedingly disagreeable, is held to be exceedingly good.Short of flat felony, she enjoys complete license except foramiable weaknesses of any sort, and is consequently, withoutknowing it, the most licentious woman in the parish on thestrength of never having broken the seventh commandment or misseda Sunday at the Presbyterian church.The year 1777 is the one in which the passions roused of thebreaking off of the American colonies from England, more by theirown weight than their own will, boiled up to shooting point, theshooting being idealized to the English mind as suppression ofrebellion and maintenance of British dominion, and to theAmerican as defence of liberty, resistance to tyranny, andselfsacrifice on the altar of the Rights of Man. Into the meritsof these idealizations it is not here necessary to inquire: suffice it to say, without prejudice, that they have convincedboth Americans and English that the most high minded course forthem to pursue is to kill as many of one another as possible, andthat military operations to that end are in full swing, morallysupported by confident requests from the clergy of both sides forthe blessing of God on their arms.Under such circumstances many other women besides thisdisagreeable Mrs. Dudgeon find themselves sitting up all nightwaiting for news. Like her, too, they fall asleep towardsmorning at the risk of nodding themselves into the kitchen fire.Mrs. Dudgeon sleeps with a shawl over her head, and her feet on abroad fender of iron laths, the step of the domestic altar of thefireplace, with its huge hobs and boiler, and its hinged armabove the smoky mantel-shelf for roasting. The plain kitchentable is opposite the fire, at her elbow, with a candle on it ina tin sconce. Her chair, like all the others in the room, isuncushioned and unpainted; but as it has a round railed back anda seat conRead Mo