"Butler?"
"No. Look sharp to your knife, friend."
"Oh, then I have guessed it," he said, coolly; "your name is Ormond--and
I'm glad of it."
"Why are you glad of it?" I asked, curiously, wondering, too, at his
knowledge of me, a stranger.
"You will answer that question for yourself when you meet your kin, the
Varicks and Butlers," he said; and the reply had an insolent ring that
did not please me, yet I was loath to quarrel with this boyish giant
whose amiable company I had found agreeable on my long journey through a
land so new to me.
"My friend," I said, "you are blunt."
"Only in speech, sir," he replied, lazily swinging one huge leg over the
pommel of his saddle. Sitting at ease in the sunshine, he opened his
fringed hunting-shirt to the breeze blowing.
"So you go to the Varicks?" he mused aloud, eyes slowly closing in the
sunshine like the brilliant eyes of a basking lynx.
"Do you know the lord of the manor?" I asked.
"Who? The patroon?"
"I mean Sir Lupus Varick."
"Yes; I know him--I know Sir Lupus. We call him the patroon, though he's
not of the same litter as the Livingstons, the Cosbys, the Phillipses,
Van Rensselaers, and those feudal gentlemen who juggle with the high
justice, the middle, and the low--and who will juggle no more."
"Am I mistaken," said I, "in taking you for a Boston man?"
"In one sense you are," he said, opening his eyes. "I was born in
Vermont."
"Then you are a rebel?"
"Lord!" he said, laughing, "how you twist our English tongue! 'Tis his
Majesty across the waters who rebels at our home-made Congress."
"Is it not dangerous to confess such things to a stranger?" I asked,
smiling.
His bright eyes reassured me. "Not to all strangers," he drawled,
swinging his free foot over his horse's neck and settling his bulk on
the saddle. One big hand fell, as by accident, over the pan of his long
rifle. Watching, without seeming to, I saw his forefinger touch the
priming, stealthily, and find it dry.
"You are no King's man," he said, calmly.
"Oh, do you take me for a rebel, too?" I demanded.
"No, sir; you are neither the one nor the other--like a tadpole with
legs, neither frog nor pollywog. But you will be."
"Which?" I asked, laughing.
"My wisdom cannot draw that veil for you, sir," he said. "You may take
your chameleon color from your friends the Varicks and remain gray, or
from the Butlers and turn red, or from the Schuylers and turn blue
and buff."
"You credit me with little strength of character," I said.
"I credit you with some twenty-odd years and no experience."
"With nothing more?"
"Yes, sir; with sincerity and a Spanish rifle--which you may have need
of ere this month of May has melted into June."