“I tell you I can’t—there! and I won’t neither—there! Do you think I want to have my fathe blown to pieth like that young man’th! I say I can’t and I won’t go! I am religiouthly oppothed to war!” answered Billingcoo, lifting his head for a moment, and then letting it fall.
“You say you can’t and you won’t! Well, I say you must and you shall!” exclaimed Mim, goading the sides of the prostrate coward with the point of his drawn sword.
“Oh! look here now! That hurth! Thtop that!” cried Billingcoo.
“Get up then, and go to your company!” said Mim, goading him more pointedly than ever.
“Oh lor! oh dear! oh me! call this a free country indeed! Thtop that now, will you! It hurth, I tell you!”
“Get up, then!” repeated Mim, digging at him again.
But at that moment a minie ball came whizzing towards them, piercing the leg of Mim and killing his horse, which instantly fell under him; so that both rider and horse rolled on the ground.
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” shouted Billingcoo. “I don’t bear you any ill-will, old fellow; but I do think it therveth you right, and I do thank the goodneth grathiouth alive for thith great deliveranth!”
And he jumped up, cut three or four capers in the air, and ran farther away out of gun-shot; for the battle was now surging nearer and nearer to them.
Every one knows that on that night our army was beaten back to their intrenchments upon Hatcher’s Run, where they made a final stand.