“The more shame for you,” exclaimed the captain, “to bait a poor innocent lad with horrid blasphemy and profanity. I tell you every one of you ought to be fined!”
The men began to sneak away from the indignant soldier. The poor idiot burst out crying and howling, and the ostler came forward, pulling his forelock, and saying, “You’ll not be hard on ’em, sir. ’Tis all sport. There, Sammy, don’t be afeared. Gentleman means you no harm.”
Captain Carbonel held out some coppers, saying, “There, my poor lad, there’s something for you. Only don’t let me hear bad words again.”
Sam muttered something, and pulled his ragged hat forward as he shambled off into some back settlements of the public-house, while the ostler went on—
“’Tis just their game, sir! None of ’em would hurt poor Sam! They’d treat him the next minute, sir. All in sport.”
“Strange sport,” said the captain, “to teach a poor helpless lad, who ought to be as innocent as a babe, that abominable blasphemy.”
“He don’t mean nought, sir! All’s one to he!”
“All the worse in those who do know better, I tell you; and you may tell your master that, if this goes on, I shall certainly speak to the magistrates.”
There was no need to tell the landlord, Mr Oldfellow. The captain was plainly enough to be heard through the window of the bar. The drovers had no notion that their amusement was sinful, for “it didn’t hurt no one,” and, in fact, “getting a rise” out of Softy Sam was one of the great attractions of the “Fox and Hounds,” so that Mr Oldfellow was of the same mind as Dan Hewlett, who declared that “they Gobblealls was plaguey toads of Methodys, and wasn’t to think to bully them about like his soldiers.”
They had another drink all round to recover from their fright, when they treated Softy Sam, but took care not to excite him to be noisy, while the captain might be within earshot.