There're two at fisty-cuffs about it;
Sir, I may say at dagger's drawing,
But that I cannot say, because they have none.
_Mayor of Quinborough._
When Horse Shoe left the apartment, he discovered the person, whose
demeanor had excited his suspicion, leaning against a post of the porch,
in front of the house. The moonlight, as it partially fell upon this
man's figure, disclosed a frame of sufficient mould to raise a surmise,
that, in whatever form of communication the sergeant might accost him,
he was not likely to find a very tractable subject to his hand.
Robinson, however, without troubling himself with the contemplation of
such a contingency, determined to delay his visit to the stable long
enough to allow himself the expression of a word of warning or rebuke,
to indicate to the stranger the necessity for restraining his curiosity
in regard to the guests of the inn. With this view he halted upon the
porch, while he scanned the person before him, and directed an earnest
gaze into his face. The stranger, slightly discomfited by this eager
scrutiny, turned his back upon his visitor, and, with an air of idle
musing, threw his eyes towards the heavens, in which position he
remained until summoned by the familiar accost of Horse Shoe.
"Well! and what do you make of the moon? As sharp an eye as you have in
your head, neighbor, I'm thinking it will do you no great sarvice there.
You're good at your spying trade; but you will get nothing out of her;
she keeps her secrets."
Startled by this abrupt greeting, which was made in a tone half-way
between jest and earnest, the stranger quickly confronted his
challenger, and bestowed upon him a keen and inquiring inspection; then
breaking into a laugh, he replied with a free and impudent swagger--
"You are mistaken, Master Jack Pudding. What says the proverb? Wit's in
the wane when the moon's at full. Now, our mistress has let me into a
secret. She tells me that you will not lose your wits, when she comes to
her growth. The reason why? first, because she never troubles herself
with so small a stock as yours, and second, because your thick skull is
moon-proof; so, you're safe, friend."
"A word in your ear," said Horse Shoe; "_you_ are not safe, friend, if
you are cotched again peeping through the chinks of the window, or
sneaking upon the dark side of the doorway, to pick up a crumb of talk
from people that are not axing your company. Keep that in your memory."
"It's a base lie, Mr. Bumpkin, if you mean to insinuate that I did
either."
"Oh, quiet and easy, good man! No flusterifications here! I am civil and
peaceable. Take my advice, and chaw your cud in silence, and go to bed
at a reasonable hour, without minding what folks have to say who come to
the widow Dimock's. It only run in my head to give you a polite sort of
a warning. So, good night; I have got business at the stable."
Before the other could reply, Robinson strode away to look after the
accommodations of the horses.
"The devil take this impertinent ox-driver!" muttered the man to
himself, after the sergeant had left him; "I have half a mind to take
his carcase in hand, just to give it the benefit of a good, wholesome
manipulation. A queer fellow, too--a joker! A civil, peaceable man!--the
hyperbolical rogue! Well, I'll see him out, and, laugh or fight, he
shan't want a man to stand up to him!"
Having by this train of reflection brought himself into a mood which
might be said to hover upon the isthmus between anger and mirth, ready
to fall to either side as the provocation might serve, the stranger
sauntered slowly towards the stable, with a hundred odd fancies as to
the character of the man he sought running through his mind. Upon his
arrival there he found that Horse Shoe was occupied in the interior of
the building, and being still in a state of uncertainty as to the manner
in which it was proper he should greet our redoubtable friend, he took a
seat on a small bench at the door, resolved to wait for that worthy's
reappearance. This delay had a soothing effect upon his temper, for as
he debated the subject over in his mind, certain considerations of
policy seemed to indicate to him the necessity of making himself better
acquainted with the business and quality of the individual whom he came
to meet.
After a few moments, Horse Shoe was seen with old Tony at the stable
door, where, notwithstanding the unexpected presence of the man to whom
he had so lately offered his unwelcome advice, and upon whom he now
conferred not the slightest notice, he continued uninterruptedly, and
with deliberate composure, to give his orders upon what, at that moment,
doubtless, he deemed matter of much graver importance than any concern
he might have in the visit of his new acquaintance.
"Do what I tell you, Tony; get a piece of linen, rub it well over with
tallow, and bring it here along with a cup of vinegar. The beast's back
is cut with the saddle, and you must wash the sore first with the
vinegar, and then lay on the patch. Go, old fellow, and Mrs. Dimock, may
be, can give you a strip of woollen cloth to sarve as a pad."
With these instructions the negro retired towards the house.
"I see you understand your business," said the stranger. "You look to
your horse's back at the end of a day's journey, and you know how to
manage a sore spot. Vinegar is the thing! You have had a long ride?"
"How do you know that?" inquired Horse Shoe.
"Know it! any man might guess as much by the way you shovelled down your
supper. I happened by chance to pass your window, and seeing you at it,
faith! for the soul of me I couldn't help taking a few turns more, just
to watch the end of it. Ha! ha! ha! give me the fellow that does honor
to his stomach! And your dolt head must be taking offence at my looking
at you! Why, man, your appetite was a most beautiful rarity; I wouldn't
have lost the sport of it for the pleasure of the best supper I ever ate
myself."
"Indeed!" said Robinson, drily.
"Pease upon the trencher!" exclaimed the other, with the air of a pot
companion; "that's the true music for good fellows of your kidney! But
it isn't every where that you will find such bountiful quarters as you
get here at the Blue Ball in that cursed southern country a man like
you would breed a famine, if you even do not find one ready made to your
hand when you get there."
"Where mought you be from?" asked the sergeant, with great gravity,
without responding to the merriment of his visitor, and purposely
refraining from the answer which he saw it was the other's drift to
obtain relative to the course of his travel.
"It was natural enough that you should have mistaken my object,"
continued the stranger, heedless of Horse Shoe's abrupt question, "and
have suspected me for wanting to hear some of your rigmarole; but there
you did me wrong. I forgive you for that, and, to tell you the truth, I
hate your----?"
"That's not to the purpose," said Horse Shoe; "I axed you a civil
question, and maybe, that's more than you have a right to. You can
answer it or let it alone. I want to know where mought you be from?"
"Since you are bent upon it, then," replied the other, suddenly changing
his tone, and speaking with a saucy emphasis, "I'll answer your
question, when you tell me what _mought_ be your right to know."
"It's the custom of our country," rejoined Horse Shoe, "I don't know
what it may be in yourn, to larn a little about the business of every
man we meet; but we do it by fair, out-and-out question and answer--all
above board, and we hold in despise all sorts of contwistifications,
either by laying of tongue-traps, or listening under eaves of houses."
"Well, most wise and shrewd master, what do you call my country? Ha! ha!
ha! I would be sworn you think you have found some mare's nest! If it
were not that your clown pate is somewhat addled by over feeding, I
would hold your speech to be impertinent. My country, I'd have your
sagacity to understand----"
"Tut, man, it arn't worth the trouble of talking about it! I never saw
one of your people that I didn't know him by the first word that came
out of his lips. You are an Englishman, and a red coat into the bargain,
as we call them in these parts. You have been a sodger. Now, never
bounce at that, man! There's no great harm in belonging to that craft.
They listed you, as likely as not, when you was flusticated with liquor,
and you took your pay; there was a bargain, and it was your business to
stand to it. But I have got a piece of wisdom to whisper to you,
insomuch as you are not in the most agreeablest part of the world to men
of your colors, it would be best to be a little more shy against giving
offence. You said some saucy things to me just now, but I don't grudge
your talking, because you see, I am an onaccountable hard sort of person
to be instigated by speeching."
"Verily, you are a most comical piece of dulness," said the other, in a
spirit of raillery. "In what school did you learn your philosophy,
friend? You have been brought up to the wholesome tail of the plough, I
should say--an ancient and reputable occupation."
"When I obsarved, just now," replied Robinson, somewhat sternly, "that I
couldn't be instigated, I meant to be comprehended as laying down a kind
of general doctrine that I was a man not given to quarrels; but still,
if I suspicioned a bamboozlement, which I am not far from at this
present speaking, if it but come up to the conflagrating of only the
tenth part of the wink of an eye, in a project to play me off, fore God,
I confess myself to be as weak in the flesh as e'er a rumbunctious
fellow you mought meet on the road."
"Friend," said the other, "I do not understand thy lingo. It has a most
clodpolish smack. It is neither grammar, English, nor sense."
"Then, you are a damned, onmannerly rascal," said Horse-Shoe, "and
that's grammar, English, and sense, all three."
"Ha, you are at that! Now, my lubberly booby, I understand you,"
returned the other, springing to his feet. "Do you know to whom you are
speaking?"
"Better than you think for," replied the sergeant, placing himself in an
erect position to receive what he had a right to expect, the threatened
assault of his adversary, "I know you, and guess your arrand here."
"You do?" returned the other sharply. "You have been juggling with me,
sir. You are not the gudgeon I took you for. It has suited your purpose
to play the clown, eh? Well, sir, and pray, what do you guess?"
"Nothing good of you, considering how things go here. Suppose I was to
say you was, at this self-same identical time, a sodger of the king's? I
have you there!"
The stranger turned on his heel and retreated a few paces, evidently
perplexed at the new view in which the sergeant suddenly rose to his
apprehension. His curiosity and his interest were both excited to gain a
more distinct insight into a man whom he had mistaken for a mere
simpleton, but whose hints showed him to be shrewdly conversant with the
personal concerns of one, whom, apparently, he had seen to-night for the
first time in his life. With this anxiety upon his mind, he again
approached the sergeant, as he replied to the last question.
"Well, and if I were? It is a character of which I should have no reason
to be ashamed."
"That's well said!" exclaimed Horse Shoe. "Up and speak out, and never
be above owning the truth; that's the best sign that can be of a man.
Although it mought be somewhat dangerous, just hereabouts, to confess
yourself a sodger of King George--let me tell you, that, being against
you, I am not the person to mislest you on that head, by spreading the
news abroad, or setting a few dozen of whigs upon your scent, which is a
thing easily done. If your business here is peaceable and lawful, and
you don't let your tongue brawl against quiet and orderly people, you
are free to come and go for me."
"Thank you, sir: but look you; it isn't my way to answer questions about
my own business, and I scorn to ask any man's leave to come and go where
and when my occasions call me."
"If it isn't your way to answer questions about your own business,"
replied Horse Shoe, "it oughtn't to be your way to ax them about other
people's; but that don't disturb me; it is the rule of the war to
question all comers and goers that we happen to fall in with, specially
now, when there's a set of your devils scampering and raging about in
Carolina, hardly a summer day's ride off this province, burning houses
and killing cattle, and turning everything topsy-turvy, with a pack of
rascally tories to back them. In such times all sorts of tricks are
played, such as putting on coats that don't belong to a man, and
deceiving honest people by lies, and what not."
"You are a stranger to me," said the other; "but let me tell you,
without circumlocution or periphrase, I am a free born subject of the
king, and I see no reason why, because some of his people have turned
rebels a true man, who travels his highway, should be obliged to give
an account of himself to every inquisitive fellow who chooses to
challenge it. Suppose I tell you that you meddle with matters that don't
concern you?"
"Then you mought chance to get your head in your hand, that's all. And,
hark you, if it wan't that I am rather good-natured, I mought happen to
handle you a little rough for that nicknaming of the friends of liberty,
by calling them rebels. It doesn't suit such six-pence-a-day fellows as
you, who march right or left at the bidding of your master, to rob a
church or root up an honest man's peaceful hearth, without so much as
daring to have a thought about the righteousness of the matter--it
doesn't suit such to be befouling them that fight for church and
fire-side both, with your scurvy, balderdash names."
"Well, egad! you are a fine bold fellow who speaks his thoughts, that's
not to be denied!" said the stranger, again suddenly changing his mood,
and resorting to his free and easy address. "You suit these times
devilish well. I can't find it in my heart to quarrel with you. We have
both been somewhat rough in speech, and so, the account is square. But
now tell me, after all, are you sure you have guessed me right? How do
you know I am not one of these very rebels myself?"
"For two good and point-blank reasons. First, you dar'n't deny that you
have pocketed the king's money and worn his coat--that's one. And,
second, you are now here under the orders of one of his officers."
"No, no, good friend," said the man, with a voice of less boldness than
heretofore, "you are mistaken for once in your life. So far what you
say, I don't deny--I am in the service of a gentleman, who for some
private affairs of his own has come on a visit to this part of the
province, and I admit I have been in the old country."
"I am not mistaken, good friend," drawled out Robinson, affectedly. "You
come from the south. I can tell men's fortunes without looking into the
palms of their hands."
"You are wrong again," said the other tartly, as he grew angry at being
thus badgered by his opponent, "I come from the north."
"That's true and it's false both," returned Robinson. "From the north, I
grant you--to the south with Sir Henry, and from the south up here. You
will find I can conjure a little, friend."
"The devil take your conjuring!" exclaimed the other, as he bit his lip
and strode restlessly backward and forward; which perplexity being
observed by the sergeant, he did not fail to aggravate it by breaking
into a hoarse laugh, as he said----
"It wa'n't worth your while to try to deceive me. I knowed you by
manifold and simultaneous signs. Him that sets about scouting after
other people's secrets, ought to be wary enough to larn to keep his own.
But don't take it so to heart, neighbor, there's no occasion for
oneasiness--I have no mind to harm you."
"Master bully," said the stranger, planting himself immediately in front
of the sergeant, "in England, where I was bred, we play at cudgels, and
sometimes give broken heads; and some of us are gifted with heavy fists,
wherewith we occasionally contrive to box a rude fellow who pries too
much into our affairs."
"In our country," replied Horse Shoe, "we generally like to get a share
of whatever new is stirring, and, though we don't practise much with
cudgels, yet, to sarve a turn, we do, now and then, break a head or so;
and, consarning that fist work you happened to touch upon, we have no
condesentious scruples against a fair rap or two over the knowledge-box,
and the tripping-up of a fractious chap's heels, in the way of a sort of
a rough-and-tumble, which, may be, you understand. You have been long
enough here, mayhap, to find that out."
"Then, it is likely, it would please you to have a chance at such a
game? I count myself a pretty tolerable hand at the play," said the
stranger, with a composure corresponding to that exhibited by Horse
Shoe.
"Ho, ho! I don't want to hurt you, man," replied the Sergeant. "You will
get yourself into trouble. You are hot-headeder than is good for your
health."
"As the game was mentioned, I thought you might have a fancy to play
it."
"To be sure I would," said Horse Shoe, "rather than disappoint you in
any reasonable longing. For the sake of quiet--being a peaceable man, I
will take the trouble to oblige you. Where, do you think, would be the
likeliest spot to have it?"
"We may readily find a piece of ground at hand," replied the other. "It
is a good moonlight play, and we may not be interrupted if we get a
little distance off before the negro comes back. Toe to toe, and face to
face, suits me best with both friend and foe."
"A mule to drive and a fool to hold back, are two of the contrariest
things I know," said Robinson, "and so, seeing that you are in arnest
about it, let us go at it without more ado upon the first good bit of
grass we can pop upon along the river."
In this temper the two antagonists left the vicinity of the stable, and
walked some hundred paces down along the bank of the stream. The man
with whom Horse Shoe was about to hold this strange encounter, and who
now walked quietly by his side, had the erect and soldierly port of a
grenadier. He was square-shouldered, compact and muscular, and the
firmness of his gait, his long and easy stride, and the free swing of
his arm as he moved onward in the moonlight, showed Robinson that he was
to engage with an adversary of no common capacity. There was, perhaps,
on the other side, some abatement in this man's self-confidence, when
the same light disclosed to his deliberate inspection the brawny
proportions of the sergeant, which, in the engrossment of the topics
bandied about in the late dialogue, he had not so accurately regarded.
When they had walked the distance I have mentioned, they had little
difficulty to select a space of level ground with a sufficient mould for
the purpose of the proposed trial of strength.
"Here's as pretty a spot as we mought find on the river," said Robinson,
"and so get ready, friend. Before we begin, I have a word to say. This
here bout is not a thing of my seeking, and I take it to be close akin
to downright tom-foolery, for grown up men to set about thumping and
hammering each other, upon account of a brag of who's best man, or such
like, when the whole univarse is full of occasions for scuffles, and
stands in need of able-bodied fellows, to argufy the pints of right and
wrong, that can't be settled by preachers, or books, or lawyers. I look
upon this here coming out to fight no better than a bit of arrant
nonsense. But, as you will have it, it's no consarn of mine to stop
you."
"You are welcome to do your worst," replied the other, "and the less
preaching you make with it, the more saving of time."
"My worst," interrupted Horse Shoe, "is almost more than I have the
conscience to do to any man who isn't a downright flagratious enemy;
and, once more, I would advise you to think before you draw me into a
fray; you are flustrated, and sot upon a quarrel, and mayhap, you
conjecture that by drawing me out from behind my retrenchments, by which
is signified my good nature, and forcing me to deploy into line and open
field, you'll get the advantage of an old sodger over me; but there, Mr.
Dragoon, you are mistaken. In close garrison or open field, in siege or
sally, crossing a defile or reconnoitring on a broad road, I am not apt
to lose my temper, or strike without seeing where my blow is to hit.
Now, that is all I have to say: so, come on."
"You are not what you seem," said the antagonist, in a state of wonder
at the strain of the sergeant's composed and deliberate speech, and at
the familiarity which this effusion manifested with the details of
military life. "In the devil's name, who are you? But, don't fancy I
pause to begin our fight, for any other reason than that I may know who
I contend with. On the honor of a soldier, I promise you, I will hold
you to your game--man, or imp of hell--I care not. Again, who in the
devil are you?"
"You have hit it," replied Horse Shoe. "My name is Brimstone, I am first
cousin to Belzebub."
"You have served?"
"I have."
"And belong to the army yet?"
"True again; and I am as tough a sodger, and may be I mought say, as old
a sodger as yourself."
"Your hand, fellow soldier. I mistook you from the beginning. You
continentals--that's the new-fangled word--are stout fellows, and have a
good knack at the trick of war, though you wear rough coats, and are
savagely unrudimented in polite learning. No matter what colors a man
fights under, long usage makes a good comrade of him; and, by my faith!
I am not amongst the last to do him honor, even though we stand in
opposite ranks. As you say, most sapient Brimstone, we are not much
better than a pair of fools for this conspiracy to knock about each
other's pates, here at midnight; but you have my pledge to it, and so,
we will go at it, if it be only to win a relish for our beds; I will
teach you, to-night, some skill in the art of mensuration. You shall
measure two full ells upon this green sod."
"There's my hand," said Horse Shoe; "now, if I am flung, I promise you
I won't be angry. If I sarve you in the same fashion, you must larn to
bear it."
"With all my heart. So here I stand upon my guard. Begin."
"Let me feel your weight," said Robinson, laughing, as he put one hand
upon his adversary's shoulder, and the other against his side. "Hark
you, master, I feel something hard here about your ribs; you have
pistols under your coat, friend. For the sake of fair play and keeping
rid of foul blood, you had best lay them aside before we strike. Anger
comes up onawares."
"I never part from my weapons," replied the other, stepping back and
releasing himself from Robinson's grasp. "We are strangers; I must know
the company I am in, before I dismiss such old cronies as these. They
have got me out of a scrape before this."
"We took hands just now," said Robinson, angrily. "When I give my hand,
it is tantamount to a book oath that I mean fair, round dealing with the
man who takes it. I told you, besides, I was a sodger--that ought to
have contented you--and you mought sarch my breast, inside and out,
you'd seen in it nothing but honest meanings. There's something of a
suspectable rascality, after that, in talking about pistols hid under
the flaps of the coat. It's altogether onmanful, and, what's more,
onsodgerly. You are a deceit, and an astonishment, and a hissing, all
three, James Curry, and no better, to my comprehension, than a coward. I
know you of old, although, mayhap, you disremember me. I have hearn
said, by more than one, that you was a double-faced, savage-hearted,
disregardless beast, that snashed his teeth where he darsn't bite, and
bullied them that hadn't the heart to fight; I have hearn that of you,
and, as I live, I believe it. Now, look out for your bull head, for I
will cuff you in spite of your pistols."
With these words, Horse Shoe gave his adversary some half dozen
overpowering blows, in such quick succession as utterly defied and broke
down the others guard; and then, seizing him by the breast, he threw the
tall and stalwart form of Curry at full length upon the ground.
"There's your two ells for you! there's the art of menstirration, you
disgrace to the tail of a drum," exclaimed Horse Shoe, with accumulating
wrath, as the prostrate man strove to extricate himself from the lion
grasp that held him. In this strife, Curry several times made an effort
to get his hand upon his pistol, in which he was constantly foiled by
the superior vigor of the sergeant.
"No, no," continued the latter, as he became aware of this attempt,
"James Curry, you shall never lay hold upon your fire-arms whilst I have
the handling of you. Give them up, you twisting prevaricationer; give
them up, you disgracer of powder and lead; and larn this from a rebel,
that I don't blow out your brains, only because I wouldn't accommodate
the devil by flinging such a lump of petrifaction into his clutches.
There, man," he added, as he threw the pistols far from him into the
river, his exasperation, at the same time, moderating to a lower
temperature, "get upon your feet; and now, you may go hunt for your
cronies in yonder running stream. You may count it a marcy that I
haven't tossed you after them, to wash the cowardly blood off your face.
Now that you are upon your legs, I tell you here, in the moonlight, man
to man, with nobody by to hold back your hand, that you are a lying,
deceitful skulker, that loves the dark side of a wall better than the
light, and steals the secrets of honest folks, and hasn't the heart to
stand up fairly to the man that tells you of it. Swallow that, James
Curry, and see how it will lay upon your stomach."
"I will seek a time!" exclaimed Curry, "to right myself with your
heart's blood."
"Pshaw! man," replied Horse Shoe, "don't talk about heart's blood. The
next time we come into a field together, ax for Galbraith Robinson,
commonly called Horse Shoe Robinson. Find me out, that's all. We may
take a frolic together then, and I give you my allowance to wear your
pistols in your belt."
"We may find a field yet, Horse Shoe Robinson," returned Curry, "and
I'll not fail of my appointment. Our game will be played with
broadswords."
"If it should so turn out, James, that you and me are to work through a
campaign in the same quarter of the world, as we have done afore, James,
I expect, I'll take the chance of some holiday to pay my respects to
you. I wont trouble you to ride far to find me; and then, it may be
broadsword or pistol, rifle or bagnet, I'm not over-scrumptious which.
Only promise I shall see you when I send for you."
"It's a bargain, Galbraith Robinson! Strong as you think yourself in
your cursed rough-and-tumble horseplay, I am soldier enough for you any
day. I only ask that the time may come quickly."
"You have no objection to give us a hand to clinch that bargain, James?"
asked Horse Shoe. "There's my paw; take it, man, I scorn to bear malice
after the hot blood cools."
"I take it with more pleasure now," said Curry, hastily seizing the
hand, "than I gave mine to you before to-night, because it is a pledge
that suits my humor. A good seat in a saddle, four strong legs below me,
and a sharp blade, I hold myself a match for the best man that ever
picked a flint in your lines."
"Now, friend Curry," exclaimed the sergeant, "good night! Go look for
your pop-guns in the river; and if you find them, hold them as a
keepsake to remember Horse Shoe Robinson. Good night."
Robinson left his adversary, and returned to the inn, ruminating, as he
walked, over the strange incident in which he had just been engaged. For
a while his thoughts wore a grave complexion; but, as his careless good
humor gradually broke forth through the thin mist that enveloped it, he
was found, before he reached the porch, laughing, with a quiet chuckle,
at the conceit which rose upon his mind, as he said, half-audibly, "Odd
sport for a summer night! Howsever, every one to his liking, as the old
woman said; but to my thinking, he mought have done better if he had
gone to sleep at a proper hour, like a moralised and sober Christian."
When he entered the parlor, he found Butler and the landlady waiting for
him.
"It is late, sergeant," said the Major. "You have forgotten the hour;
and I began to fear you had more to say to your friend, there, than
suited the time of night."
"All is right, by your smiling," added the landlady; "and that's more
than I expected at the time you walked out of the room. I couldn't go to
my bed, till I was sure you and my lodger had no disagreeable words;
for, to tell you the truth, I am greatly afraid of his hot and hasty
temper."
"There is nothing hot or hasty about him, ma'am," replied Robinson; "he
is about as peaceable a man as you mought expect to meet in such times
as these. I only told him a little scrap of news, and you would have
thought he would have hugged me for it, ha, ha, ha."
"We are to sleep in the same room, sergeant," said Butler, "and our good
hostess will show us the way to it."
The dame, upon this hint, took a candle, and conducted her guests to a
chamber in the upper story, where, after wishing them "a good night,"
she courtesied respectfully, and left them to their repose.
"Tell me, sergeant, what you made out of that fellow," said Butler, as
he undressed himself. "I see that you have had some passage with him;
and, from your tarrying so long, I began to be a little apprehensive of
rough work between you. What passed, and what have you learned?"
"Enough, major, to make us more circumscriptious against scouts, and
spies, and stratagems. When I was a prisoner at Charlestown, there was
an amazing well-built fellow, a dragoon, that had been out with
Tarleton; but, when I saw him, he was a sort of rithmatical
account-keeper and letter-scribbler for that young fighting-cock, the
Earl of Caithness, him that was aidegong to Sir Henry Clinton. Well,
this fellow had a tolerable bad name, as being a chap that the devil had
spiled, in spite of all the good that had been pumped into him at
school; for, as I have hearn, he was come of gentle people, had a first
rate edication, and I reckon, now, major, he talks as well as a book,
whereupon I have an observation."
"Keep that until to-morrow, sergeant," interrupted Butler, "and go on
with what you had to tell me."
"You must be a little sleepy, major: however, this fellow, they say, was
cotched cheating with cards one day, when he was playing a game of five
shilling loo with the King or the Queen, or some of the dukes or
colonels in the guards--for he wa'n't above any thing rascally. So, it
was buzzed about, as you may suppose when a man goes to cheating one of
them big fish--and the King gave him his choice to enlist, or go to the
hulks; and he, being no fool, listed, as a matter of course. In that way
he got over here; and, as I tell you, was a sort of sarvent to that
young Earl. He sometimes came about our quarters to list prisoners and
make Tories of 'em, for his own people kept him to do all that sort of
dirty work, upon account of the glibness of his tongue. He was a
remarkable saucy fellow and got nothing but ill-will from the
prisoners--though, I make no doubt, the man is a tolerable sodger on
sarvice. Now, after telling you all this, major, you must know that the
identical, same, particular man that we saw looking through the porch
window at us to-night"--
"Is the man you have been describing? Is it possible? Are you sure of
it?"
"I knowed him the minute I clapped eyes on him: his name is James Curry:
but, as I didn't stay long at Charlestown, and hadn't any thing to do
with him in particular, it seems he didn't remember me."
"You conversed with him?"
"Most sartainly I did. I wanted to gather a little consarning of his
visit up here: but the fellow's been so battered about in the wars, that
he knows how to hold his tongue. I had some mischief in me, and did want
to make him just angry enough to set his speech loose; and, besides, I
felt a little against him upon account of his misdoings with our people
in Carolina, and so, I said some rough things to him; and, as my
discourse ar'n't none of the squarest in pint of grammar and
topographical circumlocution--as Lieutenant Hopkins used to say--why he
set me down for a piece of an idiot, and began to hoax and bamboozle me.
I put that matter straight for him very soon, by just letting him say so
much and no more. And then, as I was a peaceable man, major, he seemed
to see that I didn't want to have no quarrel with him, which made him
push it at me rather too hard, and all my civility ended in my giving
him what he wanted at first--a tolerable, regular thrashing."
The sergeant continued to relate to Butler the details of this
adventure, which he did with more prolixity than the weariness of his
listener was able to endure; for the major, having in the progress of
the narrative got into bed, and having, in the increasing oscitancy of
his faculties, exhausted every expression of assent by which one who
listens to a tale is accustomed to notify his attention--he at length
dropped into a profound sleep, leaving the sergeant to conclude at his
leisure.
When Robinson perceived this, he had nothing left but to betake himself,
with all expedition, to his own rest; whereupon he threw off his coat,
and taking the coverings of the bed appropriated to his use, spread
them upon the floor, as he pronounced an anathema against sleeping on
feathers, (for it must be observed, that our good hostess, at that early
day, was liable to the same censure of an unnatural attachment to
feather beds in summer, which may, at the present time,[1] be made
against almost every country inn in the United States,) and then
extinguishing the candle, he stretched himself upon the planks, as he
remarked to his unconscious companion, "that he was brought up on a hard
floor;" and after one or two rolls, he fell into that deep oblivion of
cares, by which nature re-summons and supplies the strength which toil,
watching and anxiety wear down.
The speed of Horse Shoe's journey through this pleasant valley of sleep
might be measured somewhat in the same manner that the route of a mail
stage may sometimes be traced through a mountain defile, by the notes of
the coachman's horn; it was defined by the succession of varying
intonations through which he ascended the gamut, beginning with a low
but audible breathing, and rising through the several stages of an
incipient snore, a short quick bark, and up to a snort that constituted
the greatest altitude of the ascent. Occasionally a half articulated
interjection escaped him, and words that showed in what current his
dreams were sailing: "No pistols! Look in the water, James! Ha ha!"
These utterings were accompanied with contortions of body that more than
once awaked the sleeper; but, at last, the huge bulk of Horse Shoe grew
motionless in a deep and strong sleep.
The next morning, at early dawn, our travellers resumed their journey,
which I will leave them to prosecute, whilst I conduct my reader to the
affairs and interests that dwell about the Dove Cote.